The mind of primitive man

by Franz Boas

This coincides with a fundamental trait of human thought. In our actual experience no two sense-impressions or emotional states are identical. Nevertheless we classify them, according to their similarities, in wider or narrower groups, the limits of which may be determined from a variety of points of view. Notwithstanding their individual differences, we recognize in our experiences common elements, and consider them as related or even as the same, provided a sufficient number of characteristic traits belong to them in common. Thus the limitation of the number of phonetic groups expressing distinct ideas is an expression of the psychological fact that many different individual experiences appear to us as representatives of the same category of thought.

As an instance we may mention the color terms of different languages. Although the number of shades of color that may be distinguished is very great, only a small number are designated by special terms. The number of these terms has considerably increased in recent times. In many primitive languages the groupings of yellow, green, and blue do not agree with ours. Often yellow and the yellowish-greens are combined in one group; green and blue, in another. The typical feature which occurs everywhere is the use of one term for a large group of similar sensations.

This trait of human thought and speech may be compared in a certain manner to the limitation of the whole series of possible articulating movements by selection of a limited number of habitual movements. If the whole mass of concepts, with all their variants, were expressed in language by entirely heterogeneous and unrelated sound-complexes or word-stems, a condition would arise in which closely related ideas would not show their relationship by the corresponding relationship of their sound-symbols, and an infinitely large number of distinct word-stems would be required for expression. If this were the case, the association between an idea and its representative word-stem would not become sufficiently stable to be reproduced automatically without reflection at any given moment. In the same way as the automatic and rapid use of articulations has brought it about that a limited number of articulations only, each with limited variability, and a limited number of sound-clusters, have been selected from the infinitely large range of possible articulations and clusters of articulations, so the infinitely large number of ideas have been reduced by classification to a lesser number, which by constant use have established firm associations, and which can be used automatically.

It seems important at this point of our considerations to emphasize the fact that the groups of ideas expressed by specific word-stems show very material differences in different languages, and do not conform by any means to the same principles of classification. To take the example of English, we find that the idea of “water” is expressed in a great variety of forms: one term serves to express water as a liquid; another one, water in the form of a large expanse (lake); others, water as running in a large body or in a small body (river and brook); still other terms express water in the form of rain, dew, wave, and foam. It is perfectly conceivable that this variety of ideas, each of which is expressed by a single independent term in English, might be expressed in other languages by derivations from the same term.

Another example of the same kind, the words for “snow” in Eskimo, may be given. Here we find one word expressing “snow on the ground;” another one, “falling snow;” a third one, “drifting snow;” a fourth one, “a snowdrift.”

In the same language the seal in different conditions is expressed by a variety of terms. One word is the general term for “seal;” another one signifies the “seal basking in the sun;” a third one, a “seal floating on a piece of ice;” not to mention the many names for the seals of different ages and for male and female.

As an example of the manner in which terms that we express by independent words are grouped together under one concept, the Dakota language may be selected. The terms “to kick,” “to tie in bundles,” “to bite,” “to be near to,” “to pound,” are all derived from the common element meaning “to grip,” which holds them together, while we use distinct words for expressing the various ideas.

It seems fairly evident that the selection of such simple terms must to a certain extent depend upon the chief interests of a people; and where it is necessary to distinguish a certain phenomenon in many aspects, which in the life of the people play each an entirely independent rôle, many independent words may develop, while in other cases modifications of a single term may suffice.

Thus it happens that each language, from the point of view of another language, may be arbitrary in its classifications; that what appears as a single simple idea in one language may be characterized by a series of distinct word-stems in another.

The tendency of a language to express a complex idea by a single term has been styled “holophrasis” (Powell), and it appears therefore that every language may be holophrastic from the point of view of another language. Holophrasis can hardly be taken as a fundamental characteristic of primitive languages.