Comments on Jordan Buckley: Book Review: The Language Instinct

I would answer a tentative "yes" to your question....

2009-04-28T23:47:00.000-04:00

I would answer a tentative "yes" to your question. I definitely believe that over time human language becomes less and less precise and it is only God's common grace that keeps human communication from collapsing altogether.

A perfect example would be the English word "love." Comparing its use 500 years ago and now the meaning seems to have degenerated in the culture at large to mean only a certain type of love, i.e. erotic love in most cases.

I also think there is something to be said about the trend of human languages becoming uninflected. I personally haven't heard of any modern languages that are becoming more inflected. I think there may be something there.

Thanks for the good discussion. Sorry my reply was tardy.

Matthew, thanks for commenting man.

I agree...

2009-04-05T02:04:00.000-04:00

Matthew, thanks for commenting man.

I agree that Pinker's evolutionary presuppositions shape his arguments, but I think his affirmation of a common human nature (as opposed to a socially-conditioned tabula rasa) and his recognition of the astounding intricacies of the human language faculty fit well with the Christian worldview.

I suppose you can argue that the Fall implies language is decaying, but you'd have to demonstrate that this is actually happening, which is difficult because we have no standard for "perfect language"—is it Latin? Greek? Aramaic? Sanskrit? Furthermore, I don't think the decay of language necessarily follows from the Fall and Babel unless by "decay" you mean the gradual fragmentation of languages which separates communities from each other. At any rate, the kind of language decay Pinker is arguing against is the idea that the ideal form of our language recently existed (whether it's 1959 Strunk & White, 1611 King James, or whatever), and any change from this ideal is bad. There's really no rational basis to say that Elizabethan English is superior to modern American English.

I'm interested to know what you mean by human language "rotting." Do you mean that all languages are gradually becoming less capable of communicating thought?

Again, thanks for your comments.

It seems his entire argument is shaped by his evol...

2009-04-03T23:30:00.000-04:00

It seems his entire argument is shaped by his evolutionary worldview. I think the claim that languages are not degrading is an implicit denial of the Fall and what happened at Babel.

"For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God." (Romans 8:20-21)

As a part of creation, human language must also have been subjected to corruption and futility which implies a process of decay. Just like a body decomposing, human language is rotting because our fallen nature continues corrupting it.

Yeah, it was a really fascinating read. Now I'll h...

2009-03-15T14:17:00.000-04:00

Yeah, it was a really fascinating read. Now I'll have to read some of his other stuff eventually.

Hey... wandered over here from Brad Davis' blog an...

2009-03-15T09:09:00.000-04:00

Hey... wandered over here from Brad Davis' blog and saw that you'd reviewed probably my favorite book from my college classes! It really is amazing that after all of the fascinating complex details of language he discusses, his best answer is natural selection. Crazy. But it's still one of my favorite books!

Sounds like an interesting read. I'll have to chec...

2009-03-03T11:00:00.000-05:00

Sounds like an interesting read. I'll have to check it out when I get some time.