Reality in different languages

In a university literature class I had the opportunity to hear a professor — a doctor of letters, it is worth noting — say that, in the study of language, from a philosophical point of view, two positions or paradigms were debated: one of them held that language was a mechanism developed by humanity to describe its reality; the other paradigm held that the human being constructed reality in accordance with language. In other words, man understood his surroundings and recorded them, which is logical; but the other position suggests that man understands his reality according to how he has described it, so that, in that case, reality can be seen in various ways, in as many forms as there are languages to consider. At the time, the assertion was no more than a curiosity, until, over time, I was able to unveil what it entailed. I have had the opportunity to study 3 additional languages, apart from Spanish, which is my native language: English, Mandarin Chinese, and Portuguese, in that order. When you have spent time practicing several languages, you realize that you cannot translate everything; that is to say, in order to truly internalize a language you must see reality as those within that culture perceive it. You must also think in that language and abandon that unnecessary expenditure of energy caused by the constant translation into your native tongue. In other words, if you learn English, think in English, think like the Americans, the English; if you learn Mandarin Chinese, learn like the Chinese, get to know the roots and the reasons behind their customs, and that connection will benefit you enormously — besides which you will know how to express your ideas with greater clarity and with the right words. Each culture, each language has its particularity. I have noticed that English tends to be more open regarding the meanings of words, more collapsed, more logical, and therein perhaps lies its ease for many. With fewer words, more meanings per word, and a fairly logical and simple syntax. But I think that this way of understanding reality has contributed to the people of the cultures that inherited this language tending to be a little more closed off, or a little colder, in expressing their feelings, compared with the effusiveness and passion that Spanish and Latin cultures in general overflow with. Let me tell you an anecdote that fits what concerns us here. For example, when I was young, in the typical school English class you would be taught the meaning or use of some word — let us suppose, in this case, the word “turn,” which those who know English will surely recognize as referring to giro. It was classic to note that if you went to a dictionary or the teacher illustrated it, we would see a list of words like this, the translation of “turn” into Spanish: giro, vez, vuelta, turno, curva, viraje, oportunidad, revolución…, the list of words could be quite long in some cases, and so I would ask myself: giro is one thing, vuelta is yet another, curva, viraje…, all of those words in Spanish have an individual value and a weight, and to me it seemed criminal to displace them all in order to associate them with a single word and to have to know, from context, what it referred to on each occasion. Over time you mature and you come to realize the beauty and the simplicity that English conceals, and contact with its culture and its way of thinking also leads you to understand the reasons that motivated the language. On the other hand, I want to draw a contrast with the Chinese language, which, despite having several dialects, has a universal and homogeneous writing system, so that its concepts and syntax are universal regardless of the region of China or the culture in which the language is used. The Chinese, for their part, learned to express more with less: a character in itself conceals a figure, a history, and a meaning; you can read the motivation of a word or character in the strokes that compose it, and once again you find the beauty of another language, in this case Chinese. A word as basic as 'to study' conceals in its strokes elements that refer to a roof and to mathematics, owing to the fact that the Chinese believe that study should take place in a place with a roof, and that mathematics is one of the most valued forms of knowledge, above other natural sciences or arts. The Chinese language does not deal with verb tenses and possesses a rather reduced grammar compared with Spanish, something that gave me a respite during my study of it, because I had to concentrate on learning characters rather than learning grammatical elements. Nevertheless, the hierarchical component of this language is striking, since many radicals or characters are used according to the importance or valuation of a given concept, denoting an aspect of Chinese culture that has been inherited from imperial times. A common constant in this language is the tendency to classify everything, and we must understand that since ancient times the Chinese have been very good observers and recorders of the events that occur in their surroundings. Seen from Spanish, a language without verb tenses, without an organized grammatical syntax, and with meanings that are ambiguous according to context seems like madness; but when you understand Chinese culture and the wonders it conceals, you then notice that verb tenses are not necessary, nor compound expressions, nor plurals or singulars, in order to say what you want to say, and you find a new way of seeing reality — that is to say, you think in Chinese. I will not set out my conclusions about Portuguese, because I have been practicing it for only a short time; nevertheless, its people, its culture, and its musicality delight me, and I have a desire to learn to think in Portuguese, to see reality as they perceive it. So, with just those three languages, I was able to better understand the reality of many things, and even to be more precise and to communicate better in my own native language; but I must admit that there is nothing like thinking in Spanish. It is quite simply the language of the muse, of passion, of love, and the one with which I feel that anyone can express in full detail what they truly feel. We have words for almost everything; we have defined so many things that even one's own self keeps learning new words every day, and we have spent our whole lives with this language. On one occasion, a renowned mathematics professor at the university used to say that reality is like a polyhedron with infinite faces; now I use that phrase to say that each language is one face of that polyhedron — that is, one part of reality. Love your language, discover it, nourish yourself on its concepts and its forms; learn several languages, understand several ways of seeing the same things, so that you draw ever closer to coming to see reality. © Alejandro Guipe | All Rights Reserved.