right to speak language of choice (Re: DTI Policy Response)

[Brown, R Ken]

> Jeffrey Goldberg[SMTP:J.Goldberg@Cranfield.ac.uk] wrote, amongst other
> things far more on-topic: 
> On Wed, 29 Apr 1998, James Backhouse wrote:
> > The origins of the now almost defunct Cockney dialect [...]
> I suspect, but don't know, that this particular account is a
>  myth  (similalry to many Eskimo words for 'snow', an Appelacian 
> dialect similar  to Elizibethian English, etc).  But whether the 
> account is true or not doesn't really change the point.

I'm pretty sure you are right about that - so-called "Cockney" is really
just a stage version of ordinary 19th-century London language which
developed in the normal way from the earlier speech of London & Middlesex
(for some reason RP = "posh" English isn't  derived  the dialect of the
capital but the area inmmedaiatly to the west, south-midlands out as far as
Oxford). But as far as I know there have been "argot" or "cant" forms of
speech, derived from trade jargons or pidgins  - two sailors (or pirates, or
circus performers) meeting in 15th-17th century Europe would probably have
been able to talk in ways that the landsmen couldn't follow.  But that's
tied up with the whole lingua franca/sabir/palare thing that some people put
at the root of all current European-derived pidgins. The idea of a dead
language that was last spoken on BBC radio panel games is strangely
attractive...

That apart I don't think it makes much difference to the point. Even though
linguists can distinguish between natural language and encryption the moral
point remains the same - and remains a potent argument to use against
restrictive laws  Most people, incluidng me, don't know much about the
mathematics of encryption. But we don't know much about the formal
descriptions of natural languages either.   A law that seems to us to bend
over backwards to makes distinctions we don't understand will be a law that
we  are unlikely to feel much moral or emotional commitment to.

Look at the stuff about serious fraud & insider trading. It was very hard to
get juries to convict, partly because most of the public thought that
insider trading was how you made money on the stock market anyway.  It was
difficult for the prosecution to make the disticntion between acceptable and
unnacceptable behaviour.