Through the Language Glass, Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages

Above all, Steiner argues, it is the future tense that has momentous consequences for the human soul and mind, as it shapes our concept of time and rationality, even the very essence of our humanity. “We can be defined as the mammal that uses the future of the verb ‘to be,’ ” he explains. The future tense is what gives us hope for the future, and without it we are all condemned to end “in Hell, that is to say, in a grammar without futures.”

Before you rush to get rid of your psychiatrist and hire a grammarian instead, try this quick reality check. First, on a point of order, one should mention that no one fully understands the niceties of the biblical Hebrew verbal system. There are two main verbal forms in Hebrew, and the difference between them seems to depend on some elusive mix of both tense and what linguists call aspect-the distinction between completed actions (e.g., “I ate”) and ongoing actions (“I was eating”). But let’s even grant for the sake of argument that the Hebrew verb does not express the future tense, or any other tenses at all. Need this absence have any constraining effect on the speakers’ understanding of time, future, and eternity? Here is a verse from a delightful prophecy about impending doom, where a wrathful Jehovah promises his enemies imminent retribution:

Vengeance is mine, and recompense, at the time when their foot shall slip; for the day of their calamity is near, and the things to come hasten upon them.

(The Song of Moses, Deuteronomy 32:35)

There are two verbs in the Hebrew original, and as it happens, the first, “slip,” is in one of the two main verbal forms I have just mentioned, and the second, “hasten,” is in the other. In the English translation, these two verbs appear in two different tenses: “shall slip” and “hasten.” But while scholars can argue until vengeance comes home whether the difference between the Hebrew verbal forms expresses primarily aspect or tense, does any of this matter two hoots to the meaning of this verse? Would the meaning of the English translation change in any way if we changed the verb “slip” to the present tense: “at the time when their foot slips”? And can you detect any nebulousness about the concept of the future in the spine-chilling image of the things to come hastening upon the sinners?

Or think about it another way: when you ask someone, in perfect English prose and in the present tense, something like “are you coming tomorrow?” do you feel your grasp of the concept of futurity is slipping? Your idea of time changing in manifold reciprocity? The hope and resilience of your spirit and the fabric of your humanity beginning to fail? If Jeremiah were alive today, he might say (or do I mean “he might have said”?): Even the stork in the heavens knows her times. And the turtledove, the swallow, and crane keep the time of their coming. But My scholars know not the ordinance of the World.

You may feel you have heard enough about linguistic relativity by now, but let me treat you to one final bit of burlesque. In 1996, the American journal Philosophy Today featured an article entitled “Linguistic Relativity in French, English, and German Philosophy” in which the author, William Harvey, asserted that the grammar of French, English, and German can explain the differences between the three philosophical traditions. For example, “English philosophy being largely, according to our thesis, determined by English grammar, we should find it to be, like the language, a fusion of the French and the German.” The point is then proved by showing that English theology (Anglican) is a cross between (French) Catholicism and (German) Protestantism. There are further gems. German’s case system “is part of the explanation for German philosophy’s orientation toward system construction,” whereas “if English thought is in some ways more open to ambiguity and lack of system, it might be attributed in part to the relative variability and looseness of English syntax.”

It might. It might also be attributable to the irregular shape of hot cross buns. More appropriately, however, it should be attributed to the habit of English-language journals to allow the likes of Mr. Harvey free range. (Incidentally, I know that hot cross buns are not particularly irregular. But then again, neither is English syntax particularly “variable and loose.” It is more rigid in its word order, for instance, than German.)

THE PRISON-HOUSE OF LANGUAGE

By far the most famous claim that Nietzsche never made was: “We have to cease to think if we refuse to do so in the prison-house of language.” What he actually said was: “We cease to think if we do not want to do it under linguistic constraints” (Wir horen auf zu denken, wenn wir es nicht in dem sprachlichen Zwange thun wollen). But the English mistranslation has turned into a catchphrase, and as it happens, this phrase neatly summarizes everything that is so wrong about linguistic relativity. For there is one toxic fallacy that runs like quicksilver through all the arguments we have encountered so far, and this is the assumption that the language we happen to speak is a prison-house that limits the concepts we are able to understand. Whether it is the claim that the lack of a tense system constrains speakers’ understanding of time, or the allegation that when a verb and an object are fused together speakers do not understand the distinction between action and thing-what unites all these contentions is a premise that is as crude as it is false, namely that “the limits of my language mean the limits of my world,” that the concepts expressed in a language are the same as the concepts its speakers are able to understand, and that the distinctions made in a grammar are the same as the distinctions the speakers are able to conceive.

It is barely comprehensible that such a ludicrous notion could have achieved such currency, given that so much contrary evidence screams in the face wherever one looks. Do ignorant folk who have never heard of “Schadenfreude” find it difficult to understand the concept of relishing someone else’s misfortune? Conversely, do Germans, whose language uses one and the same word for “when” and “if” (wenn), fail to understand the logical difference between what might happen under certain conditions and what will happen regardless? Did the ancient Babylonians, who used the same word (arnum) for both “crime” and “punishment,” not understand the difference? If so, why did they write thousands of legal documents, law codes, and court protocols to determine exactly what punishment should be given for what crime?

The list of examples could easily be extended. The Semitic languages require different verbal forms for the masculine and the feminine (“you eat” would have different forms depending on whether you are female or male), whereas English does not make gender distinctions on verbs. George Steiner concludes from this that “an entire anthropology of sexual equality is implicit in the fact that our verbs, in distinction from those of Semitic tongues, do not indicate the gender of the agent.” Really? There are some languages that are so sexually enlightened that they make no gender distinctions even on pronouns, so that even “he” and “she” are fused into one unisex plastic synthetic creation. Which languages might these be? Turkish, Indonesian, and Uzbek, to name a few examples-not exactly languages of societies renowned for their anthropology of sexual equality.

Of course, no list of such blunders could be complete without George Orwell’s novel 1984, where the political rulers have such faith in the power of language that they assume political dissent could be entirely eliminated if only all offending words could be expunged from the vocabulary. “In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.” But why stop there? Why not abolish the word “greed” as a quick fix for the world’s economy, or do away with the word “pain” to save billions on aspirin, or confine the word “death” to the garbage can as an instant formula for universal immortality?

My ultimate aim, proclaimed earlier on, was to convince you that there might after all be something worth salvaging from the idea that our mother tongue can influence our thoughts and perceptions. This aim may now seem more like a suicide mission. But although the prospects for linguistic relativity do not look terribly promising right at the moment, the good news is that, having reached the intellectual nadir, things can only look up from here. In fact, the bankruptcy of Whorfianism has been beneficial for the progress of science, because by setting such an appalling example it has exposed the two cardinal errors that any responsible theory about the influence of language on thought must avoid. First, Whorf’s addiction to fantasies unfettered by facts has taught us that any alleged influence of a language on speakers’ minds must be demonstrated, not just assumed. One cannot just say “language X does things differently from language Y, and hence speakers of X must think differently from speakers of Y.” If there are reasons to suspect that speakers of X might think differently from speakers of Y, this has to be shown empirically. In fact, even that is not quite enough, since when differences in thought patterns can be demonstrated, a convincing case still has to be made that it was really language that caused these differences, rather than other factors in the speakers’ cultures and