Having learnt three different languages on three different
points in my life has taught me but one thing only. The way humans construct
languages is brimming with flaws and imperfections. Take for example this
sentence “I am having dinner”. What if this 6 syllable sound was reduced to
only 1 syllable like “lik”. Now every time anyone says “Lik” we know that person
is having dinner. Take another sample sentence like “the dinner is delicious”.
Let us use the monosyllabic “Rut” to mean this.
What if we could construct a whole language like that.
Virtually all the sentences that one can construct in a language will be coded
with a single syllabic sound. I concede that it will drastically increase the
number of words in the dictionary of this language and non-native speakers will
find learning this language more difficult than learning German but just
imagine the increase in the velocity of communication between people. Things
like “Do you like it?” will be replaced with “Nak” and thats it. The point if across.
However, I wonder what effect having such a language will have on the culture of the human
civilization. Would conversations be shorter? Would we speak less? Would people
have thoughts that they don’t have words for? How would poetry in such a
language flourish, if at all. How would that language evolve? Would there be
slang in it? How about curse words? Or would it be just too hard to learn.
After all there can be virtually an infinite number of sentences in a language. Could we ever run out of syllables? We could start using two syllables then. But how do I know that isn't the way our current languages started. These questions can only be answered if such a language were to exist.
But for now, let us put this theory into test and see if the reader
understands this piece of communication.
“Lik”
“Nak?”
“Rut”.
