In the Beginning Was Information (28 page)

Definition L2:
A language is a system of arbitrary sound symbols by means of which a social group interacts (Bloch and Trager).

Definition L3:
Language is the institution used by human beings for communication and interaction by means of conventional and voluntary oral-auditory symbols (Hall).

Definition L4:
Henceforth, I will understand language to comprise a set (finite or infinite) of sentences, each of which is finite in length and consists of a finite set of elements (Chomsky).

A2.1.1 General Remarks on the Structure of Human Language

Language is the ability to express information. Apart from various secondary means of expression like mime and gesture-language, natural spoken language is the most important and most extensive vehicle for communicating information. An unlimited range of subject matter can be expressed by means of human language, achieved by a brilliantly conceived structural system, for all languages comprise a hierarchical system of lingual units. The smallest units are the sounds, and it is noteworthy that only about 600 sounds which could in principle be produced by the human speech organs, are used in the known 5,100 languages. When a child learns a language, those sounds heard most frequently are repeated, and other sounds are thus not learned. The child diminishes the range of sounds until, eventually, the frequency distribution typical of his mother tongue is obtained.

Among languages, the number of sounds employed, varies between 15 and 85. The Rotokas language spoken on Bougainville Island, New Guinea, has the shortest alphabet, namely only 11 letters — six consonants and five vowels: a, b, e, g, i, k, o, p, r, t, and u. Having said this, we still do not know how many different sounds can be produced with these letters. On the other hand, the Nepalese language employs more than 60 letters, while 72 letters including obsolete ones, are used in Kampuchean. The largest number of vowels, 55, is found in Sedang, a language used in central Vietnam; this includes the various pitches at which "similar" vowels are voiced. At the other extreme, the Caucasian language Abkhazian, has only two vowels. Another Caucasian language, Ubyxian, employs the greatest number of consonants, between 80 and 85, while the above-mentioned Rotokas uses only six, the smallest known number.

The sounds which serve as acoustic elements of a language are known in linguistics as
phonemes
. In German, most phonemes are represented by single letters, but often two or three letters are required (e.g., ei, eu, and sch). With only a few exceptions, phonemes are meaningless sounds — they carry no meaning. The most concise meaningful units are the
morphemes
, which are the simplest structures at the lowest linguistic level. At the top of the lingual hierarchy is the most complex level, namely the entire text. Being the smallest functional language unit, a morpheme is comprised of one or more phonemes, e.g., simple words without prefixes and suffixes. A morpheme is itself part of a
lexeme
or word, or identical to one. Lexemes are the basic units of the vocabulary of a language in conventional form (e.g., singular nouns or the infinitive form of a verb). Many words appearing in a text are usually inflected forms of the lexical unit. There are very many possible ways of word formation, but all languages employ only a fraction of this total. The greatest number of different sound combinations would be attained when all sounds or phonemes could be combined with all others in every possible sequence. Sequences like ktx, nxr, or bfg appear to be possible, but do not occur in English or German. The allocation of the meanings of sound combinations (words) are arbitrary and must be learned through experience, but the combination of words to form sentences is a different matter.

It is very remarkable that, although we do not know the meaning of a word which we have not yet heard, we can understand sentences that have never before been voiced, and we can produce an infinite number of new sentences which can immediately be understood by the members of our language group.

The words of a language are linked together in sentences according to fixed rules. These rules (grammar) prevent the construction of chaotic word jumbles, and provide languages with practically unlimited ways of expression. Every sentence is a sequence of morphemes, but not every sequence of morphemes makes up a sentence. The rules of grammar determine the way in which morphemes and words should be combined to express a certain meaning, and syntactical rules (syntax = construction of sentences) determine which word combinations form acceptable sentences and which combinations are unacceptable for the language involved. Language expressions have a definite meaning in the sense that the members of a given language community have allocated their meaning by common agreement (convention).

Semantics
describe all possible conceptual meanings or structures which can be expressed in the form of sentences. It does not only involve general meanings and concepts of words, groups of words, and sentences, but also the relationships between these meanings and reality, the so-called referential relationships.

In spite of the large number and variety of languages, there are many remarkable common properties:

1. Wherever there are people, the gift of language is evident.
   
2. Linguistically seen, there are no "primitive" languages. Every language has its own complexities and its own strengths and weaknesses according to the relevant semantics.
   
3. Although the relationships between sounds and the meanings of language elements are arbitrary, they nevertheless are fixed by the conventions of the language.
   
4. The human vocal organs are able to produce about 600 different sounds, but any one language uses only a specific selection of these sounds. The number of different sounds lies somewhere between 15 and 85 for a given language, and these sounds are combined to form words (elements which convey meanings). In their turn, the words can be used to form an unlimited number of possible sentences.
   
5. Every language possesses its own unique grammatical structure which describes the rules for forming words and sentences within that language.
   
6. Every spoken language comprises a limited number of sound elements which can be classified in various ways. A universal distinction, valid for all languages, is that between consonants and vowels.
   
7. All languages have comparable grammatical categories, like nouns, verbs, and numerals.
   
8. Some semantic units like feminine, masculine, and human being are common to all languages.
   
9. It is in all languages possible to refer to the past, to refute assertions, to set questions, and to formulate commands.
   
10. The vocabulary of any language can be extended. New words are given a meaning through convention, and are subject to the relevant morphological rules, the acceptable sounds, and the prescribed symbols.
    
11. Any normal child can learn any selected language, independent of place of birth, geographical region, or racial or social group. It follows that the ability of articulating any arbitrary language by means of the vocal organs is inherent and, thanks to the gift of reason, any lingual systems can be learned to such an extent that arbitrary sentences in that language can be constructed and understood.
    
12. It is in principle possible to formulate any arbitrary idea in any language. Human languages are able to convey an unlimited number of meanings and contents, in contrast to the communication systems of animals.
    

A2.1.2 Complexity and Peculiarities of Languages

The German poet Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1724–1803) asserted, "Every language is, as it were, the storehouse of the most unique concepts of a nation." Language characterizes a nation and it is strongly influenced by the environment. We shall now discuss some examples which illustrate the statement that "the vocabulary of a language indicates WHAT a nation thinks; the syntax indicates HOW the people think."

The Beduins have various names for a camel, each of which expresses some specific aspect of its place in their life. Some hunting tribes in East Africa use a range of words for expressing various shades of brown, but they have only one term for all other colors lumped together. In some Slavic languages the auxiliary verb "to be" plays a minor role compared to its position in the Germanic and the Latin languages. This indicates a quite different realization of the problem of "being" for the respective nations. The Eskimo languages have many different words for snow. For example, they distinguish between falling snow, snow lying on the ground, and solid snow cut into blocks. A certain language of the Philippines employs 92 different words for 92 different ways of traveling. The Tabassarian language spoken in Daquestan (in the former Soviet Union) acknowledges 35 kinds of nouns, and in a certain Eskimo language there are 63 present tense forms and up to 252 inflections for simple nouns. The North American Indian language, Chippewa (Minnesota), holds the record for the largest number of verb forms, about 6,000, and another Amerindian language, Haida, employs the greatest number of prefixes, namely 70.

In the Nepalese Kulung language there are three different words for "come," indicating whether one comes from above (yuo), from below (tongo), or from the same level (bano). In a mountainous country, these distinctions are very meaningful, but they would not be required in the Netherlands. The Nepalese have five different words for "mountain" which indicate various altitudes. This language also has an extensive vocabulary for describing family relationships; not only do they distinguish between paternal and maternal lines, but they also encompass various age groups. There are four different words for "we," indicating, for example, whether the addressed person is included or not, and they also differentiate between many persons and two only.

In Sunba sentences, a single sound is included which has no inherent meaning, but indicates how the person who is talking acquired the information. This caused problems until the Wycliffe missionary involved discovered that it meant that the person either experienced it personally, or was relating something which he had heard. This usage is important for Bible translation, since the Bible writers usually report personal experiences.

Approximately one-third of all languages on earth are tonal. This means that the same word expressed with a change of pitch (or pitch contour) carries a different meaning. With some tonal languages, when written down, the pitch contour is indicated. To do this it would conceivably be possible to employ musical notation, but this would be too cumbersome for daily use. In any case, in tonal languages it is not the absolute pitch which is important, but the correct change in pitch (pitch contour) when one pronounces individual syllables. Most tonal languages use from two to six pitch contours, which may be indicated by a superscript behind each syllable (see block 7 in Table 2), or by using accent marks as in French. Tonal languages are found in and around China, and also in Africa and America. We often find tonal and non-tonal languages in close proximity, but often there is no indication of a "family tree of languages."

Metaphysical ideas can be expressed exceptionally well in the Amerindian language Hopi, while an ephemeral state cannot be formulated abstractly in the Indo-Germanic languages. For example, the word "run" usually elicits the questions: where? whence? or whither? But to describe the essence of running, we require combinations like "running as such," or "simply running." In the Hopi language, a single suffix is appended for such a purpose.

We should not regard the Amerindian languages as primitive in the light of the following important statements about them [O4]:

As counted in 1940, there are about 150 Indian languages which have nothing in common with the European linguistic heritage. Their vocabularies are enormous and their grammar indicates that the grunting noises made by Indians in western movies are far removed from their actual lingual proficiencies. They are characterized by pleasant melodious sounds, an imaginative art of expression, fine nuances and descriptions, and methodical constructions …although they lack words for abstract concepts like truth, love, soul, or spirit. William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania (= Penn’s rural forestland), who lived in a neighborly accord with the Delawares, described their way of reasoning in the following words: "I know no European language which contains more words depicting friendliness and generosity in the colorfulness of their sounds and intonation than their language."

In many languages, the nouns are classified according to grammatical gender. In the Latin languages the nouns are either masculine or feminine, and in German, Greek, and the Slavic languages there is a third gender, the neuter. There is no satisfactory explanation for this arbitrary classification of objects and concepts in different genders. It is, for example, difficult to understand why the German words "Mädchen" (girl) and "Weib" (wife or woman) are regarded as belonging to the neuter gender. Mark Twain (1835–1910) commented as follows: "In German, a young lady has no gender, while parsnips are feminine." In Hebrew, gender plays an even more important part than in most European languages. Not only nouns, pronouns, and adjectives are distinguished according to gender, but verbs also. The simple sentence "I love you" can be expressed in six different ways. It is different when it is said by a man or by a woman, or directed at a man or a woman, or directed at a group of men or a group of women. The best known "genderless" language is Chinese, which has only one word for the pronouns "he," "she," and "it."

Most noteworthy is the peculiarities of languages as far as semantic categories like parts of speech and idiomatic expressions are concerned. In many cases, special structures are required to express gradual differences. In the Igbira language of Nigeria, the sentence "He has said that he would come tomorrow," for example, is regarded as an uncertainty rather than a promise. The Wycliffe Bible translators battled with this problem when they had to translate biblical promises into this language [H3]. The assertion in Mark 14:49, "But the Scriptures must be fulfilled," describes a completely open event in this form. To make a statement definite, the Igbira language employs a double negative. The above-mentioned sentence thus had to be translated as follows: "It is not possible that God’s Book would not become true."