Notes - Through the Language Glass by Guy Deutscher

When I was studying for my degree in Linguistics we were told very firmly that, "All languages are equally complex". Not only did our professors tell us so, but it was in the text books too.

I've always thought that was a bit odd, but I couldn't put my finger on why. I never challenged it, but neither did I ever hear any evidence for it. I have repeated it myself, when my mother, a dedicated teacher, but also with some old fashioned ideas, announced that "English is the most complicated language in the world". I disagreed - I'm sure that I would find Mandarin or a Native American language far harder. I suspect that my mother said it to encourage learners not to give up, a sort of "Look how well you are doing, don't expect it to be easy, it's the most difficult language in the world". But I also had a feeling that we were being told it to stop racist ideas of 'primitive people speak primitive language'.

Another thing that was dismissed in very short order back when I started studying was the infamous "Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis". This is the idea, expressed first in the 1920s, that a speaker's native language determines their perception of the world. In its most extreme form it suggests that the speaker's language is a mind-prison filtering their ideas, and not permitting them to think ideas outside the straight-jacket of their language. This is clearly nonsense, any idea can be expressed in any language. Our language does not prevent us from thinking certain things.

In this book the author demolishes the idea that all languages are equally complex, then he looks again at how our native language may affect our thoughts. It turns out that we can have our ideas steered in certain limited directions by our languages. Specifically, this may happen in two different scenarios. Firstly, in languages with gendered nouns, and secondly, in the assignment of the spectrum to different colour names.

Language Complexity

The first part of this book looks at different languages, and yes, they do differ considerably in complexity. Vocabulary is very much larger in literate cultures. In the first world we have borrowed words from the languages around us, because we have writing we are reminded of the words that have been used by generations before us. Speakers of languages in more isolated and illiterate societies have a much reduced vocabulary. On the other hand, there is an inverse correlation between the complexity of a society and the complexity of word structure - the morphology. Broadly speaking, in less complex societies more information is encoded into the word.

How Gender affects our Thoughts

In English we don't use gender for inanimate objects (except in a few very specific situations, boats, for example, are feminine), but most languages do use gender for inanimate objects. French, Spanish, and Welsh have masculine and feminine nouns. German adds neuter to these. These are not assigned in any obviously logical way (although they may once have been) and are seemingly random. Gender in linguistics doesn't even have to refer to sex, it just means 'type'. Some languages have a gender distinction between animate and inanimate objects, or between human and non-human animals. My favourite example was the Australian aboriginal language with 15 different genders, including two for spears - depending upon size and material.

However, it turns out, through very careful experimental design, that the genders of objects in our native language can affect our perception of that object. Speakers show differences in the attributes that they associate with an object because of the gender of that object in that language. So that German speakers will associate feminine adjectives (slender, graceful, beautiful, elegant, etc.) with a bridge while Spanish speakers will associate masculine adjectives (strong, sturdy, towering, big, etc.) with the same bridge - matching the gender of bridges in those languages. There is plenty of evidence for how this affects the thoughts of speakers of gendered languages. Obviously, it doesn't force the speaker to be unable to reason, but it does affect how they think about things.

How our Language can affect our Classification and Perception of Colour

The other way that language can affect how we perceive things is the names of colours. Deutscher explains how it came to be realised that ancient societies did not have the same descriptions of colour as we do today. They could see the same colours, but they had a much reduced range of descriptive terms for the colour spectrum, leading to what we would consider as some strange descriptions. Homer's "the wine-dark sea", for example. Rather weirdly this was noticed by Gladstone (yes, later Prime Minister), who had an obsession about Homeric poetry. For a long time there was a great deal of discussion about whether the Greeks had reduced colour vision. Finally it was found that less complex cultures also have a limited number of colour names, there is no problem with perception of colour, it's just whether your society needs to give that colour a name yet. That is hard for us to understand, in our society where colour is taught from an early age, dinning the colours of things into our children, telling them that the sky is 'blue'. The spectrum is not discrete, different cultures divide it up into different boundaries, which affects our ease at matching the colours, especially near the boundaries between each colour. 

Speakers find it easier to match colours when the colours have a recognised name in their language. Thus Russian speakers, who divide the colour 'blue' into two different colours siniy and goluboy - light and dark, have faster reaction times when matching colours than English speakers do, who see these colours as one.

An interesting book for updating my Linguistics knowledge. 

Research Methodology - Coursera and University of London

When I decided that I was going to spend some time doing some studying around my own interests instead of taking an £8K MA I did the research into what would be covered under a Masters degree because I wanted to base my studies around the core of a typical masters. It became obvious that research skills and research proposals are important nowadays. Research Methodology is a relatively new field and I knew nothing about it, so I looked on-line to see if there were any courses that could give me a grounding.

I found a free four week course offered by Coursera. Not, obviously, the same as undertaking an MA, but a basic grounding that I felt I could add to with reading. This seemed a good bet, as the course material is provided by the University of London. You are encouraged to pay £39 for a certificate that shows that you have completed the course, and which they say helps to support provision of free courses, but I could see no reason for doing so, as I will never need to prove to someone that I had done the course.

You are expected to spend a couple of hours each week watching some videos, doing some reading and producing some material. The reading material is relevant and I found it worthwhile reading. I read further, researching terms, and looking up concepts. When given the choice of one article out of three I read all of them, and made notes and mind maps. You can get quite a lot out of the course in the four weeks.

I found it interesting working through the exercises and so from that point of view you could say that it is a good course. However, as students mark and comment on each others work that you could get away with very poor understanding of the subject, added to which it became obvious that  a large number of students are cheating - which frankly isn't difficult. I have to be honest that I was disappointed in this, that both Coursera and University of London are prepared to put their names to something that is effectively worthless. No employer or college who knew this would be prepared to accept this qualification as something meaningful, it devalues it for those who have worked, and even if the certificate were free I wouldn't even both printing it out.

The Breton Language - Overview

Breton is an insular Celtic language, most closely related to Welsh and Cornish, the Brythonic branch of the languages, in contrast to the Goidelic branch of Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Manx. While there was a continental Celtic language in the North of France it died out under pressure from Latin by about 500 CE. Breton was taken to Brittany by speakers from Cornwall and later from Wales between about 450 and 650 CE. It has many features in common with the other Celtic languages, especially those that it is most closely related to, but has also adopted some features and vocabulary from the French language.

Breton is a language under threat and is classified as “severely endangered” by UNESCO. The French language is the only language of instruction that is legal in schools in France, so attempts at Breton language education have come up against considerable difficulties.

While half the population was monolingual in 1900, by 1950 only a tenth of the population of 1 million speakers was monolingual. By 1997 there were only about 300,000 speakers, the vast majority of whom were over 60. Very few 15-19 year olds spoke Breton. By the first decade of the 21^st C there were only some 200,000 speakers of Breton left. There is very little transmission of the languages within families, but in 2007 there were some 4 or 5 thousand adults studying Breton at evening class or via a correspondence course. There is very little official use of the language.

 

There are four dialects of Breton, but there are no clear boundaries between them, rather there is a dialect continuum. The dialects correspond to medieval bishoprics. Gwenedeg (from the Vannes region) is less mutually intelligible to speakers of the other dialects.

It seems very likely that Breton will effectively die out as a functioning language fairly soon.

A change of name, and a change of direction

I started this blog a few years back, largely to keep a record of my own studies in Welsh, and to record my thoughts about my own learning. I didn't write very much, but I have been learning Welsh, largely though Say Something in Welsh, but also by using Duolingo and by reading. I've also attended several one day courses at the London Welsh Centre as well as twice having visited Nant Gwrtheyrn, the Welsh National Language Centre for five-day immersive courses. I still have a long way to go, but in many situations I am 'functionally fluent' in Welsh now.

A few weeks ago I was speaking to my son while walking the dogs. He is considering doing a Masters' degree, and I confided to him that I had long had a hankering to do a Masters in Celtic Studies. There is one provided online by Lampeter University. However, I really can't justify spending £8K on a course for which I have no need. I'm retired, while it would be interesting I don't need a Masters' degree. My son said, "that doesn't stop you studying what interests you, though, does it?" I realised that yes, I can study what I want, I can plan my own course, and end up in much the same place. No, I won't have an expensive piece of paper, but I don't need that, I will know what I have learned, and I will know what journey I have made. I began to work out what I wanted to do. I am planning to study Celtic Studies, with a very strong emphasis on Welsh Studies, including Welsh Language and Welsh Literature. I am including some Research Methods because if I were studying for an MA that would be a fairly large chunk of the material. To that end I am currently following a four week Coursera course, and I have purchased some books for further reading. I don't expect to cover as much as I would if I were following the Lampeter course, but it will give me a grounding in Research Methods, and frankly, I'm unlikely to do any research myself as part of my studying.

I won't have anyone marking my homework, but that doesn't mean that I shouldn't do any homework, or write any notes. I have done enough studying over the years to know that I can direct my own learning. My notes will appear here, so that I can access all of them in the same place should I need them.

When I studied Linguistics back in the early 1980s we had to study "the Structure of English" and also the structure of another language. I got Hindi. The year above me were doing Welsh, so I attended their lectures as well, and learned a bit about Welsh. The aim wasn't to learn the language, but to understand how it worked, and how it compared to other languages.

As I am studying Celtic Culture, History and Languages I intend to find out something about the Structure of some Celtic Languages - at least, of those languages that I find most interesting: Breton, Cornish and Manx. I am starting with Breton.

I will also study: History and Origins of the Celts; the History of Wales; Welsh Culture; Welsh Literature; Welsh Folklore and Mythology; Welsh Folklife and Industries. Alongside of this I intend to continue to improve my Welsh, and to read some modern Welsh books, even if they are not exactly 'literature'! I will also need to revise and upgrade my Linguistics knowledge, because although I have continued to have an interest in it since I took my degree, that is now rather a long time ago!

If you are someone who has found your way to this blog, and you are interested in Celtic Studies, then welcome. If you know something about the topics I'm addressing, and you spot an error I've made, then please let me know. I'm always happy to know if I've made a mistake, because I can then correct it, and I will then know more.