If any of you languagephiles out there are not familiar with the Spair-Whorf hypothesis, it posits that the language a person speaks influences his or her thought patterns perception of the world. I have always found this fascinating for a variety of reasons, but especially when considering something like word order in the construction of a thought and how that affects the relative importance of words within a sentence.
The reason I bring it up today is that I was talking with a friend of mine about the role of language regulation agencies in the world and the fact that English doesn’t have one. (Sidenote: I was not aware of this, but according to this list from Wikipedia, English is the only language in the world that doesn’t have an official agency to dictate correct and incorrect usage, accpeted and unaccepted words, etc.).
Now, my mind drifted to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and how the English language is, due to the lack of a true regulating agency, more fluid and adaptable as a language than, again according to the list above, ANY OTHER LANGUAGE IN THE WORLD. How would that spread to its speakers? Does that somehow make English speakers’ thoughts more malleable? Does it make them more resitant to a central authority figure? I dare not intrude on the work of the eminent linguists and sociologists who have come before me, but the prospects of truly having FREE SPEECH, as opposed to “well, this word is not in the dictionary yet, so I can’t use it” is mind-boggling.
I feel that it results in what I feel language is supposed to be: free-flowing, ever-progressing, and the principal outlet for self-expression. But perhaps that’s because I grew up as an English speaker. Perhaps if I had grown up in Spain, I would say that achieving true self-expression through the limitations imposed by the RAE is a challenge and the reward is enhanced expressive abilities that result only from the existence of those obstacles. I would say that in Spanish though, I guess.
What say you, good readers?
Tags: English language, linguistic criteria, Oxford English Dictionary, RAE, Style Guide
This is fascinating. Other than hearing about how the Nazi’s outlawed the use of foreign words, replacing words like Orange with Apfelsine (even though oranges don’t grow in Germany), I had never stopped to think about the roles of institutions in the development of language. However, I think even with languages which have a regulated standard version, all that means is that the everyday spoken language is called a “dialect.” Even English has its dialects, even if no single version is the approved standard.
I would guess it doesn’t significantly affect the way most people talk most of the time, I imagine it does artificially affect the evolution of language. Going back to the example of German, in Switzerland you find “high German” which is taught in school and spoken in certain business/professional settings and Switzerdeutsch (Swiss German) which is spoken by everyone in social and most workplace settings, but varies significantly from province to province.
I suppose there is a balance between language as an effective way to express/shape thought and language as a way to communicate with people who are different from you. The more significant the difference (someone from Basel speaking to someone from Bern, or someone from London to someone from New York, or someone from Tokyo to someone from France) the more likely you will need to adjust your thinking to communicate with the other person.
Thanks. Your post is thought-provoking. I, too, have recently read about the lack of a language regulation institution for English; our “authorities” are grammar handbooks and usage guides, many of which still advise rules that are obsolete in spoken English. I’m currently studying social and regional varieties of English, and how language is still regulated socially (e.g., stigmatized dialects).
Also, on the topic of language regulation agencies, I wonder to what extent speakers of a certain language actually “follow the rules” and to what extent that squelches dialectical diversity.
Sarah and Abi -
Thanks for reading and responding. My post was a reflection of my thoughts in the moment…and that’s the beauty of a blog!
I think Sarah’s last paragraph is very interesting and important; where is the line between what I would call “functional language learning” (rules for grammar and word usage so that people in a culture can understand each other) and “individual language incorporation” (how each person plays with the structures and rules to express things in a new way without losing his or her audience.
I have found that there are many people who live in a country regulated by an agency who STICK to the rules and edicts passed down by said agency. However, I do tend to hang around with complete geeks, so take it all with a grain of salt.
Well this article is definitely thought provoking. Indeed the Sapi-Whorf Hypothesis as it is know is undergoing very strong revival recently after having been made COMPLETELY unpopular. However, I would like to point out that most of the content of the article is based on a very superficial understanding of the S-W Hypothesis. The English Language, although not ‘controled’ by any institution is NO better to express one’s thoughts than any other. Even in languages such as French (strongly influenced by what the “academie francaise” says) phenomena of lexical innovation are common and use EXACTLY the same processes as lexical innovation in English… So yes, perhaps in the short term it looks like new words are not created in those languages but this is just an impression. French, Spanis etc. evolve too…
Thanks you for pointing out S-W they have room in the literature, but not that much. But the domain of lexical innovation is not so much relevant for the hypothesis really…
Sorry for being a bit critical but, I really could not shut it here. I have been dealing with linguistic relativity quite a bit recently.
Bastien.
This is my first visit to this website and I found your post to be very interesting, almost instantly sending me on a long chain of thoughts on the topic.
However, like many others, I do have my doubts about the Sapi-Whorf Hypothesis:
If it were that an individual’s language was a determining factor to how they perceive the world, then would it be true to say that those communicating using extremely small, simple languages with a limited lexicon see the world in a more simple way to those speaking complicated languages such as french? The answer to that I say would be no. In some languages, despite not having a specific word to define an object or emotion, the speakers are still well aware of them.
The reason for this is because different languages ‘parcel out’ the world in different ways. in the ‘real’ world, mothers and fathers have sisters and brothers, but lanaguages talk about them differently. In english, there are no signle words expressing the notions ‘ mother’s brother’ or ‘father’s brother’, however in numerous other languages of the world, we have a different situation. family photographs would look the same, but the words would have different senses. This example illustrates that though different languages express these relationships in varying ways, there exists no difference in the way an Australian thinks of their mother’s brother or their father’s brother to how a Chinese person may perceive similar members of their own family. Obviously, despite there being no term differentiating between these relatives, Australians clearly can differ between their mother’s brother to that of their father’s. Hence in some cases an individual’s perception of the world may not always coincide with the language they speak.
melony
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