Damn. Lots of typos these days. Live Journal’s spell checker and edit feature have spoiled me. . .
DaLovin’ Dj
I will quote Grant Morrison and Rachel Pollack now. I may not get the words quite right, but does it really matter?
Grant (from an issue of The Invisibles)
“Remember when you were young and tried to free your thoughts from barriers by writing with your left hand instead of your right? There is a demon who bounds human thought. Its name is ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ.”
Rachel (From an issue of Doom Patrol) “What makes snake mystical? The quiet sounds of fish making love. What is the meaning of gender? Where the trees goe down to the waterline and pray. Where do you go when you can’t get out? Inside your mouth, under your tongue. Where do you go when you can’t get out? Convulsive beauties of silence. Where do you go when you can’t get out? Convulsive beauties of silence!”
On one marklar-the specifics of language can influence the way a person thinks. Spanish, French, and Italian have a formal and informal form of the second person. En Espanol, tu and usted both mean “you”. But tu is the informal used for friends, children etc. Usted is used to speak to strangers, by children speaking to adults, and when adressing authority figures.
OTOM-As others have said every animal seperates the world into categories-food, poison, prey, threat, etc. Language naturally shows this.
I agree with Asimov that one of Shaespeare’s great talents was contrasting words with Latin roots with words based on Teutonic roots. eg “Enough to render the multitudinous incarnadine, making the green one red.” The more synonyms we possess, the more connotations we can express. House and home have the same denotation- a dwelling place. But home has conotations of warmth, comfort and security. House conveys only a meaning of the physical structure. Numerous companies have said that their product “makes a house a home.”. I once heard a singer express how dysffunctional his family was and how lonely he felt growing up with “And I lived all alone! In a house, not a home!”
The more words we have, the less bounded our thoughts become. A newborn can only cry to express hunger. Then, it will learn specific cries to request certain foods- a short barking sound to mean Gerber’s pinwheel cookies for example. Next, the child will be able to use words recognizable to a stranger. Finally, the child is able to request food it has never experienced (I’ll have the chicken marsalla), and even describe and invent food that does not exist( Hey Ben, I want ice cream with raw cookie dough in it.).
In the pit thread against Justhink, Lamia and I had a very lengthy discussion about this topic of language being a part of thought.
Check pages 7 and 8.
Oh, yeah, a veritable Churchill: “Yee-haw! Ah’m from Arkinsaw! An’ Ah don’t know what is is!”
All abstract thought requires an agreed upon set of terms or symbols. Imagine that a human being has lived without every seeing another person or anything which would indicate the existance of other humans. Though this has some significant differences from Tarzan’s story, I’m calling this hypothetical person Tarzan (largely cuz it beats typing they, he, or this hypothetical person. Tarzan eventually picks up some basic caveman skills. One day, he discovers he can make marks on the inside of preserved animal skins. Tarzan realizes that he can now travel into unfamiliar places without becoming lost. He only has to bring hide with him and make marks to show how the new places are. He makes a map- an arbitrary set of symbols.
He also realizes that by using these marks he can note important events and plan for them (winter, the migration of herds etc). At first, Tarzan decides to make one line for each day. Then, he realizes that it would be quicker to draw a moon for every 30 days. But each moon sign could be any 30 days of any season. So, Tarzan makes a special moon sign for each moon of the yearly cycle(for the sake of discussion lets just assume he feels that the wheel of seasons is 3 moons of winter, spring, summer, and fall each). Tarzan can now plan far ahead.
Or he paints a picture on a cave wall and paints not just the thing, but how he feels about the thing.
Or Tarzan wonders where he came from and invents a religion.
Even without ever seeing another person, Tarzan needs language for all these things.
Clinton may not be Shakespear but Bush makes him sound like a fucking poet. It’s funny, on the history channel it seems like leaders used to be really well spoken. It really seems to make being cheated and lied to much easier to stomach. When you have to pay attention to the actions of most poilticians (on either side) the world gets very depressing rather quickly.
DaLovin’ Dj
Well, I’ll agree with you there, DJ.
Tarzan? What about the kid in The Jungle Book?
Pythagras, did you either
a)write this OP on acid? (it’s ok, you wouldn’t be the first)
or b) just finish reading The Book by Alan Watts.? He talks like your OP a lot. (language is meaningless–we are “separating” things by naming them–we are reducing things to mere “labels” of convenience, etc.) This would be fine too.
(I don’t recommend reading Watts and doing acid simultaneously though–Watts starts making wa-a-ay too much sense)
“Words are useless. Especially in sentances” - Bjork
What’s happened to Pythagras? Has he fallen into the sea of something-ness? Did he go out foraging for an “o”?
Well, since he’s not with us at the moment, please pardon me for interpreting the OP on his behalf, but I think what he’s asking about is language use (naming in particular) and how it affects our ability to have a spiritual/mystical enounter with the great sea of something-ness otherwise known as the Universe. See here:
As far as I can tell, he’s not talking about the kinds of language use that most of us would consider to be practical or useful for our daily lives. Language is obviously indispensible for us in the realm of mundane affairs. But the OP seems to be asking about how best to “approach the Universe,” the external world as a totality. Is language “meaningless” in this regard?
I could be wrong, of course, but that’s my take on the OP. And now if you’ll excuse me, I think I just heard the sound of one hand clapping…
Hmm, if that is what he meant then-
But, it is not that language is faulty. For language is also a gateless gate. To be without language is to be truly limited. With language, one can expand the limits. But only when you have truly understood and accepted language can you transcend it and be limitless.
Blemmy ehny ah fu! Uh!
That seems like a common sense assertion, but what is your evidence for it? What is a thought pattern? If thoughts are some kind of linguistic pattern, how come aphasiacs can still think?
Contrasting specific aspects of syntax between languages is very misleading. A language weak in tenses can still be rich in temporal adverbs… the end result is always the same in terms of fitness.
I don’t believe that’s true. Concentrating on the handful of words and phrases that do not have a one-to-one mapping between two given languages misses the real point that translation makes about language: 99% of it is easily translated by someone fluent in both languages. To me this indicates that what underlies language… that is, thought… must be pretty congruent between people who speak different languages, or any translation at all would be impossible. It isn’t.
The counterexamples don’t really say a lot either… of course something like poetry is going to be especially difficult to translate, as its meaning is intentionally bound up in syntactic and phonetic features specific to that language. While this makes for an engaging translation problem, it speaks to language’s relation with thought not at all… all languages have poetry because all people can conceive of language as both a message about the world and as something in and of itself worthy of consideration… it’s not that a particular pun is untranslatable that we should take note of… it’s the fact that most languages have puns because people love to make them.
Other translation problems again don’t break down to any inability to think about concepts somehow bound up with a particular language… language acting as a shorthand for shared culture is not a translation problem; it’s an experience problem. Also, people are practical… if a turn of phrase cannot be translated with the same pithiness into our language of choice, we’re perfectly happy to import the phrase wholesale and use it. People often know what these phrases mean without being able to analyze them syntactically: je ne sais quoi, savior faire, ad hominem, etc. Regardless of our familiarity with the language, we seem to quickly be able to grasp the concepts it is expressing.
1984 is fiction. You can’t control people’s minds that way in real life. Read up on the history of slave revolts in Haiti to see just badly trying to limit people’s ability to communicate with one another fails to break their spirit. Furthermore, check out the totally cool phenomenon of pidgins turning into full-blown languages within a generation or two with no effort on the part of the speakers.
-fh
I wouldn’t say that language is necessary for thought(Though I did say it is for abstract thought). But I do think (I gotta look for a cite) thought is influenced by language. EG using a formal form of “you” to address authority figures will reinforce the idea that they are seperate and superior form your peer group.
Ian Watson’s The Embedding examines the relationship of language and thought. It’s an SF novel dealing with(non spoilers from the back cover) aliens researching human languages, a South American tribe whose sacred drug causes them to switch to a grammatically correct but near unintelligible syntax, and scientists raising children in isolated labs. IMHO great read until the final act.
Jorge Luis Borges’ Uqbar, Tlon, And Orbius Tertius does with language what MC Escher did with space, and geometry. Borges invents several languages, one of which has no nouns.
.- .–. .–. .- .-. . -. - .-… -.-- .-.-.- .–. . — .–. .-… . .-.-.- .-- … — .-.-.- .- .-. . .-.-.- -… — .-. -. .-.-.- -… . .- …-. .-.-.- … .- …- . .-.-.- -. — .-.-.- … -. - . .-. -. .- .-… .-.-.- -… … .- .-… — --. …- . .-.-.- - … . -.-- .-.-.- -… — .-.-.- -. — - .-.-.- . -…- .–. . .-. … . -. -.-. . .-.-.- - … . … .-. .-.-.- - … — …- --. … - … .-.-.- … -. .-.-.- - … . .-.-.- …-. — .-. – .-.-.- — …-. .-.-.- … -. -. . .-. .-.-.- … .–. . . -.-. … .-.-.-
.-. .- - … . .-. .-.-.- - … . -.-- .-.-.- … -.-- – -… — .-… … … . .-.-.- - … . … .-. .-.-.- - … — …- --. … - … .-.-.- - — .-.-.- - … . – … . .-… …- . … .-.-.- … -. .-.-.- … .- -. -… .-.-.- … … --. -. … --…-- … .- -. -… .-.-.- … -.-- – -… — .-… … .-.-.-
.- -. -… .-.-.- - — .-.-.- … — – . .-.-.- . -…- - . -. - .-.-.- … -. .-.-.- …-. .- -.-. … .- .-… .-.-.- .- -. -… .-.-.- -… — -… … .-… -.-- .-.-.- . -…- .–. .-. . … … … — -. … .-.-.- .-. .- - … . .-. .-.-.- - … . -. .-.-.- -… . … -. --. .-.-.- … -. .-- .- .-. -… .-… -.-- .-.-.- … . .- .-. -…
Well, Iamthat, that makes sense… in a way. It’s sort of like you’re saying that people whose native languages are spoken symbolize their thoughts in words, sentence structure and prosody. You’re still talking about a kind of inner dialog using a language, it’s just that the building blocks of that language happen to be different. So it’s true… but to the native signer, the focus is going to be on the content on the language, not the form. The form in normal use is transparent, unless you’re talking about poetry appreciation or the like.
The question I’m asking is how do you know that you’re really thinking using patterns of language and not some other mental symbol system? And the answer I’m looking for is that contrary to what we intuitively feel about how we think, we are not actually thinking in our native language… we have a separate “mentalese” that we’re actually using and our language is a medium for transmitting our thoughts and hearing other people’s thoughts.
-fh
Language is little more than the abstract tags we use to communicate ideas and concepts with one another. Language is meaningless, the concepts and ideas are not.
How well you manipulate those tags determines how effective you will be at comunicating what you meant to.
Actually Pythagras, you’ve got it the wrong way around. It is language alone that gives meaning to an otherwise incomprehensible and meaningless universe. We cannot hope to understand things that do-not-have-a-name, so they remain literally meaningless, while things that do-have-a-name can be experienced, and thus possess meaning.
Mangetout, I would argue that it is language that itself organises the discrete packages and entities rather than just reflecting them. It is our ability to linguistically categorise ‘sets’ of things that allows them to exist at all. I don’t think that language just describes; it also creates things by allowing them to be named and thereby bringing them into existence.
Wow, I cant believe this thread is still alive :).