if we did not have language...

do you think we would be better off?

 

Nope.

 

hell no.

 

In what way?

We wouldn't have to listen to bigots.
We also wouldn't be able to communicate.

 

I'm sure the bigoted and intolerant would be perfectly able to express themselves without language. They've managed in the past.

 

true

 

I think your question may yield considerable insight.

Think about this - We don't have enough words for all the un-named "things." For these un-named things, there IS no language. When is the last time you thought about any of them? How DO you think about them?

Maybe language is an artifact of experience.

Peace and Love

 

No.

That was easy.

 

I'd rather be a dolphin.

 

nope.

are you ruling out sign language, body language, etc? actions speak louder than words anyways.

 

We'd be telepathic as a matter of course.

 

life would be boring if we couldn't communicate

..or if we had to go to great lengths to communicate non-lingusitically

 

At the risk of asking an impossible question, what are these un-named things? I'm not aware of anything that cannot be named - or rather, described - with existing language. The reason the English language incorporates so many foreign or Anglicised words is specifically because we've acknowledged the limits of our own language but refuse to just accept some things as undescribable.

I'm aware of the argument that we struggle to think about things we don't have words for, that we think in language. But to me, that's a reason to have more words, not give them up altogether.

 

I am speaking of written and spoken language - words.
words are inherently deceitful. they are what enable us to lie and deceive. action is truth. if we did not have words, our every expression would be truthful.

bigotry would express itself through action, as would the reprisal towards bigotry. a word without language would be a world without lies, a world of accountability.

to those who think we would be unable to communicate..

 

do you speak more than one language?
take translation between languages, for example. great confusion can arise from very minor mistakes in translation (the bible, anyone?)

another example is trying to explain something, and misunderstanding occuring because your explanation was insufficient or the person you are explaining to is in a different mind pattern from yourself and thus will interpret your explanation in a manner quite different from how you intended. I'm sure you've heard the expression "a picture says more than a thousand words." the same can be said of body language and non-verbal cues.

 

boring? I highly disagree. every story would be relayed through action and demonstration, as would teaching. learning would be accomplished by doing.

language might make communication easier, but it is also far less sincere than, say, a smile or a frown.

 

Hi Jimmy, just a minor nitpick. I don't think that language is what enables us to deceive. I mean, actors, clowns and especially mimes can deceive pretty well with no words.

 

A picture can be every bit as vague or deceptive as language. A picture can be edited, and may in doing so lack the kind of cues and nuances we would use in verbal communication to detect such deceit.

I don't really see much argument for getting rid of one method of communication purely because it can be used to lie. I mean, the simplest argument I can respond with is: I think we should keep it because it can be used to tell the truth.

And okay, here's some other thoughts. When you talk about a picture, you talk about the ability to represent something. But say you want to express an opinion about the object you're representing. How do you do it? If you're painting, you can maybe draw it in a different way - more jagged lines, e.g. If you're photographing it, your options may be more limited. Now, think: say you've been in this position, and suddenly, you gain the power of speech. What a wealth of possibilities open up. You can tell someone that it was warm where you were when the events in the picture took place, and how warm, and whether it was uncomfortable or not. You can tell them how you remember it, rather than just showing them how it happened. Isn't that great?

At the heart of your argument seems to be that words are deceptive. I guess that depends on what you do with them. Opinions are not deception if they are explained as being as such. And for the life of me, I can't imagine how we'd continue with a new method of communication without finding a way to deceive or express that which is not absolute. How long before a picture didn't quite tell the story as a person remembered it? Would they just accept that their version of events was inferior? I find that pretty hard to imagine.

In other words, if subjectivity didn't exist, we'd have to invent it. I don't see what benefit we'd gain from losing language.

And I'd draw a distinction between non verbal cues and a language. Even if 90+% of communication is formed by these cues, I do wonder whether they would mean anything in the absence of verbal communication. The way someone's hands move when they talk might tell us a very complex story about how they feel about the subject that they're describing. But they don't tell us what that subject is.

 

How so? What would you be doing that would be undetectable if you were to talk about it, but totally detectable if you weren't talking about it? It seems to me that verbal lying is the only thing you wouldn't be able to do; none of the things you were lying about would necessarily disappear with it.

I've seen very little evidence that evolution occurs purely because we need it to.

 

Oh, Jimmy, I do understand what you're driving at with the language/translation question. Translation of a kind occurs even within a language. There's an argument that we only know what any word means by a consensus amalgamation of what we know of that word in relation to other words. (Hence why you can't give a chimp or an alien an Oxford English Dictionary and expect him to learn English by "reading" it).

This is only one theory, but it seems quite persuasive to me; the less common a word, the more likely it is that two people will have a different idea of its meaning in their mind when the word is said. True, it's likely that the definitions/ideas will have some characteristics in common, but nevertheless, there is no way even to ascertain what those ideas are. Many of our misunderstandings occur because person X says something a certain way and person Y, using their equally legitimate understanding of the same words, finds a different meaning conveyed. The standard example of how we could know if we see colours differently from one another is a little overused, but nevertheless, it's a good example if, say, I ask you to buy me a "red" T-shirt. Chances are, the red I imagine when I say "red" is not going to be exactly the same as the one you imagine when you hear "red". You can test this out by getting everyone to draw a dog or a pig, but practically speaking, the point where it becomes harder to demonstrate - like establishing what the difference between "neat" and "tidy" is to two people, e.g. - is the point at which it starts affecting communication, because people are less aware of it, and also because this is the point at which people think they're being more precise and descriptive. It's almost like you're loading a sentence up with ambiguities, and the more there are, the more likely it is to be interpreted a certain way.

I'm sure you're aware of this, and on the face of it, it might look like a solid argument against verbal communication. But to me, it's a more persuasive argument for having several types of communication working in coalition, so that two uses of the same word can have their differences in meaning/intent conveyed more accurately when accompanied by, say, a shrug, or a nod, or a raising of eyebrows. I see little advantage in limiting our communication, and I honestly think it's naïve to imagine that people would cease to be able to lie or deceive purely because they couldn't talk. The motives to lie and deceive would still exist, and whatever other method of communication became the most prevalent and recognised would be the new medium for those lies.