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Help[Facts] Re: The "New" BTN
in reply to a message by Dorchadas
... actually orthography of lexical units other than proper names is labile as well ...
What I mean is that in both cases, prescriptive "grammar" is artificial and can only manage to define a formal language (and script and orthography) that soon falls out of practical use. Not that it isn't done: Bengalis in India and many cultures in Europe (including, for example, the French) tried something like that---and have/had standardized spellings both for names and for proper words in their respective languages. That did not stop the change in language: language (including names in the case of Bengali, at least) merrily evolved to become and remain incorrect, and in many cases now is hopping from one incorrect form to another :-)
Furthermore, a prescriptive stance is inherently problematic since the linguistic faculty in humans is probably a separate faculty than that which reasons; language evolves due to its own internal and external processes, and strict logical construction gets violated very fast. As a result, taking a prescription always involves making arbitrary choices, and needs to come more from the realm of a committee of scholarly *personae* whose fiat would have standing in the community, and not be subject to the debate and uncertainty of scholarly *thought*.
With that experience most of us take a descriptive stance where, at least, the standard of evaluation is clear even when not attainable. And this website does state it. But, it is not the obvious choice, in fact, to the contrary, it is a pretty difficult concept that there is no "correct" beyond "conventional" in this realm. At least for people trained in some traditions.
What I mean is that in both cases, prescriptive "grammar" is artificial and can only manage to define a formal language (and script and orthography) that soon falls out of practical use. Not that it isn't done: Bengalis in India and many cultures in Europe (including, for example, the French) tried something like that---and have/had standardized spellings both for names and for proper words in their respective languages. That did not stop the change in language: language (including names in the case of Bengali, at least) merrily evolved to become and remain incorrect, and in many cases now is hopping from one incorrect form to another :-)
Furthermore, a prescriptive stance is inherently problematic since the linguistic faculty in humans is probably a separate faculty than that which reasons; language evolves due to its own internal and external processes, and strict logical construction gets violated very fast. As a result, taking a prescription always involves making arbitrary choices, and needs to come more from the realm of a committee of scholarly *personae* whose fiat would have standing in the community, and not be subject to the debate and uncertainty of scholarly *thought*.
With that experience most of us take a descriptive stance where, at least, the standard of evaluation is clear even when not attainable. And this website does state it. But, it is not the obvious choice, in fact, to the contrary, it is a pretty difficult concept that there is no "correct" beyond "conventional" in this realm. At least for people trained in some traditions.
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