Mango Languages

The Linguistic Elephant in the Room

There is a famous parable of six blind men and an elephant that originated from India. In one version of the story the six blind men were brought together and asked to determine what an elephant looked like by feeling different parts of the elephant’s body. The blind man who feels a leg says the elephant is like a pillar; the one who feels the tail says the elephant is like a rope; the one who feels the trunk says the elephant is like a snake; the one who feels the ear says the elephant is like a fan; the one who feels the belly says the elephant is like a wall; and the one who feels the tusk says the elephant is like a spear.

The field of Linguistics has its own elephant- human language. Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Similar to the blind men, linguists examine different areas of language and therefore describe language in different ways.
1. Syntax (contrary to what it sounds like, it is not an increase in the price of beer or gambling) is a subfield of linguistics which focuses mainly on the grammar of language. Syntacticians study the structure of sentences and try to answer the question, “What are the underlying rules and principles that govern the construction of sentences?”
2. While syntax studies the structure of sentences, morphology focuses on the structure of words.
3. Phonology is another subfield of linguistics. Phonology analyses the way sounds function in languages.
4. Related to phonology is another subfield of linguistics, phonetics. However, phonetics does not concentrate on the combination or function of sounds but rather on the actual production or articulation and physical properties of all possible human speech sounds.
5. Another perspective of language is the relationship between words and meaning. This is the focus of semantics, another branch of linguistics. Yet other linguists examine language as it affects and is affected by social relations. This perspective is referred to as sociolinguistics. There are still even more branches of linguistics, i.e., psycholinguistics, historical linguistics, neurolinguistics, etc.

So you see, there are many different perspectives and ways to describe language. Many times we think of human language as simple and easy – pretty much everyone speaks their native tongue by around age three without having ever been read a grammar book or been explicitly taught the rules of sound production and function, or of word and sentence structure. However, the reality is that human language is a huge complex “elephant” and viewing its different parts and from different perspectives has been the direction taken in the field of linguistics. But, this does not mean that these branches are in complete disagreement about what language is or the principles that govern its creation, acquisition or usage. Rather, each subfield gives a different description because it focuses on a different part of the “elephant”. In order to best describe human language linguists analyze its different parts but must not forget the whole – that language isn’t just the long tusk, flat ear, or coiled trunk. It’s the whole elephant.

One Man’s Allophone is Another Man’s Phoneme

Phonology is the sound system of a language and how it encodes meaning. Some languages have very small inventories of sounds, whereas others have many sounds, or phonemes.

A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound used to make meaningful contrasts between vocal utterances. The conventional way to write a phoneme is using forward slashes. For example, /p/ is a recognizable and common sound in English (and many other languages). But did you know that not all /p/ sounds are pronounced the same way in English?

You may not have noticed it, but the /p/ in “peak” is different than the /p/ in “speak.” The former is aspirated (a term linguists use to describe the burst of air that accompanies the release), whereas the latter is unaspirated. If it’s hard for you to hear the difference, try holding your hand in front of your mouth while saying both words – you’ll feel a little puff of air when you say “peak,” but not “speak.”

In English, both of these sounds (written as [ph] and [p] respectively) are recognized as one sound. In linguistic terms, they are both allophones of the same phoneme /p/. In many other languages, though, these two sounds are separate phonemes and aren’t confused with each other at all. In fact, using [ph] in place of [p] would change the meaning of the utterance completely! Can you think of any other sounds that we mentally categorize as the same, but are actually different? (Hint: try enunciating your words very carefully and notice the differences from rapid speech…)

Poor Linguistics, Always Misunderstood.

The first thing I am asked when I tell people I studied linguistics – aside from “What is that?” – is “So how many languages do you speak?”

Well, one. I could carry on a relatively boring conversation in French if I brushed up on a few grammar points, but that’s not really what they’re asking. What many people don’t understand is that linguistics isn’t about learning to speak multiple languages; it’s about studying the science of language in general. The next question I get after I explain this is, “Okay…like what?”

This is a loaded question.
In keeping with the instruction of Mango’s actual software, I’ll explain a few sub-fields of linguistics in layman’s terms – because what’s the use in explaining it to a non-linguist using linguistic jargon (ling lingo, perhaps)?

Syntax is the way words come together to form sentences. Even something as simple to us as changing a statement (“You are there.”) into a question (“Are you there?”) is actually quite complicated under the surface. Words hop over each other in getting from the meaning of what we say to what we actually utter.

Phonology is the sound system of a language, and how these sounds interact and convey meaning. Have you ever wondered why we don’t pronounce the two t’s in “button”? It sounds more like “buh-in”. That’s because the noise we’re making is actually a sound called a glottal stop – but in English it’s often understood as a “t”.

Morphology is the structure of words. “The structure of words?!” I can imagine you saying. “Words don’t have structure! They’re just…WORDS!” But they do. Words are made up of morphemes, which are the smallest meaningful units in language. Think about it – “walk” is different than “walked” because of the –ed. So –ed is a morpheme – it contributes the meaning of the past tense.

Those are just a few of the topics linguists study. If you’re interested in learning more, try looking up semantics, sociolinguistics, cognition, etymology, second-language acquisition, anthropology…the list goes on. And as you can see, linguistics can cross over into studies like psychology, sociology, and anthropology. That’s because language is so important to humans!

So next time you meet a linguist, keep in mind they might speak less languages than you do. And if you still want to know…make it your second question!