I had the pleasure of reading an excerpt from Linguaphile: A Life of Language Love by Julie Sedivy (a language scientist) in an article on Nautilus online magazine (recommended for expanding your horizons in a wide variety of topics). The book is described as - A celebration of the beauty and mystery of language and how it shapes our lives, our loves, and our world. The article is entitled I Was Made of Language Sedivy's love of language shines through not just in what she says, but how she expresses it, and she makes a lot of use of imagery. Here’s how she describes her introduction to the study of linguistics at university: Here's how she dissects the utterance of one sentence from speaker to listener, as “A sentence unfurled and revealed itself moment by moment, owing its very existence to the flow of time” - She sums up what language means to her: The article got me thinking about the shared love of language between linguists and fiction writers. How are these loves the same? How are they different? What is the relationship between them? How can we apply the lessons of linguistics to our fiction writing? Do you have a love of language? Can you describe it for us?
I'd say that language is the medium for writers, so there are many "loves" and overlaps between the two. However, it's just a medium. The story is the canvas that requires the medium, so there is sizeable disconnect on that level. You can love writing stories but have no personal connection or affinity for language. I guess on a certain level it equates to an artist's personal affection for the paint itself. I'm sure they're into it, but it's a means to a finished product. Not the product itself. Language, vis a vis writing, is a default rather than a choice. But for story-telling, you don't even need language if you want to be technical (silent films, interpretive dance, I'm kind of reaching but you get the idea). Personally, I love words and language. It's sort of necessary for narrative writing, but I can see how somebody who enjoys story-telling might not care a whit about the language itself. I can't imagine that hating language wouldn't hurt the writing a least a little bit, but I don't you need to have feelings about it to be able to use it effectively. Also, a study of language or special aptitude in using it won't do jack for your story-writing skills. It will look very pretty and convey certain things, but the study of narrative structure is unrelated.
Very well said. Thank you. I appreciate your distinction between story-telling and a love of language. It's like serving two different masters. I do wonder, though, there must be instances where a writer accomplished both goals. I confess, I love words, too, but it's the story that gets my priority. But oh what a great feeling to find just the right words! As a writer, we are always finding the right words to build hypotheses in the reader's mind. Hypotheses about the meaning of words. The writer's task is to lead the reader to the intended interpretation (or mislead if that is the writer's intention!) and that necessitates a linguist's understanding. Does that make any sense?
Not exactly sure what you mean. I guessing not the literal meanings of words, more like the subtext or whatever the intermediary is between the medium and the end result that lives in imagination?
Interesting topic and still working this out. Command of language is essential in writing I want to read and it's what I aspire to in writing. There's (probably?) a finite amount of words available to the writer, same as notes in music and paint materials for artists. Yet, the same song can be covered by different artists, and even the same artist at a later point, with vastly different results, which makes it not the same song at all. Same with painters and same with writers. Using the language as medium to infuse these symbols with vitality, to carry an essence and meaning to another person, to create a world in which they can visit or inhabit, the ability to reveal the potency of language is the writer's mastery. I know we don't cross threads, but this struck me from another location and seems relevant to this. If Maya Angelou says iconoclast is the residue left in the baking dish after the lasagna has been removed, I'll not argue and, instead, try to work out why that is. Thankfully, she didn't say that. Again, off another thread, the thing about readability and a suggestion I've seen proposed that writers should accommodate the literacy levels of the general population, against which I can't argue too vigorously. There's a compromise between making something intelligible and following authorial instinct, but writing down to an imagined readership is not the solution. The chances of becoming a bestseller may shift from infinitesimal to slightly less (or more? whichever is the better chance) than infinitesimal, but the end product has less innate value. True, colourful use of language without having something worthwhile to say, the inability to generate tension or rhythm or propulsion can all be deficits that limit the effectiveness of a written piece, but so too does a sequence of interesting events told without skillful use of language.
If that were to happen, none of Jack Vance's work, or my pale imitations of him, would ever be read by anyone.
Language is the toolbox. Suppose your car starts making an odd knocking noise. Being new in town, you go to the local mechanic. Looking into the garage, you note three items - a mallet, a screwdriver, and a set of vise grips. Irrespective of all else, how confident are you leaving your car for work? Writer-wise, this has something of a parallel with readership - if you don’t love books, how can you reasonably expect to create one? You need those influences. Those subtle lessons in execution and magician’s tricks. Those times where, out of nowhere, a story grabs you by the throat and puts you flat on the ground with a head full of fireworks. If one hasn’t taken the time to ride shotgun on a thousand stories from a thousand points of view, how do they expect to best tell their own? Can they? Sure. Can they do it well? Well…. The best are the ones that are pushing always. The racer shaving a hundredth of a second. The weightlifter wanting one more plate. The storyteller with their increasingly finer instruments. The ones who hit the edge of the performance envelope and keep going. If that’s not the practice, what realistically is the point?
I do. I love pressing words into wonderful new configurations. I get quite genuine goosebumps when someone deploys language to great effect. I view language, words, and communication the way I viewed my toys as a child - components via which a fabulous diorama can be created where I can fully immerse myself. With language we can make things better than they are in the real world. Language is almost magic. Yes, you can also do a bunch of nefarious s#!t like control someone with it too. It's very powerful. But I'm really only interested in the creative side.
Yes, exactly. Perfectly said. By hypotheses, I mean a series of events that can be described by: If this ... then that - and the "then that" is supplied by our imagination. I just had a thought - wondering - the more hypotheses in a word of fiction - the greater the interest level of the reader?
Very well said. Thank you. I imagine that requires a love of language. Using symbols to represent meaning. And, you know, this morning I had the thought - is it more a love or a hunger? When I choose just the right words to describe what I want to say, how I want to express my meaning, I feel like I am feeding my brain. Is there a difference between feeding your brain by reading, and feeding it by writing? Yes - it's asking "What does this mean?" One of the favourite things our brains like to do. Agreed.
Going down the internet rabbit hole on this topic yesterday, I arrived to the Wiki page about Jack Vance's The Languages of Pao Something to do with the relationship between language and culture
Beautiful! Thank you. Oh, yes, language can be used for nefarious purposes, reflecting the dark side of the user of it.
I know exactly what he means. I'm a little pressed for time right now, but I'll go into detail a bit later.
Lots of comparisons here. Notes are obviously more finite, there being only 12 in Western music. Not sure how they count words, but I've heard there's something like 200K in the English language. But the range of outcomes in note combination is more vast than words, I would say. Maybe not numerically, but definitely in the feel and texture. I've always said that writing a song is the same process of writing a story but with a much more limited vocabulary, therefore, to be effective, the notes have to do more work to convey the same message. I've always believed too that musical passages function a lot like sentences. Root notes are like sentence subjects, thirds are a lot like sentence clauses that color what is happening to the root/subject, each one changing the meaning a little bit, gaining in complexity as the thirds/clauses stack. A complex sentence with multiple verb things is a lot like a jazz harmony with thirds, fifths, sevenths, nineths adding complexity and meaning. And sometimes the music breaks from the root and starts modifying the modifiers that grew initially from the root, similar to a complex sentence that breaks away from the subject and starts modifying its own verbs and adjective phrases, cascading into a flood of imagery that feels a lot like a giant orchestral chord with strings, horns, and voices all coloring the harmony in their own way. This is a terrible sentence but something like: Bob walked down the street, trees lining the roadside, packed with cabs and sub-compacts, their mirrors chipped and dinged. I wouldn't write a sentence like that, but you can see how the sentence progresses away from the subject, chaining modifying clauses to each noun as it comes up. Street to roadside to cars to mirrors. You could write a different paragraph where the following clauses all modify Bob or something about Bob, ignoring all the potential symbols that arise. Music notes work sort of the same way, sometimes centering on a subject and sometimes leaving the subject to form their own little universes. Not sure where I was going with all this, but that's what jumped in my head.
So if you take Japanese, it has structures and constructs that we don't have in English. For example, Japanese has the concept of in-group and out-of-group. You speak differently, depending on whether the person is in your group or out of it, and also whether someone is senior or junior to you. Japanese people don't have to think about when to use these words and forms. They just know. I have to think about it. Am I about to seriously insult this policeman by talking down to him? Or am I about to embarrass him by talking up to him? There are a lot of concepts, such as senior-junior (senpai-kohai) relationships, levels of politeness, humble languages, indirectness etc. The language is structured around these concepts. Even simple ones like how you address another person, what part of their name and/or title and/or honorific you use. And that's not even including social conventions. It doesn't come naturally, and in order to speak it, I have to adjust how I think, not just how I speak. I remember once being in a Thai restaurant with a Japanese lady friend, and having to switch rapidly between English, Thai and Japanese, which was not easy. My brain takes time to change modes.
I had a Japanese sushi chef a few years back that I would overhear speaking Japanese over the phone, usually to distributors or other vendors. He would say "hai" fifty times in fifty different ways. When I asked what "hai" meant he went on a 20 minute lecture about how it means different things depending on how you say it and who you are talking to. Fascinating.
In essence it means "I agree with you." or "Your statement is correct." It's often translated as "yes", but it can also translate to "No." Simple example, translates to "no": Paati ni ikanai desu ka? (You aren't going to the party?) Hai. (That is correct, I am not going to the party.) Whereas in English, we would answer that with "no", if we're not going. Translates to "yes": Biiru wo nomimasu ka? (Will you drink beer?) Hai. (Yes, I will drink beer.) But you can use it in a lot of circumstances where it means neither. You can use it to say hello to a shop assistant, to indicate your understanding of an instruction etc. It basically means "yes", it's just that Japanese people say "yes" in different circumstances to English speakers.
In the novel, three new languages are introduced. A scientific language (named Technicant) induces its speakers to innovate more; a well-ordered language (named Cogitant) encourages its speakers to be industrious; and a warlike language (named Valiant) induces competitiveness and aggression. The new languages change the culture – divides it into three castes - but following a search online I couldn’t find examples of these languages. A couple quotes from the novel: Lord Palafox, says in chapter 9: "We must alter the mental framework of the Paonese people, which is most easily achieved by altering the language." His son, Finisterle, says in chapter 11 to a class of linguists in training: "every language impresses a certain world-view upon the mind." Anyway, some of the young people create a language made up of a mixture of these three and the original Paonese language, which they call “Pastiche.” (Pastiche ends up becoming the official language – supposedly bringing together the castes in a highly fluid and mobile society.) But – it got me thinking – new words often come from the younger generations. So, I did a google search for “the newest English words” and this is what I got: Cringe Abrogate Copypasta Doomscrolling Adulting Awesomesauce Belie Chillax Climate breakdown Contactless Deepfake Demagogue Digital nomad Fatuous Hellacious Nepo baby PPE Rage farming Rizz What does it say about our society?
Demagogue isn't a new word though. It dates back to Ancient Greek times. Belie and fatuous? They date back at least to Shakespeare. The meanings may have changed but I don't think they have in the case of those three words.
Well, when I was ten, demagogue meant a charismatic speaker and rabble-rouser. That's the sense I see it in the news today, so I don't think it's changed that much.
When I did my search, I copied the AI-generated list from the top of the page. So I think this is an example of AI giving the wrong answer
