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Language and Thought Philosophical Papers - May 9 2007
It seems to
me that the question of whether there is a universal language or whether
particular languages structure our thought particularly is not properly posed as
an either or question. It seems to me that there are aspects of language that
are universal and aspects that are specific to a language. Clearly the objects
of which we speak regardless of the name that we give them are the same
perceptual objects and in this regard language is universal. However, the way
that we concatenate those names into sentences varies significantly among
languages. For example some languages are word position dependent, like English,
whereas other languages are inflected, like russian, word position being
unimportant, but word ending being important as indicating the function of the
word (as subject, object, instrument etc...). Still, these are more superficial
aspects of the thought, i.e., the subject is still the subject or purveyor of
action and the object is still the recipient of the action, and the instrument
is still the method by which the action comes about, whether this is indicated
by word position or inflected ending. So, here I am arguing for a Chompskean
type position, where there is a universal grammar of subject, object, dependent
clause, etc... which is then translated into a particular language by the
application of the grammar rules of a particular language. Certainly objects of
perception are universal, as are deeper categories such as the actor and
recipient of action, as are notions such as quantity, or logical connectives.
Take the notion of enumeration, all languages have some way to number objects,
although I am told in some primitive cultures the notion of quantity is fairly
undeveloped, having notions of merely, one, two, and many. Logical notions such
as conjunction too appear universal, as in conjunctive clauses. Now, I also
think to some extent particular languages structure our thinking and influence
our cultures in certain ways that are particular and not universal. German, for
example, is a very verb oriented language, where the active verb oriented form
of a sentence is used in preference to one centered around nouns, as in french.
As an example, the germans may say "ich spaziere" to indicate they take a walk,
using the verb, but the french prefer "faire une promenade," a form which
centers around the noun 'promenade,' for walk. Even german nouns are built out
of verbs, such as the word for 'intervention' which is 'das Dazwischentreten,'
which literally means 'the there-between-walking.' I think that the
verb-oriented german language has influence their culture to be more action
oriented than the french who, like their language, are more passive and
artistic. I think these general difference in cultures are based upon the
differences in thought as a result of the differences in the structure of these
two languages. Here, I am arguing that particular features of a grammar may
influence thinking. Again, with german, abstract concepts are built out of
indigenous roots, as in the 'Dazwischentreten' example were 'da' there, 'zwischen'
between, and 'treten' to tread are all common words in the german language. This
gives the language a sort of 'logische Aufbau' or 'logical build-up' that is
missing in languages in which abstract concepts are not built out of indigenous
roots, like english, where you have to know latin to know that 'inter-vention'
means 'between-coming' in latin, i.e., 'inter' and 'vention' don't have meanings
in the english language. It is no surprise to me then that germans excelled in
logical aufbau disciplines like philosophy and science, and engineering, I think
partly do to the logical buildup feature of their language. I agree
with you that one thing that distinguishes the thought associated with different
languages is unique vocabularies. Most of the vocabulary of most languages in
the modern world is highly similar, as the objects and concerns in different
cultures are similar. But there are differences. Language like Tlingit have many
different words for different types of snow, as snow is prevalent in their
Alaskan environment. But besides vocabulary differences, differences in deeper
aspects of language like word formation and grammar may affect our thinking. In
Tlingit most nouns are formed out of verbs. And the point I was making about
German is a point not so much about vocabulary as about WORD FORMATION, and
therefore CONCEPT FORMATION. English, french, german and many other language
have a word and concept for 'intervention,' but it is the way in which german
forms this concept that is unique and different from english or french. They
form it out of words that are indigenous to the language, whereas english and
french form it out of latin roots, latin words not being part of the common
vocabulary of english or french. This propery, that I think some linguist call
'calc,' exist in some languages but is absent in many others. It is a property
whereby abstract concepts are built out of indigenous roots rather than being
borrowed from a foreign and perhaps dead language like ancient greek or latin.
Another example is 'television.' English and french use the latin and greek, 'tele'
for 'far' from greek and 'vision' from 'videre' to see, in latin. The concept of
'television,' therefore is 'far-see,' something that allows you to see events
from afar. But in german, they use indigenous roots for the word 'television,'
which is 'FernSehen,' built out of the word for 'far' in german, 'Fern' and the
word to see in German 'Sehen.' This gives germans a glimpse into the analysis of
the concept of 'FernSehen,' that is not available to English and French speakers
unless they have studied latin and ancient greek. Again, consistently, the
german word for 'telephone,' from the greek tele, far, and greek phone, sound,
is 'FernSprecher,' or 'far-speaker.' This feature that is absent in english or
french gives germans a clarity into the analysis of their concepts which we are
missing. It also allows germans to build up their concepts in a logical fashion
from basic word particals. This clarity of conceptual analysis is used strongly
in german philosophy where philosophical concepts are built in a logische aufbau
fashion by 'zusammersetzuung,' or 'together-putting' of smaller concepts into
grander concepts. A simple example is 'ZeitGeist,' which is literally 'TimeSpirit,'
which we would translate as 'spirit of the times.' An example in philosophical
discourse might be Husserl's distinction between Auffassungssinn 'interpretive
meaning' and Anschauungssinn 'intuitive meaning or intentional content of the
intuitive act.' But the use of zusammensetzuung is far more prevalent than this
in german philosophical works. Russian has this property of calc to a lesser
degree. I think the nature of word-formation and not just the resulting
vocabulary is one way in which languages affect the thinking in that language,
but also features of grammar, how words are put together in a sentence, which
tenses and inflections exist in the language. The french have the subjunctive
tense which expresses doubt that exists in a less strong form in english. The
russians have the instrumental case that draws attention to HOW an action is
performed, and other languages have inflections like locative and ablative that
we don't have. Note that I lived and worked in France and Germany and am
familiar with the stark differences between these two languages and juxtaposed
cultures. The only language I studied in college was russian, which has this
property of calc to to some extent. Also Chinese, which lacks plural, gender,
conjugation or inflection of almost any kind becomes a very contextual and word
position dependent language. Plural is formed with number or classifier, like 'I
see many person,' or 'I see three person,' and also, many abstract concepts are
concatenations of common words, like the word for 'scholarly' in chinese is
literally 'love-read-book-of person (ai kan shu de ren).' In chinese the
characters are the particals, and abstract concepts are formed by concatenating
these ideographic particals as I indicated with the example of 'scholarly.'
Therefore Chinese has calc. My major
point is this. I am positing a relation between language and thought,
particularly that concept formation is affected by a property exhibited by some
languages, namely 'calc.' 'Calc' simply is the feature of a language where most
of its abstract concepts are formed out of indigenous roots. By 'indigenous
root' I mean a common word in the language. Some languages have this property
some don't. English and the romance languages, which are latin derived (English
partly so) don't have it; languages like german and chinese do, and russian to
some extent. I gave the example of 'television' where in english and romance
languages you need to know latin to know this means 'far-see,' whereas in german
the indigenous words 'far' and 'see' compose the word television, as FernSehen.
Likewise in chinese, the word for scholar is ai-kan-shu-de ren, which literally
means 'love-read-book-of person,' i.e., the abstract concept of 'scholarly' is
composed of indigenous words, 'read,' book, love. Positing a relation between
particular languages and thought, my argument is that languages with calc allow
the native speaker to have immediate comprehension of abstract concepts as
composed out of simpler words in the language, and this offers a clarity in
analysis of concepts and also concept formation. Languages with calc are also
particularly good at inventing words for specific contexts out of indigenous
roots, as german does for philosophical concepts, like ZeitGeist (spirit of the
times).
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2021
