What features would you add to languages?

TemulentTeatotaler
Sun, 30 May 2021 20:22:14 +0000

If you had the option to add new features to your primary language, what would they be? Is there something from a foreign language you'd like to import to your primary language?

A couple examples:

A prefix to indicate intensity or degree. BBS/early hacker jargon had terms like "k-rad" to mean 1000x (2^10?) as radical as "rad" without the prefix.
That Montessori preschool was t-cool but why would they think calling it "Hobbledehoy" was a good idea?

Making an indication of how confident you are in an a statement obligate and easy. I hedge all the time because I think it's important to convey, but it's clunky. We do a bit of that non-verbally but that doesn't translate to text, and has the other complications of non-verbal cues.
It would be nice if there was an established vocabulary to quickly convey things like "experienced first-hand, repeatedly", "99% certain", "I've heard but never looked into", etc. From there it would be nice if this was as required as the gender, in gendered languages.

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