I have a fascination for linguistics. But not languages. Grammar, orthography, and all that sort of stuff don't really interest me. I'm talking about stuff like the Sapir-Whorf thesis and Chomsky. I'm fascinated by the way the human mind works, which is why I explore AI, ethics, philosophy, Roger Penrose, Memento, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, etc. I often assert that there's a relationship between linguistics and computer science, but I always fear being called upon to justify this assertion: I can't. I can't articulate the relationship. It looks like there's no such thing as "computational neurolinguistics" (Google implies there's one research paper mentioning it in passing, and one blog using the term, with every other site linking to one (but not both) of these two). If I were more ambitious, I'd get a PHD in CompSci (shouldn't be too difficult), and one in Linguistics (this might be painful), and invent CompNeuroLing as a new discipline. Unless, of course, I have to learn biology. The other blog which mentions CNL talks about dopamine reactors or something like that. I hate biology.

But that was a digression. The real point of this post is to rant about some people's perception of language. They seem to think that there is only one language, with one set of grammatical rules, and that these rules are undisputed, and that anyone not following those rules are clearly making mistakes and should correct themselves, etc. Before I go dissect this argument, we'd first need to agree on definitions of the terms. In particular, I'd need to define "language". I'll start by defining verbal: "communication in the form of words (either written or spoken)." Notice that every form of written word is also a (visual) image, but not every image represents words. Similarly, every form of spoken word is an audible sound, but not every audible sound is a word. Now that "verbal" is defined, "language" is easy: "a systematic means of communication by the use of verbal symbols". Since both definitions use "communication", I should probably define that one too: "The sending and/or receiving of information".

With that out of the way, I can now proceed to totally destroy the argument that there is one language: I can name two of them: English and French. Okay, so maybe what they really meant when they said there's only one language is that there's only one English. But there isn't: There's American English and British English (among others). These are different languages. The same verbal words are assigned different meanings in the two languages. A faggot, in British English, is lumber. In American English, it's a homosexual person. A fag, in British English, is a cigarette. In American English, it's also a homosexual person. French fries are chips, and chips are crisps. Etc.

Okay fine, says the other party. What they really meant is that there's only one American English. But there's no reason to believe this to be true: There are verbal constructions which are appropriate in the southern variant of American English which are not acceptable in the northern variant (e.g. "Y'all come back now, ya hear?"). In fact, there's no reason to believe that this phenomenon doesn't continue at recursively smaller levels, which each state speaking its own variant of English; with each town in those cities speaking their own variant of the state-language, and so on, with the hierarchy continuing down all the way such that every individual person is speaking their own variant of the language of their locale.

This is not such a crazy though: Notice that language evolves. Words are added and removed from languages all the time. You probably don't ever use the word "thou", thought presumably Shakespeare and his peers did (I wasn't around at the time, so this is just second hand knowledge). Conversely, Shakespeare and his peers probably never used the term "e-mail" or "blog", but you probably do.

Now notice that someone, out there, had to have invented the term "blog". When they came up with this term, no one else knew the term. For that split moment, where that single person knew the term "blog" and no one else in the world knew of it, that person had a language which was distinct from everyone else's language.

The first counter argument to this that I expect is: If everyone speaks a different language, how could anyone ever communicate with each other. My reply: Just because two people don't speak the exact same language, that doesn't necessarily mean they are unable to communicate. Note that American English and British English are "clearly" two different languages, and yet, an American person and a British person can communicate with moderate ease. They may get into trouble if they start talking about tobacco, fried potatos, logging or homosexuality, but overall there's some overlap between the words and their meanings so that the two persons can share information. And if you disagree that American English and British English are "clearly" two different languages, here's a more extreme example: Japanese and English. Certainly, no one would argue that English and Japanese are the same language. And yet, there are a few terms which an English and an Japanese person can utter to each other and successfully exchange information: "sushi", "yakuza", "zen", "kamikaze", "Sony Playstation 3", "Final Fantasy", "Dance Dance Revolution". etc. Again, they are different languages, but there is an overlap in words and their meanings.

Now I want to talk about "words", but I want to avoid defining what a "word" is, because it's not even clear to me. If person A uses the word "fag" to refer to a cigarette, and another person uses the word "fag" to refer to homosexual person, are they both using the same word? Or are they different words that simply sound alike (e.g. homophones)? I'd lean towards the latter, but this interpretation leads to some complications: I have this "thing" against ice. I hate ice. So when I hear the verbal sound "ice", this word implies for me some meaning of coldness, pain, shivering, etc. above and beyond the more technical definition of solidified water. Other people might enjoy ice, and thus not have any of the negative connotations that I would associate with that term. So are we using the same word? I would be forced to say, no, we're not. We're simply using two different words which sound alike. And coincidentally, they happen to have *some* overlap in meaning (e.g. reference to solidified water), but not a total overlap, and thus are homophones. If some third party agent were to describe an object as "it's like ice", I'd probably think "Oh, so that means it's something bad", while someone else might think "Oh, that means it's something fun" (or whatever). Totally different meanings, because we're using totally different words.

People who believe that there is "one" language also believe that there is no dispute for the rules of that language. But this is clearly not true. I won't get into disputes on grammar, as one could argue that one person is "right" and the other "wrong" in such a dispute (but how would you decide who is right and who is wrong?), and instead show disputes in semantics. Buy two dictionaries from two different companies. E.g. the Merriam-Webster dictionary and the Cambridge dictionary, and look up any one in both of them. Notice how their definitions differ? Again, there may be some overlap in meaning, but the very fact that they use a different set of words for their definition means they are associating different sets of connotations with these words, and thus different definitions.

For example, take the term "panic" (chosen pseudo randomly). Merriam-Webster says:

• a : a sudden overpowering fright; also : acute extreme anxiety
• b : a sudden unreasoning terror often accompanied by mass flight
• c : a sudden widespread fright concerning financial affairs that results in hurried selling and a sharp fall in prices
• slang : one that is very funny

whereas Cambridge says:

• a sudden strong feeling of anxiety or fear that prevents reasonable thought and action
• to suddenly feel so worried or frightened that you cannot think or behave calmly or reasonably:

As we can see, there are clearly different connotations between these two sets of definition. Merriam-Webster strongly implies that "flight" (presumable in the sense of "to flee") is a strong connotation implied in term "panic", whereas Cambridge does not attribute any particular importance as to whether the subject experiencing panic will flee or remain paralyzed, or some other action. If you religiously believe Merriam-Webster, you will have a slightly different idea of what the term "panic" means than someone who religiously believes Cambridge.

Now the wrote all of this was to explain my position on language: I believe that everyone has their own language, which is unique from everyone else's language. There will probably be large overlaps between these languages (e.g. my version of English is probably similar enough to your version of English that you are able to understand the information I'm trying to send to you via this blog post), but the overlap is not total, nor absolute. There will be misunderstandings. Emphasis on the will. Not "maybe", nor "probably", but most definitely. Why? Because we all have slightly different connotations associated with every words that we think we're sharing. For example, you have some connotations associated with "sharing", and I have some connotations. They are probably similar, and probably not exactly the same. For them to be exactly the same, you would have to have experience essentially the same life as I had: being born Asian, gone to an all boy's primary school, read the same books as I have (which would imply you would have to be strongly interested in computer science), etc., as all of these have a influence (albeit possibly minute) on the connotations I associate with the word "share". You would have to have dated the same girls I dated, and you would have had to have somehow erased their memories of them dating me, because otherwise their dating me would have influenced them (perhaps slightly), and thus change their behaviour, and thus how they might have influenced the connotations you have about the term "share". In other words, it's pretty much guaranteed that you and I do not share the exact same connotations with the term "share", and thus every time I try to express this concept of "sharing" to you, you are receiving a similar, but slightly different, understanding of what I mean. So we're having a misunderstanding.

The process of communication does not require the elimination of misunderstanding: clearly, that is impossible. However, we can minimize it. While you and I do not exactly share the same definition of "sharing", our two definitions are probably close enough, and the context in which it this term "sharing" is used is such that it does not necessitate that we both have the exact same definition.

But recall: Misunderstandings happen all the time in communication, and constantly. And I'm emphasizing again that I mean this literally. I don't mean misunderstandings happen sometimes. I mean they happen all the time, thought at varying degrees.

So here's why I wrote all this: Sometimes, I'll be discussing something with someone, and then they'll say "A", and I'll say "Do you mean B?". Now let's analyze this exchange. They said something, and I'm surprised enough by what they said that I doubt that the information I received was the information they wish to have sent me. Most natural languages (e.g. English) are redundant enough that there's enough "error correction" code in the messages that you send, such that you can detect potential errors. For example, if I say "The weather today is very lkasjdasd." Not only can you spot that some sort of information was not successfully transmitted, but you know precisely which information it was that was not sent. So when I say "Do you mean B?" It means I'm detecting that there is a failure of information transfer. I'm detecting that you have a different definition of "A" than I do. I'm offering an alternative term, "B", in the hopes that you an I both share similar enough definitions of that term such that we can continue communicating, as opposed to aborting the whole process due to the fact that your language differs too greatly from mine.

For a concrete example, consider someone who is clearly heterosexual saying "I love a good fag in my mouth". I might say "Do you mean a cigarette?" And the person might be aware of this term "cigarette", and indeed see that it is similar to the concept that they intended to convey to me, so they can say "Yes.". Or perhaps there was an earlier misunderstanding, and my assumption that the person was heterosexual turned out to be wrong. Either way, I am notifying a failure of information transfer in the hopes of reestablishing communication.

It is unfortunate when someone instead mistakes my request/notification as a criticism. They'll say "A", and I'll say "Do you mean B?", and they'll say "I mean exactly what I said" or "Why must you constantly criticize my usage of the English language?" or "I don't want to argue semantics with you" etc. Clearly, a second level of misunderstanding has occurred upon the original one. The original misunderstanding was my great surprise (the error detection kicking in) at the mention of "A". The second misunderstanding, or meta-misunderstanding, was that the other party thought my request/notification was some sort of criticism or attack. This is where things get tricky.

Short aside: Internet software has to communicate over an unreliable channel. When you're using MSN to send text-messages, there's no guarantee that the message you send will arrive at its destination. You send info in the form of a packet, and it hops from computer to computer. Let's say I'm in Canada, and I'm communicating with a friend in Mexico. The packet is somewhere in the middle of the USA when suddenly a huge power failure occurs, knocking out the entire USA. The packet is lost forever. The way software gets around this is that almost every internet protocol uses an acknowledgment system. When my packet arrives to the destination in Mexico, the Mexican client will send back a packet whose sole purpose is to signify that it successfully received my message. If I send a message to Mexico, and I don't receive an acknowledgment after a while (e.g. 60 seconds), one of two things happened: Either my message never arrived, in which case the Mexican client would not have known to have sent me an acknowledgment, or my message did arrive, and the Mexican client acknowledged it, but the acknowledgment itself got lost. Usually the protocols are designed so that I just resend my message, as it's deemed "less bad" if the Mexican accidentally receives two copies of the same message than if the Mexican doesn't receive the message at all.

But now, let's say instead of sending short messages, you're sending huge files. Files that take hours to transfer. It would suck if only a couple of bytes got corrupted, and you had to resend the entire file all over again. Instead, it's better to send a bit of extra, redundant info which can serve as error-detection which will allow the receiver to specify exactly which parts of the file were corrupted, and request a re-send of those parts. On a perfect medium, this is slightly less efficient, since by adding the extra, redundant info, you're using up more bandwidth, but in an imperfect medium, this can save bandwidth in the long run, as it prevents you from being forced to resend the entire file over again.

But what if the medium is extremely bad? To anthropomorphize, my computer says "Okay, here's your 20 terrabyte file." Then it receives a message back saying "Sorry, byte number 183bzzzzt8342 was corrupted. Can you resend?" To which my computer replies "Which byte number? I only got 183 blank, 8342. What parts failed to send?" The other computer replies "Byte crshhhhh is misbzzzztkrrrrr". To which my computer replies "Repeat again. I didn't get it which part." It receives "What? I didn't ksksssijda part. What did dklasjdksad say?" To which my computer replies "I didn't get which byte was missing. What part are you missing?" And it receives as a reply "Bzzzzzzzzt". The line is so bad at this point, that the two computers just give up and disconnect.

Well, that's exactly what's going on with this meta-misunderstanding that I sometimes have with people. I detect an error in "A", so I ask "did you mean B?" They seem to think this is an attack. Now I can detect this error, and I try to correct it explaining to them that no, it is not an attack, and I truly do not understand what it is they are trying to say. However, if these people are emotional, their emotions can corrupt the medium in which we are communication, making them more defensive and further misinterpreting my messages as being "argumentative", "stubborn", or whatever else. This is the point at which the medium is just so bad, I have to disconnect and stop speaking to them.

This disconnection is not "punishment", or "revenge", or "anger", or anything like that. You know those two computers sharing files? They aren't angry at each other, or punishing each other, or anything like that. They are simply giving up, because no further useful information exchange can occur. The medium is simply too poor. That's what I'm doing: I'm giving up, because no further useful information exchange can occur. This isn't punishment, or revenge or anything like that.

Heh, this post started as a general rant against linguists who ascribe too much authority to one source (e.g. dictionaries) and accidentally turned into an open letter directed to one particular person I've disconnected with recently. Oh well. Hopefully, the majority of this content is still interesting to others, and that person now has a better understanding of what's happening.

We can only try to send information to each other. We cannot guarantee the other party will receive the information we wished that they'd receive.