Learning Journal #1

[Wyatt Jackson]

I found the naturalist vs. conventionalist idea really interesting. It is something I have thought about before but never knew there were two distinct views on the subject. Crystal writes: “…we have to recognize that many words do exist containing some element of real-world symbolism in the sounds they use - as in splash, jiggle, quack, teeny-weeny, and slime.” I don’t think that this is true for these words other than quack. For example, the word splash is used to describe the noise or action of something hitting liquid. I think it could easily be called “pamp” or “yutt” and no meaning would be lost when trying to convey the noise or action of something hitting liquid. In french, the word for splash is ‘éclaboussure’. Language is a beautiful thing because we would like to think that there is some innate reason that objects and ideas have certain names—but their isn’t. I think that keeping this idea in mind will help me to not take learning languages too seriously but it also will help me understand why it will benefit me to learn french.

[Global Studio]

Yes, it's important to remember that language is arbitrary.  Questions about 'why' in terms of vocabulary, gender, etc., often don't have answers.  (And I don't agree with Crystal's examples either.)