How do you tell that you want meatballs for dinner the day after tomorrow?

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I think that the aspects of language that fascinate linguists and computer scientists (those aspects which make people who have taken one or two course in linguistics a bit twee re: the value of non-standard dialects) are, in my analogy, that huge gap between 25k and 20k. Past that gap, there are millions of people who can decline and conjugate stunning numbers of words, but whose language abilities nonetheless give them difficulties.

Struggling with the written word is definitely a subset of struggling with language. In fact, when people refer to "language arts," they generally mean "reading and writing". A strict distinction might make sense in a pre-literate society (where, if there was literacy at all, it was generally in a sacral language), but not today.

Likewise, I agree that we want to distinguish between linguistic proficiency and expert knowledge, but certainly people with larger vocabularies are better able to converse about topics in which they have not been trained as experts; that's a function of linguistic expertise, not topical expertise. The same goes for how people put words together; if you have a firmer grasp of the rules of your language, you'll be able to parse and to produce more complex phrases, and that will make it easier to talk about topics with which you're not familiar. Topical expertise will give you both jargon vocabulary and jargon locutions, but outside of the realm of topic expertise there is still a huge practical difference between discussions with language proficient non-experts and language deficient non-experts.

As far as bullshit goes, there are certain ways of talking and conversational gambits that seem solid to people with weak language skills, but painful to people with stronger language skills. The classic example is Orwell's "the fascist octopus has sung its swan song." If you are just barely proficient in English, you get the sense of what was being said, mark bonus points for using figures of speech instead of a direct locution, and call it a day. If, however, you have the ability to focus on what you read/hear, you immediately notice that an octopus can't sing. Bullshitting isn't really about lying - it's about weak language skills prompting the substitution of meaningless patter for meaningful communication.

Your analogy is not plausible to me, if only because of the difficultly. Mastering a language is clearly extremely hard, usually adults cannot master a language that they only learn as adults, no matter how many years they plod at it, while moving from 25k to 20k can be done in a couple of days by a keen student.

Furthermore, I don't believe people as a rule communicate by throwing together randomish combinations of words in grammatically correct sentences. They communicate to the best of their ability, and as far as I can tell, their abilities are limited by their vocabulary, not their ability to parse or construct complex sentences and stories.

I don't think I know any illiterate people, so its hard for me to say whether or not limited writing and reading skills equate to poor verbal skills. If there is a correlation, it may well be that people who don't learn to read/write also learnt to speak in a circle of people with limited vocabularities and generally poor verbal skills.

Your further points about linguistic vs topical expertise, or about people talking about singing octopuses also seem to be describing groups of people that I just don't recognize. Particularly the latter - you seem to be describing a group of people who substitute plausiblish nonsense to compensate for poor language skills...this sounds very bizarre. Perhaps I am sheltered. Who are these people?

Mmm. If you want to say that vocabulary is a harsher limit I think I can agree. But have you never seen someone fail to understand a complex sentence or set of sentence, composed of simple words, and ask to have it repeated? Have you never been in a situation where something has gone wrong because someone misunderstood a complex sentence without realizing it?

I almost feel like we live in different universes, given how skeptical you are about this. If nothing else, the fact that infrequently invoked grammatical rules are often the targets for linguistic drift suggests that native speakers don't have a particularly firm grasp on them to begin with.


You seem to misunderstand. You ruled out writing skills as an aspect of language skills. I'm not claiming writing practice causes strong verbal skills; I agree, any correlation is likely to run both ways. But you can't simply stipulate that writing is not part of language, simply because you're interested in a different part of it.



I said that there are people who can perform cute linguistic tricks in their native tongue, but can't communicate well. You replied that actually, the only reason why someone wouldn't be able to communicate well is if they lacked topical expertise. I tried to respond to what I thought were your concerns, given the specifics that you brought up, ... have you really never met a person you had trouble understanding or following because they had weak verbal skills? I'm not going to give you names and telephone numbers, but I promise you, such people exist, at least within the English language.

Yes, but imagine language without speech (including signing) vs. language without writing.

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If you really find anything odd about this idea, I can recommend any number of good history books. Sadly you can pick pretty much any culture and era that you like.

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"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
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Imagine go without eyes versus go without counting. So?



Being able to convey multiple ideas with a single phrase is a sign of linguistic proficiency. (Thus "the fascist octopus" instead of "the fascist powers".) Being able to extract multiple ideas from a single phrase is a sign of linguistic proficiency. Those who mimic the former ability because they think that's how clever people talk, despite lacking the latter ability themselves, weaken rather than strengthen their ability to communicate. Probably not work arguing over, though. The point of the thread is to argue over whether Go is like a language; the sub-question is whether there are various grades of proficiency, from Shakespeare to beginner; the sub-sub-question is whether florid language is something that shows up in the kyu grades.

I wouldn't want to live that way, but people got along without writing for a long time. Was go ever played without eyes or counting? Probably not.

Speech is the core phenomenon, writing is an important extension.

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I like the analogy between learning go and learning to speak a language. Almost no one becomes fluent in conversing in a foreign language by studying grammar. Children become fluent in their native languages by listening, trying to speak, and being corrected by more fluent speakers. Even adults can learn this way if immersed in a foreign culture. The interesting thing is that is also how we can become good go players. Once we have learned the rules we need only play and get comments from stronger players to improve. To be fluent in a language you have to internalize it, you can't speak fluently if you have to activate grammar rules consciously. Likewise I don't think you can become a really strong go player if you have to think consciously about most fundamentals, i.e. run through a list of "guidelines" every time you make a move. Another interesting thing is that it isn't possible to write down a complete grammar of a language like English or any other natural language. Natural language is context sensitive, i.e. involves semantics as well as syntax so can't be defined by formal rules. What constitutes correct speech is constantly evolving, and what is considered correct by one community of speakers may differ from what another community considers correct. There are similar aspects of the game of go, with evolution in what is considered "joseki" and even in what is considered good shape.

The analogy between language and go (or chess or other mind games) is interesting. One major difference is that there are no go specific areas of the brain in the general populace. (But isn't there evidence that pros have created different brain structures for go when they were children?) IIRC, research indicates that chess masters have learned to recognize around 50,000 (or more) patterns, similar to the number of words in an adult's vocabulary.

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Well, we have certainly illustrated our languages ability to explore profound questions in a manner akin to some 9 dans exploring deep strategy... Or have we simply muddled each other's meanings so much that we have no idea what the actual debate is any more?

In college i discovered two things, linguistics and go, and one became my major and the other my occasional favorite hobby, so i do find the question interesting.

It seems that there are many ways in which they are similar (go and "a language"), but analogies alone don't answer the question, because a set of attributes does not define what something is. A language is defined as "a system of complex communication." Go, as a strategy game, is defined as a strucutured playing, a game. Key components of games are goals, rules, challenge, and interaction.

Obviously, goals, rules, and interaction are the major simliarities between go and "a language." All three are essential to both.

The major differences, as i see it, are that challenge is not intrinsic to a normal language, and also that a game is defined as playing, which has at its core a sort of voluntary nature that is different from a language. Essentially what i am trying to say is that our traditional definition of a language, or, that which we traditionally refer to as a language (a dialect with an army) is something that is far more capable and complex than the game of go. Don't get me wrong, go is as complex as you could ever hope for a game, and one that i will never come close to understanding the majority of, but it is not as useful for as many things as a "language."

Before i go on all night, i will prematurely wrap it up by saying that, all evidence considered, go seems more like a jargon (a specialized subset of language for a specific use) than a language. but no disrespect is meant.

Also, to weigh in on some earlier debates, i am a language teacher and learner, and to say that a native speaker is not an expert on her own language is misguided. The average native speaker of any language will achieve, in a short while, the sort of mastery of the spoken language that would be the envy of any second language learner. and, since language is user driven, native speakers are by definition experts.

Interesting concept. I don't know what a jargon is from a linguistic point of view, apart from the colloquial sense, something like your short description. Does becoming fluent in a jargon have a prerequisite of mastering a native language first? Or is it something second language learners will learn more easily that a language in the normal sense?

Also, in this jargon analogy, is Go a subset of something else?

It is not, strictly speaking, necessary to know the language that a jargon comes from, and a jargon could incorporate input from more than one language. I remember working in an Indian restaurant where the languages spoken were English, Hindi, Telegu, Punjab, and Spanish, but, incorporating words from many of those, we were able to communicate. However, the limited nature of what we could talk about prevented it from reaching pidgin status. I've also wondered if it made us fight more or less...

Anywho, the two defining characteristics, as I remember them, are that a jargon is limited in capability and at least partially unintelligible to the uninitiated. It seems like an appropriate metaphor.

Of course, my position is based on the definition of a language as what we normally think of it, the primary means of communication for an individual to others from their same background. In reality the term "language" is applied to many smaller subsets of communication, e.g. computer languages, so, this is one of many debates that hinges on the semantics of the word in question.

Before you can make anything automatic, you have to think about it consciously and practice it consciously.

There is a difference between practice and performance. In practice, you must think; in performance, you must do. What you can do in performance will be decided by how well you have practiced.

If I play a game of go while consciously attempting to apply a principle, it is practice.

A big difference between go and language is that when having a conversation, you don't have time to think about the language you use. That's why it can be so boring talking to non-native speakers - they keep correcting themselves and taking forever to say precisely what you already know they want to say. Playing music is the same - you wouldn't want to listen to Yngwie Malmsteen if he showed up at a gig and kept repeating a lick if he happened to fluff it on the first pass. You have to do the deliberate practice before the performance!

In go, we do have time to think. If you are playing a blitz game, then your level could well be lower because you don't have the time to recall the fundamentals if you haven't internalised them sufficiently. Slow games can be practice, fast games performance. Since I don't perform very well, I intend to practice more.

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Tami, that's an interesting point. I have been playing almost exclusively on DGS recently, and then finally found someone here in Taiwan to play against in person, and ended up losing a close game even though I was "better" than him because I wasn't used to the speed of the game. I'm used to having as much time as I like to ponder every aspect of a move, which would be terribly slow in a live game. I made a resolution to play more on KGS just to get used to playing fast and avoiding bad mistakes more instinctively than intentionally.
The parallels between correspondence and impromptu interaction in go and a second language seem pretty apparent. When preoccupied I still sometimes say "I'm sorry" when somebody thanks me here...