Natural
Languages
Natural languages (this category
excludes artificial languages such as Esperanto, formal languages such as logic
and mathematics, and such “languages” as art, or music, or flowers, or
drafting, or the genetic code) have six identifiable characteristics:
1.
The foundation of language is speech: writing, signs, or
gestures are not of the essence.
2.
Speech acts are social and directed: speaking, like fighting
or like making love, is an act done to someone else. And speaking is
reversible; that is, the speaker can also be a listener. (Talking only to one’s
self is like masturbating.)
3.
Language is an institution of a community: it is governed by
the rules of those who speak it; it is not innate, but must be learned. Infants
(in fact or in fiction) who are reared by animals (Kaspar
Hauser, or the wild child of Aveyron) must all be
later taught how to speak. Units of sound (phonemes) may be combined in various
ways, according to the syntax or morphology of the language, into a system, and
the whole thing holds together. The vocabulary of individual sounds is not as
important as the relationships between them. Human beings can therefore use
language creatively; they can speak and understand sentences never uttered
before. Max Black calls this the “productive aspect” of language.
4.
Different languages of course use different combinations of
the twenty to forty phonemes which we can pronounce. Greek and Latin, for
example, had to translate the Hebrew phoneme sh into
s (as in Moses, Solomon, Jesus, Isaiah). Russian had
to borrow the Hebrew sh letter.
5.
Language is meaningful: it expresses thoughts and wishes; it
evokes responses; it connects with the world; it helps determine “the facts” and
our self-knowledge.
6.
Languages are in a process of constant change. New words are
being coined all the time. T. H. Huxley coined agnosticism; Whewell
coined physicist and scientist in 1840; Thomas Gray introduced picturesque in
1740; the first appearance of capitalism is in 1854; civilization does not
appear in Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary (1775); gas was coined by Van Helmont; altruism by Comte, If we still shudder at camp or
funky, we should remember that Herbert Spencer denounced educational, and Mill
called sociology (the coinage of Comte) a “convenient barbarism.” Shakespeare
coined (or at least is the first recorded user of) assassination, bump, critic,
disgraceful, dwindle, fitful, gloomy, impartial, lonely, sportive, bare-faced,
and countless. And words disappear: swive and insisture, for example.