I think that we, as a civilization, don't really have the infrastructure (habit?) to talk about language i.e. look at it as technology, much less modify it. There's people creating artificial languages, which is really cool, but there's no obvious way to apply that in a mainstream way.
Then again, if someone were to start using English in a different way, it might catch on. He would just have to optimize his changes for acceptable backwards-compatibility. I guess the beauty about people as communicating devices is that they can adopt to changes in protocol, as opposed to some others (looking at you internet devices).
Edit: an artificial language is a bad term, there's no such thing, because it would imply that there's a natural language. It's just a new language, sometimes academic.
We easily treat language as a malleable device. Just look in literature or internet subcultures, but you can see it in day-to-day life if you think about it. You probably do it, too.
The idea and exercise of this is so ubiquitous that I think you're blind to it, like when people suggest there is no American culture.
You missed my point. I elaborated in this comment [0]. I'd call the malleability you're talking about cosmetics in comparison. The examples I gave are human-centricity and sexism embedded in the very way we refer to objects.
Then again, if someone were to start using English in a different way, it might catch on. He would just have to optimize his changes for acceptable backwards-compatibility. I guess the beauty about people as communicating devices is that they can adopt to changes in protocol, as opposed to some others (looking at you internet devices).
Edit: an artificial language is a bad term, there's no such thing, because it would imply that there's a natural language. It's just a new language, sometimes academic.