A World of Shape and Texture: American Sign Language and Navajo
To continue the conversation started earlier, about ASL’s animist/indigenous roots, I want to point out another really beautiful connection.
But first, to sum up: I believe strongly that indigenous languages prioritize observation of action/behavior, skillfull mimicry, and the illumination of relationships and roles. This stands in stark opposition to modern languages that possess the verb “to be”, languages which purpose to fit the world into static categories (”he is a carpenter”), distract/disconnect actors from consequences (”mistakes were made”), and prioritize abstract value judgements (”that’s evil”) over concrete observations (”I feel scared when I see that”).
Both ASL and Navajo (along with all the other Athabaskan languages of North America) use a system of classifiers that purpose to communicate the shape and texture of objects, and thus the behavior of the object in space.
Navajo speakers modify the verbs (for example, “to give”) they use, according to the following list of shape/behaviors (thank you Wikipedia):
| Classifier+Stem | Label | Explanation | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| -ʼą́ | SRO | Solid Roundish Object | bottle, ball, boot, box, etc. |
| -yį́ | LPB | Load, Pack, Burden | backpack, bundle, sack, saddle, etc. |
| -ł-jool | NCM | Non-Compact Matter | bunch of hair or grass, cloud, fog, etc. |
| -lá | SFO | Slender Flexible Object | rope, mittens, socks, pile of fried onions, etc. |
| -tį’ | SSO | Slender Stiff Object | arrow, bracelet, skillet, saw, etc. |
| -ł-tsooz | FFO | Flat Flexible Object | blanket, coat, sack of groceries, etc. |
| -tłééʼ | MM | Mushy Matter | ice cream, mud, slumped-over drunken person, etc. |
| -nil | PLO1 | Plural Objects 1 | eggs, balls, animals, coins, etc. |
| -jaaʼ | PLO2 | Plural Objects 2 | marbles, seeds, sugar, bugs, etc. |
| -ką́ | OC | Open Container | glass of milk, spoonful of food, handful of flour, etc. |
| -ł-tį́ | ANO | Animate Object | microbe, person, corpse, doll, etc. |
[it tickles my funny bone when I see that ice cream, mud, and drunks all fall into the same category]
ASL does the same! When referring to a subject after the signer has signified it as the topic, the signer uses stand-in classifiers, like pronouns, according to the subjects shape/behavior, to modify the signed verb. You can see that a signer uses, non-inclusively (please follow the link for what the classifiers actually look like):
1 Cl for single individuals walking or standing, a pencil lying on its side…
2 Cl for two people walking or standing, one person sitting or standing, a snake tongue…
3 Cl for vehicles, or three people walking or standing…
4 Cl for four people walking or standing, stripes, a fence, bars, teeth bared, bangs, whiskers…
5 Cl same as 4 Cl, plus five people standing, falling leaves…
A Cl for stationary objects, such as statues, bottles on the shelf, objects on a table…
B Cl for surfaces, walls, floors, roads, shelves, clothing, flat objects
And so on, for eight more classifiers that delineate shape and motion. Do you see the incredible similarity between the two languages? If anything, it looks like the Athabaskan languages evolved to accomodate all the wonderful information communicated by a primary, signed language. In any case, signed languages like ASL demonstrate the remarkable power of illuminated relationships, roles, form, and behavior, when communicating. Imagine what kind of poetry you could create, if you related to the world in this way! Imagine the kind of poetry that native ASL speakers create right now, because of the strength and beauty of their language, and I think you can understand the profound pride and identity possessed by the Deaf community.
July 30th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
does your friend RaVen regularly teach a class? if so, i’d like to join once i get to portland.
July 31st, 2008 at 11:16 am
Chinese and Japanese use classifiers as well. Stephen Pinker talks about Chinese classifiers in his book “Words and Rules”. “They have classifiers for people, animals, flat things, long flexible things, small things, one of a pair and so on.” The classifier “ge” is the one you use if the object doesn’t fit into the available categories; like miscellaneous in English.
Pinker also points out we sometimes use in English as well, “A blade of grass (not a grass), a piece of fruit, a strand of hair, a slice of bread, a stick of wood, a sheet of paper, and thirty head of cattle.”
July 31st, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Tom-
I believe Tony has a plan to have her support TNW programs, so hopefully she will provide ASL training for immersion program students! In any case, she does teach a weekly class too.
Vicky-
I wonder if this explains the cultural sensitivity Japanese seem to have to design, crafted objects and presentation; Chinese too. And both these cultures have extant animist traditions (Shinto and Taoism). Thanks for the observations!
July 31st, 2008 at 9:54 pm
I wouldn’t consider myself anywhere near expert on Asian cultures, but that sounds reasonable. They seem to have a more hands-on way of looking at things than we Westerners do.
Do you see any potential for expanding our use of classifiers in English (or e-primitive)? It seems to me that using classifiers makes nouns less specific, thereby weakening them. For instance, in English, it doesn’t make sense to say “a grass”. Why? Because the word grass means the category of grass. The same thing with “cattle”, although no one would ever say “one head of cattle” since we can use the handy word “cow” instead. But what if you could say, “I saw three head of squirrels at the park today.” It sounds funny, but I think it makes sense.
August 1st, 2008 at 11:45 am
Intriguing! Maybe squirrels need something more petite. “I saw three squeaks of squirrels”.
I hadn’t thought about the implications for e-primitive…that presents some interesting options. So, a speaker may want to say something that captures the idea, “I saw three counts of ongoing squirrelling”, essentially, in the spirit of verbing the noun. “Three head of squirrel” works pretty well. Especially when you think of ways we use “squirrel” as a verb; to squirrel away goodies, etc. Maybe we need to add this to the e-primitive sandbox on Rewild.info?
August 2nd, 2008 at 11:24 am
Yes, definitely!
August 2nd, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Wikipedia has a pretty good list of measure words in Chinese, if you want to compare. Note, however, that contemporary measure words are directly tied to specific words. Except in a few cases where multiple different measure words might be appropriate, generally the speaker does not have a choice of which measure word to use. It’s very much like “five head of cattle.” If you said “a pod of cattle” or “a murder of cattle,” people would assume it’s either 1) overwrought poetry, or 2) wrong.
Measure words are, as far as I know, a relatively recent (i.e. still very ancient) addition to Chinese, and are not really present in classical Chinese.
August 4th, 2008 at 11:25 am
Jonathan-
Thanks for the added info! Hmm. Food for thought.
August 5th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Criminy! I just had a revelation about all this. First of all, of course measure words come later in Chinese linguistic history; they don’t act as classifiers, but “formers of formless categories”. Cattle means “the formless substance that we eat”, and two head of cattle means “two individually bounded units of such”. Abstracted formless nouns, definitely seem to accompany complexifying civilization.
Which really disgusts me. Measures, as far as I can tell, count and quantify abstracted substance, rather than affirming its personhood.
I say we abandon formless nouns to begin with; water (a pint of), meat (a package of), air (a puff of), etc. This of course could include Time and Space as well.
August 5th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Of course this renders all my speculation about Chinese and Japanese “object presentation” rather curious, if not silly.
Hmm. Two cultures with highly rigid class systems, as well as extant animist traditions. What an enigma!