Language: Translations of Thought

     I have always loved language. So far, in decreasing order of proficiency, I have studied English, French, Russian, German, Spanish, Farsi, Mandarin, and Italian (currently working within Mandarin). But don't expect me to be able to immediately respond in anything but English (and, perhaps, French) as I have never been in the situation of actively using languages other than English on a daily basis so, over my 60 years of language learning, there are some parts that will need an archaeologist to unearth. That doesn't stop my love of languages or my desire to understand.

     It is sometimes still a puzzle for me to move between what language indicates and what it means but I still love it. I cannot stand euphemisms, however, because I feel like they steal from the language. They are, in my opinion, the "anti-language" whose purpose is to create confusion and make communication more difficult. I will tackle them in another blog, as they deserve their own piece.

     A lot of people like to categorize -- and I confess to being part of that group (in case you have never been able to tell from my blogs). Languages can fall into two general groups -- "natural" and "created" languages. Natural languages develop from the first grunt up into a sequence of complex sounds and structures that are unique in relation to the world. Created languages are devised by communicating individuals for specific purposes, with specific goals and (usually but not always) specific audiences.

     Natural languages do not appear only within the human world. I have recently read an article about the creation of a bottlenose dolphin dictionary. Jane Goodall, within her works with chimpanzees, has used modified sign language (a composite of natural and created language forms) to communicate with the groups of chimpanzees -- but the chimpanzees do start with their own language directly suited to the needs of their environment. To the best of my knowledge, created language remains within the world of tool-manipulating sapients but not necessarily just humans.

     Created languages include those to communicate with machines and those used for specific purposes. For example, Semaphores are coded forms used with sight and hearing to allow simple translations of existing meaning into a form that can be transported over a distance. Within the world of computers, there is machine language which is composed of "instruction sets" which are directly acted upon by the components of the processor. These are built upon by assembly language which is a more readable -- but directly substitutable -- form of machine language. And upon this lies the "high level" computer languages which translate into reproducible larger sets and structures of assembly/machine language.

     Within high level computer languages, the designers have the opportunity to use the language as "shorthand" for things they want to be able to accomplish with fewer commands. SNOBOL is oriented towards manipulating "strings" -- such as sentences or word patterns. FORTRAN was developed primarily for executing mathematical FORmula TRANslation. 'C' is sometimes called the most low level high level language there is because it allows the greatest direct equivalencies to assembly language (even allowing direct insertion of assembly language within a program) without directly using the structures of the processor.

     Other created languages have been formed for social reasons. Esperanto was designed to be a universal human language. There is now an active Klingon language (prior to discovery of physical Klingons) based on the ingenuity of enthusiastic fandom. Pidgin, or "trade" languages, have been created as a merging of the dominant language of the traders and the local language of the people with whom they want to trade.

     Natural languages arise first out of the physical environment. If you live in the Arctic region, then snow and ice are important aspects and need, and deserve, different words variant on the type, use, method of creation, and other characteristics of the frozen water. On the other hand, if you live in the middle of a desert, words for frozen water may not appear very soon but words for types of heat, sand, and moving terrain would be more useful. Vocabulary from life in the high mountains would be different from that of the lowland tropical forests. Your language must first reflect the world around you.

     Beyond the physical environment comes the social, cultural, political, and religious world. In the Russian world and environs, where a central authority has been in control for more than a thousand years, the language reflects a directive authority towards the larger population. People do not do things -- things happen to people. German acts as a "push down" language where many concepts, items, identifiers, and actions may be present and kept as part of the overall context until the sentence has been completed -- at which time all of the parts of the sentence interact. In the early forms of some languages such as Japanese, there are two languages co-existent based on what can be done, and thought, within different social classes.

     An acquaintance pointed out how well suited the ideographs of Asian language are for empires and acquisitions -- the written language acting as a common foundation under many different verbal variants. In addition, the written Chinese language puts together thought concepts into more complex ideas that then take different forms within context. This is very different from written language which reflects the phonetic (sounds) aspect of a spoken language. In the one case, if you can read you can speak. In the other case, if you can read and write you can move concepts from one group to the other without any commonality of the spoken language.

     The recent movie "Arrival", based on the short story, by Ted Chiang, "The Story of Your Life". In this story/film the language is independent of time and, in turn, allows the mind that understands it to be free of the constraints of linear time. Although this may appear to be beyond likelihood of reality, it is true that language gives structure, and constraints, to thought while thoughts are difficult to express without a means to express ideas held in common between two, or more, people.

     Language is a reflection of the history, culture, and story of a people and there is loss when the languages are lost. Translations can be approximate but not exact. But, like with the ideograph, it is possible to create a meta-language that is a concept-based set of structures to allow better translation from one language to another -- which is one approach that current Artificial Intelligence (AI) programs take. No matter what is done, languages open many doors.