‘Advanced’, ‘beautiful’ and ‘primitive’ languages

Just as some accents are evaluated more highly than others, many people believe that some languages are ‘better’ or ‘more beautiful’ than others. Many a French president has commented on the supposed ‘clarity’ and ‘precision’ of French, as if clear thinking could not be expressed equally well in another language. Others cite, for example, the richness of Shakespeare’s poetry as evidence for the supposed superiority or inherent beauty of English. Matched guise tests again refute claims that any one language is more beautiful than any other: when played to hearers unfamiliar with European languages, no consensus emerges regarding the aesthetic superiority of any one language as opposed to another. More generally, arguments for the superiority of a given language tend to confuse the rhetorical or linguistic dexterity of some individuals with the qualities of the language itself. The obvious problem here is that speakers do not possess these skills in equal measure, as can be seen in the following examples:

A language – any language – is as precise an instrument as its native speakers need it to be for the expression of complex ideas or feelings, and will be used more effectively by some speakers than by others. Don’t blame the language if the thinking it expresses is muddled.

Another common belief is that there are ‘primitive’ languages, just as there are ‘primitive’ societies. Here again, a widely held perception has no basis in linguistic fact. Indeed, if our criterion were grammatical complexity, it might be easier to make the opposite case, namely that languages spoken in isolated, ‘primitive’ societies are often more complex than those used in technologically advanced societies which have been subject to high levels of contact.

This is not, of course, to say that languages will be equally rich in all areas of their lexicon, or vocabulary. We would not expect a language such as Pirahã, spoken by a remote Amazonian tribe of about 250 people, to be as rich in information technology vocabulary as, for example, English: for now at least, Pirahã speakers have little need for such terms and consequently have not developed them to a high degree. But this does not mean that so-called ‘primitive’ languages spoken in less developed societies are unable to acquire new resources when they do need them: in fact they do so with remarkable ease, often by borrowing from other languages. A case in point is English following the Norman Conquest, which borrowed heavily from Norman French: estimates have suggested that around 30–40 per cent of modern English vocabulary is ultimately of French origin. It’s certainly true that English, French, Russian and Spanish are more widely spoken, and more prestigious, than Pirahã, Inuit or Guugu Yimidhirr, but again this reflects socio-political realities rather than any superiority in linguistic terms. To a linguist, all languages (and dialects) are equal.

اخر الاخبار

اخبار العتبة العباسية المقدسة

قسم الصناعات والحرف الفنية ينفذ أعمالًا تطويرية في جامعة الكفيل

قسم الشؤون الطبية يناقش تحضيراته لحفل التخرج المركزي لطالبات الجامعات العراقية العاشر

مركز الكفيل للإعلان والتسويق يباشر تنفيذ الأعمال الطباعية لحفل تخرج طالبات الجامعات العراقية العاشر

قسم رعاية الصحن يهيئ الأماكن المخصصة لفعاليات حفل تخرج طالبات الجامعات العراقية العاشر

المزيد

الآخبار الصحية

خصوصا مع تقدم السن.. 6 سلوكيات يومية قد تدمّر صحتك

فاكهة خضراء.. علاج طبيعي فعّال للإمساك واضطرابات الهضم

روسيا تبدأ أولى التجارب السريرية للقاح واعد ضد السرطان

كنز غذائي على طبقك.. ماذا تفعل السبانخ بجسمك؟

المزيد

الآخبار التكنلوجية

رصد نوع نادر من القطط في تايلاند للمرة الأولى منذ عقود

روسيا تخطط لإقامة محطة نووية في القمر خلال العقد المقبل

كيف قاد إيلون ماسك حملة "غروك" لاختراق عرش الذكاء الاصطناعي

ألتمان: الذكاء الاصطناعي سيتجاوز البشر في 2026 !

المزيد

مواضيع ذات صلة

Phonetic Transcription

Phonetics

Word sharing and dialects: Dialects generally borrow from dialects

Dialects—Where Do You Draw the Line?

The standard

Koinés

Externally motivated change

Chain shifts

Changes to make life easier

Systemic changes

Weakening of intervocalic unvoiced stops

Simplification of consonant clusters