History of Language games

	Revision 11 . . October 30, 2001 10:36 am by (logged).111.13.xxx [add Wittgenstein's sense of this expression]
	Revision 10 . . October 2, 2001 1:19 am by Damian Yerrick [gibberish is a family; removed duplicate ubbi-dubbi in English; began to make table well-formed]

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Changed: 1c1,4

Language games are not technically artificial languages so much as heuristics for altering language, like a code. They are used primarily by groups attempting to conceal their conversations from others, as a form of weak cryptography.

A language game is a concept developed by Ludwig Wittgenstein at the beginning of his book Philosophical Investigations. A language game is a simple language, combined with a context that shows what to do with the language. One example he gives is a language for building, containing two words, 'slab' and 'brick'. When A says 'slab' to B, B finds a slab and gives it to A; likewise, when A says 'brick' to B, B finds a brick and gives it to A. In another sense, language games are not technically artificial languages so much as heuristics for altering language, like a code. They are used primarily by groups attempting to conceal their conversations from others, as a form of weak cryptography.