Can a language that only 1 person in the world understands have objective meaning to that person?

[WannabeSaint]

If someone has a private language that wasn’t taught to them by someone else…it just kind of already existed within them…could that one person trust that language as objectively true?

 

[Willing_Spirit]

What does it mean for a language to be objectively true? Language is just a means of communication.

 

[PetraG]

Sure. It’s just an extreme version of having your own word for something.

The truth is not something you can’t know unless you have someone else’s words to describe it.

I don’t know how you learn an abstract concept from someone else unless you understand their language. I don’t think what you know is “less true” if you translate it into words no one else knows.

 

[JerryZ]

Language is a means to exchange information between human beings.
You can make up your own language, look at The Lord of the Ring is a clear example of this. In fact its writer J. R. R. Tolkien devised several such languages.
They are true because they convey true information and can be translated to other languages.
As opposed to jibberish, hehehe.
Peace!

 

[ProVobis]

You should have seen some of the code I had to debug when I worked in IT.

 

[Beryllos]

@Willing_Spirit wrote that “Language is just a means of communication,” to which I would add, “including self-communication.”

 

[zgraf]

I think many of the saints may have had such a “secret language”. Here is one example from a young Carmelite nun in Chile:

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

 

[Theo520]

you’ll have to ask them that question

 

[FrancisFan43]

Is it really a language if only you know it? How can you communicate with it if only you know the ins and outs of said language?

Another thing to consider is that it may not even be a language. It could be literal nonsense. Like the charismatics that think they can communicate with angels/the Holy Ghost/etc by spouting out what in the biblical greek is called battalogeō (βατταλογέω). It’s nonsense words that the pagans would use in their vain worship of their false gods.

 

[poche]

There are some languages which are dying out for lack of native speakers.

 

[Cirdan_XII]

I don’t know how you learn an abstract concept from someone else unless you understand their language. I don’t think what you know is “less true” if you translate it into words no one else knows.

Many philosophers, during their thinking, came across concepts that had not been known before. They had to invent words for them. In some cases these words stuck and were accepted and used by others. In other cases people didn’t get it and those words were forgotten. Maybe somebody else came up with the same idea some years later, did a better job at explaining it, and this time the idea stuck, but with the second guy’s word.

It is alleged that even Einstein’s theory of general relativity wasn’t truly original. Very similar thoughts are attributed to other scientists who had spoken of them some years previously. But they didn’t do as good a job at explaining them as Einstein did, and so Einstein is credited as being the first.

A part of philosophy, and also of science and mathematics, is finding a language to express and explain what you’re thinking and doing. So initially those languages and words are private, understood only by a single person or by a small team of people.

 

[ProVobis]

But they didn’t do as good a job at explaining them as Einstein did, and so Einstein is credited as being the first.

In their days Newton, Galileo, Kepler et al did well in expressing their theories in Latin, thus doing much better than the ancient Greeks.

 

[goout]

If someone has a private language that wasn’t taught to them by someone else…it just kind of already existed within them…could that one person trust that language as objectively true?

If a language only exists for one person, in that person, the language can’t have objective meaning, because objective meaning can’t be sourced inside the person. We find meaning only in reference to others, ultimately in reference to God. We don’t create our own meaning, purpose, or identity.

Now if God were speaking to that person in a communication unique to that person, yes, because it is God doing the communicating and God is ultimately other.

 

[WannabeSaint]

Now if God were speaking to that person in a communication unique to that person, yes, because it is God doing the communicating and God is ultimately other.

Could that person ever know God was communicating with him? (assuming this isn’t infused knowledge they are receiving)

 

[goout]

goout:

Now if God were speaking to that person in a communication unique to that person, yes, because it is God doing the communicating and God is ultimately other.

Could that person ever know God was communicating with him? (assuming this isn’t infused knowledge they are receiving)

Good question.