Is all language a personal language?

Question

When anyone says mom i think of my mom, but when they say mom they usually think of their mom. How can we have a truly common language? Doesn't it all have to be personal? Is that why we all don't get along?

Answer 1

Great question. Linguists do have a term for the idea that each person speaks an individual form of a language -- idiolect. It's actually a philosophical question, since some theorists believe that language is a property of an individual human mind, and some see language as more a property of a community but not individuals. In a way, I think both of these are correct. You are absolutely right that there is some ambiguity in communication all the time, but we seem to get around these differences quite well. Actually, it's not really possible for you to ever have pure communication with another person by any typical means because your mind cannot connect up to his/her mind directly, we can only do so through perceptions... and there is always the possibility that the other person's perception might read your intended meaning differently. I wouldn't worry about it too much.

Answer 2

Of course you are quite right, some words like mom, mean different things to all of us. But most of the words are neutral, I don´t say that we can´t think in a different way about words. It´s just that we could not speak to another person, if thinking emotionally of every word. The world would go under if we don´t have a mutual language in the country we live in. This goes for every language in the world!

Answer 3

Hi David,

well, yes and no.

Personally, I believe that most problems in this world arise from the fact that we all live in our own personal universe, shaped by our family and social history, our beliefs and experiences, and the fact that every single one of us grows up assuming that his or her view of the world is correct.

A Muslim believes that a woman who shows her legs in a mini skirt is shameless. In his world this is true, correct.

A Westerner believes that this Muslim is reactionary and a threat to his freedom. And in his world this is true, correct.

So when the two of them talk about skirts, they will have completely different backgrounds in mind and automatically assume that the other one is either stupid, evil, shameless, reactionary or whatever.

On the other hand, languages have developped within certain social boundaries, uniting the people within that society. Words have been invented for phenomena which are typical of that society. So languages used to have a uniting effect as long as the world wasn't as "globalized" as it is now.

Actually, what I said in the example above, about the Muslim and the Westerner, is to a certain extent also true for people from different generations, men and women, British and American and so on.

What we need is to be aware of the fact that we each carry our own world view around and beware of prejudices of the kind mentioned above.

I think becoming aware of personal differences is the first step of a successful communication. Problems arise when things are assumed without being verified.

I wish you millions of successful communications/conversations with the millions of interesting people on this beautiful planet.

With lots of love (love being in this case brotherly love and a conventional phrase for wishing people well in America)

Anna

Answer 4

Language is made personal, or adopted by the speaker. When you learn another one, your 'adopting' another langauge. The common Language is the based Language that the masses of a spesific group of people adopt. An individualized language is the result of all of our personal differences, and experienceses.

Answer 5

It kind of depends on the context. If you are at your friends house and s/he says "mom", do you still think of your own mother? I would think of his/hers.

What we think of is simply word association. It's like the "What's the first thing you think of when I say...?" game. If the word is "tool" and I think of a wrench, but you think of a hammer, it doesn't mean that I disagree that a hammer is also a tool.


Another interesting thing about your example "mom", is that there are languages that differentiate whether a speaker is talking about his/her own mother or someone else's mother. In Japanese, you say "haha" when you are talking about your own mother, but if you are talking about someone else's mother, then you say "okaasan".