The human language

  • Thread starter Thread starter emanueldenique
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
E

emanueldenique

Guest
Am I the only person who believes that the human language is completely screwed up? It doesn’t make any sense, in the sense that one word could mean several different things. It doesn’t matter what language you speak in, whether it be English, French, Arabic, Spanish, Hebrew… whatever language, they are all screwed up because you cannot fully depict the meaning of anything.

Here is a decent philosophical question. Where did language come from?

Now I’m a Roman Catholic and I believe in 99.5 % of the things that the Roman Catholic Church teaches, but I’ve never heard anyone try and explain that one to me before.

Where did words come from?
 
The Tower of Babel comes to mind.

You might wish to read Genesis 11, verses 1-9 for a biblical explanation for the confusion of one basic language into a myriad of others!

God bless you!
 
I don’t know where language/words “came from” – good question – but I do agree that language itself is a enormous philosophical problem.

I have not seen a theologian take up the issue, but Analytic philosophy (the Anglo-American philosophical tradition since Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, et al) has recognized the problem all too well. Analytic philosophers in general are deeply aware of the problems of ordinary language use and are intensely focused on analyzing language and demanding that terms in use be defined and clarified as much as possible prior to further discussion of an issue. (The question I always hear from professors of philosophy in my Analytic department is, “What do you mean when you say this…?” They aren’t trying to be difficult; they are really trying to understand what you mean.) One generally does not get away with flowery language, or talking about something which they do not understand, in this tradition.

The advent and development of symbolic/mathematical Logic, in fact, was/is, at least in part, a response to the problem of language. The idea, for many, was to have a ‘universal’, precise kind of philosophical language which lacked the ambiguities of ordinary language. I have seen entire philosophical essays written in mathematical symbols.
 
emanueldenique said:
Here is a decent philosophical question. Where did language come from?

Now I’m a Roman Catholic and I believe in 99.5 % of the things that the Roman Catholic Church teaches, but I’ve never heard anyone try and explain that one to me before.

Where did words come from?
Click to expand...
Hi Emanueldenique,

You seem to be looking for an intelligent design theory of language.

I think of the use of words as having evolved as have other tools that help us better cope with our world. Language use is copied behavior that is passed on if it is useful for achieving some end.

The philosphical mistake to avoid is to think that Truth as an essence can be contained in words which are merely tools that don’t need to be thought of as corresponding to reality any more than a hammer does.

Best,
Leela
 
emanueldenique said:
Am I the only person who believes that the human language is completely screwed up? It doesn’t make any sense, in the sense that one word could mean several different things. It doesn’t matter what language you speak in, whether it be English, French, Arabic, Spanish, Hebrew… whatever language, they are all screwed up because you cannot fully depict the meaning of anything.
Click to expand...
What’s even worse: the meaning is defined in the dictionary, using more words that can mean different things. And same with the definitions of those words. :whacky:
 
Interesting thread.

I have been teaching English to Finns and Finnish to English speakers over the past few years and that is a lot of fun. Finnish and English are not related languages so it is interesting to try to explain the reasons why an English word can mean several things, but the converse is also true.

Language is a tool for communication and the only one I am aware of that has common agreement is Mathematics.

I love to play with language. English is particularly fun, and easy, to play with but my knowledge of French is just enough to make a few interesting puns with and to compare the structure of languages is really fascinating but I am not enough of a linguist to do it with more than my 2 native languages.

Language is what often defines cultures and certainly delimits the terms in which we think.

Looking forward to more posts to this thread.
 
I’m currently working on a book that will hopefully help to open up some issues related to the role of how language shapes our experiences of faith. It will be mostly related to the changes in ethics over the last 500 years or so, but it is becoming apparent to me that language is to be a key component of understanding how our viewpoints regarding faith and ethics have changed.

Pray for me that I can overcome my procrastination habit and get this book done.
 
I have been reading some of Walker Percy’s works and he believed that semiotics (study of signs) was a key to understanding the human predicament. This study of signs includes language of course but also other signs of communication(i.e. drawing, hand signals, gestures, etc.) He came to this field of study after reading about Helen Keller and her ability to communicate with others even though she was blind and deaf.

ibiblio.org/wpercy/hpm.html

I think this is the most important field of study when it comes to understanding what it means to be human.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top