My own work takes the point of view that thought does not exist independent of the semiotic system which encodes it – art, maths, music and, of greatest interest to me, language.

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, the argument that thought is conditioned by the structure of language, is an old one. Whorf had described the language of the Hopi Indians and showed that their language encoded obligatorily certain concepts which we do not have in the Indo-European languages. For example, nouns are inflected to include the difference between long straight things and round things. Concepts of time are encoded differently in the verbs.

A later article (1981) by A.H. Bloom compares Chinese and English at the level of the clause. There is, it seems, no specific grammatical structure available in Chinese for what applied linguists call the third or hypothetical conditional: If you had called me, I would have come at once. Bloom calls this “counterfactual”. I looked up my (elementary)Chinese grammar and it gives examples of only the first and second conditionals: If you really want to buy a car, then buy one. If I were you, I would marry him. It gives no example of the hypothetical conditional.

Apparently, the author’s Chinese students found the idea of a hypothetical condition not merely difficult: they found it offensive and “unChinese” to imagine the consequences of an imagined untrue situation. This meant that they could not understand an important academic concept.

A.H. Bloom (1981):The Linguistic Shaping of Thought: A Study of the Impact of Language on Thinking in China and the West, LEA New Jersey

In this marvellous book, Bruce Chatwin does more than describe the Australian songlines. See last blog. What follows are my words, not his.

He suggests that human beings have been nomadic hunter gatherers for two million years and settled farmers for only eight thousand years. Our brains are therefore wired up to a life like that of the Australian aborigines (before the white man destroyed it). We struggle with our settled existence: we are designed to walk, not to sit or to labour. This idea resonates very strongly in me, as I was passionate about walking, both on my own and with my rambling club and felt completely at home and fulfilled when walking. Chatwin quotes the Buddha: “You cannot travel on the path before you have become the path itself.” That is exactly what it felt like. Continue reading →

Bruce Chatwin (1987) republished Vintage 1998 (out of print but obtained, through Amazon, from Oxfam Walthamstow for £0.01 plus postage).

I read this many years ago, but wanted to re-read it after reading the description of the illiterate stone  age people speaking hundreds of different languages in Papua New Guinea (Vanishing Voices). It is hard to imagine a society, until recently without writing, largely isolated in their mountain villages and trading with people speaking non-cognate languages. I remembered The Songlines about the Australian aborigines, which describes the life of nomadic hunter gatherers, whose languages are embedded in a culture utterly different from ours. Continue reading →

The strength of “Vanishing Voices” is that it sees language, not as something abstract and isolated, but always embodied in, and a part of, social practice.

In his book on the salt trade* the historian, Samuel Adshead, relates the development of the state to the written language needed for administration. He writes:

“Both politics and bureaucracy required the new higher literacy of classical languages embodied in canonical texts: Homer, the Zeud Avista, the Vedas and Upanishads, and the five Confucian classics.

“Pre-classical language, mainly unwritten, was confined to the spatial, the specific, the objective, the human and the concrete. Classical language, essentially written, provided concepts for the temporal, the generic, the subjective, the divine and the abstract.

“The new classical languages everywhere widened horizons, but they created deep social division between those who possessed the new literacy, the aristocracy and urban males with a minimum degree of leisure, and those who did not, women and country people – farmers, fishermen and miners.”

This describes very well the gap between the concrete language of everyday life which everyone has access to without going to school, and the abstract language of learning and power.

The gap between those that have abstract language and those who have not remains. The success of Breakthrough to Learning showed that appropriate teaching can close that gap.

* S.A.M. Adshead: Salt and Civilisation (1992)

Daniel Nettle and Suzanne Romaine (2002) “Vanishing Voices: The Extinction of the World’s Languages”, OUP, USA

This is a wonderful read. First, the authors’ evocation of the pre-literate, fluid world of hundreds of languages co-existing in a limited area, such as Papua New Guinea. These are the languages which are endangered by the modern world.

Second, the authors pull no punches in describing economic reasons for the death of languages, namely colonialism by the European powers (and now the United States), which robs tribal peoples of their resources in the search for raw materials.

Third, they make an interesting case for bi-lingualism as a way of saving the hundreds of languages currently under threat, giving Denmark as an example. Here Danish remains the language of home and give s people their identity, but resources are poured into schools to make sure that Danes also have an excellent command of the world language, English.

The effect of the written language is mentioned, but it would be interesting to read more about the impact of literacy in saving endangered languages.