Did you ever realize which power your words have? Even the wise King Solomon wants to remember us of this power "There is one who speaks like the piercings of a sword, but the tongue of the wise promotes health." (Proverbs 12, 18)
But today I don't want to talk about the biblical view of the usage of words. Even among linguists, this power is well-known. Scientific articles like "My words are my world" want to emphasize the meaning of the words we use in order to explain the world around us. That means that our words shape our world and the other way round. But probably, the words are more significant in the shaping process because for things that are important for us we want to have words in order to name them. Respectively, things that are unimportant or of no meaning to us, we probably won't have names for them. Especially when comparing different languages, you will be able to find such peculiarities.
Another linguistic article (which however turned out to be a hoax!) treats the words for snow in the Eskimo language and it claims that they have about 400 words for snow depending on its consistency. All these findings hint at the idea that as snow is of enormous significance to the Inuit because it is there world and it's important if snow is dry or wet ... (I'm sorry for not being able to cite the work academically - I can't find it right at the moment!)
All these thoughts crossed my mind when I was reading "1984" by George Orwell. Orwell, who wrote this novel in 1949, writes about the future in 1984 when the world is divided in three huge dictatorial regimes. Winston Smith, the protagonist, lives in Oceania and they have a thought police in order to control all the citizens. Among other things they try to control them by forming a new language, Newspeak. This language is the only one in the world with a lexicon that gets smaller every year; words are destructed on purpose. One of the linguists who works with Newspeak, Syme, puts it like that: "Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it."
To be honest, I found it shocking and fascinating at the same time! Shocking because it shows how easy it is to control people, what they are thinking and therefore also what they are doing. Fascinating at the other hand because it shows how artificial languages are and how “easy” it is to influence them. That's what I like about linguistics, the scientific study of language – you suddenly realize what you are speaking and why you are speaking the way you do it! That's so exciting!
That brings me back to my starting remarks: what we are saying is of great significance – and what we are experiencing as well. We have to look for new words if there's a phenomenon we encounter and we aren't able to name it. But it also shows that we have to be careful with our words ...
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5 comments:
very interesting. i agree that we must think before we speak and act. many people don't take the time to do that and end up making bad decisions or wishing that had thought about it. and still some people don't care. Thanks, Lukas for showing us how important and influential our words are. see you next week.
You wrote a long blog but not boring. I'd like to read your blog.
I read "1984" last year, and it as the textbook of my IEP class at that time. It is a good material as ideological education.
That was really interesting. I think it's cool how the Inuit people have so many words for snow which shows the how important it is to them.
You raise a very good point. I appreciate your theory and your challenge to people.
1984 is one of the greatest books ever written. I could go on and on about it, but I won't. I'd recommend that you read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. It's good too. Good blog.
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