Language and thought are inextricably liked. This is a fairly obvious thought, perhaps, for it is clear that we think in words. (Some may argue that we can also think in pictures, images, but while images may evoke feelings or create in us conditions where certain thoughts are more likely, the actual thoughts always come in words). What is less obvious is that because all language is finite and, therefore, limited, our language limits our thoughts. Or, to put it more bluntly, in any given language there are thoughts that are unthinkable.
Now it may be argued that this is a temporary, not a fundamental, problem because languages are continually extending themselves, adding new words to contain new ideas, new thoughts. But this assumes that all of the limitations of a given language are in its limited vocabulary. Language is not vocabulary, but rather the union of vocabulary and grammar, and the limits that grammar puts upon thinking are at once both more subtle and more intractable.
The major modern languages have all grown to be robust enough that we are rarely aware of the limitations they impose upon us. Probably the people who notice them most are those who try to translate thoughts from one language to another. In a simplistic view this should merely be a fairly mechanical process of substituting one word for another—an English word that denotes the same thing as a French word, for example. But this ignores two major problems: First, words not only denote, they also connote. That is, in addition to the literal meaning of the word there is also a vast, vague cloud of other meaning and emotional colour that is attached to the words in each language, and these “clouds” may be very different. To consider this, consider the two English words “diaphanous” and “translucent”. Both mean, literally, “allowing light to pass through” (the first from the Greek, the second from the Latin), yet they have different connotations—to say a woman’s clothing is diaphanous is more romantic than to say it is translucent (or worse, transparent).
The second problem is that of grammar. Because of the increasing international conversation, most of the major modern languages share similar grammars, though they may be expressed differently, but this is not always so. For instance, our ability to talk about time—that is tenses—can vary. Again, there is a simplistic view that in English, for example, there are only three tenses: Past, Present, and Future, but this is, after a little reflection, clearly not true. Consider the differences between “I went to the store”, “as I was going to the store”, and “I used to go to the store”. The first describes a single, completed action in the past, the second a past act that was in progress, and the third a series of past acts that is now over. And these by no means complete the list of past tenses (“I had gone…”, “I would/could/should have gone…”, “I had been going…”). Having this array of tenses allows us to say some very nuanced things, but what if the other language has a different array of tenses? There is, for instance, no English equivalent of the Koinè Greek aorist tense.
These problems are bad enough between robust languages: In translating the New Testament from Koinè Greek to English, for instance, do you try to keep the simplicity and force of the original or do you try to convey the connoted colouring by expanding and explaining? Does either really capture the original thought? But the problems become issues of morality and justice when we consider less robust languages.
Next time I will look into this issue.
thoughtfulspirituality 