Must We Mean What We Say? Stanley Cavell, born in 1926 and now 86 years old, is one of the greatest American philosophers of the past half-century.
He was also something of a musical prodigy and like many prodigies his accomplishments struck him as a matter of fraud. During his freshman year at Berkeley, he writes in Little Did I Know, his 2010 memoir, he walked into one of his first piano courses and was asked to prove he had the requisite chops by playing a piece on the spot. Not having practiced anything but jazz for years—this was 1944, and big band swing was at its peak—the budding pianist sat down at the bench, broke into a half-remembered theme from a Liszt impromptu, and “stopped playing as the theme was about to elaborate itself, as if I could have gone on to the end were there time and need.” He could not have gone on to the end, nor even a note further, but his teacher, a brilliant young pianist with some of the look of Marlene Dietrich, was nonetheless taken in.
Apes With Apps. One of the newest improvements to the keyboard software allows new lexigrams to be defined on the fly.
Unlike the original lexigrams, the newer symbols aren’t limited to abstract shapes; they often include the English word, too, to make it easier for human users to understand. Here’s an example: Let’s say one of the bonobos has a toothache. There is no lexigram for toothache, so the researcher calls up a standard English keyboard on screen and types in “toothache.” A second later, a new lexigram spelling the word in colorful letters appears on the bonobo’s keyboard, and when the animal taps the key, the computer’s flat, synthetic voice says “toothache.” The researcher can then explain the link between what the ape is feeling and the new lexigram.
Another way the keyboard can be used is in picture mode. I’ve spent many an hour watching the bonobos use the touch-screen keyboards, and they are incredibly good at operating them. Experimenters then turned to sign language. Learn to speak Klingon! - Ideas. Does Your Language Shape How You Think? When these peculiarities of Guugu Yimithirr were uncovered, they inspired a large-scale research project into the language of space.
And as it happens, Guugu Yimithirr is not a freak occurrence; languages that rely primarily on geographical coordinates are scattered around the world, from Polynesia to Mexico, from Namibia to Bali. For us, it might seem the height of absurdity for a dance teacher to say, “Now raise your north hand and move your south leg eastward.” But the joke would be lost on some: the Canadian-American musicologist Colin McPhee, who spent several years on Bali in the 1930s, recalls a young boy who showed great talent for dancing. As there was no instructor in the child’s village, McPhee arranged for him to stay with a teacher in a different village.
But when he came to check on the boy’s progress after a few days, he found the boy dejected and the teacher exasperated. So different languages certainly make us speak about space in very different ways.