From Daniel Kehlmann’s novel Measuring the World
“Gauss, who hadn’t been listening up till now, asked the diplomat to repeat his name.
The diplomat bowed and did so. He too was a scientist!
Curious, Gauss leant forward.
He researched old languages.
Ah, said Gauss.
That, said the diplomat, sounded rather disappointed.
Linguistics. Gauss shook his head. He didn’t wish to be offensive.
No, no. He should say it.
Gauss shrugged. Linguistics was for people who had the precision for mathematics but not the intelligence. People who would invent their own makeshift logic.
The diplomat was silent.
Gauss asked him about his travels. He must have been everywhere!
That, said the diplomat, sourly, was the other von Humboldt, his brother. A case of mistaken identity, and not the first time it had happened. He said goodbye and left with small steps.”
And just who is this smartass Daniel Kehlmann? He hits too close to home!
Well, if any pure mathematicians reading this think that designing artificial languages is an intellectual doddle, I invite them to join the effort in AI to create languages for machine-to-machine interaction — now in at least its fourth decade and still a long way from fruition!