Nearly two months ago, I wrote a long post about Phonetics and how I got into Linguistics. Well, tonight I’d like to post a followup, because I’ve just realized that my past description wasn’t entirely accurate.

There, I describe my introduction to Linguistics as largely a question of fate and terrible Russian textbooks. That is all true, but only tonight have I realized and acknowledged the secondary (and at the same time, primary) reason why I am where I am: I thought the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis was true, and wanted to use it to improve life. Let me explain.

Applied Linguistic Relativity and you

I’ve discussed this idea (also referred to as ‘Linguistic Relativity’) elsewhere on this site before (view them all here), and in the interest of time (and friendliness to people who’ve not read the past posts), I’m just going to quote my past explanation posted here. I encourage you to read that full post to get a better idea of the controversy and guesswork involved in any exploration of Linguistic relativity, but for a quick summary, I’ve quoted the most explanatory parts:

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is a blanket term for the idea that the grammar and lexicon of a person’s language subtly affects their thoughts and perspectives on the world. It’s a very hotly contested issue in modern Linguistics, and although the most extreme variations (the idea that language determines your thought) have been disproved through some pretty ingenious color studies, the more subtle varieties are still supported in some senses.

If the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is true, a speaker of the Hopi language (which has a very different system of tenses than English) will perceive time in a fundamentally different way than an English speaker. Similarly, a Spanish speaker will have a slightly different view of the world than an English speaker, simply due to the underlying differences between the two languages. If this is, in fact, the case, then there are huge ramifications in Linguistics, Cognitive Science, and the world in general.

Basically, I believed that one’s language can limit one’s thought. If you don’t have a word, you don’t have a concept, and your brain is bound. I believed that language was the fundamental chain that bound us all, so insidiously that we don’t even know it.

So, if language is the fundamental chain that binds our cognition, then what can we do to escape? Well, we have two options.

One would be to raise our children without language. This would certainly remove the binds of language, but cause them to be incapable of most of human interaction. Without language of some sort, there likely wouldn’t be civilization, society, or even basic human cooperation. This would clearly be, as the American idiom goes, throwing the baby out with the bathwater (getting rid of the good parts of something simply because there’s a small imperfection).

The second option, simply put, is to change language as we know it. This was my plan.

Not ambitious at all, why?

My plan was simple: If a person’s language puts limits on their cognition, then really, all you need to do is change the language in such a way that those limits are removed. If language is a dam on the vast cognitive river, then to get more flow, you make a less restrictive dam. Thus, my love of language creation was born.

My hope was to create a language through which anything was expressible. I still have between 30 and 50 pages of hastily scribbled blueprints for my language (‘evlit’ was the working title), ranging from the philosophical needs to the grammatical needs. That little strip of light that shows up on the wall because of the slight imperfection of the fitting of the metal pieces of the fluorescent fixture in my Russian classroom my Freshman year would be just as easy and quick to describe as, say, a gray cat. Regularity would abound, simplicity would be a constant, and ease of learning would be maximized. Ideas from computer science, philosophy, and more all bounced around in my head in an effort to come up with a language that would not just function, but would set our minds free.

Perhaps this all sounds strange to you all, and I’ll admit, it was strange. However, I’d like you to imagine for a second that language was really the invisible chain that binds us all. Imagine being able to do something that not only freed a single person from bondage, not only a single community or even state, but the entire human race. I felt that if I could actually create a language which was truly “better”, more versatile, and allowed true cognitive freedom, I could truly help the entire human race.

The Russian department pushed me away, sure. Languages intrigued me, no doubt. However, that’s not really why I’m here today. When I signed up for my Intro to Linguistics class, I wanted to learn the nature of the chains, so I could cast them off, then help other people do the same.

Realization

I still vividly remember one day, around three years ago, walking back towards the department with my Intro to Linguistics professor and talking to him about language creation. I explained my ideas for creating a new, improved language, as he listened quietly. We arrived back in his office, he sat down behind his desk, and he shared an insight that has affected me to this day. He turned to me and said: “Well, all you’re going to be doing is re-encoding how things work in your mind as an English speaker, just using different sounds and grammar”.

Pop. There went my plan. One offhand comment showed me the folly of my idea. I tried to fight the realization in my own mind for a few weeks, but really, it died right there. If language does fundamentally bind my thought, how the heck could I escape it long enough to loosen the chains. If I’m bound, I won’t be able to free myself, because I literally cannot exist outside of this bondage. By the time we’re old enough to understand and use language, then we’re old enough that we’re trapped. Soon after that, I realized that really, whether or not language affects our thought is irrelevant.

As the Buddhist monk Shantideva once wrote, “If there is a problem and you are able to do something about it, why despair? And if there is a problem and you are not able to do anything about it, why despair?”. If language does, in fact, change how we think, well, we’re already bound and we can’t really escape, so there’s nothing we can do. If language doesn’t change how we think, then there’s no problem at all. Nobody’s bound, and there’s nothing we need to do. Either we’re bound, or we’re not, and we’ll never be able to tell the difference.

Even I were somehow able to create a truly better language, and even if it helped people, it would also likely result in a great linguistic genocide. Many of the remaining languages on Earth would gradually be abandoned in favor of a more useful and more powerful language, and the blood of all those grammars would be on my hands. So, I’ve realized that my goal, my dream, of changing and “improving” language to help the world is not only impossible, but probably not even a good idea. Yet, I’m still a linguist.

Now what?

Language is truly incredible. Next time you see a conversation taking place, sit back and watch. Patterns of air pressure, body language, and facial expressions are being used to express the millions of thoughts flying around inside our heads, and even more amazing, those things can be interpreted and understood by other people. The fact that we have a means of communication at all, let alone one so full of nuance and beauty, is simply miraculous.

I might have come to Linguistics because I wanted to improve language, and because I thought I could use it to help the world. The reason I’m still here is because I’ve realized that human language is not only sufficient for what we need, it’s truly miraculous. This may sound corny, but I am captivated by the complexity, the grace, and the sheer pragmatic beauty of grammar, sound, and the cognition required to get it there.

Nobody knows exactly where language came from, or when it developed. Heck, nobody knows exactly how language works in our minds, how we learn it, and how we understand it. We have described elements of it, have made lots of theories, and we’ve even made some progress on understanding how we go about making language. However, there are still many mysteries out there.

I might not set the world free with a single word, but language is a fundamental aspect of our everyday lives, if not the fundamental aspect. By studying language and the mysteries involved, I’m studying not only grammar, sound, or cognition, but human life itself.

If that’s not important, what is?

Tagged with Conventional Linguistics, Created Languages, Followups, Language Creation, Language and Thought, Notes | 8 Comments

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8 Comments so far
  1. Bernd May 2, 2007 10:31 am

    More pitfalls: I wouldn’t learn it in the first place. Just like many other people wouldn’t. So you only get the people together that have a similar idea in mind like you.
    Second reason it wouldn’t work, people would think of it as being another arrogant attempt of English speaking people to rule the world by inventing a new language.

    Nah, this just wouldn’t work. If things were such easy in life children wouldn’t die of hunger etc. All we need to do is share just a tiny bit of our wealth with people who have less.

    However, I agree that language shapes thought. just because you can think in different ways about the same thing. On the other hand, this is just as arrogant to think as the point I made before. Think about Pidgin or Creole languages. People speak something many people wouldn’t ever consider as a “real” language. It is one nonetheless. It’s perfectly capable of advancing in any direction.

    Think of English or German way back in time when Latin and Greek was the proper language of the learned. Many academic thoughts could not be properly expressed so they had to be invented once scholars thought it would be nice to communicate in their own native language. Thats how these languages became incredibly rich languages for academia.

    My stream of conscience for today :-)

  2. will May 2, 2007 10:46 am

    Bernd, those are some very good observations. I’ve actually written a paper about the many obstacles involved in introducing a created language, and touched on a few of the points you just made. I’m thinking I might post some excerpts of that here soon.

    Either way, I’m glad somebody else is thinking about these things too, and I appreciate your comments.

  3. John May 2, 2007 2:50 pm

    But the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has never been proven. Hopi speakers do not perceive time in a different way than English speakers.

    Maybe you’d be better off with a weaker version:
    http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~marce/trip/UC/2005/05/my-favorite-linguistic-relativity-neo.html

  4. will May 2, 2007 3:04 pm

    John, I agree completely, Sapir-Whorf is both unproven, and highly controversial. In fact, I’ve even posted on the subject of the controversy of Sapir Whorf here and linked to it in the post above.

    Yes, Whorf’s claims about Hopi are often exaggerated and in some cases even false, in addition, his data collection was suspect, at best (taking data from a single speaker in New York City and applying it generally). However, I don’t think that anybody is going to be basing an argument for (or against) Linguistic Relativity simply on the basis of Whorf’s data.

    He provided a theory. People have done a variety of studies on the subject which seem to swing either way. I personally don’t think that it can ever be proven (as I mentioned above).

    However, one of the points I was trying to make with this post was that it’s not really relevant to the issue (and my ideas) whether or not language does really affect thought. If it does (and that’s a big “if”), then we can’t do anything about it. If it doesn’t, it’s a non-issue. Either way, what I hoped to do was impossible.

    Reading back through the post, though, I can see how this might seem a little biased. I’m going to add a disclaimer about the controversy and a larger link back to my initial article. Thanks for the comment.

  5. Milly May 24, 2007 9:11 am

    New Scientist recently published a very interesting article which might throw new light on the sapir-whorf school of thought. basically scientists have found that because russians have more words for ‘blue’ than english speakers, they really do see the colour differently. I can’t really remember the whole thing now, but I blogged about it on http://www.hookjab.wordpress.com if you’re interested. =)

  6. Anon May 30, 2007 2:57 pm

    I believe in the basic idea of Sapir-Whorf, though I am not a linguist and did not even know it had such a name.

    I think you’re dismissing your plan too quickly. I still think it should be dismissed, actually, but the explanation you used is flawed :)

    Let us for a moment consider just one person, freeing his thought in isolation – then we don’t have to deal with the practical issues of getting others to learn this language.

    How can you free yourself from the rails of English thought? Learn other languages, of course.
    Once you have acquired enough knowledge, you could switch between languages, taking concepts, and combine them into a super language :)
    Of course, you cannot invent new concepts (that is the kind of thing that tends to happen slowly and by accident), but I think there would be enough out there to make a substantial improvement.

    If you know another language well, and one that is distant enough from English, you will have felt the annoyance of – for example – reading a piece of literature and trying to communicate a concept expressed therein to someone else, in English.
    Sometimes, it is not possible. You may be able to give someone an idea by being absurdly verbose, but still the meaning is an approximation.
    This proves that you can understand concepts not directly expressible in English, and yet be a native English speaker. Your brain isn’t set to English from now on, it simply uses that because you’re most comfortable that way.

    If you have learned a language to the point where you can ‘think’ in that language, and start doing so as a habit (can happen when you are immersed in another culture), you sometimes have a slight change in judgement.
    Thinking about something in one language might make it seem much more reasonable than in another language. The examples I am thinking about specifically here are with regard to Japanese and it’s systems for placing people or objects in a proper social context. It can affect how you think about other people and your considered actions a great deal, but in ways I cannot easily explain. And that’s a really obvious one – about as far from a subtle language difference as you can get…

    So, why do I think the idea is rubbish anyway, regardless of everything written above? :)
    First the obvious, is that if you want to use this to communicate with people rather than just reach enlightenment or something, you’re going to have to get them to learn it. Good luck with that.

    But more fundamentally, no language can ever solve the problems of humans trying to communicate with each other.
    Words are merely symbols with a learned meaning. How that meaning is learned has different results, and it wouldn’t be exaggerating too much to suggest that no two people feel the same nuance from a single word.
    The more detailed you get, the more two people stray while reading the same words. Like piling uneven bricks atop one another, eventually they topple. You can support it with scaffolding – endless clarification, long winded sentences, re-inforcement – but then it becomes hard to make out the shape.

    And these differences, between people of the same language… how does *that* affect their thought process? :)

    I’d become a linguist too, if I hadn’t convinced myself how futile it all was ;)

  7. will May 30, 2007 3:18 pm

    Anon,

    Wonderful comment, and you’re quite right about some of the remaining pitfalls, and about the importance of learning other languages. Language is individual, and that definitely serves to complicate things.

    Do remember, though, that language is used not just when communicating with other people, but in our own thought processes as well.

    Don’t give up all hope in Linguistics. We might not be able to save the world, but who knows, we might find a way to help out yet.

    Thanks for reading!

  8. Travis Johnson March 26, 2010 2:40 pm

    I too once thought I would create what I had called an “Iconic Visual Language Based Information Delivery System.” It was going to be a string of iconic images that would communicate intent and content with just a picture. I imagined it as a way around things like Aphasia and communication disabilities.

    At some point I realized all I was doing was re-encoding. It was still a language, and Broca’s and Wernike’s areas were still involved. Silly Freshman Language Development Major.

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