Yahoo Answers is shutting down on May 4th, 2021 (Eastern Time) and beginning April 20th, 2021 (Eastern Time) the Yahoo Answers website will be in read-only mode. There will be no changes to other Yahoo properties or services, or your Yahoo account. You can find more information about the Yahoo Answers shutdown and how to download your data on this help page.
Trending News
Does language still have meaning without society?
I don't think it does. I think you can still use language. For example, you can still look outside and say to yourself the sky is blue. But it doesn't mean anything, because you know the sky is blue, without actually needing to say blue, because you can experience the sensation, which, as Plato would have it, is closer to the colour than the word. So language becomes meaningless unless you are trying to communicate with other people. (I'm ignoring diary writing, this is a form of remembering, which is like communicating with past and present self but still requires two participants).
@ tom. So does that mean you think that someone without a language cannot experience blue, even though they have no word for it? I'm not saying that the word doesn't still have a meaning. Blue still means blue. But the point of having a language, of actually saying blue is pointless, because there is no one there to communicate with. You are naming an impression you already have to yourself.
Perhaps it makes more sense like this. If you are alone, is there any point in saying you feel sad? You know you feel sad, because you can feel it. Naming it sad makes no sense because you use the word to express the feeling, but you are expressing a feeling to yourself.
4 Answers
- Anonymous9 years agoFavorite Answer
i agree, but you usually SAY that the sky is blue because you can share it with other people in order to make this other person feel and show what you feel and see, i personally think talking is only used to communicate. when i need to express myself i do this by showing things, for example: if i want to show my mom i do clean up things after i've used them i would intentionally help making diner and clean up afterwards. by doing this you show her that you do know how to clean up.
Language is still needed to communicate but some use it to explain their feelings, which i think is wrong. if you want to let your boy/girlfriend know you love him/her, would you rather give her a rose or tell her "i love you" ?
In short: Language is used to communicate, not to express a certain image or explain feelings. that is my opinion.
- 9 years ago
Not at all, no.
You experience the color blue, and your eyes register the wavelengths as being "blue." It's the sensation that you feel, and no language can "embody" or truly "mean" that idea, that color. It's simply not logical. If "blue" really embodied the color blue, for example, what about the Spanish word, azul? There is no difference besides the lingual effects of the word azul versus blue; the color stays the same.
Therefore, the word cannot mean anything to an individual who has never heard or needed language before. It will obviously have some effect on an individual who has experienced language, but this is purely because of the individual's indirect association of the word with the color.
This effect is much like the effect of a dog trained to listen for a dinner bell. The thought of dinner makes the dog salivate, and the dog can be trained to expect dinner soon after the bell is rung. Therefore, over time, when that bell is rung, the dog will salivate subconsciously. (Of course, if the dog never associated the bell with dinner, it will not salivate when it hears the bell.)
Hope that made a little sense.
- AthenaLv 79 years ago
Ah, can you have freedom with out the word?
Communication is necessary for a society but you are right, it is not important to the individual.
But, what is you point if you simply live alone? What do you make or create and why as no one will notice.
So, yes, without a partner you do not need language.
- 9 years ago
yes. language is meaning. it can be as words, pictures, concepts. language ins't just saying things, its the meaning of words and the concept of things. the sky is blue is language. you don't have to say it. the concept of a blue sky is derived from language and therefore has meaning. i hope that makes sense.
Source(s): me, i like philosophy.
