Satoshi Akima responds to my question about the shared meaning of music
with poetry and:

>The consequence of this is it means nothing that some people may see
>a piece of music as being "happy" whereas others see it as "sad".

This is precisely the substance of my question.  What kind of a language
is it that means one thing to one person and the opposite to another?

>That it conveys meaning first and foremost in its OWN terms is what
>matters.

Unquestionably.  That it is meaningful is not at issue.  What is at issue
is whether that entitles it to the status of a language.  As I remarked
elsewhere, this is a nice metaphor, but I worry that it abuses the meaning
of the word "language" and so dilutes it as to make it mean whatever one
wishes to make it mean.  If you believe that it is not necessary for a
language to be interpreted consistently (and nowhere did I make any
assertions about precision), then we are no longer talking about
"communication".

len.