New Tieng (New Language)



I read the following in an article in The Guardian online today. It mentioned the following book:
"I haven't read so much new fiction this year, but one non-fiction book that was both strong and timely was American linguist John McWhorter's Doing Our Own Thing (The Degradation of Language and Music) (Arrow £7.99). The book argues that, since the countercultural forces of the Eighties, a craving for informality in American's use of English has debased the language there to the point where Americans' ability to think in complex ways and convey complex thoughts is threatened. He's a bit too sweetly nostalgic in some parts for my tastes, but I certainly agree with his main point: that we in the the west are in danger of throwing some precious babies out with the bath-water."
I have to admit to being fascinated by this subject: the idea that our language either enables or disables us from being able to think or function in a particular way. And therefore, if language affects our thought and function, then it affects whole cultures, our very being.
An obvious example of this language-behaviour is the book 1984 by George Orwell, where words are removed from the NewSpeak language to stop people thinking in subversive ways.
I remember reading a post on the Lonely Planet travel site a long time ago. Some Vietnamese people who were fluent in English were talking about difference between the 2 languages. They said that there were more words in English to describe and define something more specifically. They also said that Vietnamese has more words about relationships and emotions. And yes, IMHO, I would argue that westerners are probably less romantic and more requiring of specifics than Vietnamese.
So you would have to think that being bi- or multi- lingual would be an advantage, not just for communication to a wider range of people, but also in terms of the capacity for a wider range of thought.

Posted: Sun - November 27, 2005 at 05:26 PM          

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