The meaning of ‘is’

When pressed in court about his affair with Monica Lewinsky, former President Bill Clinton used evasive tactics and dodged as many questions as he could. Unfortunately for him, he got a bit carried away, and, when asked a direct question about his affair, Clinton answered famously:

“It depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is.”

As absurd as it was at the time, Clinton brings up an interesting philosophical point. Like money, language is not an absolute: it only has meaning in relation to human beings. In other words, words only have meaning because we, the human population, choose to give them meaning.

The best way to illustrate this is to use the example of a children’s book, Frindle. In this story, the main character realizes that he can make words mean whatever he wants them to. He then decides to call a pen a “frindle” from then on, and he enlists others to do the same. Eventually the new word spreads all over the world, and it eventually becomes listed in the dictionary.

This puts the concepts of “connotation” and “denotation” in a new light. By convention, a word’s denotation is the word’s literary definition, and its connotation is its implied or slang meaning. But this is only because our dictionaries are not flexible and they are slow to adapt when the connotation of a word changes. However, this becomes somewhat give-and-take since we rely on our dictionaries to clarify the meaning of a word for us.

This is also an argument for an international auxiliary constructed language. Since many languages, especially English, have become dominated by connotative slang, idioms, and other misleading aspects, the language barrier is often more potent than we think. However, a language like Zamenhof’s Esperanto would be just as prone to slang and idioms as any other language, which greatly defeats its purpose. But logical languages, such as Lojban, are structured in such a way that idioms and slang are almost impossible, which is another reason I believe Lojban is a good candidate for an international language.

This also relates to an argument I brought up in my very first post on this blog (all the way at the bottom of the page), in which I viciously attacked many aspects of a paper by the philosopher George E. Moore. Moore states at one point that he is not going to define the terms he is using because they are "common sense." However, this is a completely unjustified assumption, since the meanings of words change all the time, and when writing a philosophical paper it is important to be precise. 

But what does all this mean for poor old Bill Clinton? Absolutely nothing. In any court, a certain level of common sense is assumed, and I doubt the Supreme Court would tolerate Clinton’s semantic nitpicking.

Tomorrow: Law and order, part 5

Happy Zamenhof Day

Today, December 15, as some of us are aware, is International Zamenhof Day. For those who are unaware of the significance of today or even of who Ludwik Łazarz Zamenhof even is, I will provide a brief description.

In 1887 L.L. Zamenhof published a book called Unua Libro, which outlined his ideas for the constructed international auxiliary language Esperanto (flag pictured). Esperanto is a combination of European “Romance Languages,” and it uses mostly Slavic grammar. The main purpose of Esperanto is to function as an international language to facilitate communication between different peoples and cultures, and as a tool in the study of linguistics. Despite some criticisms of the language, Esperanto is somewhat well known, and there are around 2 million speakers of Esperanto around the world.

This got me thinking: what, if any, are the benefits of having an international language, and is Esperanto the right language for the job? (After all, there are many other constructed languages, or conlangs, that might work even better.)

Zamenhof’s original reason for creating Esperanto has to do with communication between cultures. As he puts it in a letter in 1985:

“The place where I was born and spent my childhood gave direction to all my future struggles. In Bialystok the inhabitants were divided into four distinct elements: Russians, Poles, Germans and Jews; each of these spoke their own language and looked on all the others as enemies. In such a town a sensitive nature feels more acutely than elsewhere the misery caused by language division and sees at every step that the diversity of languages is the first, or at least the most influential, basis for the separation of the human family into groups of enemies.”

Here Zamenhof is most certainly correct: animosity between groups is often caused by language barriers. However, there are really two degrees to which a conlang can solve this problem: a) by providing a means of communication between two peoples with a language barrier, and b) by providing a language that will eventually be everyone’s natural language. Though “a” is much more realistic than “b,” the benefits of either one of these is enormous. As Zamenhof says, the peoples in the area he lived in could have gotten along much better if they did not have a language barrier restricting cultural exchange. The benefits of “b” are even greater: not only is the language barrier eliminated entirely, but the cultural baggage that comes with many languages is also eliminated, which creates a more universal culture.

Also, it could be argued that “b” would bring cultures much closer together than previously thought. The Saphir-Whorf hypothesis, created by a group of western linguists, states that a person’s natural language and idioms influences the way they view the world, almost to the point of determinism. Though this concept has not been completely proven, it has generally been accepted in Western culture and science. If a common natural language existed, everyone would have the same kind of linguistic influences on their way of thinking, bringing people even closer together.

Additionally, Esperanto has some use as a tool to study linguistics and to learn other languages. Since is it based on the “Romance Languages,” learning Esperanto is very easy for someone who already knows a Western language, and learning it makes learning another Western language much easier as well. However, in today’s world this is only somewhat useful, since Asian languages are on the rise and European ones are on the decline (in terms of populations).

But why Esperanto and not some other language? This is quite a valid point; after all, there have been many conlangs that have improved upon Esperanto, simplifying the grammar and style of the language. I am particularly biased toward Lojban (flag pictured), an artificial “logical language.” Lojban is descended from James Cooke Brown’s Loglan, which was created to allow verbal communication between humans and computers (because of the way its grammar is arranged) and to test the Saphir-Whorf hypothesis. Its grammar and structure are arranged in such a way that confusion is almost impossible, and it allows for even more ways to express statements or emotions than other languages. Like Esperanto, it is a linguistic tool and a means to better understand other languages. Since it is based on a variety of languages from all around the world, it is more valuable in this respect. However, it is somewhat difficult to learn, and it is hardly well known.

Despite these problems, Esperanto seems to be our best bet as far as a future universal language goes. So happy Zamenhof Day, and bonan nokton!