Skeptical Humanities

Hi again, everybody!

The most spectacular case of alleged channelling is an older case involving the Elizabethan mystic John Dee. A supposedly angelic language and an otherwise unknown script, both labelled ‘Enochian’, were allegedly channelled to an associate of Dee and were recorded in writing (in roman script). Don Laycock (who died tragically young) investigated this case in partnership with Stephen Skinner, and it is reported in one of the few ‘classics’ of skeptical linguistics (Donald C. Laycock (2nd edn completed by Stephen Skinner with two prefaces), The Complete Enochian Dictionary (London, 1978 and York Beach, ME, 1994)). Laycock was a brilliant Australian linguist, skeptic and polymath and remains a model for genuine ‘skeptical linguists’.

‘Enochian’ involves the Old Testament patriarch Enoch (discussed in Genesis and the apocryphal Book Of Enoch). After an initial set of many novel words in Roman letters presented in a series of squares, the corpus consists of apparently linguistic data involving two languages or systems, chiefly the second. Both were allegedly channelled to Edward Kelley, a ‘skryer’, and dictated to Dee, over the period 1581-89; Dee may have been actively questioning Kelley during this process. The overall system was regarded as an ‘angelic’ language. Nineteen ‘Calls’ or ‘Keys’ providing the bulk of the data are supplied with English translations; the content is that of religious/mystical invocations (narrative, exhortative, etc.).

Laycock and Skinner discuss earlier interpretive works from 1662 (when the texts were re-discovered) and after (up to the twentieth century), each influenced by contemporary ideas. They are highly critical, but are also open minded despite the nature of the material; they are inclined to consider Enochian largely non-paranormal (although Skinner is obviously convinced of the reality of Dee’s angels, at least). Laycock and Skinner concluded that ‘Enochian’, unusually in this context, patterns rather like a genuine but altogether unknown language, albeit with some most uncommon features including unprecedently heavy, wide-ranging suppletion (unrelated stems) in the verb-tense paradigms (see below).

The material itself emerges as having the following characteristics:

First System: words written in an alphabet of 21 named characters

It is unclear whether the words were actually received as words or as series of letter-names; in any event, they are mostly pronounceable (not always easily but with few genuinely phonetically awkward sequences) but ‘exotic’-looking. However, the strong patterns of alliteration, vowel and syllabic-structure contrasts, etc. suggest magical charms or glossolalia rather than genuine language. The grammar of the system is unclear, as translations are generally not available; the translations offered for individual words suggest anomalous lexical systems but most of the words are themselves unfamiliar, although occasionally etymologies (Hebrew etc.) are suggested by Laycock.

Second System: grammatically-structured sequences featuring many words, some pronounceable as English, some as if ‘exotic’; there is a highly suspicious one-to-one correspondence with the Roman alphabet with English spelling rules

The grammar manifests considerable detail. Sentence/clause and phrase-level word order is again suspiciously close to that of English; but there are often several Enochian words in sequence corresponding with one English word, with no analysis offered. Some of the variation in noun terminations suggests inconsistent systems of inflection as in Latin (‘declensions’), but there is too little data to be confident. Verbs show inflectional systems, but, very strikingly, there are anomalously high levels of suppletion (totally unrelated forms in different tenses of the same verb, as in English go/went). There is also some unusual ‘polyallomorphy;’ for instance, there are multiple items for negation. The rest of the grammar does not emerge fully but (again suspiciously) displays nothing highly non-Indo-European in character and is often close to English idiom.

Most of the vocabulary is again unfamiliar, though some words appear to have Latin, Greek or Hebrew etymologies. There is a highly anomalous numeral system. Interpretation is difficult because of the high percentage of ‘hapaxes’ (words occurring only once in the corpus of data).

Dee later allegedly received still other messages, including some words hardly pronounceable at all, such as alhctga. Skinner has published further analyses of Enochian. This altogether fascinating case obviously remains open.

There are other, less skeptical (although not always naïve) works on Enochian. These works do not always make sufficient use of the work of Laycock & Skinner, citing it only in places and not discussing its conclusions.

New sub-topics next time!

Mark

Hi again, everybody! Yet more on linguistic aspects of (allegedly) channelled communications and similar cases. Next: written channelling/ ‘automatic writing’

Analogously to oral channelling, written channelling or ‘automatic writing’ (also known as ‘inspired writing’, ‘trance writing’, ‘spirit writing’, ‘autonography’, etc.) is regarded by ‘believers’ as generated by spirits or other paraphysical entities rather than by the physical writer, who is often in a trance-like state at the time of production. Automatic writers (or typists) typically claim to receive communication from the spirit world by way of involuntary handwriting or typing, allegedly guided by spirits of the deceased. Again, these phenomena may involve languages known to the writer, identifiable languages (modern or other) not known to the writer (again, very interesting, if genuine) or unidentified languages or ‘languages’. Writers often claim no understanding of the material produced where it is not in a language which they themselves know. Some such cases are again interpreted by believers as communication with deceased persons, including long-dead individuals as well as now-dead acquaintances; but there are also cases involving ‘spirit guides’ (who sometimes are quoted as wrongly identifying the language in question).

Karen Stollznow discusses (in the wider context of ‘New Age’ thought) several well-known older cases of automatic writing in ‘the West’, including a case featuring the highly skeptical Harry Houdini (involving a private sitting with automatic writer Lady Doyle, mother of Arthur Conan Doyle) and the Borley Rectory haunting case in the UK (where the automatic writing supposedly occurred without a living medium, being generated by ghosts), as well as recent cases in Australia involving ‘Lisa’, who reports that she receives messages from spirits as ‘thoughts’ in her head; the spirits then guide her handwriting. Other skeptical work on the issue includes that of Joe Nickell, who refers particularly to a case supposedly involving the spirit of Abraham Lincoln, and that of Robert Carroll.

One very salient set of cases of automatic writing involves Geraldine Cumnmins, who channelled writings (in contemporary English; see earlier on this issue) supposedly generated by spirits associated with the events reported in the New Testament and expanding on these reports; she also channelled more recent spirits. Much of her work was done in partnership with another medium, Winifred Coombe-Tennant, known as ‘Mrs Willett’.

Nik Douglas reports a complex case involving a male channeller coming to terms with the ‘female archetype’; some elements and motifs relate to Asian and earlier European cultures. The channelling was rapid, forming an unbroken sequence; some sections were in ‘mirror writing’. In contrast, Grace Rosher channelled a recently deceased friend. Shelley Stockwell presents a systematic but rather naïvely conceptualized account of her own automatic writing and ‘hieroscripting’ (the latter often involves access to the channeller’s own unconscious thought and normally consists of artworks and non-linguistic symbols). Stockwell’s presentation is in decidedly ‘New Age’ terms. She also reports on other cases by way of example, including other cases involving ‘mirror writing’ (Jean Sheik). H.F. Saltmarsh offers a positive but not wholly uncritical survey of various cases involving ‘cross-correspondences’ between independent automatic-writers.

One case of channelled written material featuring a spirit guide involves Ann Walker, who claims to be in contact with a Native American spirit entity called White Arrow and another entity called Zipper. Zipper and other spirits spoke to each other in a language which Walker did not know; but they also sent her messages allegedly written in various ancient scripts and languages, notably Greek, Coptic (late Egyptian) and scripts which Walker identifies as the demotic and hieratic Egyptian scripts. (These are the names given to the simplified scripts that were used in Egypt for everyday purposes, as opposed to the more formal hieroglyphic system.) However, the characters given by Walker bear very little resemblance to genuine demotic or hieratic. And, although Walker’s versions of Greek words are in genuine Greek script, they do not correspond with Greek expressions carrying the relevant meanings; indeed, the sequences are meaningless as Greek, and some are phonologically impossible. In fact, virtually all of Walker’s comments about linguistic matters are naïve, confused and wrong, and her conceptualization is often faulty; for example, she confuses languages with scripts.

Anita Mühl provides a now dated but still very interesting survey of various cases of automatic writing, including analysis from a psychological perspective; she herself worked with some channellers.

One very interesting older case, reported by John Ashton, involves an alleged sample of handwriting by the Devil (Satan), who was allegedly summoned up by Ludovico Spoletano and induced to write a short passage in answer to a question. The resulting text was given to Theseo Ambrogio degli Albanesi and discussed in his Introductio in Chaldaicam Linguam (‘Introduction to the Chaldean Language’) (Pavia, 1532). It is in an unidentified script; despite the reference in the book-title to Chaldaea (Mesopotamia), some of the characters have been compared to characters found in the Ethiopic abugida, a script often regarded as especially ancient and significant. Boundaries between characters are not always clear, but there are around 175 character-tokens in all. The language represented and the intended meaning are unknown.

More next time!

Mark

Hi again, everybody! More on linguistic aspects of (allegedly) channelled communications and similar cases: first, oral ‘channelling’ and written ‘channelling’ or ‘automatic writing’. (I will provide (a) reference(s) to/for any specific source on request.)

Oral channelling is regarded by ‘believers’ as generated by spirits or other paraphysical entities rather than by the physical channeller or medium, who is often in a trance-like state at the time of production. These phenomena may involve languages known to the channeller (not of especial relevance here; the main point of skeptical interest in such cases involves information to which the channeller supposedly had no other access), identifiable languages (modern or other) not known to the channeller (again, very interesting, if genuine) or unidentified languages or ‘languages’ (as in glossolalia). Channellers often claim no understanding of the material produced where it is not in a language with which they themselves are familiar. For example, I met an Australian man who channelled large amounts of material in a ‘language’ which he himself could not interpret (and which – following information supposedly obtained from a ‘spirit guide’ – he wrongly identified as Seneca). In a few cases (see later on Flournoy for an example), unknown scripts are provided to accompany the oral material (see also below on written channelling and automatic writing).

Many cases of channelling are interpreted by believers as communication with deceased persons, including long-dead individuals as well as now-dead acquaintances. Examples include the works of Arthur Guirdham (reporting the channelling of a thirteenth-century French-speaker) and Margaret and Maurine Moon (reporting the channelling of ‘Wedge’, a seventeenth-century English-speaker).

In some cases involving deceased individuals from remote time-periods, and indeed in most cases involving languages not known to the channeller (contemporary or ancient), appropriate usage is not attempted. The channeller uses a contemporary form of her own first language; this is arguably both anomalous and ‘convenient’ (for channellers unschooled in language matters), but some such channellers adduce arguably specious reasons for this, such as the spirit’s desire to assist current listeners. One such case is that of the ‘Starseed Transmissions’; the channeller Ken Carey reports that these messages were transmitted in non-verbal form as ‘waves’ linking his ‘biogravitational field’ and neurology with those of the extraterrestrial/angelic communicators. Approximately synonymous English expressions were then ‘assigned’ to these ‘waves’ (apparently by the communicators).

However, such cases are obviously more convincing if linguistic forms appropriate to the period can be used. Unfortunately, where this is attempted the usage itself is seldom at all convincing to linguists. There are frequently errors and/or anomalies, for instance the mixing of usage from different periods. This suggests that the material has been fraudulently hoaxed and that the unconvincing features are errors which have intruded because the faker lacks the specialization required if utterances containing accurate forms in pre-modern usage are to be invented. One case which appears slightly less dubious is one in which a young Londoner allegedly lost his local accent when channelling.

The skeptical linguist Sarah Thomason reviewed some such cases and specifically investigated the cases of Marjorie Turcott (American, channelling ‘Matthew’, a seventeenth-century Scot), Jack Purcel (channelling ‘Lazaris’) and Julie Winter (channelling a ‘high-energy being’ called ‘Mika’). None appear convincing, especially where the supposed language variety is actually known; for example, Matthew’s dialect is mixed and often inaccurate for the period. Mika’s voice too displays an unconvincingly inconsistent ‘foreign’ accent. (The channellers/entities also make factual errors; for example, Turcott/Matthew makes various factual errors about Scotland.) Other such studies have been carried out by anthropological linguists, with similar results. In some other such cases there is a mixture of contemporary usage and an attempt at archaic forms, usually in the same language (that of the channeller); see for instance the case of Pearl Curran, who gained notoriety in 1913 for allegedly channelling a seventeenth-century character named Patience Worth, through an Ouija board; she and the spirit supposedly developed a powerful ‘mental linkage’. Skeptics such as Karen Stollznow and Joe Nickell hold that Curran herself was behind the creations.

An unusual older case involves a medium who supposedly channelled a speaker of Ancient Egyptian despite being untutored in the language. Her performances allegedly impressed some scholars of the language, though the vowels of Egyptian are poorly known (thus the channeller’s own ‘Egyptian’ vowels cannot be reliably checked) and there were in fact sundry errors, which the authors attempted to explain away. The case remains somewhat mysterious, but because of the date of the study it is no longer possible to investigate it thoroughly.

In cases involving languages altogether unknown to mainstream scholarship, such as ‘Atlantean’, it is of course impossible to demonstrate whether or not the usage presented is accurate. However, it is more difficult than most non-linguists imagine to invent a language (as opposed to an unstructured set of vocabulary items) in such a way that a linguist will be convinced, and even unknown ‘languages’ can be assessed for plausibility (this also applies to alleged extraterrestrial languages).

Other cases involve exotic phenomena such as the claimed channelling of a deceased person now living on Mars (as a spirit being) by the medium Hélène Smith, as reported by Théodore Flournoy. The spirit communications were in an unknown ‘Martian’ language, with an accompanying exotic script. This unidentifiable ‘language’ is in fact modelled (consciously or unconsciously) on a language familiar to the channeller, French. The grammatical and phonological structures of ‘Martian’ are clearly based on those of French, and the script is alphabetic and corresponds with the Roman alphabet as used to write French. Only the vocabulary is novel, although even this is partly derived by cipher from French, Hungarian and other languages known to Smith’s polyglot father.

As intimated, some cases of channelling involve ‘Atlantean’ (or ‘Lemurian’) languages emanating from spirit realms, etc. One such case involves some 3,000 ‘Atlantean’ words supposedly channelled to a medium. An Australian group called ‘Liquid Crystals’ claims that it is in touch with survivors of Atlantis (in space/other ‘dimensions’) and has access to ‘11 [Atlantean] languages spoken and written’.

Ramtha, channelled by J.Z. Knight, is said to be a ‘Lemurian’ warrior who lived over 35,000 years ago. His name is supposedly derived from the word Ram and means ‘the God’ in his own language, but the communications are in contemporary English and in a pseudo-British accent. So too are those of Mafu, who is channelled by Penny Torres and claims to be of a similar age and to know Latin. This account was critiqued by Thomason (see above).

More next time!

Mark

Hi again, everybody! I’m moving on here to linguistic aspects of (allegedly) channelled communications and similar cases. This series of blogs deals with one sub-set of a larger set of claims and theories about the mysterious emergence or appearance of linguistic material: either otherwise ‘normal’ language, or what appear to be manifestations of unknown (sometimes very unusual) languages.

The best known phenomenon of this kind is glossolalia, that is, speaking, or occasionally writing, in what appear to be unexpected and usually unfamiliar languages, mainly but not solely in the context of fervent Pentecostal Christian worship; it is especially associated with the feast of Pentecost itself. At the first Pentecost, after the death of Christ, the Apostles reportedly found themselves speaking in identified languages which they did not personally know. In modern cases of Christian glossolalia, the ‘languages’ used are generally not identified. In some cases, however, speakers and/or some listeners within the communities in question do claim to understand the material (although they cannot usually provide any structural breakdown). And in a few cases it is alleged that, as in the New Testament account, known languages with which the speaker is unfamiliar are produced (as also in xenoglossia, to be discussed later); such cases would obviously be of very great interest if verified. There is considerable overlap between glossolalia and the channelling of speech said to emanate from spirits (more on this later).

In contrast with the situation prevailing with respect to most general topics of skeptical linguistic interest, there is a very substantial literature on glossolalia, including a critical literature, some of it unusually well informed by linguistic expertise (even though many speakers are reluctant to cooperate with researchers, perceiving their performances as sacred). Here I obviously can’t attempt to discuss all the points made in this large literature, but I’ll summarise.

Some writers on this issue are associated with the relevant churches and/or unschooled in linguistics – although some of these are qualified in other scholarly disciplines (notably, and unsurprisingly, theology) and are far from injudicious. Most of these authors argue, with varying degrees of sophistication and persuasiveness, that the phenomenon genuinely involves divine possession and linguistic performances which cannot be explained in mundane terms. Many different ‘other’ languages have been reported in this context. However, linguistic details are seldom given in this branch of the literature, and ‘hard’ evidence that genuine languages not known to the speaker are involved is seldom offered. Some cases allegedly involving a specific ‘other’ language are actively disputed; one notable case of this kind involves Italian.

Morton Kelsey in particular is concerned to treat glossolalia as of divine origin and not merely a type of xenoglossia (see below), even though the latter is of course itself controversial and, if genuine, mysterious. In contrast, the consensus of linguists who have examined the phenomenon is that most if not all glossolalia is phonetic but not linguistic. The utterances are typically analysed as consisting of haphazard sequences of sounds, syllables and other sound-sequences which occur or at least are phonologically possible in languages known to the speaker, with more repetition of syllables and of some individual sounds than is usual in genuinely linguistic material, with very little evidence of morphological structure and often with no specific meanings; at most, there is a general interpretation supporting the relevant community’s belief system. For example, Felicitas Goodman studied events in Pentecostal communities in the USA, the Caribbean and Mexico (including English-, Spanish- and Mayan-speaking groups) and in non-Christian groups from Africa, Borneo, Indonesia and Japan. Her conclusion was that there was no essential distinction between the various sets of practices. Carlyle May came to similar conclusions.

Obviously, some Christian thinkers who accept the divine origin of glossolalia might find these conclusions somewhat unsettling. On the other hand, other Christian thinkers are suspicious (to say the least) of any focus upon special phenomena such as glossolalia at the expense of ‘core’ Christian beliefs and practices.

Some neurological studies have determined that during glossolalic performances activity in the language centres of the brain decreases, while activity in the emotional centres increases.

Watson Mills and William J. Samarin provide linguistically informed discussions of glossolalia. Samarin analyzes allegedly xenoglossic cases sympathetically but comes to the view that none of them can be regarded as demonstrated. As noted, there are some overtly skeptical accounts of glossolalia. Jean-Jacques Courtine provides a useful compilation of work in French on glossolalia.

More next time, when I’ll turn to oral ‘channelling’, written ‘channelling’, ‘automatic writing’ etc. in non-glossolalic contexts.

Mark

Hi again, everybody! I’m getting my next blog in early, as I’m going to be REALLY busy next week! This present blog is the last instalment of this section.

Joscelyn Godwin is a musicology lecturer who has also written prolifically and positively (though not altogether uncritically) on various ‘fringe’ topics such as theosophy and the ‘Hollow Earth’. Godwin presents a strange mixture of amateur linguistics and occultism. He seems largely unaware of mainstream phonetics and phonology, relying mainly on earlier amateurs such as Richard Paget for background. His own contribution to phonetics predictably involves matters of pitch, tone and frequency, and – though he makes some errors – he has genuinely interesting notions to contribute in this area. However, he then moves into mysticism, and in the later sections of his book even his ‘facts’ are often mistaken. For instance, Ancient Greek did not have only seven distinct simple vowel phonemes (those of Godwin’s title). Only the imperfectly systematic alphabet suggests this, and the real figure (for most dialects) was at least ten. It must be acknowledged, however, that the ancient thinkers involved in this discussion may have focused on orthography rather than phonology so much that they too ignored the evidence of the spoken usage or judged it irrelevant. This was common before linguistics began and was especially the case where Ancient Greek was in question, for various reasons including dialectal diversity and the high status of the written word. Godwin may thus be simply following earlier thought in erring in these ways.

Some writers, usually of a conservative bent, argue that the established scripts used to write various culturally important languages are imbued with special status or significance and must not be replaced or seriously altered. This view is held by some who resist proposals for the reform of alphabetic spelling but is especially salient in respect of scripts such as the Chinese logography, which bears an unusually close relationship with the Chinese language and is particularly well-suited to it, at least in some respects: it distinguishes effectively between homophones, which are numerous, and it allows for seriously divergent pronunciations of the same morpheme in different fangyan (‘dialects’). Alphabetized spellings of Chinese, such as the modern Hanyu Pinyin system used to write Mandarin, are inevitably fangyan-specific and unable to distinguish between homophones.

Some authors, however, perceive the established script as so highly valued that it is almost ‘sacred’ in character and must not be altered even to small degrees. Tienzen Gong goes so far as to identify Chinese (with its script) as ‘Pre-Babel: the true Universal Language’, claiming to be setting up a ‘new paradigm of linguistics’. He cites F.S.C. Northrop as stating that ‘the Easterner … uses bits of linguistic symbolism, largely denotative, and often purely ideographic in character, to point toward a component in the nature of things which only immediate experience and continued contemplation can convey. This shows itself especially in the symbols of the Chinese language, where each solitary, immediately experienced local particular tends to have its own symbol, this symbol also often having a directly observed form like that of the immediately seen item of direct experience which it denotes … As a consequence, there was no alphabet. This automatically eliminates the logical whole-part relation between one symbol and another that occurs in the linguistic symbolism of the West in which all words are produced by merely putting together in different permutations the small number of symbols constituting the alphabet’ (emphasis in original). These comments about alphabetic writing are essentially uncontroversial; however, the use of the terms denotative and especially ideographic suggest a mistaken, quasi-cross-linguistic interpretation of Chinese script, which is naturally language-specific and thus logographic rather than ideographic. Gong accepts Northrop’s general analysis but obviously rejects his rather negative verdict on the philosophical consequences of the use of Chinese script.

Leonard Shlain argues that the development of literacy and in particular the adoption of alphabetic scripts in ancient times (at the expense of logographic scripts such as Chinese script) reinforced the brain’s ‘masculine’ left hemisphere at the expense of the ‘feminine’ right, upset the socio-psychological balance between the sexes and triggered massive, unwelcome changes in apparently unconnected areas of human thought and society. These chiefly involved shifts in the direction of ‘linear’, non-holistic thinking, an excessive concern with logic and science, and the growth of patriarchal systems in which women and their ideas have been suppressed and undervalued. Many of the major cultural patterns and changes of the last few thousand years are, Shlain maintains, to be explained in these terms. Naturally, he would like to see this imbalance corrected. In developing his case, he ranges widely outside his own field of expertise.

Much of Shlain’s discussion of language and writing is badly confused, and some is simply wrong. Given that linguistics is central to his thesis, the major problems which he has in this area are crucial. He does not systematically distinguish adequately between languages (in their spoken forms or considered generally) and the writing systems used to represent them (a common problem for non-linguists). One very obvious instance of this is provided by his very strange discussion of the mutual non-intelligibility of pairs of modern European languages; Shlain blames alphabetic writing for this, but such languages are, naturally, mutually unintelligible in speech and equally naturally remain so in writing (in any language-specific script). In addition, Shlain does not distinguish adequately between alphabets and writing systems more generally; some of the negative consequences which he sees as arising from the use of alphabets would, if he were correct, come about even if non-alphabetic writing systems were used. He largely ignores the important phonological but non-alphabetic category of syllabary; and he mistakenly describes Chinese characters as ideograms (they are, of course, language-specific logograms) and Chinese itself as lacking in the grammatical category ‘word’. At an even more basic level, Shlain confuses the notions of phoneme and phone (‘speech-sound’) and his definition of the very word alphabet is utterly wrong; he naïvely defines an alphabet as ‘any form of writing that contains fewer than thirty signs’.

Furthermore, Shlain’s accounts of the origin and early development of language and society are highly speculative, inadequately referenced and at times overtly partisan, relying excessively on traditional beliefs and endorsing (rather uncritically) the currently popular but ideologically-charged theories of early matriarchal paradises which were later overthrown by literate males. His claims about links between writing systems (or other aspects of language) and cultural patterns are often implausible and/or inadequately defended. For instance, he suggests that the Phoenicians’ use of their abjad – the ancestor of the Greek and the Roman alphabets – was somehow associated with the alleged barbarity and uncultured character of their civilization. Overall, Shlain cannot be taken seriously.

Some other authors also attribute major cultural developments to the development of literacy or (typically less plausibly) to the adoption of certain types of script; for instance, of alphabets where vowels are shown, which, according to Rostam Keyan, contributes vastly to clarity and thus to the development of science.

More next time (in about 11 days’ time)! I’ll be moving on to linguistic aspects of (allegedly) channelled communications.

Mark

Hi again, everybody! First, more applications of gematria!

Jerry Lucas and Del Washburn follow Kurt Fetteschoss in re-applying gematria, especially to the New Testament (‘Theomatics’). They claim that an analysis of the Bible reveals numerical patterns which are in no way explicable by chance and which a numerological analysis then converts into information about the meanings intended by God in inspiring the text of the Bible. In turn, this is used to attack atheism and other viewpoints which deny the existence of a creator entity behind the observed universe.

The linguistics invoked here is less than competent. For instance, Lucas & Washburn – misinterpreting a standard reference work– claim that there are no grammatical rules at all determining the use or non-use of the Greek definite article, the equivalent of English the. They therefore claim that God was free to include the article or not in each New Testament phrase, without thereby generating grammatical anomalies, in order to make the numbers add up. This is simply not the case; there are familiar, fairly precise principles determining whether or not the definite article is used in Greek.

In addition, Lucas & Washburn treat the various inflectional forms of Greek nouns such as theos (‘God’) – for instance, theou (genitive; ‘of God’), theon (accusative; ‘God’ as clause object, etc.) – as mere spelling variants, which they claim add to the flexibility of the language, again for the convenience of God. In fact, the decision to use theon or theou rather than theos would necessitate a complete re-structuring of the clause in question and would thus not assist at all in slightly modifying the numerological ‘score’ of the overall expression, as Lucas & Washburn suggest.

Other critiques of Lucas & Washburn include attacks on the statistical significance attributed to their ‘findings’.

Other relevant phenomena (not in general involving the Bible) include the linguistic aspects of ‘Western’ numerology as understood more generally. Numerology has a long history, and essentially involves the notion that integers or numerical digits possess inherent relationships with alphabetic letters and with linguistic or other meanings. This facilitates both a) prediction of future situations (including personalities) and events from the spellings of relevant names or other words and b) the selection of names for babies, religious converts, those adopting new languages, etc. in such a way as to maximize their future prospects. Numerology is related conceptually and/or historically to gematria and to systems such as ‘Chinese numerology’ where the words for numbers and the characters which represent them are said to have associations with specific non-numerical concepts – positive, negative, or other. However, where the direction of interpretation is from numbers to words/concepts, there are no universally agreed definitions for the numerological meanings of specific digits.

Most relevant in this context are versions of numerology where the direction of interpretation is from letters of the alphabet to numbers (single- or double-digit) and where the numbers are then combined and re-combined by way of repeated addition of digits so as to yield a single-digit number for each name or other word; these numbers are then linked with meanings. Thus, if the letters of the Roman alphabet as used to write English are paired with the integers 1-26, the name Eve obtains a ‘score’ of 5 + 22 + 5 = 32 = 3+2 = 5. It is then held that people with the name Eve will be likely to display whatever characteristics are ascribed to the number 5. This particular calculation assumes, of course, that the figures for the several letters are to be summed across the entire word before the digits are added together. Obviously, other procedures are possible; without any kind of rational argument for one procedure over another, the adoption of any one procedure appears arbitrary (although in fact most alternative procedures systematically yield the same results as the above, because of inherent properties of the integer series). Helyn Hitchcock, for instance, uses a different procedure from most other contemporary numerologists, although the reasons for this difference are not clear.

In addition, all familiar numerological systems employ Base-10. This may possibly be defended in terms of the fact that in most societies which employ alphabetic writing Base-10 is the norm; but this point threatens any attempt to claim universal status for numerology.

However, the most major issue arising here for skeptical linguists is the significance – often ignored or unconvincingly handled by numerologists – of the varied and changing membership and ordering of the alphabetic letters forming names. For example, the Greek alphabet has no letter C; its third letter (gamma) is the equivalent of G. Greek words and names were borrowed into Latin, which is written with a modified Greek alphabet, the Roman alphabet (now, of course, also used for English and many other languages). In this new alphabet, G was replaced by C (which largely replaced kappa/K) in third position and was itself reinserted in seventh position. Presumably, the numerical values associated with the various letters should differ according to whether the name or word in question was used before or after this and other such changes; thus G should have the value 3 for words used before the change and 7 for words used after the change; and the values for all letters following G should be different after the change. However, many words were used in both periods, resulting in the generation of rival scores for the same words.

A further issue arises with names which are common to various languages spelled with different versions of the alphabet with different total numbers and/or different orderings of letters. This applies especially to languages where fewer letters are used than in English, potentially affecting the numbers assigned to all letters conventionally listed after the first ‘missing’ letter. For example, native Italian words (including names) cannot feature J, K, W, X or Y. A further, similar issue arises where different alphabets are in use. Many names are shared between languages usually written in different scripts, for instance between English and Russian (Cyrillic alphabet), and are used by bilinguals. Names such as Ivan will naturally be associated with different numbers in the two languages; for instance, the Cyrillic letter B, corresponding with V, appears in third position. Some Cyrillic letters have no direct Roman equivalent and vice versa, complicating matters further: digraphs such as Roman ts are used outside numerology in transliterating these letters, and rival transliteration systems often exist.

A standard general-skeptical response to numerology as a whole is the position that, since numbers possess no genuine occult meanings and since by themselves they can have no significant influence on life, numerology is essentially superstition masquerading as science.

There are also various more specific non-standard theories of this nature. One of these is ‘acrophonology’ (variously spelled in its own literature), dealing with the alleged astrological and mystical significance of names. The name of the theory suggests that it relates especially to names as pronounced rather than written, but in fact the discussion is entirely of spelling; the title is thus misleading. As the morpheme acro-suggests, there is a strong focus here upon initial letters. For example, Laurie Baum treats people whose names begin with A as likely to be initiators and builders. Baum (an American) assumes the first-middle-last name structure for personal names as a given; and she does not discuss the issue of the changing and varying membership and ordering of alphabets, as introduced above.

Mary Scott ‘found’ a code hidden in the letters of the Roman alphabet as used to write English. Each letter allegedly has a spiritually significant meaning, and the spiritual meanings of entire words are composed of the meanings of the individual letters. These meanings apply whether a text was originally composed in English or in another language; Scott’s leading examples are Biblical texts translated from the Hebrew psalms. She pays little attention to other languages, even those written in essentially the same alphabet, and urges that the forms used in older English Bibles be preserved, since these communicate essential spiritual meanings which are lost if the spelling is altered.

More next time!

Mark

Hi again, everybody!

Many claims regarding Hebrew script (as discussed last time) involve gematria (isopsephia in Greek). This is a form of mystical numerology, applied mainly to the Hebrew scriptures and other sacred Jewish writings – notably those associated with the Kabbalah (see below) – but according to some of pre-scriptural or other extraneous origin (again, see below). Like numerology generally (to be discussed later), gematria is a system of assigning numerical value to a word or phrase, in the belief that words or phrases with identical numerical values bear some relation to each other, or bear some relation to the number itself as it may apply to a person’s age, the calendar year, or the like. The letter-values and calculation methods to be used in gematria vary somewhat across sources.

There is some evidence that versions of gematria existed in ancient Mesopotamian syllabaries. Some authors suggest that gematria was then further developed in Greece. David Fideler argues that the spellings of the names of the Greek gods were formulated according to isopsephic principles, under Pythagorean influence, around 500 BCE (for example, the name Zeus was allegedly formulated so as to express the geometric mean of the names Hermes and Apollo) and that many Greek temples, including the Parthenon (447 BCE), were constructed isopsephically. Although some of these individual claims are dubious or worse, the general notion expounded here agrees with the only known etymology of the word gematria (from Greek geometria, ‘earth-measures’). Other authors have made similar suggestions, notably Karl Menninger, David Diringer and Georges Ifrah. Ifrah notes that the numeric uses of Greek letters date back at least to the end of the fourth century BCE, whereas the oldest known examples of the Hebrew system date only to the last few years of the second century at the earliest.

The classicist Kieren Barry also argues that gematria and the Hebrew Kabbalah itself had their origins in Greek. Barry analyzes the history of Greek ideas regarding links between, on the one hand, the Phoenician abjad and its offshoot the Greek alphabet, and, on the other, the number system, the zodiac, planetary aspects of astrology, planetary astronomy, musical scales, symbolism associated with individual letters, acrostics used in invocations and imprecations, Pythagorean notions about the universe, etc. The idea that gematria has Greek origins (while unwelcome to some Jewish writers) is not prima facie ridiculous. However, some of Barry’s discussion, in particular, is rather approximate and even inaccurate. In addition, he agrees too readily with Joscelyn Godwin in finding significance in the ‘seven vowels’ of Greek.

Kabbalah (variously spelled) is itself a set of esoteric teachings meant to explain the relationship between an eternal and mysterious creator and the mortal and finite universe. Authors who interpret Biblical text in interesting Kabbalistic terms include George Sassoon and Rodney Dale (claiming that Moses ben Shem Tov’s thirteenth-century work Zohar actually describes a machine for making ‘manna’) and Carlo Suarès (proposing a novel and arguably tendentious analysis of Genesis which implies that the names of the twenty-two Hebrew letters of the Hebrew abjad are in fact proper names originally used to designate different states or structures of ‘cosmic energy’). Some writers, such as Lawrence Kushner and Michael Munk, focus upon the alleged special, often mystical attributes or characteristics of some of the individual letters. Compare also the ideas of Leonardi as discussed earlier.

It has never been convincingly argued that gematria or Kabbalah should be regarded as having any empirical validity.

Among special claims involving Kabbalah, Gregg Braden believes that the universe (‘creation’) ‘speaks’ to humanity through a ‘language’ which has been forgotten (over 530,000 relevant documents have been lost) but which can now be re-accessed through advances in the understanding of ‘quantum science’, human DNA, non-physical ‘energies’, and especially Kabbalah; he links the letters of the Hebrew abjad with mystical and other non-linguistic notions (such as chemical elements) in the usual manner. However, Braden’s linguistics appears weak: his account of the Hebrew script is incoherent and mistaken in various ways, he presents a confused typology of writing systems, he confuses script and language (at least terminologically), and he frequently refers to subjective ‘feelings’. In fact, Braden does not attempt serious linguistic analysis of Hebrew or the Hebrew abjad.

A very striking multi-disciplinary proposal is advanced by Stan Tenen, a mathematician who holds that the shapes of number symbols, the shapes of the letters making up the Hebrew abjad and in other guises the Greek and Arabic scripts, and the meanings of the acrophonic Hebrew names of the Hebrew letters all derive from gestures made with the human hand and the (multi-dimensional) symmetries which these allegedly display. Tenen supports this analysis with data of many types, including the communicative behaviour of non-human primates, the use of communicative gestures by pre-linguistic infants and congenitally blind people, findings regarding the origins of cognition more generally, etc. He also believes that his findings have implications for communicating with putative extraterrestrials.

Tenen is sophisticated on various fronts, but some of the claims made here appear at least overstated. For instance, even if Tenen’s account of the Hebrew letter-names were itself correct, this would not enable non-Hebrew-readers to determine the senses of longer words spelled with these letters. Thus, even if the letter corresponding with P, whose name (pe) means ‘mouth’, does represent a hand pointing to a mouth, most longer Hebrew words containing this letter have nothing to do with the word pe or its meaning. Hebrew words cannot be interpreted merely on the basis of knowing (by whatever means) the forms, meanings and alleged origins of the individual letter-names.

Tenen expands his theory into a general account of the evolutionary origins of human language and writing, arguing for instance that the human genetic capabilities underlying reading and writing clearly pre-date the actual invention of written language in its known forms and thus must have developed for other reasons, which he takes to be such as would account for his own gestural theory. Tenen believes that these points relate to the ‘Tower Of Babel’ language-origin myth reported in Genesis. More generally, he implicates Biblical, religious, esoteric and cosmological theories with his central ideas; he has founded the ‘Meru Foundation’ for the purpose of exploring the implications of these ideas.

More next time!

Mark

Hi again, everybody!

I turn here to another ‘popular’ aspect of non-historical ‘fringe’ linguistics: non-historical issues involving written texts and scripts.

I start with claims regarding hidden patterns in texts. Many of the cases at issue here concern religious texts; some of these involve literary, religious and mathematical/statistical issues, as well as linguistic issues. The linguistics practiced by the writers in question is often less than competent, although this is not usually the main aspect of the work which either invites or has drawn skeptical comment.

There have been many efforts to prove that the Bible or some other religious text is reliable by finding numerical and/or verbal patterns in the text which allegedly could not have come to be there by chance and which often carry important messages (prophecies, etc.). For example, Ivan Panin, supported by Chuck Missler and others, claimed to have discovered significant numerical patterns in the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament. However, the best known such set of claims is now that presented by Michael Drosnin in The Bible Code and later volumes. Drosnin identifies statistical/distributional patterns (‘the Code’) in the Hebrew text of the Old Testament; these allegedly predict important later events, some of them in very recent times (such as twentieth-century political assassinations) and others still in the future at the time of writing (such as the end of the world in 2006, which of course did not occur). Grant Jeffrey and others support and extend Drosnin’s notions. Drosnin even suggests that the Code was written by extraterrestrial life-forms, who he claims also brought the human DNA code to Earth; he believes that these aliens left the key to the code in a steel obelisk.

Skeptics argue that claims such as these are typically much weaker in statistical terms than their proponents suggest. It has been argued, especially against Drosnin, that the likelihood of finding patterns of this kind by chance is much greater than he suggests (compare my earlier comments on chance similarities between unrelated words) and that post hoc one can find a wide range of spurious messages in any sufficiently lengthy text. For instance, by applying Drosnin’s analytical methods Brendan McKay found references to twentieth-century political assassinations and the death of Diana, Princess of Wales (1997) in the texts of novels such as Herman Melville’s 1851 work Moby Dick (even though written English is less flexible than the Hebrew abjad in such respects).

One important set of linguistic considerations with respect to the Bible Code and similar claims involves the spelling of Hebrew and in particular the ‘pointing’ of the Hebrew abjad (the inclusion of diacritics indicating vowels, which were not originally written). Even prior to the adoption of pointing, some consonantal letters were also employed in a secondary capacity to indicate long vowels, and a given word may appear either with these characters or without them. In addition, repeated manual copying of texts naturally created variants, some introduced in error and some intentionally (often for the sake of greater clarity). These considerations obviously affect the numbers and identities of the letters in any given section of the text of the Bible.

Claims such as Drosnin’s thus have no secure textual basis and cannot be taken seriously – unless the evidence suggests very strongly in a given instance that the alleged prophecies are indeed both a) startlingly accurate (especially in respect of events yet to occur at the time when the theories are propounded) and b) statistically unlikely to appear in the text by chance. Neither of these conditions appears to have been met in any analyzed case.

There are many other critics of Drosnin employing statistical considerations and arguments such as these. In contrast, John Weldon (writing with Clifford and Barbara Wilson) discovers many errors and inconsistencies in Drosnin’s work but also attacks the Bible Code theory on religious grounds, urging Christian believers to focus on the plain messages of the text of the Bible rather than seeking hidden additional messages.

Claims similar to those of Drosnin have been made regarding the Muslim Qur’an, notably by the United Submitters International organization; this approach was pioneered by Rashad Khalifa. Khalifa argues that the Qur’an contains a mathematical structure based on the number nineteen, involving many of its elements: chapters, verses, words, letters, numbers of words with the same root, etc. Most other Muslim writers reject Khalifa’s claims or at least regard them as dubious, for example Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips and Ibn al-Rawandi. Non-Muslim skeptics have also critiqued Khalifa’s work.

Another writer who found hidden messages in the Bible was Max Freedom Long. Long came to believe that Jesus had studied in an ancient Polynesian mystical tradition called Huna; he and his apostles had inserted secret messages in the texts of the Gospels, which are much more important than the overt message of the texts. These messages are in a secret language or ‘code’ which is the ancestor of Polynesian and is said to be still used by a tribe in Morocco. Long also identified in the texts ideas derived from ancient Egypt, transmitted via ancient India and Israel; he regarded the Hawaiians as one of the ‘Lost Tribes of Israel’. In 1945 he founded an organization called the Huna Fellowship.

In fact, Long’s ideas bear little relation to traditional Hawaiian ideas about the world, which do not involve his use of the term huna. In addition, his specific claims often seem to involve current Hawaiian, not early Polynesian. He clearly did not know any linguistics, and his interpretations cannot be deemed plausible.

More next time!

Mark

Hi again, everybody!

I turn here to some less persuasive criticisms of mainstream linguistics made by non-mainstream thinkers who believe that they know enough linguistics to attempt this exercise.

Amorey Gethin, who has a good knowledge of language in general terms and writes with a particular focus upon the teaching of languages, has apparently exceeded his understanding of these matters in claiming that the entire discipline of linguistics is essentially nonsense. Much of his focus is upon Chomskyan linguistics, and many of his points have also been made by non-Chomskyan mainstream linguists; but his announced intention is certainly to demolish the basis for the discipline as a whole. Indeed, as the originator of ‘anti-linguistics’, Gethin himself has sought to show that mainstream linguistics as a whole is very badly flawed and indeed that there is no such legitimate discipline. As has been seen, even some ‘non-nativist’ professional linguists, notably Sampson, have in fact argued for a general linguistics of minimal scope; but amateur critiques such as Gethin’s are more forcefully expressed and indeed are themselves at the very least exaggerated.

Gethin essentially denies the reality of linguistic structures and systems of all kinds. In particular, he rejects the notion of grammatical structures (syntax, etc.) as an ‘illusion’; and he attacks the entire stance of modern scientific linguistics according to which syntactic structures are typically seen as perhaps the most clearly unique feature of human language. In this respect he represents a more extreme version of Deacon (see above). Indeed, he seems to believe that linguists actually know that grammar does not exist at all, but promote it so as to bolster their own status. Inevitably, he also holds that the errors of language learners almost entirely involve vocabulary (word-level semantics and context) – not grammar, which mainstream applied linguists would hold is implicated in very many learner errors.

Gethin ‘explains’ all linguistic and language-learning phenomena in terms of the meanings of words (and word-parts) alone, treating grammatical phenomena (including features such as the singular-plural distinction, as in cat/cats) as matters of ‘general meaning’ (as opposed to the specific meanings of words as displayed in contrasts such as girl versus boy). However, by no means all linguistic phenomena (even if phonology is excluded) can be fully explained in terms of meaning (semantics). For instance, a noun is not itself the same kind of thing as the word for an entity considered in terms of its meaning. ‘Noun’ is a grammatically-defined category (for example, a noun can be the grammatical subject of a clause). Different languages assign different grammatical categories to the words for entities (etc.); in Russian there are verbs meaning, for example, ‘be white’, and it has been argued that in Apache the word corresponding most closely with English waterfall is a verb; some languages lack certain grammatical categories altogether; and even within one language the distribution of grammatical categories is often complex (for instance, red is usually an adjective, but the more general word colour is a noun).

Furthermore, sentence-length linguistic meanings are not necessarily directly expressed in the forms of the actual sentences. If they were, even the (often complex) syntaxes of unrelated languages would be much more closely similar than they tend to be. And even within one language there are often two or more grammatically different ways of expressing the same meanings, for example active and passive voice equivalents such as Mark drank the beer and The beer was drunk by Mark. Conversely, there are syntactically identical but semantically and logically distinct pairs of sentences such as Jane is planning to marry a Dutchman (‘a specific Dutchman’ or ‘some so-far unidentified Dutchman’).

Gethin deals unconvincingly with cases of these types; and even thinkers of this kind can hardly deny that the typical order of subjects, verbs, objects, clauses etc. in a sentence differs from language to language. For instance, as I noted above, Welsh sentences typically begin with the verb. This itself is a matter of syntactic structure, not of meaning. Gethin also denies the reality even of the mainly semantic distinction between referential and ‘anaphoric’ uses of English the (as in The man over there versus A man appeared … the man then left.

Another writer with views similar to those of Gethin is David Kozubei. Kozubei attributes all linguistic constraints to context; he appears to believe that if a sequence of words can be interpreted as grammatically and semantically feasible in any way whatsoever – however contrived and however remote in meaning from the sequences with which it is being compared – this disallows Chomskyans from identifying it as grammatically anomalous and from arriving at any generalizations on that basis. (Sampson and other anti-Chomskyan linguists make similar points but with much more restraint and much stronger background knowledge.) Kozubei argues, in fact, that sentences identified by linguists (especially Chomskyans) as grammatically anomalous (‘ungrammatical’ in a given variety of a language) are in fact grammatically unusual at most. He therefore rejects the entire descriptivist notion of ‘ungrammatical’ (= ‘not found in a given variety or accepted as correct usage by the users of that variety, for grammatical reasons [rather than, for instance, because of odd use of vocabulary]’).

Like Gethin, Kozubei is moving towards a model of language which will include only a minimal grammar and in consequence will fail to capture many key facts. This will be rejected by non-Chomskyan linguists as well as by Chomskyans. Kozubei goes on to claim (again like Gethin, and again unpersuasively) that the errors of foreign language learners are all semantic or contextual in nature; they do not involve grammar.

I will move onto other issues in this general area next time.

Mark

Hi again, everybody! Thanks for points made. I’m going to be away quite a bit during September (mainly for the UK-wide Heritage Open Days scheme: many historic properties which are not usually open are specially opened up, and many which normally charge admission are open for nothing). I may thus be delayed in posting or in responding to comments.

I’ll continue, starting with some further comments on Chomskyan linguistics.

It must be noted that some critics of Chomsky are confused on some quite basic issues. G.A. Wells – who does make some cogent points about, for instance, the unpredictability of English derivational morphology and the consequences of this for Chomskyan notions – seems to misinterpret Chomsky’s descriptivist notion of grammaticality (which is largely shared with all contemporary linguists) as prescriptivist in character or at least as relating only to standard grammar. Wells even suggests that Chomsky believes that there are ‘no rules for incorrect speech’. In a somewhat similar vein, the ‘anti-linguist’ Ronald Englefield argues that people can communicate without the benefit of any ‘formal’ grammar, and suggests (as does Wells) that – if Chomsky’s view of the matter is correct – adult native speakers of a language who do not command the grammar of the relevant standard variety have either somehow failed to develop (pre-birth) the tendency to acquire grammar which Chomsky believes humans inherit, or have acquired grammar but have then ‘lost’ or suppressed it. Wells and Englefield seem to have misunderstood what Chomsky means when he says that all normal human infants have access to a Universal Grammar (UG) enabling them to acquire the syntax and other aspects of their native languages very rapidly. The term grammar here (as elsewhere in linguistics) does not refer only to standard/formal grammar as taught in schools and socially endorsed as ‘good usage’ (etc.); it also includes the grammar of informal and indeed of non-standard usage as used naturally by many native speakers of each language. Native speakers who systematically produce non-standard forms have simply acquired a different grammar. The idea that non-standard or informal usage somehow lacks grammar, while widespread among non-linguists in many communities, is folk-linguistic and does not stand up under careful examination; and Chomskyan linguists fully accept this.

The acquisition of the specific grammars of individual languages (spoken or signed) clearly requires exposure to suitable data (as does the acquisition of their respective phonologies); not even a ‘hard-line’ Chomskyan would dispute this. However, some non-linguists (including some skeptics) assume that humans actually inherit some of the specifics of their parents’ or ancestors’ particular languages. Even a few scholars in relevant disciplines have adopted this stance, notably J.R.R. Tolkien, who was expert in philology (descriptive historical linguistics) but not in modern theoretical linguistics. Tolkien apparently believed, for instance, that he himself had acquired older varieties of English formerly used in his own home area in the West Midlands of England (where his family had long resided) more readily than would students from other areas. No positive evidence of such effects exists, and, if they were genuine, they would in fact be difficult to explain in scientific terms. Children clearly inherit a language-learning propensity (specific, as asserted by Chomsky, or more general); but they obviously learn the individual languages, accents etc. used by their early carers and in their communities, and if they have no contact with their biological parents they know nothing of the languages used by them.

Anthony Gordon denies that features of human language which genuinely are universally shared across languages are either inherited as Chomksyans believe or grounded in general psychological functions as Sampson argues. He himself holds, somewhat implausibly, that all such features are instead derived from experience.

A number of writers on the margins of linguistics and some genuinely mainstream scholars have proposed fairly major revisions to the basic common assumptions behind linguistic theory involving UG or other, still more basic features of human language. One such author is Terrence Deacon. Deacon argues (not altogether unconvincingly but not decisively) that the reference of words is the defining central feature of human language, rather than syntax as proposed by Chomsky (and very many other linguists, including many anti-Chomskyans). However, the apparent absence of syntax and the presence of reference (even if only to general types of object/situation) in animal communication systems suggest that this view is at least overstated. Paul Monk has somewhat similar views regarding the origins of language.

The mathematician and polymath John L. Casti has directed his criticism of linguistics especially at Chomskyan ideas, rehearsing many of the points made above. Other non-linguists who have criticised contemporary linguistics include S. Takdir Alisjahbana and the followers of Charlton Laird (both especially on applied linguistics) and Paul Goodman (on the alleged – and allegedly unhelpful – obsession of linguists with ‘code’, that is, linguistic form, as opposed to the messages expressed in the ‘code’). Some points made by these authors appear overstated, and some may even involve misreading of the work of linguists; but these works do serve to offer ideas from intelligent alternative perspectives and warrant more attention from linguists than they typically receive.

Some linguistically-informed philosophers have critiqued the ideas of linguists from the perspective of their own discipline. Two such thinkers are G.A. Wells, who addresses Chomskyan linguistics in his work on the dangers of the interpretation of words as ‘magical’ (see also above), and Roland Barthes, who offers critical (but largely positive) discussions of twentieth-century mainstream ‘Saussurian’ linguistics.

As noted earlier in the context of unconvincing accounts of the structures of relatively ‘unusual’ languages such as Welsh, some mainstream explanations of grammatical phenomena do invite skeptical attention; and this problem also arises in cases where sociolinguistic issues, especially those involving what has been labelled ‘political correctness’, are at stake. For instance, there is a desire not to ‘disrespect’ the speakers of creole languages – languages descended from ‘pidgin’ languages used for communication between groups lacking a common language, often originally in colonial contexts including the slave trade. There is an associated tendency to re-analyse features of these languages as syntactically different from the features of the source languages from which they are ultimately derived (as indeed is much creole vocabulary). These source languages are often those of the former colonisers. Sometimes these re-analyses are clearly justified; but there are problematic cases. One such vocabulary item is tiek or tek, derived from English take and employed in constructions in some English-based creoles (used in the Caribbean and in originally Caribbean communities in the UK) such as Tek rieza blied kot it aaf. This sentence obviously corresponds with English Take a razor blade [and] cut it off, and has the same meaning. However, some linguists re-interpret tek as a preposition, and gloss the creole sentences in question in terms such as ‘Cut it off with a razor blade’. There seems to be no strictly linguistic reason to adopt this grammatical analysis in preference to interpreting tek as still being a verb similar in function to English take, especially given that if tek really were a preposition one would also expect alternative orderings such as Kot it aaf tek rieza blied – which do not seem to occur. It appears possible that the structural links between English and contemporary English-based creoles are being downplayed for political reasons.

Next time I’ll turn to less persuasive criticisms of mainstream linguistics made by non-mainstream thinkers who believe that they know enough linguistics to attempt this exercise.

Mark