Well said. I used to hang out in a small cafe which was open from morning to midnight. I'd spend a day from breakfast into the late evening eating light meals, drinking too much coffee and reading weighty thick books like Sartre's Being and Nothingness and Philosophies of Art & Beauty: Selected Readings in Aesthetics from Plato to Heidegger.
Because those type of books require sustained attention, I would be in some sort of quasi meditative state while reading, occasionally punctured by the server coming up to the table asking if I wanted a refill, or occasionally someone who sat next to me who just talked way too f&*king loud. This happened frequently because a) its cafe b) some healthy number of people came in and out while I was sitting there reading for hours and c) people sometimes can be incredibly unmindful about how loud they can be.
After several times of this completely understandable unintended interruption, I decided that whenever it happened I would just categorize in one word whatever they were talking about, and then go back to my reading. Primarily the intent was to put the interruption out of my mind. However, it grew to a curiosity to just to understand , in some general way, what is it that people are talking about so enthusiastically.
And the empirical results of the Interruption While Reading study, is that people speak in terms of "directives". People gave each directions to get somewhere, what to order on the menu, how to better buy useless $h*t on the Internet, how to get lower interest rates. I can only think of a singular incident when anyone blurted out something about an emotion, let alone expressed one. Nothing about art or how one feels about it (as a subject), you might hear "I love so and so" song.
I cant be too upset; the sharing of practical information, is why I would be handed a cup of coffee without cream. And my day-to-day practical observation that servers aren't paid a living wage, I left a tip equal to the cost of the coffee, scrambled eggs and toast.
So yeah there are very good evolutionary reasons why we share useful practical information. And, sadly (ahem ...searches thesaurus...) tragically perhaps, our practical sharing is usually only short term. I could share all kinds of useful information about climate change - and even though that information would meet a real test of practicality - it wouldn't be immediate in terms of impact but would be immediate in terms of the cost you might have to pay - and so it somehow goes out of our practical cafe lexicon window.
So I would say the title is a bit of a misnomer, (though effective click bait in my case) there is nothing fundamentally wrong with our languages (if one accepts their basic reflexive limit and as you point out their ultimate inexplicability) but rather what we choose to individually and collectively focus on and express. If there is any technique one could do themselves, I wouldn't suggest one. It would be too practical. Share an experience of something that makes someone else enjoy life more....and stay there with it, and (maybe) talk about it with them if they want to, and you'll come up with your own shared language. How about something "political"? Use that useful practical language to organize with a community a piece of public art that everyone can enjoy. They might not have much to say about the piece or art itself, but they will say "I know it is art because I know it when I see it," and maybe "You see that guy over there....he gives good tips."
Your cafe observation is fascinating and rings so true. Those "directives" you catalogued reveal something profound about how we use language in shared spaces. We default to the immediately practical because it's safe territory. Everyone understands the utility of directions to the bathroom or menu recommendations. But as you point out, there's this tragic shortsightedness to it. We'll share micro-practicalities while avoiding the macro-practical conversations that might actually matter for our collective future.
And your point about shared experiences creating shared language is something I completely overlooked in my original piece. There's real wisdom there about how meaning emerges from connection rather than just individual contemplation.
Where I think we might see it differently is on the chicken-and-egg question. You suggest it's mainly about what we choose to express, while I think our limited vocabulary actually constrains those choices. But honestly, it's probably both feeding into each other... limited words leading to safer topics leading to even more linguistic atrophy.
Yes, we choose what to express, but those choices are constrained by what we CAN express.
Your public art idea is beautiful and gets at something important: sometimes we need to bypass words entirely to get to what matters. Though part of me wonders if having richer language might make those shared creative experiences even deeper.
I think what you're really getting at is that language is fundamentally social, not just personal. My dictionary-reading approach might miss that entirely if it stays purely individual. The real linguistic breakthroughs probably happen in those moments when people are brave enough to move beyond directives together... whether that's through art, organizing, or just allowing conversations to go somewhere more meaningful.
Thank you so much for expanding the conversation in a direction I didn't even see. Sometimes the best responses reveal what the original piece was really reaching toward.
Thank you for the thoughtful response...and the phrase "micro practicalities" so nails it. I can only add a few trivialities, if only for my pedantic reasons. I wouldn't describe our use of language, usually in the form of immediate practical information, as "safe" in any substantive emotional or psychological sense of the word, but rather mundanely routine. (I long for an italics function right now.) Pragmatic routine directives are not shared because of some sense of safety, because I could share what would undoubtedly be practical and immediately useful information with someone like "Hey, you really should pay your bills right now" but the responses could vary from "thanks", to being slugged in the face. And my retort to said punch "Buy hey I was sharing immediate practical useful information" wouldn't likely spare me in some of those instances.
In addition, I don't think communication is in fundamental, technical terms safe, because of the omnipresent cracks of miscommunication, that is, to some extent, probably in all communication, including language. More so, in a global, interconnected society, we cross all kinds of language faults (in the metaphoric geologic sense) of translation, different cultures, individual experiences, and the targeted effects of the platforms we use. ( algorithms select the language we see and now even use) So, while its not storming a beachhead at Normandy, the attempt to communicate (substantively) today is a micro act of courage.
What is crappy is that this possibility is often overlooked and rarely expressed, in exchange for talks about the weather, traffic, or what stocks do. Merely updating the subject from stocks in the 20th Century, to cryptocurrencies in the 21st, does not improve matters much.
I think you are right, I am assuming there is conscious choice, and a limitation of ones words would limit what we could express through words. Of course babies, dancers and pantomimes can skillfully get their point across without them.
So yeah language is probably fundamentally social, and thus filled with its limits, potential for mishaps as well as loaded with pragmatism. We might, to the extent we can with the tools we do have, try to make at least a little more of it. Nothing more profound than making lemonade out of lemons, but at least attempt (where is that italics function!) to build something more consciously.
Also, I think it’s mostly European languages that are so “limited”, beautiful as they are (every time I hear Spanish, it’s music for my ears). If you look at Hindi and Marathi, for example. These languages can express so many states of mind, body, emotions, etc., that many of us would struggle to understand what it is exactly that word is trying to pinpoint 😊
Oh yeah you’re absolutely right, and this completely shifts the conversation!
I realize I was being incredibly Eurocentric in my analysis. When I talked about language limitations, I was essentially thinking within the boundaries of European linguistic structures without even realizing it. That's embarrassing, honestly.
Hindi and Marathi, and many other non-European languages, do have these incredibly nuanced vocabularies for internal states. Sanskrit alone has multiple words for different types of love, various levels of consciousness, and emotional states that English treats as single concepts. The precision is remarkable.
You’ve made me realize that my dictionary reading might be helpful, but it's still just rearranging furniture in the same house. Maybe the real expansion comes from stepping into entirely different linguistic architectures. I really can’t wait to start making enough money to travel the world. There’s SO MUCH to learn and experience.
When I studied to be a translator (many years ago 😊), we all kept repeating this sentence in so many exercises that it stuck with me for life: “learning languages broadens your mind.” And it just does!
Now that I have lived in another country for over a decade and spoken the local language, I can see how it has coloured my own way of thinking, communicating and understanding people. It’s so fascinating! Sometimes I feel like back home I can’t really fully express myself because I miss just that specific word or phrase that exists in my new language. Same goes for the other two languages I speak.
I mean languages are just something!!
I also love how you’ve been playing with words!
“Watch out for scrollnesia!”, I just see it as a newspaper title some 10-20 years from now 😀
There's something wonderful about hearing from someone who's lived the linguistic journey across cultures. Your translator background adds such depth to this conversation.
What you've described, feeling like you can't fully express yourself in your home language because you're missing specific words from your adopted language, that's exactly the gap I was trying to articulate, but you've experienced it in the most vivid way possible. You've literally felt the limitations of single-language thinking.
I'm curious about something... when you switch between languages, do you find yourself becoming slightly different versions of yourself? Not just in what you can express, but in how you think and perceive? I speak 3 languages(English, French, & Italian), and I've experienced this phenomenon. It seems to support the idea that vocabulary really does shape consciousness. Although I haven't dug deeper to see if the science supports it.
And thank you for the vote of confidence on "scrollnesia"!😂😂 Though now I'm imagining that newspaper headline and wondering if we'll look back on this era of social media with the same bewilderment we have for other historical oddities. "Can you believe people used to mindlessly scroll for hours and didn't even have a word for it?"😂
I’m sure that’s one of the things that’s going to be said about our times 😊
Yes, I do notice that my personality slightly “shifts” (maybe, I am experiencing pershift 😄) when I switch between the languages. The oddest of it all, is that when I hear myself speak my mother tongue, it sometimes sounds strange, almost unnatural at times. The weirdest feeling…
Well said. I used to hang out in a small cafe which was open from morning to midnight. I'd spend a day from breakfast into the late evening eating light meals, drinking too much coffee and reading weighty thick books like Sartre's Being and Nothingness and Philosophies of Art & Beauty: Selected Readings in Aesthetics from Plato to Heidegger.
Because those type of books require sustained attention, I would be in some sort of quasi meditative state while reading, occasionally punctured by the server coming up to the table asking if I wanted a refill, or occasionally someone who sat next to me who just talked way too f&*king loud. This happened frequently because a) its cafe b) some healthy number of people came in and out while I was sitting there reading for hours and c) people sometimes can be incredibly unmindful about how loud they can be.
After several times of this completely understandable unintended interruption, I decided that whenever it happened I would just categorize in one word whatever they were talking about, and then go back to my reading. Primarily the intent was to put the interruption out of my mind. However, it grew to a curiosity to just to understand , in some general way, what is it that people are talking about so enthusiastically.
And the empirical results of the Interruption While Reading study, is that people speak in terms of "directives". People gave each directions to get somewhere, what to order on the menu, how to better buy useless $h*t on the Internet, how to get lower interest rates. I can only think of a singular incident when anyone blurted out something about an emotion, let alone expressed one. Nothing about art or how one feels about it (as a subject), you might hear "I love so and so" song.
I cant be too upset; the sharing of practical information, is why I would be handed a cup of coffee without cream. And my day-to-day practical observation that servers aren't paid a living wage, I left a tip equal to the cost of the coffee, scrambled eggs and toast.
So yeah there are very good evolutionary reasons why we share useful practical information. And, sadly (ahem ...searches thesaurus...) tragically perhaps, our practical sharing is usually only short term. I could share all kinds of useful information about climate change - and even though that information would meet a real test of practicality - it wouldn't be immediate in terms of impact but would be immediate in terms of the cost you might have to pay - and so it somehow goes out of our practical cafe lexicon window.
So I would say the title is a bit of a misnomer, (though effective click bait in my case) there is nothing fundamentally wrong with our languages (if one accepts their basic reflexive limit and as you point out their ultimate inexplicability) but rather what we choose to individually and collectively focus on and express. If there is any technique one could do themselves, I wouldn't suggest one. It would be too practical. Share an experience of something that makes someone else enjoy life more....and stay there with it, and (maybe) talk about it with them if they want to, and you'll come up with your own shared language. How about something "political"? Use that useful practical language to organize with a community a piece of public art that everyone can enjoy. They might not have much to say about the piece or art itself, but they will say "I know it is art because I know it when I see it," and maybe "You see that guy over there....he gives good tips."
Your cafe observation is fascinating and rings so true. Those "directives" you catalogued reveal something profound about how we use language in shared spaces. We default to the immediately practical because it's safe territory. Everyone understands the utility of directions to the bathroom or menu recommendations. But as you point out, there's this tragic shortsightedness to it. We'll share micro-practicalities while avoiding the macro-practical conversations that might actually matter for our collective future.
And your point about shared experiences creating shared language is something I completely overlooked in my original piece. There's real wisdom there about how meaning emerges from connection rather than just individual contemplation.
Where I think we might see it differently is on the chicken-and-egg question. You suggest it's mainly about what we choose to express, while I think our limited vocabulary actually constrains those choices. But honestly, it's probably both feeding into each other... limited words leading to safer topics leading to even more linguistic atrophy.
Yes, we choose what to express, but those choices are constrained by what we CAN express.
Your public art idea is beautiful and gets at something important: sometimes we need to bypass words entirely to get to what matters. Though part of me wonders if having richer language might make those shared creative experiences even deeper.
I think what you're really getting at is that language is fundamentally social, not just personal. My dictionary-reading approach might miss that entirely if it stays purely individual. The real linguistic breakthroughs probably happen in those moments when people are brave enough to move beyond directives together... whether that's through art, organizing, or just allowing conversations to go somewhere more meaningful.
Thank you so much for expanding the conversation in a direction I didn't even see. Sometimes the best responses reveal what the original piece was really reaching toward.
Thank you for the thoughtful response...and the phrase "micro practicalities" so nails it. I can only add a few trivialities, if only for my pedantic reasons. I wouldn't describe our use of language, usually in the form of immediate practical information, as "safe" in any substantive emotional or psychological sense of the word, but rather mundanely routine. (I long for an italics function right now.) Pragmatic routine directives are not shared because of some sense of safety, because I could share what would undoubtedly be practical and immediately useful information with someone like "Hey, you really should pay your bills right now" but the responses could vary from "thanks", to being slugged in the face. And my retort to said punch "Buy hey I was sharing immediate practical useful information" wouldn't likely spare me in some of those instances.
In addition, I don't think communication is in fundamental, technical terms safe, because of the omnipresent cracks of miscommunication, that is, to some extent, probably in all communication, including language. More so, in a global, interconnected society, we cross all kinds of language faults (in the metaphoric geologic sense) of translation, different cultures, individual experiences, and the targeted effects of the platforms we use. ( algorithms select the language we see and now even use) So, while its not storming a beachhead at Normandy, the attempt to communicate (substantively) today is a micro act of courage.
What is crappy is that this possibility is often overlooked and rarely expressed, in exchange for talks about the weather, traffic, or what stocks do. Merely updating the subject from stocks in the 20th Century, to cryptocurrencies in the 21st, does not improve matters much.
I think you are right, I am assuming there is conscious choice, and a limitation of ones words would limit what we could express through words. Of course babies, dancers and pantomimes can skillfully get their point across without them.
So yeah language is probably fundamentally social, and thus filled with its limits, potential for mishaps as well as loaded with pragmatism. We might, to the extent we can with the tools we do have, try to make at least a little more of it. Nothing more profound than making lemonade out of lemons, but at least attempt (where is that italics function!) to build something more consciously.
Also, I think it’s mostly European languages that are so “limited”, beautiful as they are (every time I hear Spanish, it’s music for my ears). If you look at Hindi and Marathi, for example. These languages can express so many states of mind, body, emotions, etc., that many of us would struggle to understand what it is exactly that word is trying to pinpoint 😊
Oh yeah you’re absolutely right, and this completely shifts the conversation!
I realize I was being incredibly Eurocentric in my analysis. When I talked about language limitations, I was essentially thinking within the boundaries of European linguistic structures without even realizing it. That's embarrassing, honestly.
Hindi and Marathi, and many other non-European languages, do have these incredibly nuanced vocabularies for internal states. Sanskrit alone has multiple words for different types of love, various levels of consciousness, and emotional states that English treats as single concepts. The precision is remarkable.
You’ve made me realize that my dictionary reading might be helpful, but it's still just rearranging furniture in the same house. Maybe the real expansion comes from stepping into entirely different linguistic architectures. I really can’t wait to start making enough money to travel the world. There’s SO MUCH to learn and experience.
Yes, Sanskrit is the great-great-great-…-grandfather of them all after all. It is incredible!
That’s fascinating. Might have to take some sanskrit lessons🤔
What an interesting read, Bechem!
When I studied to be a translator (many years ago 😊), we all kept repeating this sentence in so many exercises that it stuck with me for life: “learning languages broadens your mind.” And it just does!
Now that I have lived in another country for over a decade and spoken the local language, I can see how it has coloured my own way of thinking, communicating and understanding people. It’s so fascinating! Sometimes I feel like back home I can’t really fully express myself because I miss just that specific word or phrase that exists in my new language. Same goes for the other two languages I speak.
I mean languages are just something!!
I also love how you’ve been playing with words!
“Watch out for scrollnesia!”, I just see it as a newspaper title some 10-20 years from now 😀
Elena this is so heartwarming! Thank you so much.
There's something wonderful about hearing from someone who's lived the linguistic journey across cultures. Your translator background adds such depth to this conversation.
What you've described, feeling like you can't fully express yourself in your home language because you're missing specific words from your adopted language, that's exactly the gap I was trying to articulate, but you've experienced it in the most vivid way possible. You've literally felt the limitations of single-language thinking.
I'm curious about something... when you switch between languages, do you find yourself becoming slightly different versions of yourself? Not just in what you can express, but in how you think and perceive? I speak 3 languages(English, French, & Italian), and I've experienced this phenomenon. It seems to support the idea that vocabulary really does shape consciousness. Although I haven't dug deeper to see if the science supports it.
And thank you for the vote of confidence on "scrollnesia"!😂😂 Though now I'm imagining that newspaper headline and wondering if we'll look back on this era of social media with the same bewilderment we have for other historical oddities. "Can you believe people used to mindlessly scroll for hours and didn't even have a word for it?"😂
😅😅😅 oh my 😅😅
I’m sure that’s one of the things that’s going to be said about our times 😊
Yes, I do notice that my personality slightly “shifts” (maybe, I am experiencing pershift 😄) when I switch between the languages. The oddest of it all, is that when I hear myself speak my mother tongue, it sometimes sounds strange, almost unnatural at times. The weirdest feeling…
Very interesting😂😂