I talk about language a lot here. It’s part of my name and a big part of my identity on this blog. I’ve talked at length about the mechanics of language in other posts. But why is it that I’m so interested in language?
A lot of people (myself included at one point) think of language as a tool and not much else. This is true to a certain extent. We use sounds and symbols to communicate potentially very abstract ideas to each other beyond the scope of what any other living thing on this planet can do. It’s a tool of communication in much the same way as an axe is a tool of cutting down a tree: without it we’re not getting much done.
If you’re looking for a deep dive into what linguistics is, check out my first post about it!
Linguistic Relativism
Here’s the thing I’ve come to realize after studying linguistics though: language is a lot more than just a tool of communication. There’s a theory in linguistics called linguistic relativism (a descendant of the theory of linguistic determinism). This theory says that language influences the way you view the world. Now there’s an important distinction here. “Influences” is not the same as “determines” (thus the change from determinism to relativism). If language determined our worldview then people speaking the same language would likely all share the same opinions on everything.
So, while you might not realize it on a day-to-day basis, the way you use and interact with language is influencing your worldview. I’m gonna give some (in my opinion) interesting examples of how this works in some basic circumstances that you might not have thought about.
Color in Different Languages
Yep, we’re starting it real simple. Color: one of the foundational parts of our interactions with the world, and one of the first things we’re taught in school. Depending on how languages classify color, we can end up viewing color very differently.
Light red isn’t a color in English. Pink is. We consider blue and light blue to be the same color with different shades, but red stands on its own without a “lighter” variant, becoming pink instead. We do the same thing with orange and brown. Weird, right?
Well, in Russian, they actually do make this distinction. Light blue and “normal” blue are considered as separate colors, each with their own separate words.
Compared to English and Russian, other languages might make their classifications even more complicated. Irish Gaelic, or just Irish, classifies colors very differently from what we’re used to. The word glas refers to not only natural green colors, but also light blue. Uaine is used to refer to artificial greens. Corcra refers to purple but also some darker blues like indigo as well as more reddish hues like magenta. Gorm refers to some darker bluish-green and blue hues, usually those associated with the sea and sky. For red, there are three different words: rua for a copperish color, dearg for darker reds like the color of blood, and bándearg (literally white-red) for pinkish colors. Buí is the word for yellow and orange colors, and oráiste is a more recent addition to the language for some orange colors.
That was a lot, I know. But I hope it helps to demonstrate how complicated something as simple as color can be from one language to another!
Numbers
There are a lot of different ways to count.
In English we use what’s called a base-10 counting system. This means that we reset our counting to 1 after each group of 10. But there are a lot of other systems.
If you’ve ever seen Mayan writing, or seen the weird bars on Guatemalan Quetzales, you’ve probably wondered what it means. Well, Mayans use a base-20 counting system. The numbers 1-4 are written as dots in a line, then 5 becomes a bar. This repeats for every count of 5. Once they reach 20, a 1 is placed above the number to represent a full count of 20, and the counting resets at 1.
Many languages have different counting systems, from base-5 to base-12, base-16 and so many more. Binary code is actually a base-2 counting system, since the only options are 0 and 1.
Other Examples
Here’s some other, somewhat brief examples of how language can affect worldview. They’re not as common between languages as color is, so they don’t warrant their own sections.
There are some aboriginal languages in Australia, like Guugu Yimithirr and a few others, that don’t have words for left and right. Now that probably sounds strange: they’re so important for navigation, how do people get around? Well, they use cardinal directions instead. Since they need to use cardinal directions to point to everything, they’re always thinking about the direction they’re facing. This means they basically have a compass in their head, making them excellent navigators.
Circling back to Irish, there are no words for yes and no. Other Celtic languages share this trait. Instead, they just repeat back part of the question with an affirmative or negative. So if I asked, “Did you do the laundry?” the proper response would be “I did” instead of yes. Overall, I feel like this makes question-answer communication clearer than in English. A question like “Is he not doing the laundry?” can be difficult to answer if your main options are yes and no. Usually I answer these like I’m speaking Irish (i.e. by saying either “he is” or “he isn’t”) or I’ll answer with something like “correct”.
Language Interaction
Languages interact a lot. This shouldn’t come as a surprise. But they actually do a lot more than you might think when they interact.
Language Borrowing
Borrowing is a big one. Languages borrow words from other languages all the time. One big example of this is the language I’m using to speak to you now. English takes words from other languages constantly. For example, pajama and jungle come from Hindi. We’ve borrowed so many words from French I couldn’t even begin to list them all.
So how does this happen? Well, it can happen for a lot of reasons. It could be that speakers of one language forcefully added their own words into another. Maybe an object or concept was discovered or invented by one culture, and then other languages adopted their word for it as a result. It could happen because of trade (like the words chai and tea meaning the same thing, but spreading to different languages based on trade routes) Television is one example. It was invented in the United States and many other languages use the same word or a similar version of it.
One of the biggest things that can come from language borrowing is pidgins, which then become creoles. These often develop when two languages heavily interact or one is spoken by a group that has power over the other and they need a way to communicate. They usually start as a pidgin, which is a grammatically simplified way of speaking that makes communication easier. Eventually, this might develop into a creole, which is a full, independent language combining multiple other languages. For a good example, check out my article on language in Belize, which touches on Belizean Kriol!
Dialects and Languages
What separates a language from a dialect? Well, that’s a bit of a difficult subject in linguistics. See, the general difference is that if two people can’t understand each other while speaking, they’re speaking two different languages. If they can, then it’s a dialect, regardless of their physical location. British, Australian, and American English are perfect examples.
What complicates this definition is politics and social bias. In China, for example, they speak “Chinese” and all of its dialects. But most of these so-called dialects are, linguistically speaking, separate languages. Mandarin and Cantonese speakers cannot understand each other. On the opposite end of this, Hindi and Urdu speakers can understand each other just fine when they’re speaking, but they use different writing systems (Urdu uses the Arabic system while Hindi uses Brahmi/ Devanagari). Because of this, even though they can understand each other (and are linguistically dialects), they are considered separate languages.
Conclusion
So, why am I so interested in language? Well, it’s so much more than a tool for communication. Language encompasses an entire way of looking at the world and interacting with your surroundings. You can also trace how different cultures interacted with each other by looking at where and why and how they’ve borrowed words or grammar from each other.
The best way to experience another culture while traveling is through their own language. I post language travel guides here for various languages and countries, so check back in the future if you’re traveling somewhere. If you’re looking to learn another language, I wrote some tips and advice for doing so, from a linguist’s perspective.
Have any questions or comments? Make sure to let me know below.
