Jim's Blog

Wow. It sounds like this savant-engineered language called Mänti would scratch a serious itch for me.

The vocabulary of his language - "Mänti", meaning a type of tree - reflects the relationships between different things.

I mostly think in abstract concepts that are completely separate from their labels. Since my thoughts are mostly about insights into how disparate things are connected, that makes it a real drag to have to put my disembodied thoughts into words. (This blog is kind of a way to practice converting abstractions into words.)

Words are an arbitrary afterthought that have nothing to do with what I'm thinking. When I try to explain what I'm thinking, I have to devote a lot of mental energy to negotiating a vocabulary with the right semantics I can use with a particular person. I know that challenge makes me seem like an idiot to some people, and that's really frustrating. (Okay, in some ways I am an idiot, but bear with me.)

I wonder if this language would provide me with a pivot point from abstractions to far more concrete English. I might be the only person in the world who bothers to learn it, but it might be a really big help. If only he'd publish it! Does anyone know how to contact him?