What don't we know about language?
29 December 2005
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Actually, there's a lot we don't know about language. Although it's been with us for tens of thousands of years, we've studied it scientifically for a relatively short time. So what do we still need to know?
Well, although we've gotten quite good at identifying differences between languages, it wasn't until the last few decades that we focused on what languages have in common. One important thing they share is that all languages can be learned relatively easily by children. Which leads linguists to believe that all languages have some kind of basic structure in common -- a kind of universal grammar that children know instinctively. What we do't know yet is what those universal rules are and exactly what instinctive knowledge about language children are born with.
One of the best ways to figure that out, by the way, is to study and compare as many of the world's languages as possible. Which is one of the reasons we need to preserve and record the languages that are dying out.
What else do we want to know?
Here's a fundamental question: Was there a single mother language that spawned all the rest? Or did many languages spring up in various places as the human race evolved? We know a lot about the history of language, but we may never know how it all started.
We know a lot about the Indo-European language family, but less about language families in Asia or Africa or the Americas. Or about orphan languages -- like Basque -- whose connections with any known language family ... are murky.
We know that languages change over the centuries, and we know how they change. But why do they change? Are languages simply unstable, like a rudderless boat, and imperfectly learned from generation to generation?
We know more than ever before about how to teach languages. But we'd like to know why some adults learn languages easily... while others don't. We'd like to know whether it's possible to speed up the process of learning a new language, and how to do it.
We've succeeded in making computers process language. They can make dictionaries and summarize articles, make translations and exchange e-mail, read out loud and recognize people from their voices. But will we ever teach one to use language the way humans do; to make inferences; express anger; or discuss a political campaign?
What more can we learn about how species other than humans communicate with each other? Which raises the question, if there is alien intelligence in a galaxy far, far away, how will we communicate with it?
So there's a lot to think about. Some of the answers -- for example on language origins -- may come from new discoveries in paleontology. Some may come from neuroscience, as we learn more about the workings of the brain. Some may come from our new understanding of the human genome. Or from advances in anthropology, sociology, psychology, or even math.
In some ways we know a lot; in other ways we're just getting started. But knowing languages is a joy. And knowing more about language is a marvelous quest -- into the most human of human activities.
This is the Five-Minute Linguist at the College of Charleston -- in cooperation with the National Museum of Language -- signing off for the last time. We hope you enjoyed this overview of languages and language. If you did -- or if there are things you’d like to know more about -- send us a comment at www.cofc.edu/linguist. The quality of these programs was due to the careful guidance of our producer, Joan Mack, our Technical Director Victor Mazyck, and the more than 50 language experts from 23 states and the United Kingdom who volunteered their time and expertise to help us celebrate the Year of Languages. I want to thank them all.
By the way, all the essays in this series -- and a few more -- will be published as a book in the summer of 2006 under the title: The Five-Minute Linguist. Watch for it. And in the meantime, keep in mind that wherever you are, and whatever you do... language makes a difference.