The Nature of Human Language

Introduction

The study of the nature of human language is the most fruitful subject that can ever be thought of. Language is in many ways man’s most wonderful possession and achievement. Without language there would be no communication of ideas and without communication of ideas, no progress in arts, science and literature can be registered.

Language is a constant feature in man’s daily life. It is as common as the air we breathe or the bodily movements we make. Language though so common a feature in everyday life, yet is not so easily workable like other bodily activities. A child born in a society will not automatically develop speech although his physical organs to produce a human language will remain the same. He will in the act of a speech require the fostering guidance of a society. A child taken away from one society will not speak the language of the society where he was born but will develop the language of the place where he is transferred. Language is thus a human activity that varies from society to society and is the result of a long continued social heritage.

Language is a distinguishing feature in man which differentiates him from all other forms of aloga, i.e., speechless beings. No animal is ever found to possess it. No society of man either existed in the past or exists in the present where the gift of speech is absent. As a vehicle of thought and culture language is endlessly flexible and adaptible. As an instrument to communicate events of history it is unique, as a media to reproduce literary niceties or subtleties, it is infinitely suggestive, as an object of curiosity and metaphysical reality it is surprisingly wonderful.

Language is familiar to us. It is common, very common to us. We live in the midst of language, we have our being in language. So common and so natural is language to us that we seem to forget its very existence. A moment’s reflection shows that it is extremely fascinating, curiously suggestive, definitely practical and highly repaying. We all know what language is but the real difficulty begins when we attempt to define it.

Definition

It is customary in matters scientific to start with definitions. All definitions are taken as dangerously necessary. A definition is not a description. A definition usually tries to set forth the proper qualities that give it a definite shape, a distinctive feature and a diagnostic value for recognition. A definition is not static. It is dynamic and moves with every change it faces.

To define language with precision is an exacting task. Language is looked at from a multiplicity of viewpoints. It is a subject of philosophy, psychology and sociology. The neurologist, the physicist and the logician take note of it. The literary artist and linguist regard language as their special preserve. Even people in the ordinary walk of life have of late evinced a keen interest in language irrespective of their understandings of the nature and function of language. There is, therefore, no wonder that the definition of language will differ. A few of the definitions are reproduced below:

i.                     “Language is the expression of thought by means of speech sounds.”–Sweet.
ii.                   “The ever-respected labour of the mind to utilise articulated sounds to express thoughts.”–Humboldt
iii.                  “Language is defined as the learned system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which human beings as members of a society interact and communicate in terms of their culture.” –G. L. Trager.
iv.                 Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions, desires by means of a system of voluntarily produced symbols.” –E. Sap.

The definitions given above are not mutually exclusive but supplement one another and bring out different aspects of language.

Etymology

Language is derived from Middle English ‘langage’ is from old French ‘language (from langage ‘tongue’) which is ultimately from Latin, lingua, ‘tongue.’

Language and lower animals

The language of man and that of animals differ, as the lower animals can only vocalise, i.e., they can express a limited meaning with calls, grunts, yells, mons, etc. Furthermore, the sounds made by the animals continue in the same form, whereas human language varies at all times. The animals emit the same sounds–dogs bark, cats mew, lambs bleat, horses neigh, donkeys bray, lions roar, etc. Even birds (the parrot, the maina, etc.) that imitate human sounds make a restricted use of sounds. Their sounds are unconnected and they cannot speak like human beings. No human group, however primitive or ward or illiterate, is found on earth which does not possess the faculty of speech.

As distinct from lower animals man can verbalise, i,e., can express judgments with verbal symbols. Words separate man from lower animals. It is by means of words that man can transmit his information from generation to generation and can store and disseminate knowledge. Man can further augment knowledge already acquired in previous generations but lower animals, it is presumed lose everything when they die. Animals can no doubt communicate but man has the dexterity to make his communications a unique pattern of human behaviour.

A human language is adaptable to any circumstances–past, present or future. It can delve into the hoary past and even can prognasticate the future. Animal communications can only refer to here and now. It is instinctive, inflexible and invariable. Man can create concepts, combine words, invent idioms and phrases and evolve sentences, while lower animals can only repeat their utterances over and over again for countless eons of time. No primate has ever evolved a prototype of speech, no anthropoid has ever added anything to its vocabulary and no human child in isolation (cf, the Hessian Wolf-Boy of 1349, Lithuanian Bear-Boy of 1661, Wild Peter of Hanover of 1724, Ramu of Indian sub-continent, etc.) has developed a speech. Language is an acquirement, it thrives only in a linguistic community.

Speech is a faculty which differentiates man (man ‘to think’) from the lower animals. The development of speech in man is a slow and painful process. The Greeks had a fine word ‘aloga’ (a = without and logos = speech) for animals. The animals can communicate their feelings by means of certain sounds which are hardly worth the name of a language. To be language properly so called the power of thought must lie at the . Language is the medium of communications and speech is the machinery through which the medium is operated. Language embraces wider domain including the society and speech is concerned with individuals. Language is enduring (so long as it is accepted in society) whereas speech is transient. Language has two aspects–i. individual act of speaking (abstract) and ii. conversation (concrete).

As a result of the synchronistic study of language, importance was naturally attached to the study of living languages and speech in particular assumed an all-embracing position. Thus the Swiss savant, Ferdinand de Sassure (1857-1913), came forward with a theory of language. He made a three-fold aspect of language and concentrated mainly on two of them. He regarded language (human language as a whole) as having two aspects–langue (the language system) and parole (the act of speaking). His idea may briefly be illustrated.

Le langage

It has no exact English equivalent. It embraces language in all its forms and manifestations. It includes two complimentary aspects:

i.                     Le langue ‘language’, the sum total of speech sounds used in a community and the meaning attributed to them.
ii.                   La parole ‘speech’, man’s capacity to use language as a means of communication.

Language and Dialect

It is difficult to draw a distinct line of demarcation between a language and a dialect. A London cocknee can understand a Yorkshire peasant but he cannot hold conversation with a German from the continent, although English and German are closely related. In the Iberian peninsula, Catalan, Castilian and Portuguese are dialects of a single Hispanian language. The difference between a language and a dialect is one of degrees and not of kind.

A dialect is spoken by a section of a speech community in a certain portion of a territory having a whole set of speech differing from that of others in pronunciation, grammar, forms and meanings. Dialects are so similar that speakers of neighbouring areas do not experience any difficulty in understanding one another. Dialects are not in all cases a corruption or mutation of standard language. Every great language owes its origin to certain dialect or dialects.

In our day-to-day conversation we notice differences in the speech of a highly educated person, an ordinary fellow and a rustic. A dialect is a variety of a language current in a district or locality and has its specialities in pronunciation, vocabulary and phrases. The character of a dialect is that it is delightful, racy, pithy and vigorous. A dialect may be indigenous to a particular place (cf. the Pennsylvanian Dutch, a blend of Frankish or Allemanmc. It has now produced a literature). Dialects may also be geographical or social (cf. different classes, castes or occupations).

Dialects are not of conscious creation. Their origin is steeped in obscurity or like the beginning of human speech buried in oblivion. In a community having constant communications individual differences tend to merge in the general speech of the community and some sort of uniformity prevails. If by chance separation of one community from that of another takes place and lasts for a reasonable length of time differences gradually crop up between them. The differences may be great or small according as the different lengths of time. If the length of time after separation is considerable the difference may be greater which ultimately leads to the development of a new and separate language. Notwithstanding this difference a number of common features persists which enable us to surmise that they were at one time one and the same dialect. Thus the kinship between English and German is apparent in many words (cf. Eng. milk; Ger. milch; Eng. bread; Ger. brot ; Eng. waster; Ger. waster, Eng. flesh, Ger. fleisch, etc.). The connection between English and Latin may similarly be illustrated (cf. Eng. father; Lat. pater; Eng. brother, Lat. frater, etc.). If we go one step further and say that English father is the same with Dutch vader, Gothic fadir old Norse fadar; German vater, old Irish athir (with the loss of initial consonant); Sanskrit pitar, etc., we are emboldened to say that all these present languages were at one time dialect variations of one and the same language (i.e., Indo-European which no longer exists).

It is easy to differentiate English from Italian. But in Scandinavia where a Swede, a Norwegian or a Dane talks to one another in his own language, each understands the other. Shall we then speak of one or several languages? Is the speech of a Yorkshire peasant the same with a Missisipi farmer? Is Arabic spoken in Egypt or Persian current in Iran the same with the Arabic spoken in Arabian or Persian heard in the Pamir plateau?

Standard language

Standard language is a language with an official recognition and use by the educated members of the society (cf. the King’s orQueen’s English in Great Britain). The principle which sustains or preserves standard language is not snobbery but natural convenience, internal as well as external. Standard language is the language of the educated classes and differs according to differences in time and place. A standard language is not superior to any other language. There is nothing inherent in the nature of standard language which can regard itself as supreme and enables it to look down upon others as reprehensible. It is standard in the sense that it is wide1y current, highly cultivated, more polish and raised in general estimation. A standard language originates as a result of a sublimation of a local dialect and its ultimate official recognition (cf. the parisian French). A standard language is a dialect of a group having attained military importance (cf. Castilian Spanish). Standard language may also be the result of a local dialect having literary preeminence (cf. Florentine or Tuscan Italian).

Characteristics of a language

A number of special traits is usually associated with a language. A few of them may be enumerated below:

i. LANGUAGE IS A SYSTEM

A system implies some sort of unity, regularity and meaningfulness in certain observable features of behaviour. Thus a legal system denotes an orderly description of laws prevalent in a country with their relations to one another. The screaming of an infant does not constitute language but when it systematizes the noises it is language. Language thus as a system means that the units comprising it are coherently whole. The sounds of a language are not haphazard, they are not capricious, they are well-ordered and follow definite rules, i.e., they are a code or body of rules which have places within the system.

ii. LANGUAGE IS A SET OF SOUNDS

Language is made up of sound or sounds but all sounds do not form the rudiments of a language. Sounds like ah, oh or interjections convey ideas but they do not constitute language. The cry of the cuckoo, the bleating of the lamb, the hooting of the ape, the quackling of the duck, etc., are fairly articulate but they are not language, as they do not combine together to form ideas and judgments. The communication of mammals are also sets of sounds. By sounds animals can indicate dangers to their companions but they cannot locate the nature of the danger. If any source or location is indicated, it is merely instinctive.

iii. LANGUAGE IS A SYMBOL

A symbol indicates a dualism, the signifier or the thing signified or better the form and the meaning. A linguistic symbol tries to represent externally (by means of work-symbols, etc.) what is manifest internally, i.e., emotion, volition, etc. It is not always physically possible to bring out what is passing in the innermost recesses of the mind. So expressions like “I cannot tell, words betray me, etc.,” are not vague utterances but are symbols of the inherent difficulties. A linguistic symbol is normally unconscious but on occasions it becomes conscious. Thus when an endeavour is made to suppress one language in place of another or to revive one language in favour of another, linguistic symbols become conscious.

A symbol is a token of the thing rather than the thing itself. There is nothing in the nature of things that gives the symbol a meaningful content. It is the tacit agreement or convention that gives the symbol an arbitrary character. A symbol is different from a sign which has a direct bearing on the object (cf. water falling from a tree is the sign of rains). Linguistic symbols if juxtaposed cease to operate as symbols.

iv. LANGUAGE SYMBOLS ARE VOCALIC

Language symbols are vocal. There are other symbols:

(a) Gesture: Gesture is intimately bound up with tonal expressions. A gesture, however enlightening, cannot express a complicated thought process. The lexicons of human gestures comprise a vocabulary (i.e., distinct and expressive movements of the hands, arms, fingers, faces, etc.) of more than 700,000 forms. Other gestures are–sign-language of the North American Indian: Hand imagery of the Hawaian Hula; Dances of Bali, Cambodia, etc.; Japanese flitation of the fan; Devices in the sports world; Signs used by merchants and traders; Heliographs, etc.
(b) Special Codes: Semaphore, a highly developed form of gestures-Morse code, etc.
(c) Written signs: Signs of arithmetic and algebra (plus, minus, equals, etc.)
(d) Colour signs: A red stop light, a green light, etc.
(e) Picture signs: Road signs.
(f) Sound signs: Beating of drums, Chiming of bells; Tickling of clocks; Calling of bugles; Blowing of whistles, etc.

None of the symbols, however illuminating, constitute language. Vocal symbols are thus the sounds produced by the human vocal organs (lungs, larynx, lips, teeth, etc.). All sounds produced by the human vocal organs are not linguistic symbols. Sneezing, coughing, crying, etc., have no symbolic values, since they do not represent anything outside themselves. It is only when they convey some sort of conventional meaning, they may stand for some marginal place in a linguistic community.

v. LANGUAGE IS CONVENTIONAL

There is no necessary connection between linguistic means and what it symbolises. Thus an animal may be called horse in English, cheval in French, pferd in German, etc. None of the forms seem to be more adequate or important for the animal to designate. Even onomatopoetic words on analysis turn out to be conventional in character. Take the Bengali work ‘kal-kal’, English ‘gurgle’, French ‘glou-glou’, etc. They all imitate natural sounds but they are quite different. Thus the sounds of a dog are expressed in English as ‘wow-wow’; French ‘gnaf-gnaf’, etc. All these words are appropriate signs, since they are formed by tacit agreement by members in distinct social groups.

vi. LANGUAGE, A MEANS OF COMMUNICATIONS

Language is one of the many means of human communications, others being already referred to.

vii. LANGUAGE HAS A PATTERN OF ITS OWN

Every language has a pattern, a structure of its own. It is the pattern which determines the model of a language and to which the utterances of the speakers conform.

viii. LANGUAGE IS COMPLETE

It does not mean that every language has a word for everything. It simply means that the speakers of any language can express any object or idea ever if it is absent from its vocabulary. Its absence from the vocabulary merely indicates that its speakers did not like that.

ix. LANGUAGE IS A LEARNED BEHAVIOUR

Many of us think that speech is automatic and innate. We take it for granted that we can walk or climb, so we can speak. Nothing could be more erroneous than this. The act of speech is not the result of physical activity. Left to himself a child can develop his walking ability, and children born in any part of the world develop the habit of walking in almost the same way. But left to himself a child would not develop talking, he would require the knowledge of verbal symbols agreed upon by people in a society. Speech is thus a learned behaviour. It involves extremely complicated physiological processes. It also takes into account an equally difficult social and psychological process of oral communications.