Nature and Language

Nature and Language

Our languages are an indication of our relationship to the world. In many “primitive” languages (such as Navaho), there is a large number of verb tenses, noun declensions, and many other structures that depict complex relationships among the inhabitants of the world, human and nonhuman. In contrast, Modern English has simplified into what is in many ways a means of straightforward technological information. Thousands of gifted writers demonstrate that Modern English can be a very creative medium of expression, and can evoke the beauty and complexity of the natural world. But we have lost something, I believe, in the transition to a complex civilization that sees itself as sitting on top of nature, extracting resources from it, rather than being a part of it.

English speaking people have dominated the spread of industrialism in recent centuries. Frequently, other languages have incorporated English words for new concepts rather than inventing their own. The result can be very striking. One example is Navaho.

I drove through northwestern New Mexico in March 2005, and listened to a Navaho radio station. The broadcaster was reading the news, and used English words for concepts that did not exist in Navaho. Here is the list that I wrote down at the time: “International investment scandal”; “anniversary of invasion of Iraq”; “demonstrators.” The big topic right then was whether the brain-dead woman Terry Schiavo should be disconnected from artificial life support, and it was a cause-celebre of the Republican Party: “feeding tube”; “brain damage”; “House Majority Leader Tom Delay”; “special session.” It occurred to me right then that, if you isolate from English only those things that are the product of modern civilization, what you would get would either be technical terms such as “flash drive” or ugly things such as “international monetary scandal.”

Have we added anything beautiful to our language in recent centuries? Have we added anything that makes our language more expressive of the complexity and beauty of the natural world? Even the new scientific terms about the natural world sound mechanical: “evolutionary isolating mechanisms” and “ecosystems.” (One of my favorites was always a term used by ecosystem modelers who studied carbon cycling: “standing dead compartment,” which referred to the carbon atoms in dead vegetation that had not yet begun to decompose.) Scientists have even substituted “vocalizations” for the “songs” of birds. Science, like any other specialty, needs technical language for its own internal use. But I believe that we should all cultivate the use of beautiful ways of speaking about the natural world—because when we do, we will begin to see more of its complexities.

This essay appeared a couple of years ago on my website.