Structural linguistics begins with Ferdinand de Saussure’s (1857 – 1913) Course in General Linguistics in 1916, compiled from lectures by his students
Two significant theories describe the way signs acquire the ability to transfer information. According to Saussure, a sign consists of the signifier (a word, gesture, or something that can carry ambiguous/multiple senses) and the signified (a meaning). These should not be conceptualized as separate entities but rather as a mapping from significant differences in sound to potential differential denotation. Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) proposed a somewhat different theory. Unlike Saussure, who approached the question from a linguistic and phonological perspective, Peirce, the founder of pragmatism, extended the concept of sign to include many other forms. He considered ‘word’ to be only one particular sign and characterized a sign as any mediational means to understanding. Peirce added a third semiotic element to a sign, the interpretant
Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908–2009) wrote, ‘If one wants to establish a parallel between structural linguistics and the structural analysis of myths, the correspondence is established, not between mytheme and word but between mytheme and phoneme’
A phoneme is the unit of sound that distinguishes one word from another in a particular language. For example, the English sound patterns /sɪn/ (sin) and /sɪŋ/ (sing) are separate words that are distinguished by the substitution of the phoneme /n/ for the phoneme/ŋ/. They would form the same phonemes in many other languages, so [n] and [ŋ] would be allophones of a single /n/ sound. Phonemes established by minimal pairings, such as the English kill vs kiss or pat vs bat, are written between slashes as /p/. We denote pronunciation more precisely using square brackets: [pʰ] indicates an aspirated P. A phoneme may also represent a group of sounds perceived to have the same function by speakers of the language or dialect. For example, the English phoneme /k/ occurs in words such as cat, kit, scat, or skit. Most native speakers do not notice it, but the C/K sounds in these words are not identical. The K sound is an aspirate [kʰ] in kit, but it is unaspirated [k] in skill. These words, therefore, contain different speech sounds, or phones, transcribed as [kʰ] for the aspirated form or [k] for the unaspirated one. Nonetheless, these different sounds belong to the same phoneme /k/ because if a speaker replaced one with the other, the word’s meaning would not change. Using the aspirated form [kʰ] to pronounce skill might sound odd, but the concept would still be recognized. However, some other sounds would cause a change in meaning. For example, the substitution of the phone [k] of skill with [t] would produce a different word, still. Therefore, the sound [t] represents a distinct phoneme, /t/. Although [k] and [kʰ] are allophones of a single phoneme /k/ in English, in other languages, these are perceived by native speakers as different sounds. Substituting one sound for the other can change the meaning of a word. In those languages, the two sounds represent different phonemes. In Icelandic, [kʰ] is the starting sound of kátur, which means cheerful, but [k] is the first sound of gátur, riddles. Therefore, Icelandic has two distinct phonemes, /kʰ/ and /k/.
The field of linguistics dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. Its main application is grammar, i.e., structural rules governing the natural language’s composition of words, phrases, and clauses. Morphemes are the units, i.e., the smallest, indivisible, yet meaningful parts of speech or writing which make up words. The main difference between morphemes and words is that morphemes sometimes do not stand alone, but words, by definition, always stand alone. When a morpheme stands by itself, it is considered a root because it has its own meaning. When it depends on another morpheme to express an idea, it is an affix because it has a grammatical function. Every word comprises one or more morphemes. The English word cats consist of two morphemes: cat- and -s. The first morpheme is the root because it stands alone in the word cat; the suffix -s means plural of something but is never seen on its own, except as a letter.
Definitions are indispensable parts of logic, science, and didactics, but they may produce artefacts that mislead our understanding of scientific objects. The above definition of morphemes is undoubtedly helpful in teaching young children basic grammatical rules such as declension or inflection but may constrain our understanding of word morphology. Could the word cat be split as c-at? Most linguists would answer no, although the at exists as an independent English word, cat and at mean completely different things. Their semantic fields do not overlap in any sensible way today. Moreover, c- is not known as an English prefix. When talking about origins, however, one must consider the semantic fields of words not as these are perceived today but as these may have been perceived hundreds or thousands of years ago in a remote part of the planet.
The same arguments apply to English skills. We may use the same method of minimal word-pairing to identify sememes as for phonemes. The shared part of morphologically similar terms should correspond to some gross semantic similarity, whereas the minimal difference should correspond to a minimally varying sememe. In skills, most linguists would recognize two morphemes: skill-, the root, and -s, for plural, but perhaps no one would split the stem skill into a prefix s- and a root -kill. Again, today, it is superficially challenging to establish a semantic connection between kill (to put to death; to extinguish the life of) and skill (capacity to do something well; technique, ability). In Standard English, the prefix s- does not exist or is unknown. It only occurs in scientific terms from the field of physics. Yet, the s- exists as a privative prefix in other European languages such as Albanian or Italian. In those languages, s- presumably derives from Latin sē-, meaning without, or ex-, which is semantically equivalent to dis-, un-, in-, de-, a-, to delete, cross out, no longer, etc. There are many examples of Greek words using S as a privative prefix. Also, to kill does not only mean to put to death a living creature but also to render inoperative, to stop, cease or render void, terminate, disable, overpower, overwhelm, defeat, knock off, use up, waste, break, deactivate, disable, or turn off. Not long ago, the Middle English ancestors of kill, killen, kyllen or cüllen meant to strike, beat, or cut. Splitting skill as s-kill would be plausible, assuming that, at some point in space and time, kill carried all those notions of destruction and that a Latin-born prefix s- cancelled those notions. Thus, s-kill would initially mean non-destruction, opposite to destruction, hence creation, the ability to create or handle without (s-) breaking (-kill). But, if one now has the right to split ‘indivisible’ root morphemes into smaller parts for a new etymological hypothesis, then where do we stop splitting? What is indivisible? Where is the unit of meaning hidden? For the moment, note the phonetic and graphical continuity in the semantic field of cutting and killing highlighted above.
A sememe, from Greek σημαίνω (sēmaínō; to mean, signify), is a semantic language unit of meaning analogous to a morpheme in the field of word morphology. The concept is relevant in structural semiotics. A sememe, being a unit, is indivisible; or is it? A sememe is a proposed unit of transmitted or intended meaning; it is, by definition, atomic or indivisible. Suppose that the morpheme kill is an indivisible root and means to put to death only. Then, put-to-death is the sememe that corresponds to the morpheme kill. But put-to-death is complex since it takes at least three sememes to describe, assuming that put, to, and death are indivisible stems, each corresponding to a sememe. In other words, a sememe is a higher-order unit than a morpheme – i.e., a morpheme (kill) corresponds to a set of sememes (put + to + death). Alternatively, a morpheme (kill) is divisible into smaller units to account for multiple agglutinated sememes that make up its semantics. In any case, the correspondence between morphemes and sememes may not always be one-to-one. By analogy, in biological ‘semiotics,’ a gene may code for more than one protein, while a functional protein may require combined information from more than one gene.
In summary, a phoneme is an ‘indivisible’ unit of speech sound that comprises several variants within a language. The allophones may correspond to different phonemes in different languages. A morpheme is an ‘indivisible’ unit of structure that may sometimes split according to various hypotheses about its origin. A sememe is an ‘indivisible’ unit of meaning that requires several constituent sememes to be fully described and understood. The source of trouble is the arbitrary discretization of variables that vary on a continuous scale. Sound, word morphology, and meaning are continuous variables like length, shape, or weight. The cut-offs are not natural but artificially fixed by linguists attempting to explain language.
A phoneme is a sound. It takes an emitter to produce it and a receiver to interpret it. Both require training by imitation. A phoneme can convey the primary sememes, the sound frequency and amplitude or, eventually, the configuration of the mouth muscles needed to produce the phoneme. When we pronounce [s], we essentially show our teeth; with [p], our lips; with [l], our superior alveolar ridge, soft palate cavity; with [q], the uvula, the inner mouth; etc. Boars and pigs of the genus Sus frequently grunt with an intensity that varies with the situation; piglets whine. When frightened, boars make loud huffing sounds, transcribed as [ukh-ukh], or emit screeches, [gu-gu-gu], while their combat calls are high-pitched, piercing cries
Humans make a more extensive range of sounds. They can also imitate the sounds made by their parents, their language or music teachers, and many natural sounds. Additionally, they whistle and sing. However, the phonemes that humans produce are not universal and do not seem to have an innate biological origin, like a snore, cry, or laughter; they are not ‘written in our DNA.’ Instead, speech is an adaptive developmental trait
A word (signifier) may not be assumed to have existed before its signified object. The PIE language may not have had a name for a computer because PIE speakers did not have computers. The Homeric word σῦς, transliterated in Latin as sūs (boar, pig, or swine), did not exist before man observed the boar and domesticated the pig (around 13000-12700 BC in the Tigris Basin, Near East). The domestication of the animal created the need for a name. But how can one signify a pig using the human phonetic repertoire? One way is to imitate the animal’s sounds (echomimetic onomatopoeia). Homer did not use this method, but there is a Modern Greek word, γουρούνι (gourouni; [guruni]), from Byzantine Greek γουρούνιον (gourounion), from Ancient Greek γρώνη (grōnē), from γρῦ (gry; compare γρυλίζω, grylizō, to grunt, of swine). All these cognates are probably connected to the sound pigs make, [gu-gu-gu]. Another way is to describe the most characteristic morphological trait of the animal, its well-developed canine teeth, which protrude from the mouth of adult males. No other domestic animal has such visible teeth (Fig. 1). The phone that best evokes teeth is the sibilant [s]. There are two protruding teeth and two S’s in sūs; the [u] sound was perhaps to imitate the animal’s grunt or Y-shaped face. Similarly, the phone [s] may be graphically represented by drawing a couple of teeth: the Phoenician letter šīn (tooth; ∨∨) eventually evolving to Sigma (Σ).
Figure 1. Male sanglochon, a hybrid between wild boar and domestic pig. Artwork by Miguel Tremblay (2014), Creative Commons license.
What about a house? A house does not make any sound. It has only visual traits to describe: it protrudes from the ground, featuring walls, a closed hollow space with a door, and a roof serving as a cover for hiding and protection. These words and phrases correspond to more elementary and abstract semantic units that make up the compound meaning of the word house when put together. A two-dimensional graphical representation of a house is more intuitive than a linear function of sounds, both for the drawer and the reader. This two-dimensional representation may be linearized into a word using stylized elementary line units (the letters) according to their forms or connotations. H for a wall (Phoenician Ḥēt, designed initially as two building blocks, stones, one on top of the other; later converted by the Greeks into a thick vertical line made up of two connected thin lines, I-I); O for closed (line, space); U for hollowness, concavity; S for protrusion (Σ; ∨∨; Šīn; tooth); etc.
By analogy to phonemes, morphemes, sememes, etc., a grapheme is the smallest unit of a writing system of any given language. A writing system is a set of permanent marks representing utterances so that they can be recovered precisely without the intervention of the utterer
The earliest writing systems are logographic. The first civilizations of the Near East, Egypt, China, and Central America, used logograms. Today, the Unicode Consortium maintains a computing industry standard for consistently encoding text expressed in most of the world’s writing systems. The Unicode version 12.1 contained nearly 138 000 characters comprising 150 modern and historic scripts, multiple symbol sets, and emojis. Some Unicode characters – e.g., the phonetic alphabet – have purely phonetic values with no other meaning. These are all modern inventions. Still, many, if not most, of the other characters may be considered logograms, pictograms, or ideograms: they have no phonetic value, but they do have meaning. For example, the symbol ∞, meaning infinity, is not pronounced. Some characters, such as line or page breaks, tabulation marks, etc., may have neither phonetic nor visual representation but particular semantics. Private-use code points are assigned characters but have no interpretation specified by the Unicode standard. So, any interchange of such characters requires an agreement on their understanding between a sender and a receiver.
Therefore, the term grapheme needs not to be restricted to the traditional written signs of natural languages, i.e., letters, diacritics, numbers, and punctuation, as found in texts typically addressed to the general public. With the expansion of science and other intellectual activities, the Unicode collection has acquired many modern and ancient graphemes besides the traditional ones. Hence, graphemes include alphabetic letters, typographic ligatures, pictograms, ideograms, cuneiform characters, Chinese characters, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Linear A and Linear B symbols, Phoenician letters, and their Asiatic derivatives (Aramaic, Brahmi, etc.), numerical digits, punctuation marks, and other individual symbols. In a broader sense of language as a system for written communication, the term grapheme applies to all kinds of characters. Be it alchemical, chemical, astrological, astronomical, engineering, electronic, mathematical symbols, emojis, currency signs, graphical lines and points, arrows, binary numbers, or whatever the human mind has ever devised to convey information graphically.
All of the most ancient graphemes and nearly all modern ones have semantic values but may only sometimes correspond to a single phoneme of the spoken language. The slashes (/) in the expression ‘/k/’ are not pronounced but conventionally designate a phoneme in linguistics. Instead, the letters of the Greek, Latin, and derivative alphabets supposedly are only visual representations of phonemes without semantic value. For example, the letter K represents the phoneme /k/ and has no other meaning. Its graphical form is considered meaningless. We may wonder what rationale one can make for a correspondence between the graphical structure that means nothing and the acoustic frequency of the respective phoneme. Instead, it would be more intuitive to assume that the form of K (perhaps originally written like |<) represents the part of the respiratory apparatus that produces the phoneme /k/. Paradoxically, graphemes seem to have lost their ability to convey meaning amid their evolution from logograms through alphabetic letters to modern writing symbols and to have fully regained it at the end. Spoken and written languages may be different communication systems that interact and co-evolve. All graphemes, including alphabetic letters, may have been initially invented to convey sememes by their form. The semantic value of alphabetic letters may have been lost simply because of the general phonocentric view of language.
Some have argued that philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Ferdinand de Saussure have promoted phonocentric views. Phonocentrism believes that speech is inherently superior to and precedes written language. Its supporters maintain that spoken language is the primary and fundamental method of communication. Writing is merely a method of capturing speech. Many also hold that speech is inherently richer and more intuitive than writing.
The philosopher John Searle argued that Plato expressed some scepticism about the value of writing relative to speech
This long tradition of seeing speech as the primary form of language and writing as a secondary, representative, and, importantly, outside of speech makes modern linguistics the science of semiotic phonology. Saussure believed that writing was given too much attention in linguistics. Instead, speech should be treated as the primary topic of this field. In the Course in General Linguistics, Saussure argued that language and writing are two distinct systems of signs
Ong explained that American society is particularly opposed to phonocentrism only because written documents, such as the United States Constitution, form a crucial part of American national identity. He also noted that many Americans view the reality of words as defined by dictionaries rather than by vocal speech. He warns that we are so literate in an ideology that we think writing comes naturally. Still, we must remind ourselves that writing is entirely and irremediably artificial. According to Ong, writing is necessary for transmitting knowledge in a technological culture, but speech should be considered primary because it is unconscious. Writing requires conscious attention and depends on consciously contrived rules. However, writing and speech are privileged in specific ways and depend upon each other for identification and clarity
It all sounds like claiming that the singer is the one who creates the song; the composer is just the recorder of the singer’s music. Valid to some extent! We, builders, have always built our houses; the architects came to imprint the plans. But the size and quality of houses built by amateurs do not compare with the Parthenon, St Sophia, or the skyscrapers that architects can build. The difference is analogous between a ‘natural’ language – if such a thing exists – and a language built by poets (literally, word creators). I wanted to introduce the other side of the debate but failed to find profound arguments in the literature. There seems to be no debate. Mere documentation of writing systems raises polemics. DeFrancis and Unger, reviewing a reference book on writing systems edited by Daniels and Bright, felt that phonocentricism is attacked by ‘scientific creationists’ and Nazi’ nationalists’.
An authoritative reference text on all known writing systems is needed today, especially because the hard-won principle that speech is primary in language is under attack, despite the overwhelming weight of the evidence, and it needs to be vigorously reaffirmed in the closing years of the 20th century. The pioneering achievements of … scholars who liberated linguistics from the tyranny of the written word, and made it the cornerstone of cultural anthropology, are nowadays belittled, or worse, forgotten.
New York Review, with a straight editorial face, printed the equally absurd and pernicious claim of ’a unique anteriority of script over speech’ in Chinese. The folly of this claim was exposed more than 160 years ago…; but in our age of ignorance, it is lionized as a great post-modernist insight, despite the total lack of new evidence from either psycholinguistics or history that might justify reviving it.
The chance for misunderstanding is obvious … whenever an author says that this or that writing system is ‘phonetically based’… or ‘phonologically based ‘…, the implication is that some other writing systems (Chinese and related scripts) are not.
…xenophobic Chinese are trumpeting the prediction that their characters - being as universal as the symbols 1, 2, 3 - are so superior to ‘phonologically based scripts’ that they will replace all such systems in the 21 st century. (Even as this review goes to press, linguists in China who have dared to speak up against this nativist claptrap are being sued by well-financed nationalists. (DeFrancis and Unger 1997)
Jacques Derrida attempted to plead for writing without claiming its absolute primacy over speech. The phonocentric view of language is justified if we consider that most human populations – including women, enslaved people, peasants, serfs, and all kinds of artisans – were illiterate. Only a tiny elite of scribes practised writing throughout prehistory and throughout history. Literate people, i.e., those who can read and write, became a majority (>50%) only in the 18th century in France and only in the 1950s worldwide
Few philosophers and linguists, including Derrida, have used phonocentrism to criticize what they see as a disdain for written language. Derrida argued that phonocentrism developed because of the immediacy of speech as closer to the presence of subjects than writing. Philosophy, anthropology, and linguistics have become too phonocentric. For Derrida, phonocentrism was a significant example of Western philosophy’s logocentrism, a binary opposition between speech and writing where speech is privileged. He attempted to deconstruct this opposition by claiming that speech can derive from writing as readily as writing can derive from speech. Derrida maintained that phonocentrism developed due to the desire to determine a convenient means of self-expression. He argued that speech is no better than writing but is assigned that role by societies seeking a transcendental form of expression, allowing one to express transcendent truths better and understand vital metaphysical ideas
Logocentrism is a term coined by Ludwig Klages, a German philosopher, psychologist, and theorist in handwriting analysis in the 1920s
The word logos (Ancient Greek λόγος; a verbal noun of λέγω; legō) is defined as computation, reckoning, account, audit, treasury, fiscus, measure, tale, sum, total, esteem, consideration, value, worth, reputation, regard, relation, correspondence, proportion, ratio, analogy, rule, explanation, plea, pretext, ground, purpose, reason, cause, case, ground of action, statement of a theory, argument, discourse, teaching, theory, quibble, proposition, principle, law, plan, conscience, precept, thesis, hypothesis, proof, formula, definition, term, function, order, debate, thinking, reasoning, reflection, deliberation, idea, thought, whim, process of thought, abstract reasoning, discursive reasoning, creative reason, continuous statement, narrative, oration, fable, legend, story, tidings, a historical work, section, history, speech, body of a speech, body of a law, word, verbal expression, utterance, phrase, talk, expression, rigmarole, message, pretense, supposition, everyday talk, report, tradition, rumor, fiction, mention, notice, description, repute, good report, praise, honor, fame, evil report, credit, discussion, confer, parley, right of discussion, time allowed for a speech, dialogue, division, branch, department, literature, letters, treatizes, a particular utterance, saying, divine utterance, oracle, proverb, maxim, assertion, express resolution, consent, proposal, terms, conditions, word of command, behest, thing spoken of, subject-matter, matter, secret, subject, question, matter for talk, point, plot, thing talked of, event, intelligent utterance, eloquence, language, manner of utterance, prose, complex term, sentence, complete statement[1].
Figure 2. Chairs.
Most of the above sememes associated with logos pertain to human thinking and knowledge (reckoning, account, measure, esteem, consideration, value, worth, theory, quibble, proposition, principle, thought, thinking, reasoning, idea, etc.). Since thinking occurs in the human brain, in this sense, logos is only metaphysical to the extent that the human brain and its functions are transcendental objects, i.e., not at all. The same applies to the Platonic forms and ideas; these are also in our minds. We can only know one’s logos (thoughts) when this logos is somehow expressed, usually by utterance or writing. Through utterance or text, the word logos acquires sememes about linguistic expression (speech, law, word, verbal expression, statement, phrase, talk, communication, message, everyday talk, tradition, rumour, fiction, mention, description, etc.). We may refrain from or be incapable of expressing all our thoughts, but we always think about what we communicate, and all we show derives from the brain. An utterance is a spoken logos (Greek for speech). A text is a written logos (Greek for writing; e.g., word). The Greek word for the art of logos, logotechnia (literature), almost exclusively pertains to printed logos; a painting is logos in drawing; a statue is a 3-dimensional representation of a model we already have in mind. The tool’s logos (purpose, function) reflects the object’s design. The logos (value, plan, idea) of a rolling chair is displacement while sitting. These uses of the word logos make perfect sense in Ancient and Modern Greek. There is no evidence, nor logos (reason), to assume that the Ancient Greek word logos preferentially meant oral, rather than written, expression of logos (thinking). Nor is there evidence that spoken logos (utterance) precedes or excels printed logos (text, law, literature) or vice versa. Indeed, the names of sciences ending in -logy – like biology, geology, phonology, methodology, technology, terminology, etc. – are better interpreted as thinking about, reasoning about, rather than talking about, or speaking about a particular subject matter.
Therefore, in principle, Derrida’s point about hierarchical equality of speech and writing is valid. There is no a priori reason that speech be superior or come before writing in any sense. Since they are both expressions of the same logos (thought), speaking and writing can be just as good or bad; and may vary in quality from individual to individual. Some thinkers may better express themselves orally, and some in writing. Some people may understand better when reading a text, and some may prefer an audio version. Logocentrism best applies to theories of linguistic communication centred on thought expression, whether oral or written.
A related debate is whether thought precedes language or vice versa. In other words, is language a product of thought, or is thought a product of language? Can we think without words? Can we generate language without logos (purpose, thinking, design)? Such questions pertain to the origin and evolution of words and interest both professional thinkers and the general public. From modest research, there is a consensus that the relationship between language and thought is bidirectional. Everybody seems to accept that language helps thought and that thought helps language. A well-written text or a well-delivered speech requires some thoughtful preparation. A draft provides feedback to the author and stimulates thought for an improved version. There is no serious objection to that statement. Again, however, this may be true for individuals and populations that have already developed language and thinking capacities. The degree to which thought influences language and language influences thought is difficult to measure and agree upon, mainly when ancient cultures are concerned.
Thinkers that work with language, poets, scientists, philosophers, theorists, and the like, require words to structure their thought. Indicatively, Friedrich Nietzsche suggests that man thinks unceasingly like every living creature but does not know it. The thinking which becomes conscious of itself is only the smallest part thereof done in words, through which the origin of consciousness is revealed
What about music composers or painters? Those probably think with sound or colours, respectively. Describing a musical work or a painting in words is as inefficient as using musical notes or oil colours to represent the text of the above paragraph. In either case, a thought is a series of binary decisions whereby the elementary materials – words, notes, colours, etc. – are associated or dissociated in a trial-and-error fashion. If I am hungry and find a nice-smelling fruit in the forest, I will eat it. If it does not taste as good, I will spit it. If it caused any other inconvenience, I would never try it again. If the fruit pleases me and satisfies my hunger, I will try to find a way to refer to it, repeat the experiment, and communicate the results when I next meet my family and friends. At every step, I obtain a bit of knowledge. Any resemblance of this example with the biblical myth of Eve, the apple, and the snake, is unintentional.
This behaviour, typical in all animals, is controlled by the brain. It may not be thinking, as this is commonly understood, but it is the basis of thinking. It corresponds to Nietzsche’s unceasing but unconscious thought. It is the way we learn. Having collected the fruit’s aspect and smell with my senses, I took a first binary decision: whether the fruit was attractive or not. Then I associated the attractiveness of the fruit with my hunger feeling and made a second binary decision: I will eat it or not. Then, I associated the taste, the secondary effects, my level of satisfaction, etc.; at each step, I made a binary decision: yes or no. Similarly, musicians and painters associate notes or colours and decide to keep or drop the association at each stage. Thinkers who think with natural language or other signs also associate linguistic or semiotic elements and take binary decisions to accept each association.
In his masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey, the American film director Stanley Kubrick explained his view of the origin of thought in a sequence lasting less than 10 min without using any words. In the prehistoric African veldt, a tribe of hominids is driven away from their water pool by a rival tribe. The animals communicate using body language and unstructured cries only. One of them discovers a skeleton. It has the chance to have hands suitable for handling the bones. It starts playing with the femur, hitting the other bones randomly. It discovers that the skull breaks by hitting it with the femur. Its brain has probably made significant associations, and the hominid can now use the bone as a weapon to kill its prey and defend its tribe and territory. Other members of the tribe somehow received this knowledge and soon held bones
Note that Kubrick’s hominid proceeded by observation, association (hypothesis, theory, if-then), and binary decision (validation/rejection) based on the results of an experiment (play). Today we call this series of cognitive events the scientific method. The humanoid developed its first tool without producing a single structured sound, never mind words. Kubrick’s thought experiment suggests that formal language is unnecessary for thinking and building knowledge. Can thinking produce language? In the above hypothetical quest for food, I did not need to know the names of fruits to try them. However, should it prove to be an abundant and resourceful fruit, I may need to refer to it frequently using a sign representing the fruit in its absence. Since fruits do not make sounds, I would more likely use body language or draw a visual symbol on the sand. I can get away with a pictogram for bananas or a bunch of grapes because these fruits have characteristic shapes. For olives or nuts, I may need a more inventive description.
The brain works very fast. Most of its cellular and biochemical activity is not perceivable without special instruments. The most primitive associations between natural stimuli (observations) and reflexes, responses, and decision-making are probably made unconsciously by the autonomic nervous system, which requires no language. Putting together linguistic elements and creating new concepts by this association takes time and effort because this conscious thought is the perceivable result of a myriad of events occurring unconsciously in the brain. Advanced thinkers may find acceptable de novo associations with no name. They have to create new words and sign associations to express such concepts. It is often the case in poetry, philosophy, mathematics and science, cooking, marketing, and at every frontier of thinking with words. Musicians and painters also produce sounds and images never heard or seen before, expressing their musical, eicastic, or fantastic thoughts
The first who thought that letters might carry meaning appears to be Plato. In his dialogue Cratylus, he splits the words and names into parts and discovers patterns in letters. He remarks that words bearing the same letters may share meaning:
Artemis appears to get her name from her healthy (ἀρτεμές; artemes) and well-ordered [2] nature, and her love of virginity; or perhaps he who named her meant that she is learned in virtue (ἀρετή; aretē), or possibly, too, that she hates sexual intercourse (ἄροτον μισεῖ; aroton misei) of man and woman; or he who gave the goddess her name may have given it for any or all of these reasons [3] (Plato 1921).
There are numerous accounts of Renaissance scholars aiming to rediscover the ‘universal language’ – the primordial tongue where the form perfectly aligned to meaning – notably by decoding the letters of the alphabet. A founder of the Royal Society of London, John Wilkins (1614–1672), formed a hierarchy of classes of increasing specificity, with each category and subcategory indicated by a particular letter. For instance, he thought plants begin with the letter G and animals with the letter Z. Then, for the sub categories of animals, exsanguinous animals begin with ‘zo,’ fish names begin with ‘za,’ birds with ‘ze’, and beasts with ‘zi.’ Appended letters form further subcategories. Such a language would result in much inheritance of information across words. So, the general meaning of a newly encountered name could be determined based on its form
Only recently did a couple of marginal Greek writers also attempt a semantic analysis of words taking the letters as units of meaning. Except for a handful of out-of-print books, their views are only in special publications or soft and fragmentary formats such as blogs, videos, social-media articles, promotional abstracts in electronic magazines, etc. These writings came to my attention only when my analysis had finished. Neither of these authors explains how they came up with their semantic decoding method, nor do they cite any references other than Plato or some other ancient texts in the best case; they do not cite each other. The primary meanings given to the letters may differ between these authors. However, a shared principle underlies their method of ‘decoding.’ Their literal semantics are so abstract, and their extended semantic fields so vast that associations with the current meaning of words can be made conveniently. Schematically, if A is found in a word akin to humans, it means human. When the same letter is found in a word about animals, it means animal. Thus, letters are given arbitrary meanings to fit the modern semantics of words, presumed accurate. They do not predict the original meaning of ancient terms but justify how we understand them today.
According to Tsatsomoiros
The fundamental error of Tsatsomoiros is to have attempted an explanation of mythological names based on the associated mythemes (riddles taken literally) instead of trying to solve the mythemes based on an independent linguistic analysis of the names. As I suggested in the first introductory paragraph, the original meaning of words should be traceable in words on their own. Interpreting words from their context necessarily leads to a semantic shift, whether an author intended it: a dog is an animal or a tool (see section The ancestors of Odysseus).
Based mainly on Tsatsomoiros’ code and method, but without ever citing him, Semaioforos proposes an even more esoteric and ‘noble’ code with each letter having a single, stable meaning. He gives 13 out of 24 Greek letters the same or similar sun-related meaning. For example, Α = primary force; Β = energy (in any form); Δ (Delta; D) = power, force, construction, creation; Ζ = life, heat, warmth; Η (Eta)= double descent of radiation, appearance, revelation; Ι = constant supply, a descent of force, light, radiation; Κ = down, low, low qualities of energy; Λ (Lambda; L) = solar radiation and liquids in nature; Μ = concentrated solar radiation, visible nature; Ρ (Rho; R) = flowing of energy, radiation, liquid; Τ = consolidation, firmament of force, radiation, energy; Υ = concentration, accumulation of force, radiation, energy; Φ (Phi; F, Ph) = light, illumination (natural or spiritual); Ψ (Psi; Ps) = internal fire
At 1:46:45 – The word σῦς (sys or sus) consists of S for internal space and Y for a great concentration of force. Its meaning is 'pig' [Greek χοίρος; choiros] demonstrating that here, on the soil (Ch), flows (R) the energy of light (?)…
At 1:47:10 -1:50:48 – The noun χοίρος (choiros; pig), given as a meaning of the word sys, literally names the space which is delimited (limited) and it is spheroid; inside this space flows the energy of light. The fact that an animal was named so proves that due to the animal's behavior to roll in the ground – i.e., space where there is water – allegorically means the material energy which concentrates inside planet bodies. Thus, the word sys carries S to convey this inner view or the internal space of the planet; and Y to convey the great concentration of solid matter. Indeed, the planets are, in a sense, the pigs of the planetary system and get material energy to accumulate with gluttony all the heaviest metals, i.e., the bodies of the heavy matter, in their nuclei. In this sense, the planets are bodies that grow as time passes because they devour solar energy through falling meteors or the accumulation of solar light. For verifying the above statement, I refer to the ascertainment made by physicists that every 24 hours, our planet receives 20 kilograms of material weight daily, 20 kg in 24 hours. You may imagine that this weight accumulates by the years and centuries so that there is a slow change, an increase of gravity, and a change in the yearly period [length of the year].
Semaioforos pompously uses terms such as demonstration or verification and some irrelevant and questionable numeric data to create the illusion that he follows the scientific method. However, the daily change in planet weight is different from the predictions of his theory about the semantic values of S and Y in the Ancient Greek name for a pig. A similar theory for the origin of the Greek alphabet, though with different meanings for the letters, was published by Stamos Karamouzis, a confirmed computer and information systems scientist interested in the impact of technological innovation on society
In a post on social media
This kind of discourse would be legitimate if it were delivered by the poet himself, who just invented the word ‘YΔΩΡ (‘YDΩR; hydōr; Ancient Greek for water), explaining how they chose the letters. However, to make it a sound scientific hypothesis, one has to demonstrate that Y frequently represents a funnel, D, a dam, Ω, the floating earth, and R, the flow or equivalent sememes. One would wonder why the Greeks spent four letters of their alphabet representing water and what these letters do in words for dry, solid objects. The logical flaw in Mantes’ arguments is a circular definition, a tautology. Assuming that YΔΩΡ means water, it is too easy to attribute water-related meanings to its constituent letters and, then, claim to have explained YΔΩΡ from the purpose of its letters. Y, Δ, Ω, and Ρ are water-related because they make up the word for water; therefore, YΔΩΡ means water because it comprises water-related letters. Proper validation of Mentes’ hypotheses would instead require the proposed meanings of the four letters to be applied to independent words carrying these letters and see how often the predicted compound meaning coincides with the practical uses of those words.
Mantes frequently posts etymological suggestions for Greek words, which he explains as acronyms from phrases at his discretion. Unfortunately, the traceable fragments of the author’s thoughts and his claims about the extraterrestrial origin of the Centaurs and Greek civilization in general[6], or about a race-specific gene that would explain the superiority of the Greeks
In syllabaries, each grapheme represents more than one speech sound. Syllabic writing began several centuries before the first letters appeared. The earliest attested syllables are on tablets written around 2800 BC in the Sumerian city of Ur. The concept of a syllable as a combination of phonemes or letters is retained even in alphabetic writing. The term syllable derives from Greek συλλαβή (syllabē), a compound word formed from syn (giving syl; together) + labē (handle, taking; from lambanō, to take, hold), meaning what is ‘taken together.’ Thus, the term refers to letters that, taken together, make a ‘single sound.’ This interpretation contradicts the phonetic definition of the syllable as a combination of phonemes. The notion of sound is not found within the term syllable. It is also likely that the letters of a syllable hold together to make up a single, new, compound meaning. Even in a writing system where the word is the queen, new concepts are described by the agglutination of simpler and older ones: syl-lab-le = together + take. Today, a syllable is considered a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. It typically consists of a syllable nucleus, usually a vowel, with optional initial and final margins, usually consonants. Syllables are words' phonological building blocks
The question of relevance to a graphocentric theory of alphabetic writing is whether the syllables – as defined today – or any other combinations of graphemes are higher-order units of meaning. Whether or not some letter combinations have a specific sense, different from the sum of the sememes eventually conveyed by the individual letters of the complex. A modern example would be the particular use of the graphemes:, -, and ), to write and mean :-); if :-) is what we want to express, the three characters must hold together. Any other character or space introduced in between would break the emoji semantics.
A consequence of a graphocentric view of word formation is that spoken words appear arbitrary and conventional. Why do we call a woody perennial plant a tree? Because it was arbitrarily convened so! Else said, we have yet to learn who made the word tree and why. Alternatively, once a name is designed using graphemes, it may be transmitted orally to individuals or populations that do not write. Receiving the sound of a word without the corresponding visual evidence is like hearing a musical instrument without having ever seen one in action. It is impossible, in that case, to guess what produces the musical sounds and how. Although sequences of phonemes are readily imitable, it is challenging for the human mind to follow and interpret a corresponding sequence of mouth configurations that produce those sounds. The meaning of the phonetic sequence has to be transmitted in parallel. The series of phonemes would appear arbitrary and conventional to those receiving individuals. They need access to the original graphical design and a detailed explanation about the creation of the words. The elementary meanings are lost; the compound meaning remains a mere convention. We learn that ‘13’ means thirteen, but we forget that it necessarily means 10 + 3 and that ‘10’ perhaps means a closed round (0) of units (1; graphically similar to the letter I, for an edge, finger); or one (1) round (0); or something like that.
When those receiver populations eventually adopt a writing system, they can transcribe their oral (arbitrary, conventional) inheritance and create new words. During the phase of oral transmission, phonetic words mainly propagate among economically active adults, who then teach their children. Adults have lost the acute observation and phonetic imitation abilities of childhood. It is, therefore, natural that orally transmitted words frequently mutate during this phase. Meanings conveyed along with phonemes also accumulate mutations. When a geographically remote population acquires an alphabet, the so-evolved phonetics and semantics are transcribed into words that vaguely resemble their original design. The receiver population has the impression of creating written text out of oral speech, ignoring that their inherited terms were initially designed in writing at a remote place in the distant past, using another writing system (alphabet), which has also evolved.
Like in biological systems, the phylogeny of language resembles the ontogeny of speech and writing. Children first acquire the oral address. Afterwards, they learn to read and write. Poetical and word-creation skills develop much later. The same applies to every technology. We all know what ‘television’ means (in all aspects of the term), but few understand how it works, and still, fewer strive to improve it. We soon notice the discrepancy between pronunciation and spelling. Unless there is a particular interest in linguistics, we believe these are both products of arbitrary conventions without any history behind them. The discrepancy is so significant that if we were to write as we pronounce, using letters that accurately transcribe our phonemes or pronounce written words the way their foreign authors did in the past, the associated semantics would be lost. Communication would be very noisy, if possible at all. This ascertainment applies to every language, including English and Greek. Orthography (spelling) and orthophony (speech training, voice training) preserve the meaning of words for better understanding.
This book is not a dictionary. It does not intend to explain every Greek and English word based on its spelling. Its purpose is to provide a critical mass of evidence and reason that would trigger scientific interest in the graphemes and the mechanism by which these may convey linguistic information, not merely as transcripts of phonemes but, rather, as direct and autonomous transcripts of sememes.
References
[2] See section Laestrygonians.
[4] Greek logos, lesson 4, transcription, and translation are mine.
[5] As of the moment of writing (January 2020).
[6] Yes! There are still Centaurs in Pelion (social media article by Mantes).
