[Lingtyp] Fwd: Is written language a separate modality?

Wed Jan 2 10:49:15 UTC 2019

The phenomenon that Siva refers to has a long tradition in Asia and has been described as ‘brush talk’.

For a historical sketch about the more general issue, cf. Hartmut Haberland, 1998, Written and spoken language: relationship. In Jacob L. Mey (ed.). Concise encyclopedia of pragmatics. Amsterdam: Pergamon Press, p. 1048-1049
Hartmut Haberland
Professor emeritus
[RUC]

Roskilde University
Department of Communication and Arts
Universitetsvej 1
DK-4000 Roskilde
Telephone: +45 46742841

Fra: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> På vegne af Siva Kalyan
Sendt: 2. januar 2019 11:22
Til: Joo Ian <ian.joo at outlook.com>
Cc: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
Emne: Re: [Lingtyp] Fwd: Is written language a separate modality?

Dear Ian,

There are indeed a few such conlangs, including “Unker Non-Linear Writing System” (https://s.ai/nlws/) and Tapissary (http://www.tapissary.com; see also http://dedalvs.com/smileys/2018.html). Blissymbolics was also intended to be like this, but was at some level unavoidably tied to an English-like syntax.

In the “real world”, I suspect that written Chinese in Japan may have functioned as a kind of “soundless language” for those who were sufficiently fluent in it to be able to skip the customary step of rearranging the characters to match Japanese word order. I certainly have this experience as someone who has (out of laziness) tried to learn to read classical Chinese without bothering to learn the pronunciations of characters.

Siva

On 2 Jan 2019, at 7:26 pm, Joo Ian <ian.joo at outlook.com<mailto:ian.joo at outlook.com>> wrote:

Dear David,
How about if one constructed a non-phonetic written conlang (that is, a conlang that does not use any phonetic letters, but rather soundless symbols)? In that case, it is not "anchored" towards any spoken language, but we can surely learn it and communicate in it.
Regards,
Ian JOO (주이안)
http://ianjoo.academia.edu<http://ianjoo.academia.edu/>

________________________________
From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org>> on behalf of David Gil <gil at shh.mpg.de<mailto:gil at shh.mpg.de>>
Sent: Wednesday, January 2, 2019 4:19:34 PM
To: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Fwd: Is written language a separate modality?

Ian,
My response would be that a deaf person who knows how to read and write in an oral language DOES "know" that language, to a very considerable extent.  What you know when you know a language is an abstract system of rules that underlies both speech and writing but exists independently of both of these manifestations of language.  Granted, a deaf person who can read and write an oral language will be missing out on more substantial aspects of the language (most of the phonetics and phonology) than a hearing but illiterate person. But still, a deaf person who can read and write Indonesian cannot but know lots of the language, rather like a contemporary hearing scholar of Ancient Sumerian.  In contrast, a deaf signer of ASL does not have his or her linguistic competence anchored in any spoken language, such as English — sign languages are not parasitic on or derivative from any spoken languages.  (Though there can be all kinds of contact between signed and spoken languages, but that's a separate issue.)
David

On 02/01/2019 17:01, Joo Ian wrote:
Dear David,
Thank you for your insight. However, I would not agree that learning spoken Indonesian is necessary for learning written Indonesian - the deaf Indonesians are a clear counterexample, as they never would have learned spoken Indonesian.
Regards,
Ian JOO (주이안)
http://ianjoo.academia.edu<http://ianjoo.academia.edu/>
From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org><mailto:lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of David Gil <gil at shh.mpg.de><mailto:gil at shh.mpg.de>
Sent: Wednesday, January 2, 2019 3:56:30 PM
To: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Is written language a separate modality?

Dear all,
On 02/01/2019 10:19, Joo Ian wrote:
I would like to ask everyone if you agree on the idea that written language is not simply a representation of spoken language, but a distinct modality (similar to how sign and spoken language are different modalities).
I would say yes and no, but more no ...

It seems that there is a general consensus that a written language is simply the “shadow” of a spoken language. But I am not sure if this is exactly the case.
You are right that this is not exactly the case.  Case in point:  Social media in Indonesia (and presumably other places as well) has innovated all kinds of conventions that are purely orthographic: they have a life of their own, beyond the language that they "come from".  Emoticons are just one small aspect of this.  if you "just" know Indonesian, but are not familiar with these conventions, you won't be able to follow a Facebook conversation "in Indonesian".
But here's the rub:  knowing Indonesian isn't a sufficient condition for understanding such a Facebook conversation, but it's most definitely a necessary condition.  Such orthographic systems are still derivative from the spoken language, the way a ludling might be, or, for that matter, the way signed versions of spoken languages, such as Signed English is.
But this is NOT the case for real sign languages.  A sign language such as ASL has nothing whatsoever to do with any spoken language; you don't need to learn English to learn ASL, and for the most part it won't help you that much to do so.  So the analogy between written language and sign language is of only limited validity and is potentially misleading.
David
-- David Gil Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany Email: gil at shh.mpg.de<mailto:gil at shh.mpg.de> Office Phone (Germany): +49-3641686834 Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81281162816

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David Gil

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Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History

Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany

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Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81281162816

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