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Originally Posted by subversion funny you should say that, I recall that such a language does exist, and perhaps it could be a useful tool for thinking about things.
I quote "After long and careful study and analysis, the Hopi language is seen to contain no words, grammatical forms, constructions or expressions that refer directly to what we call "time." or to past, present, or future, or to enduring or lasting, or to motion as kinematic rather than dynamic (i.e. as a continuous translation in space and time rather than as an exhibition of dynamic effort in a certain process), or that even refer to space in such a way as to exclude that element of extension or existence that we call "time," and so by implication leave a residue that could be referred to as "time." Hence, the Hopi language contains no reference to "time," either explicit or implicit." (Whorf BL (1956) Language, Thought & Reality. MIT Press: Cambridge p. 57-  "
Lots of other quotes from that same book can be found here http://www.humanevolution.net/a/hopi.html looks like a good read, I might have to pick it up sometime
also, some other reading which seems very pertinent to this conversation/hopi language can be found here http://www.philsoc.org/1999Fall/2107minutes.html |
wow.........
But this langauge solves only one error in langueages: time. We would need a langauge to be completely perfect and logical, it should have only one name for each thing, it should have no name for un-logical things (time, nothing....), it should't have a name for to elements or two names for an element.