Four Languages • A Swiss guy visiting Sydney, Australia, pulls up at a bus

stop where two locals are waiting. "Entschuldigung, koennen Sie Deutsch sprechen?" he asks. The two Aussies just stare at him. "Excusez-moi, parlez vous Francais?" he tries. The two continue to stare. "Parlare Italiano?" No response. "Hablan ustedes Espanol?" Still nothing. The Swiss guy drives off, extremely disgusted. The first Aussie turns to the second and says, "Y'know, maybe we should learn a foreign language." "Why?" says the other. "That guy knew four languages, and it didn't do him any good."

Polyglot animals

• A mother mouse and a baby mouse are walking along, when all of a sudden, a cat attacks them.

• The mother mouse goes, "BARK!" and the cat runs away.

• "See?" says the mother mouse to her baby. "Now do you see why it's important to learn a foreign language?"

“Language is the dress of thought”

18th century lexicographer Samuel Johnson:

“The sayable defines and organises the thinkable”

• Emil Benveniste, French linguist (1902 – 1976)

“He gave men speech, and speech created thought.”

Percy Shelly the 19th century poet:

“Thought is no more identical with language than feeling is

identical with the nervous system.” Lecture in London on

‘Thought and Language” Samuel Butler, writer satirist

1890

“If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt

thought.”

George Orwell 20th century novelist and essay writer

“ The words of the language, as they are written or spoken, do not

seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought.”

Einstein, 1945

“Language is the light of the mind.”

John Stuart Mill, writer philosopher (1806-1873)

“If we clearly consider what our intention is when we speak, we shall find that it is nothing else but to unfold to others the thoughts of our

own mind.” And “Since language is as necessary an instrument of our thought as a

horse is of a knight, and since the best horses are suited to the best knights, … the best

language will be suited to the best thoughts.”

Dante, c. 1304, De vulgari eloquentia (trans.

A.G. Ferrers Howell)

The language a person speaks determines the way that a person

thinks.

Language organises our experience of the world

Edward Sapir, linguist in Encyclopedia of the Social

Sciences: Language

“Language … makes progress possible.” Language Thought

and Action Ch 1 S. I. Hayakawa, psychologist,

semanticist, teacher 1939

“ Language, the most valuable single possession of the human

race” C. F. Hockett, in A Course in

Modern Linguistics. 1958 Ch. 1

“Man does not live on bread alone: his other necessity is

communication”

Ibid Ch. 64

“Language is a great force of socialization, probably the

greatest that exists.”

Edward Sapir, linguist in Encyclopedia of the Social

Sciences: Language

“It is only by language that we rise above them [the lower

animals] – by language, which is the parent, not the child, of

thought.”

Oscar Wilde, 1891

“Without language, we could hardly have created the human world we

know. Our development, of everything from music to warfare,

could never have come about in the absence of language.”

R. L. Trask 1999 Language the Basics Ch 1

“Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to

complain”

Lily Tomlin, quoted in Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct

1994

“Knowledge of a language enables you to combine words to form phrases, and phrases to form

sentences... Knowing a language means being able to produce new

sentences never spoken before and to understand sentences never heard

before.” V. Fromkin and R. Rodman 1974 in An

Introduction to Language. Ch 1

‘impeccably well formed [language] is typical of casual spontaneous speech (including

that of children)’Halliday, 1985, Dimensions of

discourse analysis:grammar, p. 35

All surface language depends on a subconscious framework of

“abstract language universals”

Noam Chomsky, American linguist

Chomsky als assumes that actual language is ‘degenerate’ and deviates from these subconscious rules of grammar.

“The language instinct”

Influential book published by linguist Steven Pinker (1994)

“No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds in

which different cultures live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with

different labels attached.”• B. L. Whorf, American linguist

‘No greater harm can be done to a nation than taking away its national character and the idiosyncrasies of its language’ (Immanuel Kant, over 200 years ago)

On the relationship between language and national character:

Liking or loving

vs

piacere or amare

“…we don’t use language according to strict rules – it

hasn’t been taught us by means of strict rules, either.”

20th century Philosopher Wittgenstein, 1933 in The Blue

Book 1965

“What I have most at heart is that some method should be thought on for

ascertaining and fixing our language for ever, after such alterations are made in it as shall be thought requisite. For I am of opinion, it is better a language should not be wholly perfect, than that it should be

perpetually changing.”

Swift, 1712

“May the lexicographer be derided who shall imagine that his dictionary can

embalm his language… With this hope, however, academies have been instituted

to guard the avenues of their languages…but their vigilance and activity have hitherto been vain…to

enchain syllables, and to lash the wind,

are equally the undertakings of pride.” Samuel Johnson English author, critic, &

lexicographer, (1709 – 1784)

“The richness of the English vocabulary, and the wealth of

available synonyms, means that English speakers can often draw shades of distinction unavailable

to non-English speakers.” . Bill Bryson, 1992 Mother

Tongue page 3

“One cannot but be impressed by the hospitality of the English

language.”

Robert Burchfield, Linguist in The English Language 1985

The English language is like a fleet of juggernaut trucks that goes on regardless. No form of linguistic

engineering and no amount of linguistic legislation will prevent the

cycles of change that lie ahead.

Ibid.

“Every quotation contributes something to the stability or

enlargement of the language”

Samuel Johnson, English author, critic, & lexicographer (1709 -

1784)

Which English?

Americans spell words differently, but still call it Enlgish.Brits pronounce their words differently, but still call it English.Canadians spell like the Brits and pronounce like Americans.Aussies add ‘G’day’ ‘mate’ and a heavy accent to everything they say.

GB vs US• Have you eaten?• Have you ever seen

Harry Potter and the Philisopher’s Stone?

• You’ve already told me.• Have they come home

yet?• I’d been watching the

film for 20 minutes before I realised I’d already seen it.

• Did you eat?• Did you ever see Harry

Potter and the Sorecerer’s Stone?

• You already told me• Did they come home

yet?• I watched the film for

20 minutes before I realised I already saw it.

An American in England• An American visiting in England asked at the hotel

for the elevator. • The portiere looked a bit confused but smiled when

he realized what the man wanted. • "You must mean the lift," he said. • "No," the American responded. "If I ask for the

elevator I mean the elevator." • "Well," the portiere answered, "over here we call

them lifts". • "Now you listen", the American said rather irritated,

"someone in America invented the elevator." • "Oh, right you are sir," the portiere said in a polite

tone, "but someone here in England invented the language."