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Languages, like human bodies, come in a variety of shapes—but only to a point. Just as people don't sprout multiple heads, languages tend to veer away from certain forms that might spring from an imaginative mind. For example, one core property of human languages is known as duality of patterning: meaningful linguistic units (such as words) break down into smaller meaningless units (sounds), so that the words sap, pass, and asp involve different combinations of the same sounds, even though their meanings are completely unrelated.
It's not hard to imagine that things could have been otherwise. In principle, we could have a language in which sounds relate holistically to their meanings—a high-pitched yowl might mean "finger," a guttural purr might mean "dark," a yodel might mean "broccoli," and so on. But there are stark advantages to duality of patterning. Try inventing a lexicon of tens of thousands of distinct noises, all of which are easily distinguished, and you will probably find yourself wishing you could simply re-use a few snippets of sound in varying arrangements.
What to make, then, of the recent discovery of a language whose words are not made from smaller, meaningless units? Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language (ABSL) is a new sign language emerging in a village with high rates of inherited deafness in Israel's Negev Desert. According to a report led by Wendy Sandler of the University of Haifa, words in this language correspond to holistic gestures, much like the imaginary sound-based language described above, even though ABSL has a sizable vocabulary.
To linguists, this is akin to finding a planet on which matter is made up of molecules that don't decompose into atoms. ABSL contrasts sharply with other sign languages like American Sign Language (ASL), which creates words by re-combining a small collection of gestural elements such as hand shapes, movements, and hand positions.
Researchers theorize the sign language hasn't re-used simpler elements to create new words because gestures can accommodate a wider range of variation than sounds can, such that many more unique signifiers are possible.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Tuesday June 20 2017, @11:09PM (2 children)
Although many Chinese characters – which are very often words, not just phonetic components – are formed from a root character and some additional symbology, a very large number of them stand alone.
If hand-waving is words, then perhaps Chinese characters are words too.
They're made of various numbers of individual strokes, so in that sense, they do decompose somewhat. But strokes are positionally sensitive; they don't always signify the same thing the way an "s" or a "w" does.
Wouldn't be all that challenging to create a word-level symbology that was all variations on a single stroke. You'd be able to build a pretty large vocabulary with a little planning and forethought.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 21 2017, @01:32AM
English letters also don't always signify the same thing either. A 'y' at the beginning or end of a word. the 'a' in sad and said. The magical power of 'e'.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday June 21 2017, @12:42PM
Chinese characters re-use many radicals, though, which is why you look up characters by radical in Chinese dictionaries (ranked according to number of strokes in a radical). So you could take "⽊", mù, "tree" and recombine it with another radical to make "机", jī, "machine".
The interesting aspect of this sign language was that it doesn't re-use or recombine basic components in that way. Every sign is a complete word.
Washington DC delenda est.