Recently I've taken what I'd written about language as a self-organizing system, and compiled it into a book of about sixty pages. It has about a page of sources, and it runs through much of my thinking as I've tried to put it into order. Though I know it's not done, it's reached a certain point where I have to reach out and find other sources, to help me say what I want to say. When I returned to this blog, I was stunned to find what I found.
Not that this blog will be enough. What is connected off this blog are several things: links to dozens of documents that I wrote myself, in the last decade; links to other books that I reviewed or read; ideas of other sources that could be used in laying out my vision. All of these are useful and will take some time to slog through. But it's still not enough.
One thing I've found is that language as a self-organizing system has pretty much fallen off the radar. I have stayed in touch with the linguist list over the years, and have found nothing. Nobody has bothered to put together a cohesive explanation of how a language could seek order, simplify itself, and change over time. In some ways that's good: I have the field to myself. In some ways it's scary: if it's so clear to me, why has nobody jumped on it before?
The idea for my book, Vowels in an Elevator: Principles of language as a self-organizing system, is pretty much contained in Google docs that are linked off of this blog. The one that shares its name is not available, as are a couple more; I'm not sure why. In fact I'm surprised that google docs, and the weblog itself, could manage to survive as long as it did; I've ignored the whole thing for what, about seven years. I make no excuses; I have ten kids, and things happening that cause instability in my own family situation, so I get to it when I can. But I am what, sixty five, and I'm beginning to think that if I don't get it down on paper coherently, it will be lost. Now is the time to compile it and present it. And don't worry if the rest of the world is ignoring it as a coherent theory of language change.
So in the spirit of gathering resources I'm going to ask a few questions. I know that nobody really reads these blogs all that much, but there's a chance they'll stumble on this one, so, if you don't mind, and if you know the answers to these questions, would you kindly just put those answers in the comments. What I'm saying is that, to some degree, I'm talking to myself, but, I really do welcome input of all kinds and would love to hear anything you have to contribute.
Is there any cohesive attempt anywhere to explain language as a self-organizing system?
How do I go about even looking for such things, given that my attempts so far have been so fruitless?
Should I leave these google docs where they are, or compile them into a separate volume of writing on language acquisition?
Do people actually read google docs, or blogs?
Good night.
