15
Esoteric linguistic languages that are designed to be incredibly difficult? (retrofed.com)
submitted 5 days ago by to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.ca
18 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I know there are plenty of esoteric programming languages that are designed to be incredibly difficult to work with, like Malbolge, Brainfuck, and PikaLang, though programs written in them can still be compiled and run by a computer.

There are lots of constructed linguistic languages, like Esperanto and Toki Pona, but for most of those they are designed to be easier to learn or have other functional benefits. Are there any linguistic languages where the goal is to be difficult to speak, write, and understand, while still being actual languages?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] 6 points 4 days ago (3 children)

It might be stretching the definition of "actual language" since it's fictional and there's no formal framework for it, but my first thought was the Marklar language from South Park. It's the linguistic equivalent of the Whitespace programming language: every noun is Marklar. To the South Park kids it's completely confusing, while remaining perfectly intelligible to the Marklar.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [โ€“] 4 points 4 days ago

    But why can the Marklar speakers understand it? Is it subtle intonation? Or is there a hidden way they convey their nouns?

    TL;DR its 2 AM and im thinking too hard about this.

    If you took a slice of a sphere, cone, and cylinder, you can get 3 circles, but they are not circles, and the Marklar understand this somehow. What other dimension do they see that we dont? How are they able to convey "circle" in 3 different ways to each other, but not others.

    Maybe it's where in the sentence is it stated: if Marklar is the 3rd word, then it means X. Another possibility is how many times Marklar appears in the sentence. If it's 4 times, it refers to a specific thing. A combination of these rules could also apply, but I feel that still limits the amount of possible things.

    Another variable could be time. If the Marklar have an internal clock advanced from ours, the definition of Marklar could be based on when it is said.

    But all that seems unreasonable since ideas arent pre-determined. Im inclined to believe that, through their superior intelligence, they communicate partially on another spectrum, whether that be light, sound, or otherwise, and are unable to communicate that the spectrum even exists to a human.

    They cant tell us about their extra ordinary communication in the same way we cant communicate to an animal how light or sound works. Humans can't fathom the Marklar.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent