Hello everyone!

This time I would like to tell you about an interesting article that I read about universal language laws. As the article was in Dutch, I shall translate the main concepts in English:

” Learning a foreign language is a paradox experience. The phonemes and words are different, but at the same time there is a part of the grammar that seems familiar.

For centuries, people have been thinking that languages are constructed according to the same basic grammatical principles. All languages are supposed to have verbs and nouns. All languages are supposed to have a sentence structure using a subject and a predicate. And in all languages you are supposedly able to embed sentences several times in a row into other sentences.

In 1957, Noam Chomsky added another dimension to the discussion about ‘universalia’ ( which is how the universal characteristics are called). According to him, children are already born with the language ‘universalia’ in their brain. The hypothesis has always been contended. Most of the objections originally came from language scientists who were specialized in the original (Indian) languages of North America. They saw things happening there that did not fit into the assumed universalia concept. Nowadays there are also many counter-examples coming from Australia en New Guinea.

Two specialists from the language corner, Nicholas Evans and Stephen Levinson, wrote a provoking article with the title ‘The myth of language universals’ where they try to overturn most of the assumed universals.

For example they mention the Kayardild language that is spoken on a little island near Australia. In this language it is not only possible to put verbs in the future,present or past tense, but this can also be done with nouns. And if you take a noun and turn it into an indirect object by adding a specific ending, it becomes a verb. Moreover, the Kayardild language has a completely free word order. This is contrary to one of the most important assumptions of language universals, the law of constituency: what belongs to each other,stands next to each other in a sentence. That is why we say ‘ He saw a beautiful girl passing by’ and not ‘A beautiful he saw passing by girl. ‘beautiful’ and ‘girl’ must stand next to each other.

Since a number of years we know that there are a bunch of languages spread over the world that have a largely or completely free word order. Generally those languages have a really extensive system of word endings so that it is still understandable which words belong to each other by looking at the endings.

The conclusion of this is that constituency is not a universal characteristic of languages.

Just like that there are many ‘universal attributes’ that have a big question mark behind them.

For example the indirect object. In all languages you can express that someone gives something to someone.Many scientists think that the word give always has 3 complements that go with it e.g. in English ‘the girl gives the boy a kiss’ =girl, boy and kiss (and likewise the word ‘die’ can only have one and ‘kill’ two). But there seem to be languages where one can already see to whom something is given by looking at the form of the verb.In this case the indirect object is not needed and therefore it cannot be called a universal attribute.

Also the subject is not really universal,as there are languages that use a totally different system. Generally there seem to be only two types of words that are universal: nouns and verbs, but even about that there is a discussion. First of all there are the two famous poly synthetic languages from Canada and Greenland that can express things with one verb where other languages need a whole sentence ( e.g. Tusaatsiarunnanngittualuujunga means I cannot hear it very well). Even nouns can be incorporated in the verb, therefore it does not seem appropriate to call it  a verb any longer.In some North American languages a word can become a verb or a noun according to the way it was placed in a sentence, which clearly disproves the idea that words in our heads are already labeled as being verbs or nouns.

The most abstract assumed universal characteristic of languages is the recursive character of embedment. If a language has the structure of the character X then it can be embedded in the structure Y.Especially sentences with other embedded sentences are interesting.E.g. the sentence ‘ John saw Peter drinking coffee.’ Here the sentence Peter is drinking coffee is embedded in the sentence John saw (something). Embedment occurs in all languages. But recursion goes one step further. It is a more radical and therefore also more interesting idea that states that embedment can be repeated,technically as often as you want it to.It is a fascinating way to extend sentences infinitely.Of course in reality it does not really occur very often and in speaking language would make a sentence almost  impossible to understand.( e.g. ‘the floor leader thinks that the state secretary should have said that the opposition leader was wrong when he claimed that the premier did not inform the cabinet early enough.’) But also recursion is not universal because in Kayardild embedment can only take place once.

So if all the previously mentioned characteristics are proven not to be completely universal then what is left of language universalities? Not much! Only some trivial things like: all( written) languages have vowels, consonants, syllables. words and sentences.

Even though it seems difficult to find characteristics that are the same for all languages, there are in deed many phenomenons that occur in  many languages. Simply because some solutions are more practical and efficient than others. By far for most of the languages it seemed wise to have a distinction between verbs and nouns. But also with that one has to be careful, because from the 7000 languages that are currently being spoken only 5000 have been examined.

Moreover, it can easily be possible that in the past millennia much diversity has been lost. At this point 3 main language families( Indo-European, Austronesian and Niger-Congo) make up for 50 % of all languages. In the past many language families have probably been wiped out. According to some estimations the current 7000 languages are only 1,5 percent of all linguistic  possibilities that have evolved throughout human history.

Stephen Levinson, who wrote the article about ‘the myth of language universals’ ,says that especially diversity is a very essential aspect of languages and he, who focuses on the universal things, takes away from one of the most fascinating attributes of human beings.We are the only species that that possesses a communication system that is so mutable. We have an enormous adaptability which has secured our survival and was the reason for our biological success. Language is a unique product of interaction. It is one the one hand maintained and consolidated because there is always a new generation that has to learn the language and replicate it. At the same time the conditions keep changing, ecological and cultural, and the language has to adapt constantly to the changed conditions. That explains the linguistic diversity.

But if languages do indeed differ in such a way, how is it possible that when people learn a new language they constantly have the feeling that they recognize things? Because most of the time the new language is a member of the language family that the person already knows. If a European learns a foreign language its almost all of the time an Indo-European language. But if you start learning a language from a different cultural background, its a whole different story. For example languages with a complete free word order are really hard for Europeans. Or the Papoea language with 90 different phonemes and only irregular verbs…You start to think: Wow! Who ever came up with that?”

All there is left to say:Hats off to all those eager language learners that give it a try!Keep it up!

Aenn

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010 at 4:41 pm and is filed under Language Facts. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will appear immediately, but I reserve the right to delete innapropriate comments.