Paradigm Paralysis In Linguistic Systems

[Xeigrich]

That subject line kinda sounds like a snazzy newspaper article headline, eh? 3nodding I have to warn you, I'm about to use a lot of big words, and I can't guarantee you'll understand everything. (Hell, I barely understand what I'm rambling about right now, anyway! OH, and it's pronounced "para-dime" if anyone is having problems... I used to say "para-dijm" up until a few years ago)

Anyway, I love the word paradigm, and was looking up some related stuff, when I came across the concepts of Paradigm Paralysis and Paradigm Shifts.

A paradigm shift is basically when one way of thinking changes to a different way of thinking (as a very basic, inaccurate definition). Paradigm paralysis occurs when we are so used to a certain paradigm (set of ideas) that we can't imagine what an alternative would be like. And this got me thinking very, very deeply about linguistic paradigm paralysis (ie being stuck recycling the same language concepts over and over).

- - - - - -

When we think of "language" we think of Words, Sounds, Symbols (Writing) and things like Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, etc. Can you imagine a language without words? A language without nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc? No, a polysynthetic or heavily agglutinating language won't count, because you still have the basic parts and concepts, even if they're not words by themselves.

I'm striving to conjure up concepts for a linguistic paradigm shift. There's got to be different ways to structure languages! Ever language I've ever looked into has had SOME common elements, even if they are a bit skewed, mixed, or half-implemented. It's possible that this is just how things are, and there ISN'T another way, but as the saying goes... "You can't prove that something doesn't exist. You can only prove that it does."

Just for clarification, other common examples of paradigm paralysis: Thinking the world is flat and there's no other possibility, Difficulty understanding geocentricism vs heliocentricism, Difficulty imagining a 4th or 5th physical dimension, Thinking of "time" in a different way, Grasping the concepts of advanced Algebra and Calculus after a lifetime of simple arithmetic, Thinking of "photography" as more than just film and darkrooms (old example), Implementing "computers" without using electricity, etc.

I believe a lot of people who are learning a second language for the first time in their life, late in life, have a similar problem in grasping the concept that not every language in the world works the same way as their native language. "But... Then how would you say *idiom*?"

- - - - - - -

Okay, usually it takes a random genius like Galileo or Einstein or Stephen Hawking to break a streak of paradigm paralysis with a sudden, unexpected paradigm shift, but there's no reason why that has to be the standard.

I want to brainstorm... See if we can come up with truly unique concepts so far-fetched from the current concept of 'language' that a random college-level linguistics student would be bewildered by the very prospect.

And besides the brainstorming... I want to create a conlang so revolutionary that it's almost impossible to translate because it's so vastly different from any existing natlang or conlang.


I think the first step to breaking the paralysis is to abandon and forsake everything we know about languages. Imagine we are beings with no means of communication, and we must sit together and gesticulate madly until we get to a point where ideas are communicated effectively. I believe that is the only universal concept in languages: that they are a means for communication or record-keeping.

Don't assume there's writing, words, sounds, abstract/concrete things, parts of speech, or even the mouth or hands involved.

Can we really come up with anything new? ... Or are we, too, held firmly withing the grasp of linguistic paradigm paralysis?  

[vampyre_smiles]

In Vren-m-nyake (the language of my demons, Vren), there can be no statement without telling a point-of-view. By this, I mean that there must be an "observer" like in sub-atomic partical interactions. They could describe Schrodinger's Cat in a way that it can no longer be considered a paradox. Their language is intrinsically quantom in nature.

Would that be something like what you are talking about? I think to break our (humans') linguistic paradigms, we have to posit speakers that are different from humans.  

[Fogwolf]

I certainly think completely different systems of langauge are theoretically possible, but as humans, we are going to be limited by human concepts in as much as languages we have exist to convey certain salient notions. it will probably be difficult to get out of that entirely.

But an idea: we could take a four-dimensionalist view of time rather than the present notion that is currently expressed in linguistic time tenses. i.e. instead of past, present and future tense, we could either have a gradation of tenses from a beginning point to an ending point in time (I doubt we could ever have enough though), or we could have reference points - before X, after Y, between Y and X, that kind of thing (or to really get our heads out of the timestream, 'to the metaphorical left of point X, to the metaphorical right of point Y').

It's also worth noting that was is obligatory in langauges does differ greatly. I remember in one linguistics class, the teacher told us that where English would say "the stone falls", this other language (can't remember what, sorry), would say the equivalent of "Really (not hypothetically) I see stone-like thing move downwards". So that the speaker sees it (as opposed to not seeing it), that it's real (not imaginary) that it's stone like (not that it's a stone) - these things were obligatory in that language. Yet they didn't need articles (a/the) as we do in English.  

[Homurakitsune]

It sounds cool, but I don't have a clue how one would start something like that. It made my brain hurt just reading it! xD  

[Goddess Rukus]

Um... I'm really confused, but good luck! XD  

[Eccentric Iconoclast]

LET'S START WITH PIRAHÃ AND WORK FROM THERE, SHALL WE?

xd

I was actually having issues convincing someone earlier that there really is a language without numbers.

At any rate, Aquénandi does have some pretty wonky things in it. All sorts of people seem to have issues understanding that things aren't what they aren't.

Someone can, for instance, be either a singer — cansi; someone singing right now (also used for inanimate objects that happen to be singing) — or a cansini. which means sing-person morphemically, and means someone with the tendency to sing.

If someone loses the tendency to sing, people no longer call them cansini and behave as if it's abnormal behavior when that person (let's call the person in question Qini).

So if someone's a singer now, and they're singing, you could just say:

1. Cansi Qini je.
sing.NOM Qini.NOM PRES.COPULA

to express that.

If someone tends to sing but aren't necessarily doing so right now:

1. Cansini Qini je.
sing-person.NOM Qini.NOM PRES.COPULA

And if Qini's singing and it's abnormal behavior (and among the Lisfirim, it usually is):

1. Qini cansje.
Qini.NOM sing.PRES.POS

Seems pretty tame for now (although I do say I've never seen anything like it among natural languages. In English and most languages, it seems like we distinguish 2 from 1 and 3.

HOWEVER. Among the isolated and oldest Lisfirim, the middle link merges with the first. This inspired the final link to mean the same thing. The distinction is completely lost.

And there the things aren't what they aren't thing comes into play. When someone's not singing, it's immediately assumed that they're not prone to it. When they start singing, it's believed that it's a natural state for them. All conceptions of tendencies completely melt because they're...not. When they're not singing, they're a person who isn't singing.

SO BASICALLY, a bird isn't a bird once it lands.  

[Goddess Rukus]

@Eccentric Iconoclast: I get it. Pretty nifty. =)

My conlang is somewhat improving when it comes to verbs and stuff, but it still needs LOTS of work. Maybe I can work something nifty into it. *plots*  

[Eccentric Iconoclast]

Criminals seem to get off really easy.

"WELL, I'M NOT COMMITTING THE CRIME NOW, AM I?"

gonk  

[Doppelgaanger]

Eccentric Iconoclast

Criminals seem to get off really easy.

"WELL, I'M NOT COMMITTING THE CRIME NOW, AM I?"

gonk

It would appear that they would.

Oh noes!  

[Homurakitsune]

Doppelgaanger

Eccentric Iconoclast

Criminals seem to get off really easy.

"WELL, I'M NOT COMMITTING THE CRIME NOW, AM I?"

gonk

It would appear that they would.

Oh noes!

Now that's just funny. rofl  

[Eccentric Iconoclast]

Well, it's true. gonk

Actually, Lisfir culture is really lax about criminal behavior in any case. If what was done can be fixed or somehow mended, the person in charge is expected to do so, but otherwise it's considered pointless to punish the perpetrator otherwise. I mean, they're immortals. The general idea of punishment is "what are you gonna do, kill me?"  

[Goddess Rukus]

Eccentric Iconoclast

Well, it's true. gonk

Actually, Lisfir culture is really lax about criminal behavior in any case. If what was done can be fixed or somehow mended, the person in charge is expected to do so, but otherwise it's considered pointless to punish the perpetrator otherwise. I mean, they're immortals. The general idea of punishment is "what are you gonna do, kill me?"

You've got an interesting conculture there, then. xD

Funny all the same, no doubt. rofl  

[Eccentric Iconoclast]

They're all crazy. Seriously. They've got a sort of controlled anarchy; they randomly select individuals to "lead" for 20 year terms, but the sole purpose of this (even they admit it) is so that they have someone to blame when things go bad. Fortunately for the elected people, there isn't a lot of blaming going on.

At any rate, this thread seems to have run off topic as fast as its legs could carry it.  

[Xeigrich]

Well, I'm back, and I do believe I'm done digesting turkey until freaking Christmas.

You guys have some interesting ideas and stuff, but you're still thinking inside the box. This is more less an experiment to see if we can, with our combined linguistic powers, break what I believe is one of the most significant paradigm paralysis cases in all of humanity.

You're all still thinking "Well, you could do such-and-such with the tenses" but you can't assume there will be tenses! What if the being exists outside of time itself? And you say "You must include a point-of-view," but what if a being is a sort of hive-mind drone, and the point of view is always obvious or unnecessary? EI, your Aquenandi stuff is indeed crazy and interesting, but it's still bound within what sounds perfectly plausible, even if a bit unwieldy.



---

What I'm looking for, and I may have just shifted my own paradigm situation here, is something like...

Beings (who may be physical, abstract, or non-physical such as energy or whatever) whose sole method of communication is... waves. Not like radio waves, where they simply communicate using the waves as a medium (as we use radio), but where the radio waves themselves are the language! There's no real sound, no words, and all meaning is conveyed by the wavelength, amplitude, and frequency. Maybe "change of the wave pattern over time" could also factor in, if time is relevant to the communicators. The only limit is their range of receivable waves. Perhaps there is an organ in their... beingness... which both emits and receives the waves. If they encountered our waves, it would seem utter nonsense.

There might be no words. No need for words if they don't have to breath in between waves, eh? Everything is a continuous stream of information.

This would be impossible to translate into English word for word. Sure, if someone was genius or alien enough to be able to communicate in both languages efficiently, they could take the meaning from the wave language and turn it into a roughly equivalent in English. But they probably wouldn't be able to explain what "wavelength X for Y seconds followed by wave frequency of Z for F seconds" means.

Wow, I really, really like this idea. But it's so deliciously far-fetched that I wouldn't be able to create something like this without some sort of Ph.D. in waves and mathematics and quantum this-or-that to just understand waves enough to harness them completely.

I don't know if this counts, especially since it kind of has to be a big change among the populace to count as a true paradigm shift, but I think just brainstorming was enough for me. I honestly didn't think I could come up with something so abstract.


If you don't mind, keep trying to come up with stuff as crazy as I described. Can anyone come up with something more distant and alien, yet still perfectly plausible?

(Also, sorry about any brain-melty I may have caused. I tried to warn you guyz sweatdrop )


EDIT: I just realized... Technically, humans communicate primarily through waves. Light waves and sound waves, and we have separate organs for perceiving each and creating each, but that's not how I mean to use "waves" in my example. I meant using waves that span beyond soundwaves, lightwaves, etc, as "sound" and "light" do not have any meaning to these beings (unlike reflected/emitted light allows us to read or see gestures, and sound waves are interpreted as speech). This would also be FAR beyond the simple concept of sonar/radar.  

[Fogwolf]

What you're describing is possible, and interesting, but I'm not really seeing how it's all that different from languages we currently have. As you say, we communicate in waves as well - these beings are using different waves to the ones we use, but that just means it's a language operating through a different medium.

Such a language might not have 'words' if you define words as certain sequences of sound or visual symbols. But such a language will still need to encode for certain meanings - what meanings those are just depends on what kind of beings you're talking about. They'll encode for whatever is relevant to them. But patterns in whatever waves they're using will still have to correspond to certain meanings, whether we call these 'words' or not.

Also, spoken language is just a consant stream (word boundaries are only enforced by the brain, imposing unit-of-meaning structures onto the heard stimulus).

So I think, rather than thinking about how the language is conveyed, it might be easier to break a paradigm paralysis if you focus on the beings who use it - their difference from us will mean difference in their language. Of course, the greater the difference, the harder it will be to think about - it's easy to say 'beings outside of time', but as mortal, time-internal beings ourselves, it's hard to see how this will work - i.e. (assuming evolution)consider that we evolved, in time; social groups helped us to survive, in time (without time, 'survival' probably doesn't even make sense since there will be no differing points at which an entity could be alive and then dead), and so beings outside of time probably don't operate in social groups, meaning they have little to no use for evolving language at all.

I'm certainly not saying that a completely alien language is impossible - I'm inclined to believe aliens exist somewhere, and it's entirely possible that some of them communicate. What I'm saying is that, if the differences are great enough for the laguage to be considered completely different from anything we know, then it may be different from anything we could know.