Yep, someone warned me about this before. I’ve tried quite some colleges’ calculators, the majority of them state that they can’t calculate for intl students. I’ve also followed your link just now, and the result was that my supposed contribution is way smaller than I thought. Which means either I don’t have to worry about the financial situation, or it doesn’t reflect a true CSS profile.
Sure. I can quickly cite a few important ones: it was created single-handedly (which screams Biased!!), when Linguistics as a field barely existed and there was no internet; and it overlooked the importance of marketing. Almost a romanticism’s attempt at something over its head.
1 of the common mistakes that people I met usually commit is that when they hear ‘culturally-neutral’, they assume an emotionless tongue. In opposite, the new IAL will incorporate the best phrases there are of languages over the world - in other words, it’ll be more lively than any. It will carry emotions, personality and history most efficiently, but no culture in particular. Or, if viewed with another lens, all cultures.
This will be quite some problem. Yet, as per my current knowledge of the world, I’m willing to bet that there are some significant governments which will be interested in a neutral tongue. The same can be said about businesses, but will need another type of approach.
This I actually studies a little bit. The fact is, before English, French was the lingua franca. The fact that English was able to supplant F is the very proof that it can be replaced by a superior tongue, once people realize how many cons E has. I have to admit that without an extended empire with enormous economic and firepower backing, the new IAL will have to be creative.
You nailed the 1st part. Yet the 2nd comparison only seems to be true superficially. Many things can be substituted there and said to be ‘good idea, bad execution’. And among the biggest differences between communism & IAL is 1 that communism separates people, define a particular enemy and wants this group of people to eliminate that group of human beings. Since 1 of the goals of IAL is to unite humanity, these 2 ideals can’t be farther away from each other.
I haven’t tried DeepL, but my experience with Gtrans - product of the largest AI giant - is that it’s dumb af. And your words also described other shortcomings when you rely on computers: it robs your ability to use more complex & nuanced language, it limits you to your keyboard’s performance, etc.
Yeah, I do have visions of taking some CS course, but just to cooperate effectively with CS experts, because the new IAL will take a hell lot of advantage out of big data & processing power. But the core will always be linguistics because I must learn it to get a sense of how everything will evolve around in the project. And personally, I don’t like coding. All the current programming langs are built upon English, which, unsurprisingly, is not optimized for coding. That alone will be a big advantage of the new IAL: it will promise coders around the world a better platform, a better tool to build upon.
IIRC, the full-meet number is at least 50. Most of them are need-aware regarding intl, but they all ‘guarantee’ full FA for admitted students. About the case of BYU, its population is so large the athletes spots won’t move the needle, as somebody has pointed out earlier.
Agree. I’m leaning toward that, quite literally indeed. My list is more stable now, and I think I won’t sweat the more technical data like this thread.