What’s in a friend?

Today’s article was inspired by a short visit to Facebook. Those who know me know I abhor Facebook and anything remotely resembling it. That hasn’t stopped my compatriots from creating a group dedicated to the sole purpose of getting me to join Facebook. I decided to see if this group really existed, for I had heard rumors that it was rather large. True enough, the group popped up and reported 52 members. That number alone is staggering, but what surprised me even more was exactly who made up those 52. There were several people whom I had never met or had never spoken to. All of which made me reflect upon the nature of friendship.

So I did some research. The word “friend” itself is very old, coming from Gothic and Teutonic roots through German into Old English. Unsurprisingly, there are several close cognates in Dutch, Norse, and related languages. The Oxford English Dictionary lists eight principal definitions for “friend,” while Merriam-Webster’s Unabridged International Dictionary lists seven. However, only the OED gives earliest usage information. Summarized below are the eight principal definitions and the earliest known citation of such usage in brackets:

1. a. ‘One joined to another in mutual benevolence and intimacy’ (J.). Not ordinarily applied to lovers or relatives.
[Beowulf: Heorot innan wæs freondum afylled.]

2. Used loosely in various ways: e.g. applied to a mere acquaintance, or to a stranger, as a mark of goodwill or kindly condescension on the part of the speaker; by members of the ‘Society of Friends’ adopted as the ordinary mode of address (cf. 7). Also often ironically.
[c1290 S. Eng. Leg. I. 21/83 ‘Mine leue frend’, seide is holie Man.]

3. A kinsman or near relation. Now only in pl. (one’s) relatives, kinsfolk, ‘people’.
[O.E. Chron. an. 1135 a namen his sune & his frend & brohten his lic to Englelande.]

4. A lover or paramour, of either sex.
[1490 Caxton Eneydos xviii. 67 Playse the, thenne to haue mercy of this poure desolate frende [Dido], that shalle be sone broughte to the poynte mortalle.]

5. a. One who wishes (another, a cause, etc.) well; a sympathiser, favourer, helper, patron, or supporter; spec. a supporter of an institution or the like, contributing help, money, etc. Const. of, to. Usu. in pl.
[c1205 Lay. 1615 In to France he ferde er he freond funde.]

6. a. As opposed to enemy in various senses: One who is on good terms with another, not hostile or at variance; one who is on the same side in warfare, politics, etc.
[a1000 Elene 953 (Gr.) Se feond & se freond.]

7. A member of the Society of Friends, a Quaker.
[1679 Establ. Test 24 He passes for one of their Friends.]

8. attrib. and Comb., as friend-foe, -killer, -maker, -spectator; friend-betraying, -finding, -making, -pretending, -seeming adjs. Also friend-pipe, the calumet; friend-stead a. Sc., ‘possessing a friend’ (Jam.), befriended; friend-strong a., having many friends.
[1645 Quarles Sol. Recant. I. 37 Where..*friend-betraying treasure May passe in barter for repented Pleasure.]

There’s a pattern here: as incidences of the word “friend” appear more recently, its meaning becomes more inclusive. Now, this is probably unremarkable in its own right, but what implications does this have on how people perceive friendship? After all, if more and more people fit under the strata of “friend,” does it diminish the importance and value of friendship?

One way of determining that statement would be through surveys; unfortuanately, 24 hours is not going to produce great results. So I checked the next-best source: Urban Dictionary. Though it is officially a slang dictionary, it contains several “standard” words as well. Searching for “friend” brings up 10 definitions, almost all of which emphasize the strength of the relationship between two people (eg. “someone who doesn’t screen your calls,” “A person who would never intentionally hurt you, lie to you, deceive you, manipulate you…” and “An individual who cares about you and seeks no personal gain from their relationship with you”).

The most popular definition also adds that a friend is “someone who tries to stay in touch despite an infathomable distance between you and him/her”. Now, thanks to Facebook, this definition becomes defunct. After all, anyone can be your friend on Facebook, even if you’ve never met them. This boom in “Facebook friends” is based on shallow acquaintances, not meaningful relationships. Some people friend others on Facebook out of egoism, seeing who can rack up the most “friends”. In my opinion, it’s a misnomer, yet the label persists. All this brings us back to the original question: how does the growing inclusiveness of the word “friend” affect people? From my research, it seems people are trying to reconcile the openness of the word with their prototypes of what a friend really is. Our generation is already experiencing this cognitive dissonance. Who knows how future generations will perceive the word “friend”.

No, Really, I’m Alive

(My apologies for not having blogged in nearly two weeks. The Hellfest of midterms is nearly over, so we resume our regularly scheduled posting.)

Ah, Portuguese. The forgotten Romance language. Or so it may have continued to be, were it not for the efforts of one museum in São Paulo. The article claimed that Portuguese has more speakers than French, Italian, German, and Japanese, a statistic that made me doubletake. After all, how could a language so popular be so unheard of in America? I investigated further and, indeed, Portuguese is the sixth most widely spoken language. It also lies above Russian, Bengali, and Punjabi.

So why is it not given the same consideration as Spanish, Italian, or French? Why is it not an official language of the United Nations, though it is spoken on the five major continents? (sorry Australia) Portuguese isn’t yet a world language, involved with global affairs. It’s big in Brazil, and the rise of the Brazilian economy has saw the slow encroachment of Portuguese into Chile and Argentina. Maybe someday, Portuguese will get the respect it deserves. For now, any push for recognition is honorable. Kudos, CPLP.

Pirahã

I came across the Pirahã language (a remote language spoken by the Pirahã people of the Amazon) sometime over the summer, then summarily forgot about it until an hour or so ago, when I found a post about it in the Language Log archives. Wikipedia’s entry states that Pirahã is a very unusual language. Among its oddities are very few phonemes (three vowels and seven or eight consonants); pronunciation variations dependent upon speaker’s sex; no words of numerals (closest are words describing “a few,” “some,” and “many”); no words for color (other than “light” and “dark”); few specific words for family members; supposedly no word for the concept of geometric “straight”; and the ability to sing, hum, or whistle the language. More research suggests that the Pirahã do have words for “one” and “two” [link], but that’s about it. Moreover, the Pirahã have no creation myths or fiction, no drawing or art, and remain monolingual despite 200 years of continual contact with other Brazilian cultures [link].

All this hubbub brought up the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, especially with relation to the Pirahã (who, incidentally, don’t call themselves that; they say Hi’aiti’ihi’). Several researchers have ventured into the Amazon to study these people and see if they perceive the world differently due to their language. One test of counting involved drawing lines corresponding to the number of AA batteries one was presented with. Since the Pirahã have no concept of drawing or writing, however, this experiment unsurprisingly showed poor results. That was but one experiment, though, and others showed consistent results: after about 3 or 4, the average correct rate of completion drops dramatically. There are flaws with the study, though: a small sample size (7), six of which were males. Perhaps women and children would perform differently?

Nevertheless, this raises an interesting question: are such features as numbers, fiction, and art a necessary aspect of human life? Surely these peoples manage to survive without it, but does this anomaly change what it essentially mean to be human? First it was thought that humans were the only animals that had language, but that changed when birdsongs and whalesongs were researched. Then it was suggested that humans are the only animals to make tools, but that was defenestrated after Jane Goodalls’ studies with with chimpanzees at Gombe. Now it stands that humans are the only creatures to make tools from other tools, and it remains to be challenged. Art has as long of a history as humanity does, but it is not universal. Is art a luxury? Is mathematics? In this regard, human cognition is a fascinating enterprise.

How to Preserve a Language

1: Create a desire for it. Languages flourish when their people either need or want to speak it. When that desire disappears, so does the language. For example, English has become the lingua franca of our day because everybody, in every industry and every country, communicates using English. How did this come about? Imperialism. Britain raised a navy, initially to ward off the Spanish Armada in 1588, but since then actively sought out new colonies in order to remain self-sufficient. Mercantilism was all the rage back then, but England wasn’t alone; France, Spain, and the Netherlands also ventured far from the mainland. None were as expansive as the British, though. If there’s any truth in the statement, “The sun never sets on the British Empire,” then it should come as no surprise that English is so prevalent. It ranged from North America and Central America to India and Australia, but this was just the framework. English was still relatively localized in these areas until the end of the 19th century, when the United States asserted itself as a global power. Just like Britain, the US also colonized the world, mostly in the Caribbean and Pacific islands. Throughout the twentieth century, American innovation and commercial expansion created global markets that, coincidentally, spoke English. Aided by industrialized nations like Australia and Britain, the world was crisscrossed by English lanes of communication. And here we are today.

So why did I just go through an admittedly long and rough history of the past 500 years? To illustrate that, excepting a few incidents, languages naturally and nonviolently prosper when it is in demand. To participate in the global economy, you had to speak English. It is a thriving, pulsating tongue. The other thing you see from this is that languages take a long time to become so established.

Languages also die slowly (unless a remote tribe of a very rare language were nuked overnight). How do you go about raising immediate consciousness about preservation? There’s two solutions: a good one and a bad one. The good one acknowledges that for a language to thrive, people must intrisically desire to know it. Nationalistic pride is one way of achieving that, such as was done with Afrikaans in South Africa. The bad way resorts to forced instruction on unwilling minds. It may work in the long term (look at missionaries) but modern progressive society will question its efficacy and intent.

2: Horde all written works in said language (if any) as well as lossless recordings of all a language’s sounds and speech patterns and seal them in an underground vault. In other words, burial. The language will exist, but its spirit will have died.

Inadequacy

Today was the first quiz bowl practice. I think the title tells you how I feel. I’m going against such heavyweights as Eric Smith, Kevin Koai, and Nico Martinez, and I’m not standing a chance. It’s not even as if I don’t know the material; sometimes it’s just who answers first or not.

It’s quite frustrating and disappointing being relegated to such a low status compared to where I was four months ago. Especially when I realized how much I had actually forgotten.

Now, the only way to remedy the situation (as I see fit) is to catalog all of human knowledge from a quiz bowler’s perspective.

Ambitious? Fuck yeah.

Impossible?

They said the same about Everest.

Weekend Language Musings

Two especially intriguing language-related articles caught my eye over the weekend:

What is the worth of words? Michael Rogers responds to a statement printed in the Washington Post stating that “Only 31 percent of college graduates can read a complex book and extrapolate from it.” He asserts this is not a bad thing, as rapid technological gains coupled with nearly instanteous communications means future generations will be reading shorter and shorter material, so the ability to read complex works will be defunct. What he doesn’t consider are the negative impacts on the psyche of such a trend.

We live in an age of instant gratification–music, movies, games are all available at a moment’s notice. E-mail, instant messaging, and text messages are to be replied to in a few minutes, maybe a day (at the very latest). As a result, our attention spans have plummeted. Constantly searching for something new or interesting means its harder to focus on chemistry during a review session, or the role of motifs in a novel, or even the plot of a long movie. As a college student raised in the digital era, I’ll be the first to admit that paying attention is a chore while reading 100 pages by next morning. And if this is true enough when a person is relaxed, what about stressed individuals? Would you want your troops zoning out? Your President? Your surgeon?

To a certain extent, this pattern is seen in language, as the lexicon comes to favor shorter and shorter words. The Internet spawned such minimalisms as “brb,” “afk,” and “ttyl,” but when was the last time you heard someone use “aggrandize,” “importunate,” or “vituperative”? The beauty of English exists in the plethora of words one can use to describe innumerable shades of complexity and emotion. With this trend in education, these words will end up boxed away in the attic, sitting beside phonographs, LPs, and hardcover books, relics of a time long gone. It is a ceaseless process, but always a tragedy.

So no, Mr. Rogers, this is not the right trend of education, even if 10 percent or so will actually use these skills. All of us will lose the ability to appreciate the boundless creativity of the human esprit if the current education scheme is left unreformed.

Do other languages have obscenities like those of English? Everyone who’s taken a foreign language recalls the pleasure of learning swear words or similar vulgarities. Yet compared to some other languages, English seems positively benign. Other languages emphasize disrespect for one’s family, rather than oneself, especially directed towards one’s mother. Take the Argentinian Spanish example La reputisima madre que te recontra mil pario (“The twice most whorish mother that bore you again and again one thousand times”). American English tops out at “fuck off,” or “you cunt,” where the invective is directed at the perpetrator.

Is this a result of cultural diversity? America is very individualist, self-motivated, and self-glorifying. Other languages given as examples, such as Spanish, Swahili, and Farsi, come from regions of strong collectivism and sense of family. Does this example show how individuals from different cultures view themselves? When the typical American encounters failure, does he or she fall back on family and friends, or do they grit their teeth, uphold their pride, and weather the storm? I think, for the most part, Americans are likely to blame their shortcomings on themselves, while other cultures see success and failure as shared group experiences.

This is probably why expletives in America are shrugged off or ignored, since they are just words to externalize and manifest one’s anger, as opposed to genuine invective and hate for a particular individual. Not so in other countries, where a personal stab can have huge consequences.

EDIT: Apparently English doesn’t lack creativity in insults. What it lacks is passion.