Every culture uses words differently. For instance, there are terms used to express emotions in certain languages that do not exist in others. In Portuguese, the single word “saudade” is used to express the feeling of missing someone or something. I find it challenging to define “saudade” even in English because it is a word linked to a specific emotion, a state of being for which I cannot seem to find an equivalent expression. This is one among many instances where a message is certainly lost in translation.
After reading “The Interpreter,” an article in the New Yorker by John Colapinto, on the Pirahã, a tribe located in the Brazilian Amazon, I wondered how much is lost in translation as we try to make sense of a language that radically strays from our own.
About 30 years ago, Dan Everett, an American linguistics professor at Illinois State University, and his wife, Keren, went to Brazil as missionaries. Their objective to spread Christianity is in itself interesting on the level of language. Religion has its own specific vocabulary. For nonbelievers, it is also a language that requires translation.
The exercise of the missionary thus reveals that words are building blocks for rhetoric and influence. Most of us at one point have been swayed into believing something when someone has convincingly expressed him or herself with words. It seems, however, that the Pirahã do not buy into such art. Unlike most other tribes in the Amazon, the Pirahã have not learned a language other than their own and refuse to communicate with the rest of the world. Indeed, Everett found that the Pirahã would not easily grasp the concept when he was greeted by what “sounded like a profusion of exotic songbirds, a melodic chattering scarcely discernible, to the uninitiated, as human speech.”
The Pirahã language relies on “tones, stresses and syllable lengths” rather than the specific design of vowels and consonants, which makes it appear as if the Pirahã “sing, hum, or whistle conversations.” Although this seems extremely alien to English speakers, it does not necessarily have to be.
Every language has its distinct melody and pace. The way we manage sound as we speak is a significant part of expression. We even substitute sounds for words. We sigh when we are tired, we grunt when we are irritated. The Pirahã, however, sometimes use sounds to substitute words altogether. I imagine that if we stripped our words to the level of sound we would be left with a closer formula of the Pirahã language and would become more sensitive to sound and its variations.
Sound is not the only challenge when it comes to understanding the Pirahã language. “The Pirahã, Everett wrote, have no numbers, no fixed color terms, no perfect tense, no deep memory, no tradition of art or drawing.” In light of my last article on synesthesia, which emphasized how we like to relate certain colors to numbers or places, it is relevant to reiterate that many of these associations were memory-based, attached to experience.
We tend to organize our images in relation to our memories, a tendency that is largely absent from the Pirahã culture. Everett found that the Pirahã language, on the other hand, is rooted in the present.
Still, as Everett said, “It would be impossible … to believe that we know the language, because that would mean that the Word of God doesn’t work.” However, the Word of God probably makes a little sense to them. They are firmly grounded in their own present thoughts and immediate experiences. The idea of introducing an entirely new language, the language of God, which is rooted in another, intangible sphere seems unlikely. Largely because their words differ from our own, we find ourselves in possession of very different worldviews.
Elisa de Souza is a Barnard College sophomore. Weaving Words runs alternating Wednesdays.
Comments
We're looking for comments that are interesting and substantial. If your comments are excessively self-promotional or obnoxious you will be banned from commenting. Consult the comment FAQ and legal terms.