Animal Languages

We all know that different animals have different ways of communicating with one another, however our understanding of the different languages in the non-human world is very limited to say the least. Wikipedia has quite a good article on animal communication for further reading, but I just want to talk about two animals in this post.   I've just stumbled upon this interesting article which is a few months old now about prairie dogs. According to research carried out by a professor in the North Arizona University, prairie dogs have a quite intricate language system - and not just some simple noises, but specific 'words' for specific items that they see. Thus not all danger is described in one word, but each forms of danger is given a name; a falcon, an owl, a human, a coyote, etc. According to the article they can even differentiate between a coyote and a domesticated dog! But it doesn't stop there, the professor decided to test if there were different calls for different humans so he dressed four men in exactly the same clothing except for their t-shirts where each one wore a different coloured shirt. And indeed, the prairie dogs gave a different call for each person! Apparently they describe what they see in their call. It makes me wonder whether it is possible that they actually could maybe invent new words for things not included in their vocabulary? Or is that a bit too far? I don't know!

This article actually reminded me of a very old story I read about honey bees. There was this girl (Barbara Shipman) whose dad was an agricultural researcher working with bees and he always had his daughter involved in his work. However, as fate would have it, the daughter decided to enter the field of mathematics and graduated as a mathematician from the University of Rochester. But that's where she made her greatest discovery in bees language!  It's very complicated to go through her methods over here, you really need to read it yourself as I'm not even 100% on it, but apparently bees can perceive not just magnetic fields (which we know alot of animals can see them and use them for directions) but also quantum fields!  Fields made by quarks - the tiniest of particles that make up our own atoms!  It's mind boggling to say the least and there has been disputes over her conclusions, but it's still a very interesting read non-the-less!

Simplified Languages

Any one who read George Orwell's book Ninteen Eighty Four is familiar with the term 'Newspeak'. For those who haven't read the book, it's basically a dark vision of a future world ruled by a totalitarian regime that stabilises its rule through constant supervision of its citizens as well as through insuring they remain too busy doing one meaningless task after another thus wont have time to think, wonder or plan. The totalitarian regime also introduced 'Newspeak' which is a simplified language that drastically reduced the number of words in the English dictionary by just removing 'unnecessary' words. Thus basically to retard human intelligence, imagination and creativity by simplifying language and making it as plain and dull as possible. The Wikipedia article on Newspeak explains it as follows.

The basic idea behind Newspeak is to remove all shades of meaning from language, leaving simple dichotomies (pleasure and pain, happiness and sadness, goodthink and crimethink) which reinforce the total dominance of the State. Similarly, Newspeak root words served as both nouns and verbs, which allowed further reduction in the total number of words; for example, "think" served as both noun and verb, so the word thought was not required and could be abolished.

But is Newspeak as bad as it's portrayed? A recent news article on the BBC reminded me of how in our real human history governments did try to forcefully interfer in local languages for one reason or another. The article talks about the government of Taiwan deleting all Simplified Chinese scripts from its agencies texts and using only the more complex traditional Chinese script instead. Obviously this is probably for political reasons more than anything (I'd imagine to insist on their independent identity separate from mainland China), but on the Chinese side, according to the article, traditional Chinese script has been abandoned only in the 1950s for the simplified Chinese. Unlike Newspeak, however, simplification has been done to raise literacy levels rather than retard imagination.

Kemal and the new Turkish alphabet

I can think of another example of a language reformation and that is in Turkey after it won its independence from the Allies in 1923 and established the modern Turkish state. Mustafa Kemal, the founder of modern Turkey, had a more nationalistic agenda to his language reformation. In 1932 he established the Turkish Language Association which aimed to remove all non-Turkish words in the local vocabulary that have established itself under the multi-national Ottoman rule. But not only did Turkish nationalism allowed for the reintroduction of abandoned Turkish words to replace those borrowed from other nationalities - there was more in the Turkish language reform. Mustafa Kemal replaced the Turkish script and alphabet completely from that based on Arabic alphabet and grammar to that of Latin based. There are two reasons for this. First was political; Mustafa Kemal wanted Turkey to move away from the Eastern world and join Europe and the West as a new 'modern' Turkey. The other reason was the complexity of the Arabic language compared to the simplicity of a language based on Latin grammar. Turning to a more simple script allowed literacy rates to increase - or so I'm told (I've never seen any statistics to prove anything though).

I'm really in two minds about this. I can understand the logic that a simpler language will be easier to learn and thus would allow for higher literacy rates, but does it effect imagination and intelligence? Could Shakspear write his plays in Newspeak? The Qura'an itself was revealed to an Arab population who valued poetry and the linguistic arts as the highest form of expression. Infact even today Muslims consider the miracle of the Qura'an to be a linguistic miracle more than anything else. Would simplifying language really be a good educational policy? I really don't know. A part of me prefers the more complex arts and allowing human imagination to wander wherever it wishes.  When I started studying Turkish language a while back, I was told that language isn't only a means of communication, but also the way people think.  Language is the result of an evolutionary process and reflects culture, ideas, arts and the characters of a people and the more languages you speak the more you can think in different ways.  Something doesn't sit right with government interference in language, even if it is to increase literacy rates.

I personally want to learn a computing language and be able to design websites.  I tried getting into it but found it too difficult and time consuming that I decided to leave it for another time when I have more free time on my hands.  Now I do wish there is a simpler programming language but I have to wonder, does simpler not mean I will be able to do less?  Rather than design a very unique website, I would probably only be able to put blocks and buttons with a very simple language.  Does not the same apply with human languages only in a non-tangible format that might only prove its negative effects after several generations?  It's a scary thought.