Language as Sensory Experience
This probably fits more into linguistics than Philosophy of Language. Which is fine, since this isn’t a professional paper—haha.
A quick disclaimer: these are just reflections from my own experience and self-observation. It actually started as a mindfulness exercise I do now and then. But when I began learning German, I realized how the number of languages sitting in my brain was making it harder to keep track of pronunciation.
My Spanish accent leans Latin American and doesn’t require much effort. Interestingly, I’m better at pronouncing Mandarin than Japanese (which is, by bloodline, my heritage language). Maybe it’s because I’ve had more exposure to Chinese lately. My Spanish accent has always made it hard to speak French without some strange hybrid sound. The W/V/etc. of German is hard to get used to because of this. (Also, I’m incredibly self-conscious about the way I sound in both German and French—eeek.)
In public school in Guam, we also learned Chamorro. That language includes some Portuguese influences—like the numbers, which are nearly identical. In fact, many Southeast Asian and Pacific Island languages reflect Portuguese influence due to Catholic missionaries in the 18th and 19th centuries. The Philippines, for instance, is a fascinating mosaic of native, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, and American English influences. There’s also a staggering number of local languages—hundreds, in fact—existing alongside the national Tagalog: Visayan, Ilocano, and so many more.
It’s not so different in the (mostly former) French colonies. Many languages are a blend of French and native tongues—Creole French, for example. There are the French-speaking Caribbean islands. Algeria. Morocco. (People often forget just how vast the French empire was.) The syncretization of native and colonialist languages has always fascinated me. But I also wonder how it’s shaped the physical experience and expression of language—the act of pronunciation, if that makes sense.
Take this simple example: two ways to say “Paul”/”Pol”, as I “hear” them:
PAWL vs. POHL (this is simplified, not proper IPA)
In the first: a breath before the vowel, rising from the upper diaphragm with the exhale.
In the second: lower in the body, almost as if the name is spoken with an inhale, followed by exhale.
There are also variations in between, depending on accent, regional influence, or a person’s native language(s).
Try it. It’s interesting, isn’t it?
There are scientific studies on how native languages affect physiological development. East Asian languages are among the most cited examples. For instance, in Japanese, the “L” sound (as in “elle” or “lah”) is absent—so it’s often rendered as an “R” sound (especially among older generations). And physiologically, this makes sense.
In English, the “hard L” is produced by pressing the tip of the tongue against the back of the upper front teeth. (Thank you, Nabokov, for making that unforgettable via Lolita’s monstrous narrator.)
Now try “R” (like in “arr”). The tongue moves to the roof of the mouth—same motion, just a shorter distance. (Yes, yes, insert risqué jokes here.)
So the “inability” to pronounce L isn’t a flaw—it’s a reflection of how the tongue develops based on what sounds a speaker is exposed to early in life.
That’s beginning to shift in Japan, though, since English is now taught from early childhood through adulthood. Many non-English-speaking countries do the same—thanks to (let’s be honest) globalization, geopolitics, and trade.
In British classical acting, accent training is often part of the curriculum. Actors learn where each accent “sits” in the body. For example:
American Southern accents sit low—lower diaphragm to belly.
Western American, a bit higher—center diaphragm.
The old Hollywood “Mid-Atlantic” sits right at the diaphragm’s center, behind the sternum.
The “New York”/New Jersey accent feels low, near the bottom of the diaphragm.
New England accents are much higher—near the top of the diaphragm, just under the vocal cords.
Non-NYC New York, interestingly, sounds much more like New England than people assume.
I haven’t formally studied this, but I like to imagine that dialects within a language originate from similar places within the body. By “place,” I mean in the physical mechanics of speech: air through the mouth, vibration in the vocal cords, expansion of lungs, diaphragm, and belly during articulation.
Of course, this is probably a wildly simplified view.
Surely someone has done serious linguistic studies on language families and how speech patterns shape the development of body (and mind) in relation to a speaker’s first language. I wonder how globalization will influence this over time.
I also wonder about childhood development and trauma—how they shape how language is processed by the mind. PTSD, for instance, affects the function of the amygdala system. Memory and fight-or-flight responses are disrupted.
My own mind, for example, remembers vivid details of a conversation from almost twenty years ago—like a scene from a film I’ve memorized. Yet my childhood—except for a few scattered flashes—remains mostly blank.
But maybe that’s a good thing, too.
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