At some time in the very recent past, from an evolutionary point of view, something quite dramatic happened in the human lineage. Humans developed what we now have: a very wide range of creative capacities that are unknown in the previous record or among other animals. There is no analogue to them. Thatâs the core of human cognitive, moral, aesthetic natureâand right at the heart of it was the emergence of language.
In fact, itâs very likely that language was the lever by which the other capacities develop. In fact, other capacities may just be piggybacking off language. Itâs possible that our arithmetical capacities andâquite likelyâour moral capacities developed in a comparable way, maybe drawing from the analytical, computational mechanisms that yield language in all of its rich complexity. To the extent that we understand these other things, which is not very much, it seems that theyâre using the same or similar computational mechanisms.
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Clearly, culture influences and shapes language, even if it doesnât determine it.
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Thatâs a common comment, but itâs almost meaningless. Whatâs culture? Culture is just a general term for everything that goes on. Yes, sure, everything that goes on influences language.
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If weâre, letâs say, in a violent environment, doesnât that shape the vocabulary? Wouldnât that lead us to talk about âepicenterâ and âGround Zeroâ and âterrorismâ and other terms in the lexicon of violence?
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Sure, thereâs an effect on lexical choices. But thatâs peripheral to language. You could take any language that exists and add those concepts to itâa fairly trivial matter. But we donât know anything really about the effects of culture on lexical choices. In my view, itâs unlikely cultural environments meaningfully affect the nature of language. Take, say, English, and trace it back to earlier periods. English was different in Chaucerâs time or King Arthurâs time, but the language hasnât fundamentally changed, the vocabulary has. Not long ago Japan was a feudal society, and now itâs a modern technological society. The Japanese language has changed, of course, but not in ways that reflect those changes. And if Japan went back to being a feudal society, the language wouldnât change much either.
Vocabulary does, of course. You talk about different things. For example, the tribe in Papua New Guinea that I mentioned before wouldnât have a word for computer. But again thatâs fairly trivial. You could add the word for computer. Ken Haleâs work from the 1970s on this question is quite instructive. He was a specialist on Australian aboriginal languages, and he showed that many of these languages appear to lack elements that are common in the modern Indo-European languages. For example, they donât have words for numbers or colors and they donât have embedded relative clauses. He studied this topic in depth and showed that these gaps were quite superficial. So, for example, the tribes he was working with didnât have numbers, but they had absolutely no problem counting. As soon as they moved into a market society and had to deal with counting, they just used other mechanisms. Instead of number words, they would use their hand for five , two hands for ten . They didnât have color words. Maybe they just had black and white , which apparently every language has. But they used expressions such as like blood for what we would call red .
Haleâs conclusion was that languages are basically all the same. There are gaps. We have many gaps in our language that other languages donât have, and conversely, they have gaps that we donât have. Itâs a little bit like what I said before about whether organisms vary infinitely or whether thereâs a universal genome. If you take a look at organisms, they look
In fact, itâs very likely that language was the lever by which the other capacities develop. In fact, other capacities may just be piggybacking off language. Itâs possible that our arithmetical capacities andâquite likelyâour moral capacities developed in a comparable way, maybe drawing from the analytical, computational mechanisms that yield language in all of its rich complexity. To the extent that we understand these other things, which is not very much, it seems that theyâre using the same or similar computational mechanisms.
Â
Clearly, culture influences and shapes language, even if it doesnât determine it.
Â
Thatâs a common comment, but itâs almost meaningless. Whatâs culture? Culture is just a general term for everything that goes on. Yes, sure, everything that goes on influences language.
Â
If weâre, letâs say, in a violent environment, doesnât that shape the vocabulary? Wouldnât that lead us to talk about âepicenterâ and âGround Zeroâ and âterrorismâ and other terms in the lexicon of violence?
Â
Sure, thereâs an effect on lexical choices. But thatâs peripheral to language. You could take any language that exists and add those concepts to itâa fairly trivial matter. But we donât know anything really about the effects of culture on lexical choices. In my view, itâs unlikely cultural environments meaningfully affect the nature of language. Take, say, English, and trace it back to earlier periods. English was different in Chaucerâs time or King Arthurâs time, but the language hasnât fundamentally changed, the vocabulary has. Not long ago Japan was a feudal society, and now itâs a modern technological society. The Japanese language has changed, of course, but not in ways that reflect those changes. And if Japan went back to being a feudal society, the language wouldnât change much either.
Vocabulary does, of course. You talk about different things. For example, the tribe in Papua New Guinea that I mentioned before wouldnât have a word for computer. But again thatâs fairly trivial. You could add the word for computer. Ken Haleâs work from the 1970s on this question is quite instructive. He was a specialist on Australian aboriginal languages, and he showed that many of these languages appear to lack elements that are common in the modern Indo-European languages. For example, they donât have words for numbers or colors and they donât have embedded relative clauses. He studied this topic in depth and showed that these gaps were quite superficial. So, for example, the tribes he was working with didnât have numbers, but they had absolutely no problem counting. As soon as they moved into a market society and had to deal with counting, they just used other mechanisms. Instead of number words, they would use their hand for five , two hands for ten . They didnât have color words. Maybe they just had black and white , which apparently every language has. But they used expressions such as like blood for what we would call red .
Haleâs conclusion was that languages are basically all the same. There are gaps. We have many gaps in our language that other languages donât have, and conversely, they have gaps that we donât have. Itâs a little bit like what I said before about whether organisms vary infinitely or whether thereâs a universal genome. If you take a look at organisms, they look