From Language to Stone via Marriage

Reading "Introducing Levi-Strauss" by Boris Wiseman and Judy Groves, one of those enjoyable cartoon philosophy books produced by Icon Books, I have been reminded that one of the fundamental analogies used by Levi-Strauss is that between the functioning of language and kinship.

Levi-Strauss believes that the key to understanding kinship lies not in the study of family units (mother, father and children) but in understanding various taboos related to marriage, for example the incest taboo or the commonly encountered taboo which has it that parallel cousins cannot marry (i.e. the respective offspring of two brothers or of two sisters) while cross cousins can (i.e. the respective offspring of a brother and a sister).

At the origin of this type of analysis is an analogy with a similar emphasis on relationships, but this time in the analysis of language. Such emphasis on relationships is found in the work of Saussure which simply states that the meaning of words is not found in single letter sounds or 'phonemes' but in the relationships between a group of 'phonemes', for example, the three phonemes which create the word B-A-T have no significance by themselves, only when they are related to form a word.

Levi-Strauss draws an analogy between 'phoneme' and 'family unit' and implies thereby that the 'family unit' is has no meaning without understanding what the relationship with other 'family units' is. This is because marriage in primitive societies involves reciprocal exchange of women within the tribes which builds strong bonds between the various clans.

What is more, Levi-Strauss argues that the development of such reciprocal systems of exchange cannot occur without the development of language. Here is a quote from the book: "In terms of human evolution, Levi-Strauss attributes to the emergence of language ("symbolic thought") a key role in setting into motion the entire system of reciprocity whereby women first came to be exchanged"... in some cases symbolically represented by the tribes' most precious material asset in the form of stone axes.

The last phrase in italics is my own. I have written much more about this subject here.

Catastrophism in Linguistics

Following my precis of Lyell yesterday, today I read another learned article by Mario Alinei which discusses Catastrophism in Linguistics. Interestingly, this article takes issue with one of the conclusions I myself drew from reading Lyell when I stated that:

"Lyell's interest was to shed light on what happened to species, and thought to do this by using languages as an analogy. Thinking of language in this way allows us to see it as a living entity. An entity that can have a moment of birth and a moment of death."

In fact, my conclusion from reading Lyell, that language behaves like an organism, is, according to Alinei, exactly the same conclusion that late 19th and early 20th century linguists drew from Lyell. They started to think of language as an organism, which is to say something which had definable lifespan. The death of a language was considered to have occurred through a cultural 'blitz' (to use Alinei's translator's word). Hence, Pre-Indo-European languages (PIE) were deemed to have died out 6000 years ago as a result of a widespread cultural invasion. While linguists adhered to uniformitarian ideas such as those postulated by Lyell, their actual interpretation of the evidence was catastrophist. Not only that, but the language which prevailed following the 'blitz' was considered superior, the vanquished language being inferior and 'damned'. Alinei makes a point of criticising these points of views, just as Claude Levi-Strauss criticises earlier anthroplogists for relativistic attitudes in their studies of tribespeople.

To remind readers, catastrophist thinking came about when geologists tried to fit the known geological record into the period of time (roughly 6000 years) ordained by Archbishop Ussher to be the age of the earth based on his interpretation of biblical events. The only way to explain such a thick pile of rocks was to invoke a series of major catastrophes by which they could be emplaced. William Buckland was an advocate of this kind of thinking and his study of the remnants of the flood served to bolster the view that the flood described in Genesis could be underpinned by real geological evidence.

Alinei thinks that the interpretations of early linguists betrays their colonialist (racist) thinking. He notes that these linguists considered the Indo-European languages as the most sophisticated and beautiful, a sort of peak of intellectual development. Such a peak must (naturally) have been attained relatively recently and hence a relatively short history was ascribed to the development of the IE language as compared to, for example, the language of Australian aborigines which was considered to have had a development beginning some 40,000 years ago. At the same time, learned societies such as the Société Linguistique de Paris banned communications concerning the origin of language making the 6000 year origin into a doctrine.

Alinei's view is that the IE language came about not by a major cultural invasion, but by a process of slow change that goes back much further than the start of the metal age some 6000 years ago. This is actually much truer to Lyell's original thesis that both languages and species change slowly, continuously and incrementally, the apparent gaps in the record being due to absence of preservation and difficulty of conservation.

My own view is that, very much like geology, linguistics probably contains some uniformitarian and some catastrophic elements. The effect, for example, of the Norman invasion of Britain was a profound one for the English language. It radically altered the language in a way that was sudden and one might say catastrophic. Whether these catastrophic changes outweigh the changes brought about by the bartering of languages between interested parties, I am unable to judge.

I do think, however, that these links between geology and linguistics contain some fascinating grounds for thought. Sea level rises in the post-glacial period of 120m that occurred between 15,000 and 8,000 years ago considerably altered the geographical landscape. For example, the present day English Channel would have been dry land not just between Dover and Calais but as far as the Current Atlantic margin shelf break.

These sea level rises may have been up to 2m in a hundred years, which, compared to current rates of 20cm in the last 100 years might be considered as quite catastrophic, possible resulting in flooding of extensive lowland areas within a single lifetime. What would be the cultural effect if the whole of Bangladesh suddenly disappeared underwater, for example. Surely it would have a strong cultural influence on the people of the surrounding areas as a mass exodus was imposed on them?

Uniformitarianism in Linguistics

Pursuing my line of investigation into the lineage of Ferdinand de Saussure and the influence of geology on linguistics I have discovered this site which discusses how the concept of uniformitarianism, originally applied solely in the geological sciences, particularly by Charles Lyell, began to find usage in linguistics. In fact, it was Lyell himself who, in Chapter 23 of his book 'The Antiquity of Man' first compared the origin and development of languages and species. Lyell draws a number of conclusions:

A number of languages may have a common ancestor language that is no longer spoken, but which can be identified based on common word roots in the daughter languages.

A dialect becomes a distinct language when speakers of two dialects are no longer able to effectively communicate. He draws an analogy with the test of different species in which they are considered distinct if unable to produce fertile hybrids.

Races change more slowly than languages. Over a period of a thousand years, a language has typically changed to the point where it is no longer comprehensible to the same race that has always spoken it.

Areas that are geographically remote and mountainous can produce many distinct languages. Lyell quotes the seventy languages of the Caucases, but reference could equally be made to the forested mountain valleys of Papua New Guinea.

Lack of evidence for the derivation of living languages from dead ones does not prove that one did not evolve from the other: "to question the theory of all known languages being derivative on the ground that we can rarely trace a passage from the ancient to the modern through all the dialects which must have flourished one after the other in the intermediate ages, implies a want of reflection on the laws which govern the recording as well as the obliterating processes."

Although language seems unchanging, new words are creeping in all the time and changing them. It is thus the slowness of language change which makes it undetectable.

The common vocabulary pool is limited, therefore new words must displace old ones. Terms and dialects struggle against each other for existence. This is the motor for change.

Languages spread over a wide area and spoken by large numbers of people will have longer lifespans. Standardisation may attempt to arrest language development, but popular writers continue to evolve the language (c.f. Irving Welsh).

That silent letters, once useful in the parent speech, have been aptly compared to rudimentary organs in living beings, which have at some former period been more fully developed, having had their proper functions to perform in the organisation of a remote progenitor (this was Darwin's idea).

Isolated languages can cease to develop. Peoples that trade abroad tend to have languages that evolve rapidly, taking in new terms, for example, the isolated, unevolved Icelandic tongue as compared to the evolved Norwegian from which it is derived.

The ability of a language to adapt to new wants is fundamental in its survival. This may be compared to the ability of a certain genetic mix to survive a given environment,

Languages evolve and become more sophisticated. This may be seen as analogous to the evolution of simple organisms into more complex ones.

Lyell's interest was to shed light on what happened to species, and thought to do this by using languages as an analogy. Thinking of language in this way allows us to see it as a living entity. An entity that can have a moment of birth and a moment of death. Mankind is the environment in which the language lives. Languages have to compete inside the human mind. If a language does not serve well, like a dinosaur, it will become extinct. Successful languages thrive on the mutations which allow them to adapt.

Lyell's Chapter 23 began with a quotation from Prof. Max Muller. The next year Muller returned the compliment by quoting Lyell and in the same work took account of Lyell's ideas in a much profounder way. For in an earlier chapter (Ch. 2) he virtually incorporated uniformitarianism into linguistics, by formulating two principles on which the science of language rests, namely, that what is real in modern formations must be admitted as possible in more ancient formations, and that what has been found to be true on a small scale may be true on a large scale.

I think that Muller's ideas serve as a precursor for more recent theories postulated by Chomsky that there is an underlying deep structure to languages which are common to all languages ("what has been found to be true on a small scale may be true on a large scale") and that these deep structures may be indicative of the workings of mind ("what is real in modern formations must be admitted as possible in more ancient formations"). You can read more about structuralism in linguistics here.

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The same site also mentions that besides the major influence of uniformitarianism, linguistics shows influence from geology in two minor ways, namely, in its metaphors "substratum" and "linguistic paleontology". Thought on linguistic paleontology is particularly interesting since it comes from an exclusively Swiss circle of thinkers including Pictet (1859-63); Techmer (1880), Saussure (1922) and Nehring (1931). The history of the latter metaphor may involve some connection between A. Pictet (1799-1875) and F.-J. Pictet (1809-72), professors at the University of Geneva. the latter being an eminent paleontologist.