The Complexity of Language

Language should be simple. Einstein simply said that everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. We take language for granted, yet we rely on them everyday in our life in order to perform range of functions.

Now read this, silently. Do not move neither your lips nor tongue, nor make a sound. Listen to yourself, without hearing anything, exclusive of sound. What a magnificently strange thing, yet normal and natural.

Now read this LOUD! SCREAM it in your mind! Make a loud SHRIEK, with the voice of Shrek.

Now, hear a whisper, a tiny whisper. Better yet, sing this next line from the song ‘Careless Whisper’ with your best George Michael voice:

“Guilty feet have got no rhythm.”

Magnificent! Who was that? Whose voice was that? Are you sure it is yours?

The most famous question concerning language would be that what is language for? This question is so widely open that it takes another question to answer it. In order to appreciate the worth of language, we must look for answers to the question “What will happen if there is no language?”

Since language should be made simple, the answer can be that there will be no communication between humans, vocally. Had humans been deprived of language, they could hardly survive. Certainly, when there is no language, some behaviors and transactions cannot be performed. One cannot yell for help when one is in a great danger. There is no such thing as invention since ideas cannot be neither discovered nor created. Two people who are deeply in love cannot be together for there is no language that can tie them together. Even so, they are unable to fall in love, as there is no mean for them to express their mutual feelings, except in sensual and erotic manner. That is hard, even harder to think of something to replace language.

Language is so deeply embedded in almost every aspect of the way we interact with the world and it is hard to imagine what it would be like not to have it. What if we do not have names for things? What if we did not have any experience making statements, asking questions, nor talking about things that had not actually happened; future? Would we be able to think? What would our thoughts be like?

The answers to these questions would positively answer the very paramount question, “What is language for?”

However, the nature of language that is multi-faced demands it to be complex and sometimes, complicated. Beyond the existence and position of language, the system of language itself seems to be more complex.

Apart from sign language, we communicate through writing and speaking. Look what you are reading now. Your brain is processing at a great speed, up to 26 letters of the English alphabet, some large, some small, and a dozen or so punctuation marks. From these 26 alphabets, you string a few and form word. There are thousands of combinations in order to form words, from single syllable to multiple syllable words. It is not impossible to memorize all of them given that you have the time and socially correct purposes to do so. Given that words are regulated and collectively – correct words are being indexed in the dictionary, human beings cannot escape and liable to be creative and form new words. From thousands of combinations, humans are able to manipulate and later produce thousands of word order, i.e. sentences. Sentences then will be unified into a single paragraph. Later, another paragraph until you have an essay long grammatically complete series of words consisting of a subject and predicate, even if one or the other is implied, and typically beginning with a capital letter and ending with a full stop.

We use language every day by forming new sentences, be it when writing or speaking. We do not repeat the same lines and utterances. Our conversations are not scripted. I cannot remember what was I saying yesterday except those that I jotted down in my notebook. We do not really pay attention to the form of sentences and structures of our utterances, as we are more interested in the message that we want to deliver. This is the reason why we do not write, speak, and repeat the same thing everyday. As humans, we are likely and expected to be more interesting and formulate new things everyday. We look forward to express new ideas, write, and say different things. Even though there are thousands of words and numerous word orders available for us to encode and externalize our feelings, ideas, and thoughts, language is and will always be limited. We have all experienced the frustration of being unable to 'put an idea into words'. This experience is the proof that language is limited, but not thought.

Do we need to know and memorize thousands of words and grammar in order to really master a language? I will leave that to you. For me, as long as you are able to participate in daily conversations, you know your language. One thing for sure, there are no language teachers who have ever taught the whole combinations of alphabets and sounds, yet language users know which word belongs to which language. How do we, as language users, know that? The answer would be complicated but explainable. The knowledge that exists in our mind is speaker's intuition. It is an intuition to distinguish the properties of language. We know that ‘hroko’ does not exist in English. And “Ate I the apple” is quite odd to be considered as grammatical sentence in English – not in Yoda's English. This innate knowledge is acquired when one is exposed greatly to the structure and principle of the language.

Language users can be more original by inventing and forming new words. However, this is not the only way and often time, it is inflexible to do so. When we use language, in writing or speaking, we combine it with gestures and body expressions. This combination is what makes language users original. When you are typing your essay, you could catch yourself making face. And when you are in a conversation, face-to-face or over phone, your hands are moving in a direction that only you know why. This is what most people call ‘body language’. I prefer to call it ‘body expression’, just to avoid confusion. This kind of ‘language’ is not the same like the ‘language’ language, where in actuality, there are words.

Our conversations and speeches consist of actual language and body expressions. If we separated these two, we could see the complexity of both. On one hand, we have ‘language’, in the sense that you are reading now. It has more than 40 sounds (consonants and vowels) and thousands of words. From these numbers, you can manipulate it and construct indefinite number of sentences - grammatical or not. Currently, there is no limit in using language but it does not go beyond thought. Freedom to be creative with language lies in the characteristic of language itself. Language can be invented; you can invent new letter that carries new sound; new word that carries new meaning; and new sentence structure – just like poets everywhere in the world try to do. This feature is made possible because language is three-fold. It has firm structure with letter, morpheme, and word act as the pillars. These pillars can be arranged, thus creating an order and rules, i.e. grammar.

On the other hand, body communication consists of facial expression and gestures. Of course, these two constitute our whole body. Even though, this communication uses more parts of the body (hands, shoulders, legs, different parts of face, and other parts) than speaking and writing, the outcome is still limited. You can only make a few dozen of facial expressions and there are few hundred of body movements. Differ from ‘language’; this kind of communication cannot be invented. It is not impossible, but relatively tough to invent new facial expression. This is because our facial expression does not have structure. There are neither orders nor rules to guide its usage, as it is the product of feeling and emotion. You cannot teach humans how to feel and use emotion. And because of that, each expression always carries a meaning.

English, Malay, Mandarin, Tamil and any other languages are different from body language, language of music, nature, painting, or mind. The latter group of language is not the actual language. The word ‘language’ is being used in a different context. It differs from the former group of language in the sense of words. Language of music, for example, is a special use of the word ‘language’. If this kind of language is similar to the actual language, could the music be speaking French or German? Indeed, this special use of the word ‘language’ is just like the utilization and manipulation of the word color, rhythm and spice.

The actual language is not at par with the special language, no matter how special it is. Language does not necessarily be special, just simple. We do not need language to enjoy and to appreciate what we see and hear. But, we need language to describe and to discuss things that we saw and heard. It allows us to encode and externalize our thoughts that no other means can provide. Plus, language warrants its users to access abstract concepts. It is quite ironic how abstract concepts; love, happiness, and sadness, need concrete kinds of experience. You need concrete entities to have access to abstract ideas.

I believe in elegant simplicity. Language should be simple as I find this has certain timelessness to it. The objective of our language is to create a memorable experience in our life. So thus writing, it is personal and we ought never forget that every piece of it is unique and special. Human beings are the great communicators of the animal world. We are the only living creatures that use simple language – complex words or complex symbols that represent simple objects, actions, qualities, feelings and ideas.

That is how complex language is.

#Language #Linguistics #Complexity