Language and perception
There’s a tantalizingly brief interview in the Guardian with linguist Guy Deutscher, who holds with the rather unpopular notion that language shapes the way we perceive the world. He gives a rather fascinating example of an Australian language which doesn’t have notions like left/right or behind/in front of, but instead uses the cardinal directions to indicate relative position. This gives the language’s speakers a kind of mental GPS system, so that they are always aware of direction.
I argue that the mother tongue has considerable influence on the way we think and perceive the world. But there’s a great deal of historical baggage attached to this question and so most respectable psychologists and linguists won’t touch it with a bargepole.
It’s like being a historian and talking about national character, isn’t it?
Exactly. But I think we are grown up enough now to look at this question in a scientific way.
Can you give me an example of what you mean?
The most striking example involves what I call the language of space – how we describe the arrangement of objects around us. Take a sentence such as: "The child is standing behind the tree" – you’d imagine all languages would behave in the same way when describing something so simple. It’s almost inconceivable that there would be languages that don’t use such concepts at all. For centuries, philosophers and psychologists have had us believe that such egocentric concepts of space such as "in front of", "behind", "left" or "right" are the universal building blocks of language and cognition.
And aren’t they universal?
Well, this remote aboriginal tongue turned up – called Guugu Yimithirr, from north Queensland. These people have a way of speaking about space that is incredibly odd, because they don’t use any such concepts at all. So they would never say: "The child is behind the tree." Instead, they would say: "The child is north of the tree."
It also happens to be the language that gave us the word kangaroo.
Yes, it’s famous for that, but it should be doubly famous. These people say things such as: "There’s an ant on your northern foot", or: "I left the pen on the southern edge of the western table in your northern room in the house." You might think that their weird way of speaking about space must be a one-off. But the discovery of this language inspired a great deal of research and we learned of other peoples around the globe, from Mexico to Indonesia, who speak in a similar way.
What consequences does such a language have for your perception of space?
Growing up with such a language essentially develops in your brain a sort of GPS system, an unfailing sense of orientation, and the reason is fairly straightforward: if from the age at which you start talking, you have to be aware of the cardinal directions every waking second of your life in order to understand the most trivial things that people say around you, then your language trains you to pay constant attention to your orientation at all times. Because of this intense drilling, the sense of directions becomes second nature. If you ask the Guugu Yimithirr how they know where north is or where south is, they look at you in amazement, just as you would be flummoxed if I asked you how you know where in front of you is and where behind is.
I’m not a die-hard devotee of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, but I did argue in my forthcoming book, Living as a River, that fundamental units of language such as the verbs "to be" and "to have" constrain and distort our understanding of the world. The verb "to be" comes from three roots, one of which is "to have substantive existence" and another of which is "to remain." Every time we use the verb "to be" we reinforce the notion that things are static and separate. And the verb "to have" comes from a root meaning "to grasp," building on the idea that there are permanent and separate things that can be grasped.
Buddhist teaching points out that all things are empty of inherent (separate, static, permanent) existence, and that therefore grasping is a deluded activity that inevitably leads to suffering. If we can hold on to nothing, then the attempt to hold on will result in frustration.
3 Responses to “Language and perception”
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You’re currently reading “Language and perception,” an entry on Bodhipaksa's blog, bodhi tree swaying
Published: Jun 13 2010
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Tags: Guy Deutscher, language, Living as a River, Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
Category: Books
Hi Bodhipak?a
Interesting. I missed that article. Have you read “Don’t Sleep, There are Snakes?” Dan Everett’s account of his time in the Amazon learning about the Pirahã people and their langauge. The Pirahã people also don’t use left and right, they orient themselves ‘upstream’ and ‘downstream’ and they always know where the river is. They don’t have simple colour terms, or numbers. Everett claims they don’t use relative or embedded clauses, but this has been contested.
I think you are right about ‘to be’. ‘Being’ suggests persistence, ongoing existence. ‘Becoming’ is a process. Interesting that the ancient Indians had two different verbs for these two (though they mixed to some extent): ?as ‘to exist’, and ?bh? ‘to become’.
I subscribe to a weak form of the Whorf-Sapir hypothesis (Whorf is a good writer!). I don’t see how the deep structure of grammar cannot affect our view of the world. For instance we divide the world into verbs and nouns, into actions and agents. It helps to trick us into false interpretations of our sensory experience.
Cheers
Jayarava
I’ve read some articles about the Pirahã, but not Everett’s book.
Our verb to be derives from two of the roots you mention — *bheu (become) and *as (to have substantive existence) — as well as another Indo-European root *wes (which means to persist, endure). The latter two roots create a kind of tension with the notion of “becoming.”
I’m also a weak Sapir-Whorfer. I point out in my book that it’s we who create language, and that it reflects deeper and non-verbal assumptions about the world. But once we’ve created a language I do think it inevitably conditions how we see things.
Thanks for commenting! And keep up the good work on Visible Mantra.
Thanks for this Bodhipaksa. It seems to complement just what I am thinking about at the moment.
The quote that catches my eye is right at the end of the article “we would be able to scan the brain and find out exactly how each different language influences different aspects of thought”. This reminds me of what we used to say about DNA sequencing. Something like “One day we will be able to sequence the whole genome just like that”. Well with Illumina sequencers and their ilk this is almost possible. The question is – “What was the question?”
If we knew today all the neurons in someones head and exactly what they were doing at any one time it wouldn’t answer the question because I don’t think we have formed the question very well.
On a spiritual level I find reading about neurology fun. It’s a modern equivalent of sitting in the charnel grounds and watching bodies being picked over. You can see your existence being analysed away. You look for the self and there it is – gone!