Language Policy and Identity in Mauritania. El Hacen Moulaye Ahmed
“each . . . language has a finite number of phonemes (or letters in its alphabets) and each sentence is representable as a finite sequence of these phonemes (or letters) though there are infinitely many sentences” (p. 13). Chomsky’s definition is quoted at length because it is different from the earlier cited definitions both in style and content. It does neither mention the communicative function of language and the symbolic nature of the elements nor the sequences. Instead, it does stress the structural properties of language. That is, Chomsky puts forward that each language is a group of sounds/symbols and that out of these symbols/sounds different sentences can be constructed.
Even though almost all different trustworthy sources were consulted for the identification of language, the definitions cited here were incomplete as mentioned earlier. However, this is obvious since language has myriad characteristics, and no single definition could capture all of them. Therefore, in an attempt to define language satisfactory, it might be more relevant to mention some characteristics of language. To start with, language is human. In other words, language is a universal characteristic of human beings. Only human beings could deploy oral and written language symbols to represent their thoughts as discussed earlier.
Language is arbitrary. The most instance of arbitrariness in language, and the one that is frequently mentioned by linguists, is what Fasold and Connor-Linton (2006), referred to when they stated that with few exceptions, there is generally no natural, inherent relationship between the signs (sounds or letters) human beings produce and their meaning (p. 5). One of the few exceptions, which Fasold and Connor-Linton indicated, is traditionally called onomatopoeia. Lyons (1981) defined onomatopoeia as the nonarbitrary connection between the form and its meaning. As an example of onomatopoeic words in English, Lyons (1981) stated, “cuckoo,” “crash,” and “peewit” (p. 19). In addition to onomatopoeia, there is the term “iconicity” which marks the sporadic instances of the nonarbitrary nature of language. Examples of the iconicity in English are the words “small,” “tall,” and “fat,” as stated by Dostert (2009, p. 2).
Language is symbolic. Salim (2007) defined a symbol as “a concrete event, object or mark that stands for something relatively abstract.” For instance, a cross is a symbol that stands for the “sacrifice” of Jesus Christ. It is also a symbol of a Christian (Salim, 2007, p. 4). In analogy with such example, it can be said that a flag is a symbol of a given state. Another example would be that of a capital of a state. Put differently, in a news report, a poem, a novel, a short story and well-nigh all literary and nonliterary genres, a city name, such as a capital of a state, is commonly used to represent the whole state. The examples, the one provided by Salim and the others invited by this researcher, reveal that Christ and Christian were not literally identified with their physical illumination and neither was the state by its people and geographical boundary. In this sense, the relationship between the symbolic nature and its metaphoric one becomes clear.
Language is primarily vocal. Language is a system that can be expressed through different ways. For instance, it is not only expressed by the marks on a paper or a computer screen that are called writing, by hand signals and gestures as in sign language, but also by sounds that are vocalized in speech. However, if language is expressed through the different aforementioned ways, why do linguists, most of the time, list only one way, the vocal one, as a characteristic of language and neglect the other ones? For clarity, the thread of this question should be untangled into two main parts. Why do linguists frequently hold speech as a specific marker of all language and let go of writing? Why do linguists all the time perceive speech as a characteristic of all languages and drop gestures?
To start with the question, why do linguists frequently hold speech as a specific marker of all languages and drop writing? A prompt answer would be that every language is vocal, but not every language is written. That is, there are many languages that continue to exist, even today, in the spoken form only. They do not have a written form. An example of the many unwritten languages in the world is Mpongmpong language which is spoken by Mpongmpong people in Cameroon (Thormoset, 2010, p. 3). Other answers would be the fact that a child learns to speak before learning to write. Also, some people speak languages even though they do not know how to write them. In this regard, one can claim that every writer is a speaker, but not every speaker is a writer. It is indeed, wrote Algeo (2010), for “human beings have been writing (as far as we can tell from the surviving evidence) for at least 5000 years; but they have been talking for much longer, doubtless ever since they were fully human” (p. 6). Algeo (2010) further added when writing developed, it was derived from and represented speech, albeit imperfectly (p. 6).
To answer the second question, that is, why linguists perceive speech as a characteristic of all languages and drop gestures all the time, one may assert that the reason behind linguists behavior is the fact that gestures are not human-specific. That is to say gestures are the means through which animals communicate with each other as mentioned in the opening paragraphs above. Even though human beings with hearing difficulties use gestures to communicate their messages, in most communication contexts, human beings’ language is primarily vocal rather than gestural. Departing from such fact and as the general rule goes li akthari houkmou al-koulou (“the majority rules,” translation mine), it is undoubtedly true that speech is primary and gestures secondary to language.
As far as language as a means of communication is concerned, little evidence from linguists needed to be brought to the discussion, for language guides and controls people’s entire activity is a fact. On a daily basis, from the moment people wake up in the morning till they fall asleep, they give and take orders, make and give request, offer and receive help, think, commiserate, chat with friends, deliberate, negotiate, gossip, seek advice and so forth. The different activities are expressed, as mentioned above, through different ways, speech, writing, and/or gesture. Nonetheless, one activity that is listed here, namely “thought,” was not discussed above. This leads us to elaborate on it. The relationship of language to thought is disputable. Great deals of speculations have been generated about the issue. Algeo (2010) summarized the speculations and came up with a view that underscored the strong relationship between the two constructs as the following extract shows:
At one extreme are those who believe that language merely clothes thought and that thought is quite independent of the language we use to express it. At the other extreme are those who believe that thought is merely suppressed language and that, when we are thinking, we are just talking under our breath. The truth is probably somewhere between those two extremes. Some, though not all, of the mental activities we identify as “thought” are linguistic in nature. It is certainly true that until we put our ideas into words they are likely to remain vague, inchoate, and uncertain. We may sometimes feel like the girl who, on being told to express her thoughts clearly, replied, “How can I know what I think until I hear what I say.” (p. 15)
It is clear that language controls and shapes human activities even those that are mental as in the case of thinking. That is to say the human’s dependence on language well-nigh resembles theirs on breathing, for every activity they do, including thinking, they do it through language.
Language is productive. Humans are continually creating new expressions and novel utterances by combining the “building bricks” of language in endless ways, whether these are sounds, words, or sentences to describe new objects and situations. Such property is described as productivity (or “creativity” or “open-endedness”). The characteristic is related to the fact that “the potential number of utterances in any human language is infinite” (Yule, 2006, p. 10). The communication systems of other creatures do not appear to have this type of flexibility. That is, most animal communication systems appear to be more limiting than enabling. Some typical examples are brought by Yule (1996) who stated that “Cicadas have four signals to choose from and vervet monkeys have thirty-six vocal calls. Nor does it seem possible for creatures to produce new signals to communicate novel experiences or events” (p. 23). Yule (2006) elsewhere illustrated that “the worker bee, normally able to communicate the location of a nectar source to other bees, will fail to do so if the location is really ‘new’” (pp. 10–11).
The importance of productivity and its status as a marker of language was stressed in the recent linguistic literature particularly by Chomsky when he stated:
The