Foci that stray from Berlin and Kay’s predictions: Roberson et al. 2000, 2005; Levinson 2000, 27.
majority of languages conform to Geiger’s sequence or to the alternative of green before yellow: Kay and Maffi 1999.
Continued debate on whether color concepts are determined primarily by culture or by nature: Roberson et al. 2000, 2005; Levinson 2000; Regier et al. 2005; Kay and Regier 2006a, 2006b. A related debate about infant color categorization: Özgen 2004; Franklin et al. 2005; Roberson et al. 2006.
Model for natural constraints: Regier et al. 2007; see also Komarovaa et al. 2007. In a few areas of the color space, especially around blue/purple, the optimal partitions, according to Regier, Khetarpal, and Kay’s model, deviate systematically from the actual systems found in the majority of the world’s languages. This may be due either to imperfections in their model or to the override of cultural factors.
Red as an arousing color: Wilson 1966, Jacobs and Hustmyer 1974, Valdez and Mehrabian 1994.
“crude conceptions of colour derived from the elements”: Gladstone 1858, 3:491.
“Colours were for Homer not facts but images”: Gladstone 1877, 386.
The Hanunoo: Conklin 1955, who does not refer to Gladstone. On the similarity between ancient Greek and Hanunoo, see also Lyons 1999.
page 93 From brightness to hue as a modern theory: MacLaury 1997; see also Casson 1997.
the acquired aptitudes of one generation: Gladstone 1858, 3:426.
“progressive education”: Gladstone 1858, 3:495.
Naturalness in concept learning: See Waxman and Senghas 1992.
Yanomamö kinship terms: Lizot 1971.
The innateness controversy: The most eloquent exposition of the nativist view is Steven Pinker’s The Language Instinct (1994). Geoffrey Sampson’s The “Language Instinct” Debate (2005) offers a methodical refutation of the arguments in favor of innate grammar, as well as references to the voluminous academic literature on the subject.
5: PLATO AND THE MACEDONIAN SWINEHERD
The flaws of the equal-complexity dogma: For a fuller argument, see Deutscher 2009.
“You really mean the Aborigines have a language?”: Dixon 1989, 63.
“Plato walks with the Macedonian swineherd”: Sapir 1921, 219.
“Investigations of linguists date back”: Fromkin et al. 2003, 15. (Full quotation: “There are no primitive languages. All languages are equally complex and equally capable of expressing any idea in the universe.” The equal-complexity slogan is repeated also on p. 27.
“It is a finding of modern linguistics”: Dixon 1997, 118.
“A central finding of linguistics has been”: Forston 2004, 4.
“Objective measurement is difficult”: Hockett 1958, 180. For a discussion of this passage, see Sampson 2009.
Compensation in complexity between different subareas: Whenever linguists have tried, heuristically, to detect any signs of compensation in complexity between different areas they have failed to find them. See Nichols 2009, 119.
Vocabulary size: Goulden et al. 1990 have estimated the vocabulary size of an average native-English-speaking university student at about seventeen thousand word families (a word family being a base word together with its derived forms, e.g., happy, unhappy, happiness), or as many as forty thousand different word types. Crystal 1995, 123, estimates the passive vocabulary of a university lecturer at seventy-three thousand words.
Sorbian dual: Corbett 2000, 20.
Five categories of cultural complexity: Perkins 1992, 75.
Recent studies on the relation between morphological complexity and size of society: See, e.g., Sinnemäki 2009; Nichols 2009, 120; Lupyan and Dale 2010.
Gothic verb habaidedeima: Schleicher 1860, 34.
Communication among intimates: Givón 2002.
Size of sound inventories: Maddieson 1984, 2005.
Correlation between the number of speakers and the size of the sound inventory: Hay and Bauer 2007. For earlier discussions, see Haudricourt 1961; Maddieson 1984; and Trudgill 1992.
Pirahã: See most recently Nevins et al. 2009 and Everett 2009.
Ubarum told Iribum to dispossess Kuli: Foster 1990, who reads u li-pi5-i-ZU-ma and translates “that he might work it,” but see Hilgert 2002, 484, and a near-identical form in Whiting 1987 no. 12:17, which proves the correctness of the translation given here.
Absence of complement clauses in many Australian languages: See Dixon 2006, 263, and Dench 1991, 196–201. For Matses, see Fleck 2006. See also Deutscher 2000, ch. 10.
Finite complements are a more effective tool: Deutscher 2000, ch. 11.
A flurry of publications from the last couple of years: See most recently the collection of articles in Sampson et al. 2009.
6: CRYING WHORF
“The normal man of intelligence”: Sapir 1924, 149.
“what fetters the mind and benumbs the spirit”: Sapir 1924, 155.
“We shall no longer be able to see”: Whorf 1956, 212.
Data collection in the eighteenth century: In 1710, Leibnitz called for the creation of a “universal dictionary.” In 1713, he wrote to the Russian czar Peter the Great, imploring him to gather word lists from the numerous undocumented languages spoken in his empire. The idea was taken up at the Russian court in all earnestness two generations later, when Catherine the Great started working on exactly such a project, personally collecting words from as many languages as she could find. She later commissioned others to continue her work, and the result was the so-called imperial dictionary (Linguarum Totius Orbis Vocabularia Comparativa) of 1787, which contained words from over two hundred languages of Europe and Asia. A second edition, published in 1790–91, added seventy-nine more languages. In 1800, the Spanish ex-Jesuit Lorenzo Hervás published his Catálogo de las lenguas de las naciones conocidas, which contained more than three hundred languages. And in the early nineteenth century, the German lexicographer Christoph Adelung started compiling his Mithridates (1806–17), which was to collect vocabularies and the text of the “Our Father” from 450 different languages. On these compilations, see Müller 1861, 132ff.; Morpurgo Davies 1998, 37ff.; and Breva-Claramonte 2001.
The dictionaries revealed little of value about the grammar of exotic languages: There is one notable exception, Lorenzo Hervás’s Catálogo de las lenguas de las naciones conocidas, which contained grammatical sketches. Humboldt befriended Hervás in Rome and received from him materials on American Indian languages. Nevertheless, Humboldt did not have a high opinion of Hervás’s competence in grammatical analysis. In a letter to F. A. Wolf (March 19, 1803), he writes: “The old Hervás is a confused and unthorough person, but he knows a great deal, has an enormous amount of notes, and is therefore always useful.” As Morpurgo Davies (1998, 13–20, 37) points out, there is a natural tendency when assessing one’s own achievement to underplay the achievements of one’s predecessors. This may well be the case with Humboldt’s assessment of Hervás. Even so, it is undeniable that Humboldt took comparative grammar to an entirely different level of sophistication.
Missionary grammars: Jooken 2000.
“It is sad to see what violence”: Humboldt 1821a, 237. See also Humboldt 1827, 172.
“The difference between languages”: Humboldt 1820, 27. Humboldt did not invent this sentiment out of the blue, but previous claims to this effect were restricted mostly to observations about differences between the vocabularies of mainstream European languages. The French philosopher Étienne de Condillac, for example, commented on the difference between French and Latin in the connotations of words to do with agriculture. If grammatical differences were brought into the discussion at all, they never went beyond such banalities as Herder’s claim that “industrious nations have an abundance of moods in their verbs” (1812, 355).
“is not just the means for representing a truth”: Humboldt 1820, 27. On precursors to the idea, most notably Johann David Michaelis’s 1760 Prussian Academy prize essay, see Koerner 2000. Humboldt himself had already expressed the sen
timent in vague form in 1798, before he had been exposed to non-Indo-European languages (Koerner 2000, 9).
“language is the forming organ of thought”: Humboldt 1827, 191.
“Thinking is dependent not just on language in general”: Humboldt 1820, 21.
“what it encourages and stimulates its speakers to do”: Humboldt 1821b, 287. “Sieht man blo auf dasjenige, was sich in einer Sprache ausdrücken lässt, so wäre es nicht zu verwundern, wenn man dahin geriethe, alle Sprachen im Wesentlichen ungefähr gleich an Vorzügen und Mängeln zu erklären. . . . Dennoch ist dies gerade der Punkt, auf den es ankommt. Nicht, was in einer Sprache ausgedrückt zu werden vermag, sondern das, wozu sie aus eigner, innerer Kraft anfeuert und begeistert, entscheidet über ihre Vorzüge oder Mängel.” Admittedly, Humboldt made this famous pronouncement for the wrong reasons. He was trying to explain why, even if no language constrains the possibilities of thought in its speakers, some languages (Greek) are still much better than others, because they actively encourage speakers to form higher ideas.
“the words in which we think are channels of thought”: Müller 1873, 151.
“every single language has its own peculiar framework”: Whitney 1875, 22.
“it is the thought of past humanity imbedded”: Clifford 1879, 110.
page 138 Boas’s influence on Sapir: It is often suggested that Franz Boas may also have inspired Sapir’s ideas about relativity. There are hints of this view in Boas 1910, 377, and a decade later (1920, 320) Boas made the argument more explicit in saying that “the categories of language compel us to see the world arranged in certain definite conceptual groups which, on account of our lack of knowledge of linguistic processes, are taken as objective categories, and which, therefore, impose themselves upon the form of our thoughts.”
“everything to learn about language”: Swadesh 1939. See also Darnell 1990, 9.
“Language misleads us both by its vocabulary and by its syntax”: Russell 1924, 331. Sapir was introduced to such ideas by the book The Meaning of Meaning: A Study in the Influence of Language upon Thought, by Ogden and Richards (1923).
“tyrannical hold that linguistic form”: Sapir 1931, 578.
“incommensurable analysis of experience in different languages”: Sapir 1924, 155. Whorf (1956 [1940], 214) later elaborated the principle of relativity: “We are thus introduced to a new principle of relativity, which holds that all observers are not led by the same physical evidence to the same picture of the universe, unless their linguistic backgrounds are similar.”
“is not merely a reproducing instrument for voicing ideas”: Whorf 1956 (1940), 212.
“Some languages have means of expression”: Whorf 1956 (1941), 241; “Monistic view of nature”: Whorf 1956 (1940), 215.
“What surprises most is to find that various grand generalizations”: Whorf 1956 (1940), 216.
“has zero dimensions; i.e., it cannot be given a number”: Whorf 1956 (1940), 216; “to us, for whom time is a motion”: Whorf 1956 (1941), 151.
“no words, grammatical forms, constructions or expressions”: Whorf 1956, 57.
“a Hopi Indian, thinking in the Hopi language”: Chase 1958, 14.
“time seems to be that aspect of being”: Eggan 1966.
“relate grammatical possibilities”: This and the quotations that follow are from Steiner 1975, 137, 161, 165, 166.
page 147 Wir hören auf zu denken: Colli et al. 2001, 765.
“the limits of my language mean the limits of my world”: Wittgenstein 1922, §5.6.
“grammar performs another important function”: Boas 1938, 132–33. Boas also went on to explain that even when a grammar does not oblige speakers to express certain information, that does not imply obscurity of speech, since, when necessary, clarity can always be obtained by adding explanatory words.
“Languages differ essentially in what they must convey”: Jakobson 1959a, 236; see also Jakobson 1959b and Jakobson 1972, 110. Jakobson (1972, 107–8) specifically rejects the influences of language on “strictly cognitive activities.” He allows their influence only on “everyday mythology, which finds its expression in divagations, puns, jokes, chatter, jabber, slips of the tongue, dreams, reverie, superstitions, and, last but not least, in poetry.”
Matses: Fleck 2007.
Effects of language on thought are mundane: Pinker 2007, 135.
7: WHERE THE SUN DOESN’T RISE IN THE EAST
“In the A.M. four of the Natives”: Captain Cook’s Journal during the First Voyage round the World (Wharton 1893, 392).
“Mr. Gore, who went out this day with his gun”: Hawkesworth 1785, 132 (July 14, 1770).
“it is very remarkable that this word”: Crawfurd 1850, 188. In 1898, another lexicographer added to the confusion (Phillips 1898), when he recorded other words for the animal: “kadar,” “ngargelin,” and “wadar.” Dixon et al. (1990, 68) point out that the ethnologist W. E. Roth wrote a letter to the Australian in 1898, saying that gangooroo was the name of a particular type of kangaroo in Guugu Yimithirr. But this was not noticed by lexicographers.
Kant’s analysis of the primacy of egocentric conception of space: Kant 1768, 378: “Da wir alles, was auer uns ist, durch die Sinnen nur in so fern kennen, als es in Beziehung auf uns selbst steht, so ist kein Wunder, da wir von dem Verhältni dieser Durchschnittsflächen zu unserem Körper den ersten Grund hernehmen, den Begriff der Gegenden im Raume zu erzeugen.” See also Miller and Johnson-Laird 1976, 380–81.
“we were in the middle of a young diggings township”: G. E. Dalrymple, Narrative and Reports of the Queensland North East Coast Expedition, 1873, quoted in Haviland and Haviland 1980, 120. For the history of Guugu Yimithirr, see Haviland 1979b, Haviland and Haviland 1980, Haviland 1985, and Loos 1978.
“when savages are pitted against civilisation”: “The black police,” editorial, Cooktown Herald and Palmer River Advertiser, June 24, 1874, p. 5.
No words for “in front of” and “behind”: Haviland (1998) argues that Guugu Yimithirr can in some limited circumstances use the noun thagaal, “front,” in relation to space, e.g., in George nyulu thagaal-bi, “George was at the front.” But this seems to be used to describe not spatial position as such but George’s leading role.
Guugu Yimithirr spatial language and orientation: Levinson 2003.
“two girls, the one has nose to the east”: Levinson 2003, 119.
Geographic coordinates in Australian languages: The Djaru language of Kimberley, Western Australia: Tsunoda 1981, 246; Kayardild from Bentinck Island, between the Cape York Peninsula and Arnhem Land: Evans 1995, 218; Arrernte (Western Desert): Wilkins 2006, 52ff.; Warlpiri (Western Desert): Laughren 1978, as quoted in Wilkins 2006, 53; Yankunytjatjara (Western Desert): Goddard 1985, 128. Geographic coordinates elsewhere: Madagascar: Keenan and Ochs 1979, 151; Nepal: Niraula et al. 2004; Bali: Wassmann and Dasen 1998; Hai||om: Widlok 1997. See also Majid et al. 2004, 111.
Marquesan: Cablitz 2002.
Bali: Wassmann and Dasen 1998, 692–93.
McPhee’s House in Bali: McPhee 1947, 122ff. In the south of Bali, where McPhee lived, the mountain direction is roughly north, so McPhee follows the usual practice of translating the terms seaward and mountainward as south and north, respectively. It should be noted that the directions of the dance in Bali have religious significance.
page 171 “But white fellows wouldn’t understand that”: Haviland 1998, 26.
The orientation skills of the Guugu Yimithirr: Levinson 2003, chs. 4, 6. On orientation skills of other Australian Aborigines, see Lewis 1976. On Tzeltal, see Brown and Levinson 1993.
strange sensation that the sun did not rise in the east: Levinson 2003, 128.
Jack’s shark story: Haviland 1993, 14.
Guugu Yimithirr spatial memory: Levinson 2003, 131.
The ongoing debate on the “rotating tables” experiments: See Li and Gleitman 2002; Levinson et al. 2002; Levinson 2003; Majid et al. 2004; Haun et al. 2006; Pinker 2007, 141 ff.; Li et al. (forthcoming). Many vari
eties of the rotating table experiments were conducted, and in most of them the subjects were not asked to “complete a picture,” as in the setup demonstrated here, but rather asked to memorize a certain order of objects and then “make it the same” on a different table. The “make it the same” instruction has attracted most criticism. Li et al. (forthcoming) argue that “make it the same” is ultimately an ambiguous instruction and that “in solving ambiguous rotation tasks, when the participant is asked to reproduce the ‘same’ spatial array or path as before, he or she needs to guess the experimenter’s intent as to what counts as the ‘same.’ To make this inference, people are likely to implicitly consult the way their language community customarily speaks about or responds to inquiries about locations and directions.” This criticism seems to me to be largely justified. However, the “complete the picture” experiment that I have presented above does not, as far as I can see, suffer from this problem, as it does not rely on the possibly vague and interpretable notion of “the same.” A further point of criticism by Li et al. that seems largely justified to me is against Levinson’s (2003, 153) claim that there is systematic downgrading of egocentric coordinates in the perception of Guugu Yimithirr and Tzeltal speakers. Li et al. did not find any evidence for such downgrading in the experiments they conducted with Tzeltal speakers. What is more, on the face of it, the downgrading claim is reminiscent of the Whorfian fallacy that the lack of a concept in a language necessarily means that speakers are unable to understand this concept. None of the claims made in this chapter rely on downgrading. Rather, they relate to the additional level of geographic computation and memory that Guugu Yimithirr and Tzeltal speakers are continually obliged to do and to the habits of mind that arise in consequence.
Jaminjung: Schultze-Berndt 2006, 103–4.
Yukatek: Majid et al. 2004, 111.
Hai||om orientation: See Neumann and Widlok 1996 and Widlok 1997.
Acquisition of geographic coordinates: De León 1994; Wassmann and Dasen 1998; and Brown and Levinson 2000. Some cultural artifacts may also contribute, of course. In Bali, for instance, houses are always built facing the same direction, the head of family always sleeps on the same side of the house, and children are always put in bed in a particular direction (Wassmann and Dassen 1998, 694).
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