I am now going to attempt to communicate with you about communication. I have absolutely no qualifications but I do have some beer, so let’s see how this goes.
Language! What is it? Your first reaction might be that it is the way in which people communicate with one another. Like, I want to tell you something. I want some thought of mine to enter into your thoughts. The way I can do that is by saying it. But, also I can write it and have you read it. Like I’m doing right now. Look at me putting my dumb little thoughts into your brain. Every word you read makes me do it more.
I can say it or write it and the message more or less makes it to you (more on that in a bit). But it is strange that there is any correlation between the spoken and written words at all. There is no intrinsic reason a relationship between the two exists. People were making mouth sounds and agreeing upon a common meaning of those sounds long before we made written language. I mean shit, even animals can vocalize to each other to convey different messages. Prairie dogs make unique sounds to warn of different types of predators that they spot. They chirp a pattern to let the rest of the colony know they saw a hawk, or they squeak and then chirp to indicate a coyote.
And you don’t have to be a prairie dog expert like me to observe this. Household pets vocalize to communicate all the time. A cat hisses to show it is pissed off, and it will do a cute little trill to ask for some belly rubs. A dog’s bark sounds very different depending on if it is asking for you to throw the ball or to warn you if somebody’s at the front door. We Humans can understand these vocalizations instinctively.
So there are these seemingly biological vocal indicators to convey meaning. Humans are no different. We gasp when something startles or scares us. We yell and get loud when trying to intimidate. Same shit. But because humans have big brains, we took vocalization and coupled it to our social interdependence and developed it further. We turned it into a technology. By agreeing on the meanings of different vocalizations, and having the capacity to recall them and the frontal lobe gift of abstracting for the future, we could do something other animals couldn’t do. We could inform others of experience beyond instinct. We could take our problem-solving, prediction engine mind and bounce it off our fellow caveman. To see what they think. Sounds became more nuanced and specific in their meaning. Mouth noises settled into a schema; a framework for understanding of the world.
Schema! (I apparently just like this word a lot lately because I used it in my last post but anyway who gives a fuck) Schema is your model of the world. It’s the framework for which life comports itself to you. Here’s my best example of what “schema” means:
When I was 11 years old, my family went for a walk. The neighbor’s dog was on a tie-out in the yard. He was a big black lab. My three year old brother saw this and said “Look, a bear!”. In his schema, a large black animal that looked like that was a bear. He did not know dogs might be like that. We told him it was the neighbor’s dog. His schema grew to include dogs into that type of creature. Language depends on a common baseline. We assign labels like “bear” or “dog” in accordance with our schema.
A black lab and a black bear are both quadruped mammals with a similar headshape and snout. But the English language distinguishes them because it is useful to do so. This is pretty easy to understand. But what if our language just had one generic word for a creature that fit those criteria? What if we did just call all black labs “bears”? Would we treat them the same way? Would we believe these pooches to be more dangerous than they are?
The fact that we have different words for different animals is pretty simple and obvious. It makes sense that we have a shared schema that overlaps almost completely in regard to things like that. But what about when we apply language to less tangible, well-defined things? If I talk about an abstract concept like “fairness” or “love”, how can I know if your schema and mine are similar enough for effective communication? Or, what if my language simply doesn’t have a term for what I’m trying to express? If I can’t define it in direct and simple terms, does it really exist?
The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis! A tapir named Sapir and Lieutenant-Commander Worf from Star Trek once proposed a theory of language and/or philosophy. The gist of it being that whatever your native language, it heavily influences or even defines what types of thoughts you are capable of having. You probably imagine yourself thinking in words and sentences. At least, when you’re paying attention to your thoughts. Can the machinery of your language accurately convey everything happening in your mind? Are you limited to expressions and terms you know the meanings of?
“Preposterous!” you say, brandy and spittle leaking out of the corners of your mouth. Adjusting your distended cummerbund as you shift in your high-backed leather chair, you assert ” My brain does all my thinking, and there is no limitation. Language is merely the tool I use to express my thoughts. It has no dampening effect on the types of thoughts I can manage.” You harumph yourself back into the chair, and fart what you had hoped would be a silent one, but it’s actually quite loud, rumbling against the leather.
But consider this: Not every language uses the same color words. Native English speakers have quite a suite of names for colors at our disposal. Beyond the typical ROYGBIV, we have cerulean and periwinkle and a whole host of minor distinctions. The types of colors that only appear on paint swatches, so your wife can get annoyed that you don’t care if the baby’s room is painted “sunshine yellow” or “vanilla yellow”. But linguists and anthropologists have noted that most cultures develop names for colors in a predictable pattern, and we do not all continue making as many distinctions. Some cultures, largely the almost-uncontacted and indigenous tribes, assign only “black” or “white” to color. It’s dark or it’s light. This seems to be the first distinction we make. The third color, if it shows up, is red. Some peoples have two colors, and some have three. But if they have three, it’s probably black and white and red all over. Many languages do not make a distinction between green and blue. They are simply different shades of the same color. Think about that the next time you’re laying on your back under a tree, watching the leaves bounce in the breeze and you can see the sky beyond them. Same color, basically.
Some aboriginal Australians do not have words for “left” or “right”. They use cardinal directions instead. The Guugu Yimithirr language has no subjective “left” or “right”, but they will say something equivalent to the more universal “Hey, can you grab me that pen on your South?” or “Hey, you’ve got a booger hanging out on the West side of your nose.” Obviously this manner of speech requires you to have an internal compass at all times. We English-speakers certainly do not have this feature in our language. This seems to me to be evidence of language shaping thought in a subconscious, basic way.
The 2016 movie Arrival takes this Sapir-Whorf football and runs with it. The main character, Amy Adams, learns the language of an alien race. These aliens are fourth-dimensional beings, who do not experience time as a succession of moments, but simultaneously know everything that happens in their lives. By learning their speech, she becomes a fourth-dimensional being and her own lifetime becomes one great continuum that she can freely move back and forth in. It’s a cool movie. This is kind of stressing the potential of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, but it’s fun to think about. Language as a program that unlocks a new dimension of understanding. Woah, dude.
Language is the software that your brain hardware runs. It is the script that defines your sentience. As the great punk rock icon Noam Chomsky once put it, “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.” Um, okay. I’ll have whatever he’s smoking.
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