Journal 7

A World of Words

The significance of the roll of languages in the constituency of human nature is practically unchallenged in the academic world. Nonetheless, as of its nature, language tends to be the ignored background behind all of our daily activities and it is, in itself, mostly unnoticed. However, this is not caused by the irrelevance of language, but by its fusion with our thought structures.

Since languages are so intricately intertwined with how we perceive, think, feel and act, it could be said that, in certain sense, we are language. Languages are filters through which we apprehend and structure both the world and ourselves. They determine what is and what is not and, therefore, languages are entire, independent worlds. This can be seen, for instance, in how people with different vernaculars, even after learning a second language, interpret reality in different ways. For example, Spanish speakers see trees as masculine entities, Portuguese speakers as feminine ones and English speakers lack the differentiation.

All this implies that language diversity brings also diversity of thought and the benefits of having different ways of thinking are obvious: more diversity means better questions and more answers. In fact, from this comes the value of cultural heritage. If we all spoke the same language, we would definitely communicate better, but we would also be constrained to only one perspective and progress is achieved only when things are seen from a new and original standpoint.

The fact that different languages go with different ways of understanding might indicate that there will always be certain distance between people who do not share the same mother-tongue. Furthermore, since no one shares exactly the same language, we would be all limited to our own structural spheres and, thus, complete mutual understanding would not be possible.

Yet the evidence leading to the inference of a common basis under all different languages is not little. The most remarkable sign is, undoubtedly, translation: even though flawless translations are probably impossible (for reasons related to the argument presented in the preceding paragraph), the fact that, as imperfect as they may be, translations can exist indicates that there are certain common structures to all humans on which language is built. And this conclusion seems quite reasonable considering we all have brains with largely similar characteristics. Moreover, from this reasoning one could it follows that understanding (i.e. translations) between us and an alien species may not be possible.

It has been said, nevertheless, that a language any intelligent being would be able to understand does exist. Evidently, this would be mathematics –the purest of all languages. However, the universality of mathematics comes with a price: although it can be applied to the world, the purity of its constituent relations would indicate math, as a system, is independent of the rest of the world.

Still, can any language completely reflect the world? The answer seems to be no: we try to capture the world through an extensive web of concepts and rules, but completely modeling it is probably far out of our capacity. Although, this might not be as clear for mathematics as for informal languages, even in the realm of math it is impossible to describe all the truths, that is, everything that exists. This has been, in fact, proved by Gödel’s theorem of incompleteness.

Since, after all and in spite of being a social phenomenon, languages seem to be so personal, a big question remains unanswered: can we really learn a new language? Because, even if we can communicate like native speakers, how can be sure that we are not just talking through a sophisticated adaptation of our vernacular or that our model of the new language does not correspond to the actual patterns of a native speaker? This is impossible to verify (at least without using brain scanning techniques, like fMRI).

However, regardless of whether one can completely acquire a new language or not, it is clear that, besides the practical benefits, studying languages is an extremely positive experience. In particular, few things can be more mind-broadening than learning to think in another language and, thus, this should be fostered as an incentive for creativity, critical thinking and intercultural understanding.