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Interesting concept. From a post to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
anthropologist (where it's for discussion):
... dictionaries co-evolved with the sharp border distinctions of the nation-state (languages used to merge into eachother), and a strong power is held over our heads by way of how concepts are defined. the inability to define the words one uses to think with and speak with is dangerous to free thought.
anthropologist (where it's for discussion):... dictionaries co-evolved with the sharp border distinctions of the nation-state (languages used to merge into eachother), and a strong power is held over our heads by way of how concepts are defined. the inability to define the words one uses to think with and speak with is dangerous to free thought.
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From:
You posted... I counterpoint.
Dictionaries and such of the like serve as the foundation of all meaningful communication. To accuse dictionaries and the practice of their maintenance oppressive is to reject, outright, all the tenets and prerequisites of civilization. That slang and ebonics and whatnot find their way into "respectable" dictionaries should, I think, temper your disapproval of standardization.
From:
Re: You posted... I counterpoint.
But I don't accept that dictionaries serve as the foundation of meaningful communication. Day to day use of language does that, dictionaries are just records of what words currently mean. I know many people who communicate perfectly meaningfully without reference to dictionaries - I don't think our household of three owns a plain English dictionary, although we have a good few $language/$language dictionaries.
What I find fascinating about it is the concept that pre-dictionaries, language was one big set, with subsets used in different places. It makes more sense than, say, Irish and Scots Gaelic being two different langauges, to think of the them as a spectrum, with Modern Irish at one end, and Modern Scots at the other, and things like Donegal Irish and Islander Scots in between.