# Linguistics & Noam Chomsky



## amishrockstar (Jun 10, 2009)

This post is about language acquisition. 

I just got done taking a linguistics class at college, they pushed Chomsky quite a bit. If you're familiar with Chomsky, then you know he's an evolutionist and one of the leading linguistics who has ever lived (that's what he's touted as anyway). 

One of his assertions is that language acquisition is _genetically _linked to who we are as humans. 
I'm curious about what a Christian response would be to Chomsky's ideas. 

Since it seems that Chomsky would assert that language acquisition is the product of some purely physical mechanism in the brain, how would you answer his assertion?

Do you know of any scholarly Christian responses to Chomsky's works?? 

Thanks for your help


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## A S (Jun 10, 2009)

I'm interested in this, too!


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## Pergamum (Jun 10, 2009)

I was trained a little bit in linguistics and so here is an attempt at an answer:


-Chomsky's is an innatist. He also helped push the idea of a "univeral grammar", i.e., that there were basic universal rules of grammar that all languages follow. Contrary to many evolutionists that are also empiricists, Chomsky argues that some knowledge is just there, innate in man, to which all Biblicists must also agree.



Despite his wacky political views, I actually find Chomsky defending a position compatible with the Biblical data, that man arose with a fully developed language that was complex, and that often "language evolution" often means language simplification, some of the most "primitive" tribes having the most complex systems of language. 


I, too, am an innatist and if we are "programmed" as linguistic creatures, this explains how learning one language helps us to learn more than one language (i.e. our innate language muscle gets stronger). Kids learn languages more quickly and naturally due to the youngness of this language muscle. Smart old people have a harder time than dumb young people in learning language due to the aging of this language muscle.


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## steven-nemes (Jun 10, 2009)

Perhaps being made in the image of God, who also is personal and communicates, we are by nature communicators, and this involves also the possibility of using language.


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## A S (Jun 12, 2009)

> Do you know of any scholarly Christian responses to Chomsky's works??


So has nothing been officially written regarding Chomsky and modern linguistics from a Christian perspective??????????????????????????


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## Pergamum (Jun 12, 2009)

why does it need to be? He makes many of the same points we would make.


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## A S (Jun 12, 2009)

Well I do know they reject the tower of babel events of the Bible. Is that not enough to deserve a polemic right there? And I hardly have even looked in to the subject, but I'm sure there is much more within the field that deserves to be examined from a Christian world view.


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## Pergamum (Jun 12, 2009)

Yes, you have a point. I think perhaps, that telling people about the principles of linguistics might turn out to be an exercise in evangelism in that languages seem to have happened all at once (i.e. language is a complete package, is if they appeared fully formed) and humans are hard-wired for language whereas all the animals are not, despite many many efforts at trying to make chimps use sign language (they do sign a few interesting things from time to time, but this is NOT language...even if they trained chimps for a million years).

Yes, you are right. We need a linguistic book from a overtly Christian perspective. Many missionaries are also linguists or are trained partially in linguistics (like me, I was trained in linguists even though I can't spell or use grammar right) but most linguistic publications are still done "in the realm of the enemy" so to speak.

I retract my previous post. You are quite right. PLENTY of books are written on all sorts of topics...let's write a few on the theology of linguistics.


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## A S (Jun 12, 2009)

That's more like it. 

So whoever sees this thread and happens to know a Christian linguist... Tell them to get to work.


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## Pergamum (Jun 12, 2009)

Most Christian linguists I know have little time to write these needed books, they are translating the Bible into some of the thousand-plus languages around the world that still have no Scripture.

Have you ever thought of getting linguistic training? 

There is a great need for more folks with language skills. 

Your awareness of the need might be just how God is provoking an interest in you to remedy the problem.


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## A S (Jun 12, 2009)

It is funny you should say that. I have been wondering about this exact same thing for months, whether or not I should go into the linguistics field. And tonight I have been praying about coming to a final decision regarding whether or not to major in linguistics or something else... I'm going to spend more time in the Word and prayer / worship before I commit to anything, though... -Adam


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## py3ak (Jun 12, 2009)

Daniel Everett has challenged Chomsky on the basis of the Piraha language. While it seems unlikely that we can discount Everett's personal experience from his theories, it is worth considering that Chomsky may not always reign supreme.


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## Pergamum (Jun 12, 2009)

I think Everet is wrong.


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## py3ak (Jun 12, 2009)

I wouldn't be surprised if he is. I remember reading in Bertrand Russell that people who make criticisms of language theories always make it based on some Amazonian language which conveniently only they even speak. Everett seems to fall into that category. At the same time, the reporting on the Piraha is very fascinating, and it's worth considering the challenges to a position.


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## Theognome (Jun 12, 2009)

I married a Christian linguist. Perhaps there's a project here for my Purdiestness...

Theognome


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## Pergamum (Jun 12, 2009)

py3ak said:


> I wouldn't be surprised if he is. I remember reading in Bertrand Russell that people who make criticisms of language theories always make it based on some Amazonian language which conveniently only they even speak. Everett seems to fall into that category. At the same time, the reporting on the Piraha is very fascinating, and it's worth considering the challenges to a position.



Chances are this Amazonian linguist analyzed his data wrong.


Or, even by the article Ruben linked, it is not the language that bucks the conventions, but the taboos of the people that make it near impossible to gain sufficient knowledge to get an adequate view of the language. 

For instance, in my area, if you ask people their names, they will say that they do not have a name. Should I write an anthropological article about the tribe that has no names? No way. Their worldview invests power on their name such that magic can be worked with the knowledge of one's name and much knowledge is hidden knowledge. Because an animistic tribe is blowing smoke or feeding you bull-honkey does not mean that you have sufficient grounds to defy the great mass of other empirical data out there.


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## py3ak (Jun 12, 2009)

There's a lot more material out there, including a very nice article from the _New Yorker_. Everett's view has generated a lot of controversy in online linguistic discussions.


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## CatechumenPatrick (Jun 16, 2009)

If anyone is interested, Chomsky has a long (2 hr) and rather recent (2003) lecture at Berkley covering a wide range of his views, and especially in the Q&A he clears up some misconceptions about his views:
UCTV - University of California Television


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