Mapping Information:

Implications of Cultural Classification on Relational and Mental Well-Being

Greta Kliewer

DAS 425

Dr. Tiffany Kershner, Dr. Bradley Shaw

May 12, 2010

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Introduction

Language is a complex and fascinating medium. Understanding how different cultures choose

to use it in classifying the world leads to a better knowledge both of how language works in our brains,

and how these processes encode rich cultural knowledge that make each culture unique. How do we

discover what aspects of this knowledge are inherently mapped by our minds, and what aspects are

mapped onto our reality culturally? What aspects of the ways we interact are based on biological

processes, and which are cultural? Our capability for language is based on the firing of synapses and

an inherent capacity to speak, but the ways we organize these pathways and the knowledge we encode

within them differ from culture to culture. There are misunderstandings brought on by cultural

disconnects, and there are communication breakdowns caused by physical impairments in the mind.

There have been many studies done on cultural relativity, and on the discrete areas of the brain

responsible for language, but we rarely speculate on a connection between the two.

Looking more closely at the physiological and cultural mapping of information by different

languages, it becomes more logical that the neural pathways we create in organizing information in a

culturally specific way may have a deeper impact on the physiological working of our minds. Both the

processes of projecting a cultural reading of the world onto our interactions as well as our completion of

linguistic tasks as dictated by the organization of our brains affect our interactions with others. But

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what rifts in our communication are caused by cultural differences, and which are a result of the

physiological organization of the mind? A better understanding of both processes may allow us to

better identify which miscommunications are biological and which are cultural. Not only can this aid us

in an appreciation for the rich and varied ways in which cultures organize their worldviews, but it may

have more serious implications for the treatment of communication disorders such as speech

impediments and aphasia.

In this paper I examine both the cultural construction of a particular aspect of linguistic

organization, and the innate and complex way the brain accomplishes language itself. I demonstrate

how the separate classification of the same information – nouns in Xhosa and English - may have

implications for the creation of neural pathways in the mind that shape not only the way we think and

interact, but our ability to speak at all – a trait so tied to our identity as a species that without it, we lack

a key aspect of that which makes us fundamentally human.

Shared Language, Shared Experience

As a human species, we share the same physical, relational world. The lives we live take place

on our planet, whirling 93 million miles from the sun - an island in the sea of the universe. Whether it

is one of millions or unique in its own right, it is our home; it is the only one we know. The basis for

life – oxygen, food, shelter and the components through which we obtain these, are spread over the

surface of our planet. These resources necessary to our survival are finite, as are the number of people

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inhabiting the planet, staggering though it is. Our unique race shares a number of traits that even our

closest animal relatives do not possess, among which language is one of the most remarkable and

complex. Although the number of sounds in each language as well as the number of language systems

in general is finite, the amount of constructions of each system’s components is infinite; the number of

concepts, ideas and worldviews marked by different combinations of sounds and syntax are endless.

The syntax and constructions of each language - built from sounds to meaningful units, to

words, to sentences, to the knowledge that each unique group possesses – may be endless, though

meaningful constructions are a bit fewer in number. It is through the very medium of language that

meaning is exchanged: knowledge is expanded and updated, information passed on and feelings

expressed. We use this medium to talk about our experiences, and to convey information that we need

in order to survive. The process of how communication came to be mutually intelligible by speakers of

the same language is itself incredible. As linguist Stephen Pinker notes, “Simply by making noises with

our mouths, we can reliably cause precise new combinations of ideas to arise in each other’s minds.

The ability comes so naturally that we are apt to forget what a miracle it is.” (Pinker 1994:1)

He points out that when a dog bites a man, that is not unusual, but when a man bites a dog, that

is news. Why? Those two sentences contain the same exact sounds, only they are arranged in different

ways. The shock we experience in hearing the second sentence arises from the way we interpret the

arrangement of the words, and project meaning onto a real life situation. The question he asks,

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reflecting humans’ ability to infer such meaning from mere sounds is this: “What is the trick behind the

ability of Homo sapiens to convey that man bites dog?” (Pinker 1994:74) This ability to take meaning

from sound and ability from meaning is incredible. Moreover, the ability to evoke imagery in another

speaker’s mind when a word is uttered (‘bird,’ for example, or ‘cup’) and to have a somewhat similar

idea in your own mind is a demonstration of the power of language to create similar worldviews. This

shared imagery, common to speakers of the same language, is a simple but powerful testament to the

ability of language to link a word to a thought, and that thought to our conception of what a bird or a

cup is.

The myriad of languages present in the world today make the task of understanding the

inhabitants of our rapidly globalizing planet seem daunting. There are variations among speakers of the

same language; if I think of a robin when you say the word ‘bird’ but you think of a peacock, there is

already some discrepancy in our ability to convey an idea when we use the same word. It seems that

communication among the world’s nearly 6 billion inhabitants in nearly 7000 languages (Lewis 2009)

would be daunting at best, if not impossible. Language is a vibrant medium of connection between a

person’s experience and thoughts, and communicating those experiences to others. Language is not

only the connection of meaning to sound; it is common experience and knowledge, shared through

systems created by their speakers. “Meaning doesn’t exist in a vacuum,” linguist Gary Palmer

maintains. “In discourse, utterances acquire additional situated meanings beyond their conventional

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imagery.” It is these unspoken cultural understandings that shape our spoken medium of

communication. (Palmer 1996:8) These shared understandings are the foundation of interaction and the

building of communities. Cross-cultural communication can be daunting, but if we are to take the idea

of linguistic relativity to heart, the idea that language shapes thought and culture can be more than just a

way to understand others’ cultural knowledge. It opens a broader spectrum of possibilities for dealing

with the same problems, feelings and tasks faced by speakers of all languages, and as I discuss later,

may have implications for physiological and mental health.

Linguistic labels – words – and their implications give us information about what different

entities are, and how we should interact with them. An English speaker may look at a piece of cloth

and see only a sarong or a curtain, but a Xhosa speaker may see a sling in which to carry a baby. If an

English speaker were exposed to this word for the sling (and the connotations of what it is used for), we

have not only solved the problem of how to transport a youngster while keeping our hands free for other

tasks; we have opened up a different conception of what that piece of cloth is, and consequently another

world in which to interact. As Sapir pointed out, we may be interacting on the same physical interface

of our planet Earth, but based on the language we speak and the way we categorize objects, we are no

longer part of the same reality. “No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as

representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not

merely the same world with different labels attached.” (Sapir 1929:209)

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 This quotation makes it seem as if by speaking different languages, we cannot relate to others

effectively because we are not partaking in the same experience. However, languages can be learned.

As much as our first language does affect the way we see things and the way we understand other

languages’ classification of the world, there is the possibility to learn a new system, and in so doing,

have our eyes opened to a new layer of possibility and meaning. The world’s many languages, together,

create a multi-faceted collage of options for interacting with the world. Languages are light bulbs in a

darkened world, each illuminating a portion of the imagery and meaning associated with entities in the

everyday lives of each human speaker. The more linguistic systems we understand, the more

illuminated are the solutions for these world issues, as well as the minds behind the systems of

classification. Both these culturally created systems of describing, labeling and classifying the world

have implications for our day-to-day interactions, and on the development of our minds. Different

cultures not only have different words for different objects, but build different types of brains. (Roux

and Lubrano 2006: 112) It is this premise that I examine with the hope of encouraging cross-cultural

understanding among speakers of different languages, but also among physicians, therapists and

neurologists responsible for the treatment of our physical and mental health.

Palmer maintains that worldview is “a society’s entire stock of traditional knowledge, an ever-

accumulating social edifice of partially shared imagery.” (Palmer 1996:116) It is the imagery evoked

by language that constitutes a worldview; when the same word evokes different imagery for different

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speakers, the same entity is perceived in different ways, and speakers map this information onto those

entities in their minds. A Xhosa speaker walking through the world would map different information

onto objects than would an English speaker, as in the example of the baby sling above. This does not

change anything about the fundamental properties of the entity being considered, but the possibilities for

interacting with it might be constrained through the labels each language gives it. As I describe the way

English and Xhosa classify nouns, we will get to more of these semantic intricacies that point to the

way information is mapped onto the sensory interface all speakers share.

Mapping Information, Mapping Reality

When I speak about mapping reality, there are two levels of informational mapping that I am

referring to. A map is a metaphor; a model of a place (or idea) – not the place itself. Likewise, the

maps I speak of are links created between language systems in the brain, and the words we speak

(syntactical maps) and between culturally constructed classification through language and experience

(experiential maps). The first is a map of synapses and innate connections being directed to fit

culturally constructed syntax; its information is encoded in the way languages are laid out. Labels are

chosen to represent certain entities, states and actions, and the arrangement of these labels conveys

meaning to speakers. This is a symbolic and syntactical arrangement – mapping meaning to words

through morphology, and creating meaningful constructions of those words through syntax. It is a

grammatical map organizing information, carried out by sets of synapses firing between the appropriate

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parts of the brain. Over time, these firings become intuitive, easier and faster. (Wolf 2007: 14) This

creates neural pathways that carry information from the brain to the speaker, and are made evident

through speech constructions.

The second map is one of experience – the one Sapir was talking about when he maintained that

the language we speak (the syntactical map) shapes our reality. It is a projection of the information

conveyed by syntactical constructions onto the physical interface of the world. It is a new way of

seeing things that is opened up to speakers when they use a language.

These maps differ from culture to culture. Speakers of the same language build understandings

of the world that are unique to their own culture – a community of speakers using common mental

maps. While there is one shared physical, relational interface for our interactions with others – our

world – there are myriads of ways of perceiving it. A person’s reality is largely based on their

perception of this interface, and in mapping language and understanding of the world, we can gain some

insight into what each person’s reality is like in relation to the physical, relational world. It is in the

recognition that there may be vastly different understandings of the same entity that we appreciate the

multitudes of perceptions and diversity of ways of thinking about the world.

There is more purpose, however, in looking at the different maps that cultures construct than

merely describing the different ways in which the same entity can be perceived. The reasons why these

labels differ is both a cause and effect of the way we organize the world through language, and has

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implications for our livelihood within it. Different systems of classification build different pathways in

the brain, creating more intuitive connections between grammar areas. (Roux 2006:117) This is caused

by traditional systems of talking about and grouping entities, ideas or actions, but it also has

implications for the physiological structure of the mind, and its health. Throughout the rest of this

paper, I examine the implications of different cultural mappings, different syntactical mappings, and

(through an example of the way English and Xhosa nouns are organized), I contemplate the implications

of a connection between these two ways of organizing and encoding information.

Implications of Cultural Mapping

Cultural mapping is apparent when one group’s classification of an entity differs or creates

different mental imagery than does another culture’s classification of the same entity. It is easier to see

and describe this type of mapping than it is to see the mapping of synapses in the brain. For this reason,

we will look at the cultural maps before the syntactical ones.

Berlin and Kay’s study on color terms in different languages demonstrated an example of

different mental maps concerning color among cultures. One thing they noted was that there is overlap

between what some cultures consider “green” and what some consider “blue.” (Ottenheimer 2006:23)

For some groups, there is no distinction – a single term classifies both shades. For those of us who

have grown up with Crayola packages containing two distinct crayons labeled “green” and “blue,” it

seems preposterous that anyone could gloss over the “difference” between the two, or consider them

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shades of the same color. Nevertheless, looking at the fundamental components of the colors, we know

that green is simply blue with a higher content of yellow mixed in, so referring to the two as shades of

the same color isn’t too farfetched. When linguistic labels start to hint at cultural classification,

however, we know that there is a deeper link between linguistic classification and cultural

understanding.

This comes into play with people’s everyday face-to-face interactions; the thoughts and ideas in

their minds shape their perception of reality, which in turn affects the way they interact with each other.

As stated, Sapir believed that these differing systems of classification led to different realities for the

speakers employing them. This idea brings us to contemplate the nature of reality. The human

experience is an exercise in perception, and examples like this one shake the idea that the color system

you grew up using was the “right” one and everyone else’s differed from it. Investigating various

languages and discovering rich and varied systems for counting, naming colors and plants, and tools to

name a few demonstrate that if there were a single “right” way of describing entities, that each

linguistic system would be a different interpretation of this, rather than having a single language itself

be paramount. While there are systems of classification that deal with a broad range of concepts and

grammatical structures, I focus on nouns in this paper – a simple illustration of differing interpretations

of a more concrete entity. The German linguist Wilhelm von Humbolt poetically describes this

connection of the abstract to the relational:

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 “Inasmuch as thought in its most typically human relationships is a longing to escape from

darkness into light, from limitation into infinity, sound streams from the depths of the breast to

the external ambient. There it finds in the air, this most subtle and motile of all elements whose

apparent incorporeality significantly corresponds to the intellect, a marvelously appropriate

intermediary substance….For, as living sound, it proceeds, as does respiration itself, from the

breast…breathing life from which it streams forth into the mind which receives it….Thus it

connects man with the universe.” (Witherspoon 1977:41)

There are several ways in which this connection is accomplished. Some are very cultural and

tangible; others are more abstract. For example, the worldview encoded by Tofa reindeer herders

becomes evident when they refer to a chary, or ‘5-year-old castratable male reindeer.’ The distinctions

between types of reindeer are important to the Tofa because they constitute such an integral part of the

Tofa’s livelihood. Even units gauging people’s ability to travel are measured not in distance, but in the

time it takes a person to ride a certain distance on reindeerback over the rough terrain through which the

Tofa have to navigate. (Harrison 2007:105)

This is a very concrete connection between language and worldview. The need for and use of

reindeer is reflected in Tofa descriptions of the animals and their uses. However, there are varying

levels of abstraction at which the differences and ways of thinking are encoded in language. There are

some more abstract markers that begin to get at more deeply buried cognitive pathways that show how

languages (and consequently cultures) classify the world. In Japanese, this is evident in affixes known

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as numeral classifiers that are fixed to numbers when counting different types of objects. For example,

where in English we might count “three sheets of paper, three dogs, three bottles of beer,” the Japanese

term expressing the object’s “threeness” is different in each case, marked by a counter indicating the

type of object being counted. Whereas the English word ‘three’ stays the same in each circumstance,

the Japanese word is different in each case (sanmai, sanbiki, and sanbon, respectively). This depends on

the form of the noun; in the first case the suffix /-mai/ indicates flatness; /-biki/ indicates (animal)

animacy, and /-bon/ indicates a cylindrical object. English accomplishes the same type of distinctions,

but accomplishes this in different ways that do not necessarily match up, even across translation. Some

English nouns are quantified by their suffixes, but others are indicated by a separate word indicating the

quantity of entity being discussed – a flock of deer, a glass of water, a bunch of grapes.

It is cases like this that hint that different cultures’ classification systems may be more than just

another way of accomplishing the same linguistic task; they are evidence of different ways of thinking,

and possibly even slightly different brains. Different neural pathways are created to allow synapses to

accomplish the same types of tasks. Through examining these intriguing cultural mappings, the maps of

different languages’ physical “speaking brains” becomes more apparent. Let’s take a closer look at the

systems in the mind that make such outward classification possible.

Implications of Syntacical Mapping

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 The way the brain functions to accomplish language is becoming increasingly visible due to

new neuroimaging technology. The brain is divided into two hemispheres joined by the corpus

collosum. While the left hemisphere is dominantly responsible for language in most people, the right

hemisphere also controls functions such as pattern recognition that allow speech and perception to

occur. Nearly 100 billion of the cells that make up the brain are neurons, and these information-

transmitting cells organize themselves into pathways connecting the network of specialized areas in the

brain that work together to accomplish language. (Ottenheimer 2006: 191)

When the brain is unable to communicate with itself and complete the act of speech, this

breakdown is known as aphasia, or the loss of language (or in some cases a particular aspect of

language). The loss of capacity for any category of language is tragic, but the complete loss of

language “is devastating, and in severe cases family members may feel that the whole person is lost

forever.” (Pinker 1994:3) This ability of humans to communicate with each other is a large part of what

makes them human, and its loss severely impairs the sufferer from acting in such a fundamentally

human capacity. Pinker points out that language is not even a skill we learn; due to its almost

spontaneous development during our younger years, it is inherently part of who we are: “Language is

not a cultural artifact that we learn the way we learn to tell time or how the federal government works.

Instead, it is a distinct piece of the biological makeup of our brains.” (Pinker 1994:4) This makeup

develops rapidly, and almost without instruction as we grow. By 2 years old, children have already

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figured out that different objects have names, and can recognize intonation, and identify words. It is

about this time that they begin using displacement – referring to items or people not present by name –

an incredible feat. (Ottenheimer 2006:185)

This means that they have already discovered that discrete sets of sounds are tied to physical

objects, and can refer to those sets of sounds by memory when the physical object itself is not present.

At this time, associations are developing in the brain – every time a group of synapses fires to complete

a certain linguistic task, an association is forming in the brain – the parts of the brain that make up the

language center are learning how to work together. Over time, these inner workings create paths that

allow us to communicate almost instantaneously. (Wolf 2007:14) The physiological workings of the

brain itself are tied up more with the cultural organizing systems in the mind than one might think. The

biological and the cultural begin to affect one another, and the language and cultural body of knowledge

it encodes becomes more apparently connected to the way the brain works than was once apparent.

Syntax is the arrangement of meaningful units of language into meaningful constructions. The

code that assigns meaning to language is one of the most difficult aspects of another language to truly

understand; this mapping of meaning is largely based on how different areas of the brain work together

to accomplish linguistic tasks, which are usually combinations of functions of the brain such as word

recognition, the deployment and shifting of attention, memory, and others. (Caplan 1992) As we cannot

truly know what another speaker is thinking, the best way to map how the brain is functioning is to

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examine the outer forms it creates: “To the extent that it subsumes the schematic imagery of linguistic

semantics, world view can be seen as an important determinant of grammar; and the study of grammar

can be regarded as the study of world view constrained to linguistic symbols.” (Palmer 1996:114)

Because different cultures categorize language differently, these pathways are different for

speakers of different languages. While researchers are not able to visually map exchanges of synapses

between areas of the brain, they are able to see which areas of the brain are activated during certain

speech events, and to map the timing and extent of these events. Two primary types of neuromiaging

technology are used to discover these areas through the use of electrostimulation tests. Functional

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) is used to see damaged areas in the brains of living people, while

Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scans are used to see which regions of the brain respond to

different stimuli. (Ottenheimer 2006:192) This visualization is much more accessible to modern

scientists than it was to the first linguists and physicians, who could only discover what parts of the

brain were responsible for certain tasks when something went wrong – or from examining human brains

in autopsies. Now, rather than piecing together the puzzle of how the linguistic system works when

things go wrong, we are increasingly able to identify which parts of the brain are activated during

linguistic tasks when things go right. This technology aids our understanding of what a properly

functioning brain looks like, and how the brains of speakers of different languages look when they are

processing speech.

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 While it is a slippery question of whether language shaped these mental pathways, or the other

way around, research showing that tasks occur in discrete regions of the brain is a strong indicator that

different languages build different brains. Of course the areas of the brain used for processing both

languages are largely the same, as the areas of the brain responsible for language are roughly the same

for all speakers, with room for a little individual variation. Having an inventory of more than one

language (and more than one mental pathway for accomplishing the same task) gives speakers a variety

of options for communication in that multiple neuronal pathways are available for quick association in

the mind; different worldviews are also more accessible to those speakers.

These systems – the cultural arrangement of language and the accomplishment of speech acts in

the brain – are connected in their implications for how we communicate, and how the parts of our brain

communicate with each other. While there is still much research to be done on how language is

accomplished among speakers of the same language let alone across languages, the evidence presented

here should make us seriously consider a connection between the way cultures choose to label their

worlds, and the way the brain functions. If different languages build different brains, our interactions

are not only affected by our cultural perceptions, but there are also physical implications for the care of

the brains of different language speakers, and of bilingual speakers.

I have looked at the implications of the linguistic maps we create when we organize words, and

the maps that already exist in our minds. I have also speculated on connections between these maps,

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and their implications for well-being (both physiologically, and in interaction among speakers). Before

drawing conclusions about how to go about utilizing this realization to our benefit, I examine two

systems of mapping – that of English and Xhosa nouns – as an example of what we have already

discussed.

Two Systems of Classification – English and Xhosa

There are several ways of connecting a meaning to a language, and mapping that meaning onto

the universe. As seen in the ways English and Xhosa speakers talk about different entities, there are

different ways one can qualify the same types of objects.

English qualifies its nouns in a variety of ways such as ‘what for,’ ‘where’ and ‘why’ – an

emphasis is placed on function in describing these different entities. (Wierzbicka 1984:324-5) In her

article on the classification of English nouns, Anna Wierzbicka points out that there are multiple and

complex ways to classify English nouns, but that a taxonomical hierarchy is not necessarily the primary

one. In English, nouns are not grouped morphologically into categories, though the counters we use to

describe them often indicate the kind or quantity of entities being discussed.

In contrast, Xhosa speakers group the entities they speak about into about 19 separate classes,

each having some sort of semantic framework tying the words in that class together. A study of the

morphology of English and Xhosa nouns leads us a bit closer to understanding the way speakers think,

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and how they express thought through language. More discussion of the language’s noun class system

will follow.

As a native English speaker, it has been eye-opening to look at another culture’s classification

of nouns. In the process, I have had the privilege of working with a consultant from Johannesburg,

South Africa, on her dialect of the Xhosa language. This Bantu language has a good deal of noun

classes (the number debated by researchers ranges from 17 to 19) that classify all the entities for which

there is a word in the Xhosa language. Each class has a prefix assigned to various roots that contain the

meaning of the word. These class prefixes give the speaker (mostly subconsciously) information about

how to process the word, and group it with other words that are somehow related. Largely, the prefix

indicates how the word should agree with other syntactical elements in Xhosa sentences – nearly half of

the classes are the plural version of their singular counterparts – but also give a bit of semantic

information about the words to which they are fixed.

In English, these words are grouped not by morphological markers in the word, but in the way

they are referenced in number and function in relation to other entities. As English speakers, we can

look at the words ‘cow’, ‘goat’ and ‘elephant’ and know that they are all animals. This is not because

there is any sort of linguistic marker indicating that these are animal words; this knowledge is based on

use of the words, and context – we talk about a herd of cows or a flock of goats, and know that such

indicators mark a group of animate, living beings – usually such grazing animals. However, the same

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words in Xhosa all share a unifying prefix indicating that they belong to a group of words for similar

and related entities. The prefix /i-/ indicates that the words [ink’omo], [íbokʰwe] and [inʤlo:vu] (cow,

goat and elephant, respectively) belong to a class of entities that are in some way associated (whether

semantically, morphologically or both is debated by researchers.) This does not mean that English and

Xhosa speakers have dramatically differing perceptions of what these animals are, but it indicates (on

the Xhosa side) specific grouping of these entities with others related to them. These conglomerations,

or connected categories of meaning, may differ from culture to culture.

The reasons for grouping words in such a way are difficult to get at. Looking at the

development of Xhosa and other Bantu languages over the years helps researchers attempt to answer

this question, though a solid answer is yet elusive. It was thought that noun classes were used to

accomplish referencing within a sentence, but languages without noun class prefixes are able to

accomplish this just as well (Katamba, 2003:106). There are more cultural reasons postulated by

researchers – Gary Palmer indicates category chaining as a concept largely responsible for tying

together the semantics of noun classes. In an effort to get away from incomplete hierarchical

organizations of entities, Palmer looks at noun classes as categories of related words. Each class has a

prototype, or prominent entity to which every other entity in the class is linked. For example, speakers

of ChiBemba, a Bantu language spoken in Zambia, place the word for ‘chief’ in the animal category.

This is because there is a traditional association of the chief to the animal world; the chief is always of

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the crocodile clan, and is compared to lions in poetry. (Palmer 1996:133) In this way, morphology is

set to a cultural understanding of how entities are linked; the pathways in the mind relating information

about how entities are conceptualized begin forming neural pathways. A physiological etching of the

mind is set in motion by cultural systems constructed through human agency.

The Xhosa Noun Class System

In learning about the Xhosa language this semester, we focused on about 19 different noun

clases. Francis Katamba points out the accepted 23 noun classes derived from Proto-Bantu (a

construction based on Bleek’s 1862 research), and indicates the 19 of those classes which are apparent

in Xhosa. Prefixes, while somewhat related in semantics among Bantu languages, can be completely

different in form from one language to another. Prefixes, their meanings, and examples which I elicited

during the semester are as follows. The class numbers, prefix and semantics are as found in Katamba;

the examples are my own from elicitations this semester:

Clas Xhosa Class contents/Semantics Xhosa example (IPA)

s # Class
prefix
1 um- Human beings u:mntu (person)
1a u- Proper names, kinship terms, personifications ut’at’a (father)
2 aba- Regular plural of Class 1 aba:ntu (people)
2b oo Regular plural of Class 1a ô:t’at’a (fathers)
3 um- Natural phenomena, animals, body parts, u:mti (tree)

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 collective nouns, undesirable people
4 imi- Regular plural of class 3 ímiti (trees)
5 ili- Natural phenomena, animals, body parts, elitje (stone)
collective nouns, undesirable people,
agumentatives, derogatives
6 ama- Regular plural of classes 5 and 14; mass terms and amâ:tje (stones)
liquids; time references, mannerisms, motions of
action
7 isi- Body parts, tools, instruments and utensils, isikova (owl); isiɬangu
animals and insects, languages, diseases, (shoe)
outstanding people, amelioratives, derogatives,
augmentatives, curatives (shortness and stoutness),
mannerisms
8 izi- Regular plural of Class 7 izikova (owls); iziɬangu
(shoes)
9 N- Animals, people, body parts, tools, instruments ngentʃ’é:ni (morning)
and household effects
10 iziN Regular plural of Class 9 (and sometimes 11)1 izî:ntʰi (rods)
11 ulu- Long, thin entities, languages, body parts, natural ulu:tʰi (rod)
phenomena, implements, utensils and other
artefacts
12 ø augmentatives, derogatives, diminutives,
ameliorative, derogatives(?)
13 ø Regular plural of Class 12
14 ubu- Abstracts, collectives ubusu:k’u (darkness)
15 uku Infinitives, a few body parts e.g. arm, leg ukutjá (food); ukuloba
inxanzi (catching fish)
16 pha- Location terms pʰaja (over there)

1 Parenthesis are my addition to Katamba.

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17 ku- Location terms k’u:fu:pʰi (nearby)
18 u-m- Location terms no examples
19 ø Diminutives
20 ø Derogatives, Augmentatives, Diminutives,
Amelioratives, Mannerisms
21 ø Augmentatives
22 ø Plural of Class 20
23 e- Location terms no examples

The reasons for classifying words in this way might not be explicable simply by examining the

structure of the words as they are grouped today; although researchers like Palmer make an effort to

map the semantic connections of words in a class, the groupings are likely not readily explicable by

speakers of Xhosa. In fact, these 19 classes are taught in Xhosa-speaking primary schools around the

3rd grade, and are simply known as Amashelo (“arrangements”); children are taught that words have

certain types of prefixes, and by learning class pairings they are able to predict which prefixes create the

plurals (or singulars) of entities in paired classes. In practicing these prefixes and learning the paired

prefixes from a young age, they are able to “just know” what types of words fit into which classes; the

semantics of the class are of little consequence to them. Likewise, with English nouns, the type of

noun, its function or its origin may be indicated semantically by affixes indicating pluralization, though

this might not immediately spring to mind when a speaker is asked about the structure of an English

23
noun. Nevertheless, there are semantic (as well as morphological patterning) differences in the way

English and Xhosa nouns are organized. While the transferring of meaning is accomplished through

different morphological means, both languages are able to effectively communicate these concepts.

Both English and Xhosa may have more similar ways of grouping nouns than previously thought

(neither system is hierarchical; nouns are not “kinds of” things), but the morphological patterns for

accomplishing this are different, and use different parts of the brain.

It should be pointed out that the way Xhosa nouns are organized is not exotic linguistically by

any means. Of the nearly 600 languages spoken in Africa, two thirds have similar stem-plus-root

patterns for classifying nouns. (Katamba 2003:103) Such noun classes are common among Bantu

languages; Xhosa is one of about 520 languages and dialects spoken in this branch of the Niger-Congo

language family. Much research that has been done on the semantics of Bantu noun classes has been

conjectured from constructions of Proto-Bantu. Due to language change, borrowing and extension

(whether metaphorical, metonymical or mythological), the “core” semantics of the classes are largely

buried today, which leads anthropologists to study the semantics of Proto-Bantu and deduct semantic

connections to the classes as they are arranged today. In addition to the complex cultural ideas behind

why certain words should be grouped together, this type of aesthetic language change can lead to false

associations of words to meaning for both researchers and speakers of Xhosa.

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 The question of why noun classes have been used to organize Xhosa entities (and entities in any

language that utilizes a noun class or gender system) has puzzled researchers. Marking different entities

with certain prefixes does little to alert speakers to the word’s real-world function since many entities in

a certain class are linked to the “core” semantics by extensions stretched far enough from the core

meaning (or principle noun of the class) that the connection may not be readily apparent. Noun genders

also do little to track referencing within a Bantu sentence, since languages without noun class-marking

prefixes are able to accomplish referencing and get the same meanings across. (Katamba 2003:106)

Instead of looking at noun classes as an intentional creation to organize language, it may be

more useful to look at them as the result of language organizational systems already in place that

resulted in the visible word structure we see in Xhosa today. These structures are visible remains of

how word aesthetics have changed while semantics have stayed the same. Language evolution has

changed the aesthetics of noun classes. Certain parts of words that indicate why they may have been

grouped together have been dropped, evidence of the old form existing only in certain grammatical

patterns such as pluralization or an indication of the entity’s “object-ness” have stayed the same. For

example, the Xhosa word ‘thief’ or [it’ut’u] was, once upon a time, [ilit’ut’u]. The semantic

significance of the dropped /-li-/ is a kind of definitive quality, rendering the translation more along the

lines of ‘it is a thief’ than the more modern counterpart, ‘thief’. While the word ‘thief’ when used on its

own appears as [it’ut’u], it interacts with other grammatical elements in the way that words with the

25
object-indicating /-li-/ would. This may not seem terribly significant until one looks at other words that

have changed over time in the same pattern; the words for ‘stone’ and ‘frog’ have changed according to

the same pattern; these non-human entities have dropped the definitive marker that pointed them out as

objects. The inclusion of thieves in this category (along with twins, left-handed people and various

occupations that focus on the object that occupation deals with) indicate a grouping of thieves with

objects and sub-human animates (frogs in Xhosa stories are generally regarded as pests or nuisances).

This is an example of a linguistic change that hints at the Xhosa way of thinking about thieves; a way of

thinking that would not be readily apparent by breaking down the morphology of the same word in

English.

As Wierzbicka points out in her article on the classification of English nouns, a word’s

morphology or how it interacts with surrounding words in English syntax gives us information about

how we conceptualize that word. First, she disputes the idea that English nouns are organized by

hierarchy, which is largely a Western concept that limits the definition of certain words to a specific

semantic domain when in fact it fits into a variety of categories, and has no one central association

which is elevated above others in significance. This is the type of importance placed on a word that

limits the word “chair” to being defined as “a type of furniture” rather than “something made by

people” or “something people sit in.” This also shows the distinction that English places on function in

describing nouns, while Xhosa places emphasis on aesthetics or spatial configuration (Denny and

26
Creider1984:219). These types of distinctions might not seem significant when compared to speakers’

knowledge; it is obvious that a chair can be a type of furniture, something made by people, and any

other combination of characteristics or definitions that fit under the concept “chair.”

It is these images of what a chair is (and especially those that first spring to mind upon hearing

the word “chair”) that link together and create a person’s understanding of what a chair is.

Understandings of what concrete objects are, what different concepts are, and how they relate to other

concepts or entities are the mental linkages that create worldview. This worldview is described through

language, and the different mental linkages relating to certain objects differ from culture to culture,

resulting in different ways of talking about them, and consequently different forms of language. This is

backwards from Sapir’s idea that language determines worldview, a stance taken by many

anthropologists. However, I maintain that thought and language shape each other over time, resulting in

a looped effect. This explains how language is able to physically shape our brains, resulting in easier

connections between certain areas of the brain that make the organization systems that created them

more intuitive. Nevertheless, it is the process of thought that I want to focus on here, and for those who

can never truly “get inside” the mind of someone who speaks another language, the study of grammar is

the closest we can get to studying how these patterns of thought are outwardly expressed.

When a Thief is Not a Person

27
 Difference in language can reflect differences in conceptualization of the same objects.

Theoretically this could cause communication barriers resulting in, at worst, a communication

breakdown. At best, however, the misunderstanding could result in a rich point – perhaps an

inconvenience to those trying to communicate, but also a learning experience that illustrates just how

different ways of thinking, expressed through language, affects our ability to interact. These types of

breakdowns are easily forseeable between speakers of Xhosa and English, based on our limited

understanding of how nouns are classified in each language (not to mention the agreement of nouns

with other parts of speech in both syntax systems). This goes beyond the simple definition of objects

and entities. Yes, each language has words for spoons and dogs, mothers and hospitals. Yet,

encapsulated in how these words are categorized and classified, is a cultural expectation of what a

mother does, what a spoon is used for, whether a dog is an animate or inanimate object, and what other

types of concepts the word hospital is grouped with.

A prime example of this different conceptualization is showcased in the difference between the

way Xhosa and English classify types of people. In the studies conducted over the years on Xhosa

nouns, researchers have attempted to find the overarching semantic ties that connect members of the 19

commonly identified noun classes in the language. Class 1/2 (or the pairing of classes 1 and 2, 1 being

singular words and 2, plurals of the same words) has been dubbed the “human” class because most of

its contents are words for different types of human beings. (Palmer 1996:130) This class contains a

28
subclass of words for occupations, kinship relations, and proper names that are also words for people.

In the singular form, Class 1a words shares the prefix /um-/ with the broader Class 1 words, though the

corresponding plurals in Class 2a have the prefix /o/ while Class 2 generally pluralizes words with

/aba-/ or /ama-/. Regardless of these differences, words in classes 1 and 1a look morphologically

similar, and share semantic meanings relating to humans.

On the other hand, Class 5 contains a seeming hodge-podge of semantics including animals,

body parts, collective nouns, undesirable people and derogatives. (Katamba 2003:109) Not only does

this class seem to contain both animate and inanimate objects, but the animates it does refer to are seem

to be painted in a somewhat negative light. At first during my research, I thought that this was because

such negatively viewed people were being equated with objects, or somehow being pegged as “less than

human.” However, there are a variety of occupations or types of people listed in this class as well –

lawyer, musician, left-handed person, twin – that are not necessarily viewed as “bad” people; rather

they are associated with a characteristic or object that is more concretely acceptable in Class 5.2 For

example, a musician is associated with playing an instrument, a lawyer practices law, a left-handed

person is recognized by the (somewhat uncharacteristic) use of their left hand. Because these are the

qualities one is focusing on when one refers to a musician, or a left-handed person as opposed to a

2 In some cultures, twins and left-handed people are perceived as subhuman, and without
further research, I do not know if that is the case in Xhosa. However, explaining the variety
of occupations listed in this class, there seems to be a focus on the object being worked
with, which may overshadow the person’s “human-ness” and result in the occupation’s
inclusion in this “object” category.

29
person in general, this inclusion in Class 5 (and hence the marking of the “object” prefix /ili-/ rather

than the “person” prefix /um-/) indicates that this is a special or marked type of person being talked

about. The derogatives associated with this class may have more to do with a “sub-human” status, but

not all people included in Class 5 are viewed negatively.

Let’s look at the same type of words in English. From looking at the words ‘lawyer,’ ‘thief’

and ‘person,’ one cannot tell that they belong to a similar class of objects unless one speaks English and

already knows the semantics of the word. Besides the initial /i-/ it may appear that words in Xhosa are

also arbitrarily assigned to categories English speakers don’t readily recognize. However, even for

those who don’t speak Xhosa, by looking at the words for ‘thief’ - [it’ut’u], ‘lawyer’ [i!’ètá], the /i-/

does give a hint that these words might be in the same conceptual category. This can be solidified by

looking at the words’ plural forms. Both plurals fall into Class 6, the plural class corresponding to the

singular entities in Class 5. Class 6 is prefixed by /ama-/, and sparing some slight phonological changes

that occur due to surrounding words, their plurals follow the pattern. ‘Thieves’ is [amat’ut’u] and

‘lawyers’ is [ama!ètá]. To Xhosa speakers, producing the plural of the word is learned as an arbitrary,

memorized pattern taught in primary school starting around Grade 3. What it signifies to those studying

the language, however, is a semantic grouping of words that Xhosa speakers, whether consciously or

unconsciously, identify as somehow sharing a linked meaning.

Cultural and Biological Implications of these Classification Systems

30
 Studying noun gender systems gives us a bit of an inside look into the minds of the speakers of

Xhosa. Today’s speakers of Xhosa and English may interact with the concept of a lawyer, musician or

even thief in largely the same way, though there may be fundamentally different ideas about the nature

of what or who these people are in both society’s thinking and mythology. It seems that these

worldviews and conceptions are based not on any differing behavior of Xhosa thieves or English-

speaking thieves, but on the mental images these words create for speakers. As Palmer states, different

labels for entities demonstrate that “language does not necessarily refer to the external sensory world. It

refers instead to images in the minds of speakers and listeners, images that may be given by a culture in

its literature, its arts, or its daily discourse.” (Palmer 1996:115) This imagery can cause speakers of

Xhosa to view thieves as non-humans; an example akin to Berlin and Kay’s color studies that

demonstrate there are fundamentally different ways of looking at entities than English speakers are used

to. While today’s Xhosa and English speakers likely converse about thieves in largely the same way,

the mythological ideas in Xhosa referring to thieves as non-human were powerful enough to shape the

word for ‘thief’ into one that corresponds more with objects and animals than with kinship terms and

other people words. This creation of the word ‘thief’ is based completely on cultural interaction, and is

the creation of a new path of association and meaning. Such different conceptions of words in Xhosa

and English may cause communication between speakers to break down, simply because of different

perceptions about the same entity. These miscommunications would not be the result of a deficiency in

31
the capacity for language or the capability to identify a word and link it to meaning in the mind – these

are cultural miscommunications.

Communication breaks down in different ways; when one does not understand the cultural

information mapped onto an object not used in their own culture, communication about not only how

that object is used but what it is can break down. However, this is not a result of damage to the

capacity for language. The cultural background affecting the speakers’ perceptions of that object can be

learned or explained. When the language center in the brain is affected by some physiological problem,

the ability to speak is damaged or limited. This is (in most cases) not because any aspect of the

grammar system itself is damaged, but the connections between them are cut off, or significantly

decreased. A stroke, a common cause of aphasia, is the cutting off of the blood supply to the brain,

causing parts of the brain to shut down or stop working correctly. The parts of the brain used in pattern

recognition or word recall may be functioning perfectly, but if they are not able to work in tandem with

parts of the mind responsible for completing other linguistic tasks, communication may not be possible.

Studies of aphasiacs, combined with brain mapping using the neuroimaging technology described above

are not only allowing us to see how different language areas in the brain communicate with each other,

but how language affect s other functions of the brain as well.

In one such study, the relationship of a speaker’s first language (L1) and second language (L2)

or multiple other languages in which they are proficient can be mapped. For example, some aphasiacs

32
have a harder time identifying or processing abstract words rather than concrete ones (Kiehl, et al,

1999:226). This is because concrete words are concurrently processed by two processing streams of

neurons from responsible centers in the brain – one from the right hemisphere and one from the left –

while abstract words are processed only by a stream from the left hemisphere. Hence, depending on

which area of the brain is damaged, one or the other could be more difficult to recall. The implication

here, from what we have already discussed about naming tasks being accomplished in different areas of

the brain for different languages, is that there is the possibility aphasia could affect one speaker’s

language, and not the other. This phenomena, while needing further research because types of aphasia

vary vastly, has been observed in a variety of speakers. For instance, a woman who after having a

tumor removed from her brain, suffered aphasia in two separate areas of her brain, affecting the two

languages she spoke (a Broca’s aphasia in Hebrew and a Wernicke’s aphasia in English). Another man

who was bilingual in Czech and English suffered a stroke in the supramarginal gyrus, and afterward,

was able to understand both languages, but only to speak Czech. (Roux and Lubrano 2006:114).

Another study conducted by Stephen Croft, Jane Marshall and Tim Pring (2006) focused once

again on naming tasks in aphasiac bilinguals. In the study, patients whose first language was Bengali

and second language was English were given an object-naming test where they were asked to look at

pictures of objects (objects that had cognate words in either language were excluded) and to name them

first in English, and then in Bengali. While the test group was small, and the members did not all have

33
the same aphasiac deficiencies, it was apparent among the test-takers that naming objects in one

language was much easier than in the other. For some of the speakers, it was easier for them to name

objects in English, their second language, whereas it should have been easier for them to name objects

in Bengali before their aphasia. This demonstrates that aphasia affects different languages differently,

indicating that the brain likely works in different ways to accomplish the same linguistic tasks in

different languages. (Croft, et al, 2006:22)

Further research has indicated that the abilities necessary for different languages may even

affect areas of the brain (and consequently tasks) that are responsible for non-linguistic tasks. The

correlation between language spoken and absolute pitch in music students revealed an interesting

pattern. Diana Deutsch and her colleagues conducted a study on students at the Eastman School of

Music in Rochester, New York as well as on those at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing.

According to their study, “For students who had begun musical training between ages 4 and 5…

approximately 60% of the Chinese students met the criterion for absolute pitch, while only about 14%

of the US nontone language speakers met the criterion.” For those who began language training later

in life, “roughly 42% of the Chinese students met the criterion while no one of the US nontone

language speakers did so.” (Sacks 2008:136) This indicates a correlation between the areas of the

brain that interpret and recognize tone, and the completion of both linguistic and non-linguistic tasks.

34
 These cases demonstrate increasing evidence that within the areas of the brain responsible for

language, there are specific, discrete areas responsible for the accomplishment of certain linguistic tasks

that differ from language to language, and can affect the ability to complete other tasks dependent on

language as well. More research must be done since the exact area activated during a linguistic task can

vary slightly from person to person, the aforementioned study by Franck-Emmanuel Roux and Vincent

Lubrano on aphasiac bilinguals showed that “other authors have found that bilingual patients used

shared but also specific cortical areas for different languages” and that “[t]hey found different centers of

activation associated with first versus second language processing within the left inferior frontal gyrus,

but not within the superior temporal gyrus.” (Roux and Lubrano, 2006: 117)

In looking at the results of studies like these, speech therapists may be able to indicate which

language they should work with patients in to regain their ability to speak in a certain language. Not

only does this have positive implications for those trying to overcome their aphasia; it should also be a

cautionary word to those conducting brain surgery or tests on speakers of certain languages; as we are

able to isolate which areas of the brain are responsible in different languages, we are better able to care

for and protect those abilities when conducting surgery or other such activities. At best, failure to

recognize that different languages are organized differently in the brain would lead to less efficient ways

of helping patients regain their ability to speak, and at worst may result in behaviors that fail to help or

even permanently damage those speakers’ abilities.

35
Conclusion

The bounds of linguistic relativity are valid as far as cross-cultural communication is concerned;

it is evident that languages organize words in vastly different ways that also lead to different

conceptions of what an entity is. However, it can also play an important part in determining the

physical care physicians, neurologists and speech therapists should take in examining their patients.

Linguistic relativity is a useful concept to utilize in understanding how each culture has its own unique

worldview, and also explain some cross-cultural miscommunications or misunderstandings based on

how each language classifies things. This difference was demonstrated by the differences between

Xhosa and English systems of classifying entities, such as thieves and different occupations.

Such culturally created systems of organization are not simply linked to traditional

understandings, however. These systems can create associations between parts of the linguistic system

in the brain particular to each language. This link of culturally created systems and inherent

physiological systems is worth a closer look by those preserving both the speaker’s physical care and

the unique body of knowledge that encapsulates their worldview through language. While much more

research needs to be undertaken to understand the complexities of aphasia, it is worth realizing that

speakers of different languages may need to be treated differently to prevent damage to the areas of the

brain that accomplish linguistic tasks specific to their language. It is also important to see that there are

practical relational and health reasons for appreciating the varied and rich systems of cultural knowledge

36
different speakers have to offer. In examining both these culturally created systems, and the intricate

workings of the brain, ties become apparent that may lead us to preserve not only these unique cultural

worldviews, increase our sensitivity to how speakers of different languages should be cared for.

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