Re: THEORY: Browsing at Borders Public Library

On Tue, 12 Oct 1999, Charles wrote:

> Ed Heil wrote:
>
> [about Wierzbicka's natural semantic metalanguage]
>
> > However, they are still *texts in natural
> > language*...  A very restricted, neutral subset of natural language.
> > But natural language nonetheless.
>
> Somewhere, maybe decades ago, I think I heard part of a sci-fi story
> read over the radio, in which some culture or group spent all its time
> constructing "meta-languages" to Sapir-Whorf (indirectly control)
> the thoughts of (other?) civilization(s) somehow dependent on them?
> I wish I could find that story ...
Sounds like _The Languages of Pao_ by Jack Vance. It's a fun
book. Haven't read it in a while ...

Dirk

--
Dirk Elzinga
dirk.elzinga@m.cc.utah.edu                 "All grammars leak."
http://www.u.arizona.edu/~elzinga/               -Edward Sapir