Language and mind

Language is a system that consists of the development, acquisition, maintenance

The mind is a set of cognitive faculties including consciousness, perception,

Linguistics is the science of human language. Although the modern term 'linguistics'
derives from the Latin word for tongue, lingua, the true organ of language is the human mind.
We even call languages "tongues," but language is first and foremost a mental process that only
secondarily involves the tongue, lips, and vocal cords--the so-called organs of speech. It is often
repeated that our complex language separates us from all other species--that language is the
hallmark of our unique human intellect. A discussion of the connection between language and
mind can provide a fitting introduction to our course, Linguistics 201.

Interest in the connection between language and mind developed thousands of years ago in
India and Greece and probably in other places as well. The ancient Greeks believed that the
structure of language mirrored patterns of thought. About 2500 years ago, such Greek
philosophers as Plato and Aristotle believed their speech represented a perfect form and
considered all other languages to be imperfect and indicative of less developed habits of
thinking.

The concept of evaluating languages as superior or inferior thinking tools passed to Rome
and eventually became firmly entrenched in European scholarly tradition. During the Middle
Ages, Latin and classical Greek were regarded as superior forms of communication. Medieval
thinkers wrote in Latin rather than their own native tongues, which they considered inferior to
Latin for any intellectual endeavor. European scholars rarely paid serious attention to languages
other than those of Europe or the Mediterranean basin. It should be noted that a similar linguistic
chauvinism developed among the Chinese and other non-European cultures.
 Beginning in the 15th century, however, European explorers began to encounter the native
languages spoken on other continents. Not being linguists, some of these first explorers
described languages encountered in the Caribbean and West Africa as "grunts scarcely different
from those of animals." Unfamiliar languages were automatically considered inferior and
incomplete. The 16th century Age of Discovery gave a new boost to the notion of the "primitive
language".

Only quite recently, in the last two centuries, did European philologists, which is an old-
fashioned term for linguist, begin to give any serious attention to languages that were very
different from their own. By the mid-1800's anthropologists and linguists were busy recording in
great detail the structure of aboriginal languages in the Americas, South Asia, Australia and
Oceana. As it turned out, these languages not only differed greatly from those of Europe--they
also showed great internal complexity.

Let's look at some aspects that create linguistic diversity across the world's languages:

Phonology

Type of sounds: In European languages, all sounds are made by modifying air as it is breathed
out of the lungs. Not so in other languages, such as !kung, Swahili, Georgian, and Quileute.

--Number of sounds: European languages tend to have about 40 distinctive sounds. Hawaiian,
Rotokas (South Pacific) have fewer than 20. Kabardian, Abkhaz (Caucasus Mountains) have
over 80, with only one or two vowels.

Morphology

--How words are built: (in European lang. the words add endings for plural and for a few
meanings such as possession, object) cf. Finnish (15 cases) vs. Chinese with no endings.

--Length of words and complexity of meaning: cf. Chinese, Viet. (words are indivisible, usually
one syllable) vs. Kazakh (Central Asian Turkic) agglutination: qam-sÉz-dan-dÉr-Él-ma-an-
dÉq-tan meaning 'in view of the fact that it wasn't guaranteed'.
Syntax--how words combine to form sentences

--different word connections in the sentence: object markers for verbs in Georgian

--little difference between a word and a sentence: Nootka (inikwihlminih'isita 'several small
fires were burning in the house')

The scholars who devoted themselves to accurate descriptions of aboriginal languages are
known as descriptive linguists (the most prominent was the American linguist and
anthropologist Edward Sapir, a student of the noted anthropologist Franz Boas. As Sapir's
findings were published, it became obvious that all human languages represent extremely
complex systems of communication. Not everyone accepted this conclusion immediately. A
few skeptics even accused the descriptivist of fabricating data on Native American languages.

As linguists studied languages from all over the world, they marveled at the striking variety
of language forms. The notion of how a language could be structured had to be revised
continually. This process of revision continues to this day as linguists document aboriginal
languages of such areas as the Amazon basin and the highlands of New Guinea.

Given all the new information on language structure gathered during the past century, how
did scholars reevaluate the traditional ideas regarding language and mind?

First to change was the notion that languages could be inferior and superior in terms of their
structure. The descriptive linguists revealed that even the most remote tribe with the most
rudimentary technology possessed a language which is highly complex and which presented an
incredible intellectual challenge for any adult to learn as a second language. For instance, the
Choctaw language had been used as a code in World War One and Navajo later proved to be an
unbreakable code in World War Two against the Japanese. Today, it is quite obvious that people
living with Stone Age technology speak languages as complex and versatile as those spoken in
the most highly industrialized society. There are no primitive languages. Virtually no linguist
today would disagree with this statement.
 The second change came in assessing the nature of the connection between language and
mind. Remember, European culture beginning with Greece assumed that the structure of
language mirrored the structure of thought. When it became obvious during the past century that
all languages are structurally very complex, some descriptivists began to ask the following
question: What do the vast differences in structure mean for the study of the human mind? Do
radically different languages indicate equally extreme differences in the mental habits of the
people speaking them?

Language structure??? mind, thought processes

Do languages constitute separate dimensions of thought? Or are the differences in language

One scholar who attempted to answer this question was the American Benjamin Lee
Whorf (1897-1941). Whorf was a descriptive linguist who became fascinated with the
connection between language and mind. By profession he was a fire inspector; his hobby was the
study of Native American languages, particularly the Hopi language of the American Southwest.
He noted how the differences between Hopi and English grammar seemed to have striking
parallels in the cultural differences between the Hopi tribe and European American society.

English (SAE) has many tenses, spatial metaphors for time: both objects as well as time
periods can be described in terms of spaces (long, short) or units (five days). And European
culture is permeated with a preoccupation for time, history, record keeping.

Hopi, on the other hand, has no grammatical tense; actions are expressed in terms of
intensity or repetition. Time would have to be specified using adverbs like 'now', 'once', etc. The
Hopi had difficulty adjusting to the timetables and schedules of European-American culture.
Whorf believed that the structure of their language was the root cause of their difficulty.
Whereas other descriptive linguists had developed the concept of linguistic relativity, the idea
that each language has its own unique structure which has a noticeable effect on the world view
of its speakers, Whorf went a step further and developed the notion of linguistic
determinism: the structure of language determines and limits the patterns of habitual thought in
a society. In its strictest interpretation, linguistic determinism is the belief that language
imprisons the mind. This notion came to be known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (Because
Sapir only held the concept of linguistic relativity, some people call the idea that language
imprisons the mind the Whorfian Hypothesis).

If this hypothesis were true--and it can easily be demonstrated that linguistic determinism is
too strongly stated--then it would hold equally for all languages: concepts absent from the
structure of a given language should necessarily be absent or deficient in the culture of the
speakers--and this correlation should hold true across languages, even for European languages
such as English. This is far from the case. In fact, there is no broad evidence in support of any
strong version of linguistic determinism.

1) Other languages that lack grammatical tense: Chinese, Malay.

2) Grammatical categories lacking in English: aspect, evidential.

3) Gender in English and Georgian.

Conclusion: parallels between language structure and thought patterns seem to be random, not
the result of a strict cause and effect relationship.

language structure <------------thought <------culture, environment

-----------> -------->

This conclusion raises yet another question. Why is it that language structure has such a
relatively minor effect on human thought? The main reason seems to be that humans are
innately creative. And it is this creative principle that drives language; the particular form of
language seems to be relatively superficial. Let's examine the effect of human creativity on the
use of language.

It is obvious that human language changes in response to environmental and cultural

a) Yupik has many terms for specific varieties of snow and ice, 16 words for seal.

b) Maasai have an elaborate vocabulary for cattle, as do the Arabs for camels.

c) The English of Beowulf used 36 epithets to describe the ocean and over two dozen to
express the concept "hero."

2) On the other hand, concepts rarely or never experienced naturally have few or no ready made
terms of expression.

a) Many languages of the tropics have a single word for snow and ice.

b) Hopi masa'taka means bird, plane or insect.

c) Tribes in the Amazon rain forest have no word for ocean, sea.

As a result of natural human creativity, all languages are in constant flux. When new concepts
appear, the existing language form does not prevent the speakers from grasping the concepts.
Instead, the language itself changes to accommodate the new concepts--and often changes very
rapidly. Concepts that were once important may lose their importance and the language
gradually loses some of the wealth of ways to express them (example: two dozen words for hero
in Beowulf). Changes occur fastest in vocabulary and phraseology, slower in grammar.

Ways language changes:

1) borrowing from other languages: zebra, glasnost, 75% of Engl. words are borrowed, mostly
from Norman French.

2) coining new terms--bubble, nerd

3) new combinations of old words, called collocations

b) ring around the collar, heartburn

4) new meaning of existing word

a) in Shakespeare: roses stink; torpedo (used to mean "mine")

b) Apache pit, ynda, etc.

Because humans are creative, any human language is capable of expressing any thought the
mind can devise. This is precisely why the difference in individual language structure is not
decisive in limiting the habitual thought processes of the speakers. Language form is merely a
small hurdle on the way to new thoughts--not an insurmountable prison. Human creativity molds
language into a pliable tool for expressing new thoughts. This is why language is constantly
reshaped by new experience. The form of language, in turn, has much less of an effect on
thought patterns (although verbal misunderstandings are obviously capable of causing
problems). Rather than stifle creativity, language is the most versatile vehicle for expressing our
creativity.

Nevertheless, the form of language is of great important to linguists for several reasons.

1) First, the form of language is interesting when comparing language structures found in
different languages. Languages do not differ in terms of their creative potential but rather in
terms of the level upon which particular distinctions are realized in each particular language.
What is expressed concisely in one language requires a phrase in another language. (Give
examples of aspect and evidentiality; also words like Swahili mumagamagama "someone who
habitually loses things" and Russian opoxmelitsya "to eat the hair of the dog that bit you.")
Linguists study how each particular language organizes the expression of concepts. Such cross-
language comparisons fall under a branch of linguistics called language typology.

2) Second, because languages change more slowly than the environment in which they are
spoken, languages contain all sorts of indications of bygone culture. For the historian and the
anthropologists, the form of language provides a special window into the past: ursus/bear/
medved. time/tide/vremya. Study a language--any language--and you will learn much about the
history of the people who speak it. You will also be taking a crucial step toward understanding
the contemporary culture of the speakers. But, contrary to any strict belief in linguistic
determinism, studying a language will not help you predict the future of the people who speak it.
The future will unfold with little regard for present-day language structure. The language will be
shaped by that future, not the other way around.

3) And finally, as you will become increasingly aware, languages are inherently interesting
in their own right. We all are drawn to language from our earliest years of childhood. Learning
to speak and understand language is the first and perhaps most singularly human task we ever
perform. The more fortunate among us become aware of language as an object of scholarly
study. And this course introduces you to every aspect of the study of language, so I invite you to
stay.