THE SOURCES OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN LANGUAGE

Here's another entry of mine on the website World Panthiesm:

Antony wrote: "the authors speculated that language probably arose for situations like hunters going out for the hunt, and coming back and telling the young or inexperienced the story of the hunt."

Antony, I like to take that discussion back further... to where language participated in the evolution of consciousness. I think language (thus consciousness) did evolve from two human functions—sex and work sounds, both vital to survival.

Years ago, when I was a teaching assistant, I came across the idea (50 years ago—don't remember from which book) that the sounds made by working people turned into language when the sound was associated with the work. Imagine that different sounds were forced from the men (and women) doing work—grunts and whooshes of various kinds. Eventually one more conscious member of the human species would summon another male to the kind of work that was associated with that grunt, wheeze or whoosh. The more facile the user of sounds the more he could use others to aid him. By being able to do that, his chances of survival would increase, consciousness be selected for and passed on. Another theory was that the imitation of animal sounds summoned others to the hunt for whatever sound he was imitating. Thus, a sound becomes associated with a specific animal and language facilitates the evolution of consciousness.

One idea about language I found for myself, but others, I'm sure, also know this... at some point during my days of the mutual seduction between the sexes that goes on and ends in the bedroom, I began to realize that it was not so much what I said as how I said it that ended up with coupling. The sound of my voice would change, soften and deepen, become less tense and more relaxed. So I tied that idea to the one I'd already heard about work. Soothing, comforting sounds led to sex and, eventually, one sound more than another, came to mean "let's do that sound, let's fuck!" Thus the four letter word came into existence and helped procreation and thus helped consciousness survive. I also know that perhaps humans listened to other species have sex and imitated those sounds to indicate a desire for sex.

Ain't love and work grand!? It may be no accident that Freud believed that if a person had love and work, that person was functioning okay.

By the way, this supports my idea that the so-called mysterious mind is just the brain listening to itself use words and rewatching images in a recursive fashion. I don't think the mind is as mysterious as some would have us believe.

LANGUAGE BARRIERS

Not too many months back (or years or weeks—sometimes the years fly like months these days and the weeks drag like years) I mentioned coming across the idea (I don’t know where) that the British and American peoples will no longer be able to understand one another’s languages in 200 years. Then, in order to join a book group, I recently read The Curious Incident of the Dog In the Night by a British author Mark Haddon. I know... I also mentioned that very recently. Anyhow, recalling what I’d said about language differences, I started to jot down some British idioms and words in that novel which might be beginning to stretch the bounds of an illiterate American’s understanding of the Brits. Most of the list I’m about to enter into this blog I still understand but only because I watch and have watched many British films in my life and also still read British literature, classic as well as modern, and, of course, I had the context of each of the following words and phrases. I added two final examples Sunday night that I don’t understand… from a Masterpiece Theater presentation.

The list with my interpretations… (or not):

shift it = get moving
hop it = get moving
“I’m not having you scarping….” = something about stealing
“…go for another wee…” = go take a piss
invigilator = someone who monitors a student’s test
cooker = an outdoor grill
“end of a skip” = this is something (?) parked at a curb a boy was hiding behind
boot = trunk of a car (this, of course, is an old one)
carriageway = a highway (it’s obvious but quaint to our ears)
“get a place to live of our own” = can see a shift in prepositional usage
“got a job on the till” = work as a cash register, also note use of preposition
a plaster = band aid, I think, from its usage
knock you up = come knock on your door, very old
“Hooray Harrys for a knees up” = first half pretty clear, but second …?
curb crawling = cruising for prostitutes

Of course, I think I mentioned that I can still read Shakespeare (500 years ago) and, even, with the help of a dictionary, Chaucer (700 years), but no farther back than that. I took one quarter or two of Old English around 1980, and Old English is very much like a foreign language to modern usage. So perhaps whoever suggested that we’ll soon not understand the Brits was rushing it a bit, but when one realizes that so many young Americans no longer read… well, who knows? Of course young people the world over are developing a chat room language (you know… LOL and OMG?) that I can’t understand at all. Maybe they’ll develop a worldwide language out of that which will be the first truly global language. You know, we elders of the tribe are always seeing the end of the world in every little cultural tremor when, usually, it really is no more than a tremor which workarounds can fix.

WHAT IS IT?



Okay, here's a photo from a blog I sometimes visit, a blog that originates in Estonia. Now the young lady who takes these photos can be a bit unusual at times, and I was thrown off by the photo myself. At first I thought it was one very dangerous photo, then, I thought I saw what it really is. Maybe you'll maybe have to ask her what it is. I think she was trying to be suggestive and clever which she most always is... clever, that is.
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A SMALL OBSERVATION

First a little senryu:

Modern styles — without
dropping a pound, wife’s dress size
shrinks from 6 to 2.

Lately, because I've been on some shopping trips in Portland with my wife, I've learned a thing or two. I even bought my wife a nice casual summer dress that she likes! Let's hope she does anyway. . . . But, what I've learned is that dress makers, in order to accommodate America's large and growing larger women, have been altering their dress sizes. My wife's weight has remained the same for quite some time now, but when she goes shopping, she finds that whereas she used to shop in the dress size 6 racks, she now finds she must shop in the size 2 racks. So if you hear a woman exclaiming, "I can't believe it. I'm a size six", it probably means she's an 8 or 10 dress size and the dress manufacturers are lying to her to make her feel better. Now you know. . . . but don't let your wives know what you know, gentleman readers.

While speaking of fashion sizes—men who wear pants that require the odd lengths are in for trouble too unless they're willing to employ tailors. I have a damn hard time finding the 31 pants length that I need. Last time I went shopping, I ended up buying a 32 and a 30. Now I've got one new pair of high water pants and another pair, a pair of dungarees, that I must fold up at the bottom just like I did in high school back in the early 50s.

O—and another thing I learned—when you buy your wife a dress that she actually likes, you are going to have to buy her a pair of shoes to match that dress on your next shopping trip with her.

LANGUAGE MATTERS

Awhile back, I read somewhere that within the next two hundred years, the English and the Americans won't be speaking the same language unless, of course, the lingua franca has become Mandarin Chinese or whatever language India speaks. No, the statement had to do with the fact that languages never stand still. That's why Latin is a dead language. No one speaks it anymore as, I'm sure, my intelligent readers know unless they're a member of one of those throw back Roman churches where the priests still use Latin in their services. Of course, the average Catholic didn't understand what the priest was saying anyway, so perhaps this observation doesn't count.

But, thinking about the subject, I was saddened to realize that declining literacy in America can only make matters worse. Whereas I can still read Shakespeare and even Chaucer with the help of a dictionary, I will probably still be able to communicate with a Britisher who is also literary since we can touch our common roots but what about his illiterate fellow citizens? Now, take a modern American who's only steady reading is instructions for video games, Internet chat babble, and the chit chat of his school chums—he's filled with the jargon of the day, as is his counterpart in England (if their literacy rate is declining too) filled with English chit chat. Their languages are drifting apart at an alarming rate. In fact, I'll bet I could go into a English pub right now and have a pretty hard time understanding a young Britisher, if he were illiterate. By illiterate, I mean unread by and large on a daily basis so that his only language contact is with his local idioms.

When I realized that the English and Americans were drifting apart, I was rather saddened. It made America seem isolated in the world, losing an old friend like that. I mean even more isolated than Bush has made us with his and Cheney's constant paranoia, seeing enemies everywhere. Of course, that fracture with the English is several generations away so why am I borrowing trouble? Don't we have enough troubles as it is?

KEEPING UP WITH THE __________________?

What with the trend for people to buy houses way too large for their needs that would put their grand-folk to shame and with these overlarge houses being overpriced and overvalued by as much as 30% in some American neighborhoods, modest and sensible people who want modest and sensible dwellings can no longer keep up with the Joneses; they're forced to keep up with the Dunces.

VAGUENESS: ITS USES IN DIPLOMACY

Steven Pinker always uses humor to illustrate his points and often delves into literature too. Here's an old joke, included in his recent book, The Stuff of Thought (p.396), from a section discussing bribes and how to get away with them by employing the language of implicature, rather than the outright offer itself:

When a lady says “no,” she means “maybe.”
When she says “maybe,” she means “yes.”
If she says “yes,” she's no lady.
When a diplomat says “yes,” he means “maybe.”
When he says “maybe,” he means “no.”
If he says “no,” he's no diplomat.

This prompted a feminist revision:

When a woman says “yes,” she means “yes.”
When a woman says “maybe,” she means “maybe.”
When a woman says “no,” she means “no.”
If the man persists, he's a rapist.