Morin's article poses a puzzle and a solution. The puzzle is that ideography is “conceptually and cognitively plausible” (target article, short abstract), but rare. Perhaps nonexisting is more accurate, as there is no demonstrable real-life example of a functioning, full-blown ideography: Nsibidi is reportedly a Nigerian secretive code whose precise nature cannot be scrutinized by outsiders, whereas the designed ideographies of Wilkins, Bliss, and Neurath did not gain a community of users. By ideography Morin means a graphic code (a code made of pictures, and not necessarily iconic ones) that is both self-sufficient and generalist. The former implies that it encodes meaning directly and does not need aid or glossing from other codes (including spoken language) to communicate properly; the latter means that the topics on which it communicates are broad (potentially infinite, one might say). Writing does both those things, and Morin does well to stress that it does so because it borrows such traits from spoken language, which is what it encodes (it is a glottography), always through a mix of semantic and phonetic signs. Hence, writing does not count.
The solution Morin offers for the puzzle is that the development of fully fledged ideographies is deterred by a problem of standardization: It is difficult to get all users of the code to “ascribe the same meanings to the same symbols” (target article, sect. 1, para. 12). In that regard, he well notes that spoken and signed languages have an advantage over ideography because they produce “cheap,” “fast,” and “transient” (target article, sect. 6.2) symbols. Phonemes and gestures “require little effort or time to produce” (target article, sect. 6.2) and so they can easily be corrected through replacement. These traits make spoken and signed languages self-sufficient as well as “self-standardizing”. With them, communication can be maintained and repaired without the aid (or intromission) of another code.
The argument makes sense, but we find that this is easy to grasp only after we solve a paradox created by Morin. He contends that “it is not helpful to think of graphic codes as languages” (target article, sect. 1, para. 9) and sees convenient to reserve the latter term “for means of expression that are clearly codified, generalist, and self-sufficient” (target article, sect. 2.1, para. 10), by which he means preferably spoken languages. This is the paradox. It is hard to think of a code that encodes meaning directly (rather than a spoken idiom, like writing), is self-sufficient (it needs no glossing), and is used for communication in potentially limitless domains – three things spoken and signed languages do – but is not a language. From that perspective, the kind of ideography Morin has in mind – generalist, self-sufficient, and encoding meaning – is as much a language as spoken idioms and signed languages. The only difference is that, rather than gestures or phones, its symbols are made up of images or, if we will, graphs. To prove this point: Not even Morin can escape terming “visual languages” (target article, sect. 2.1, para. 3) the kind of graphic codes he envisages.
Once we accept that ideography is as much a language as spoken and signed ones, we can compare them. It then emerges that what makes ideographies less practicable is the way the code's symbols are produced. To make graphic signs, humans need to grab a pencil, a pen, a brush, or chalk and apply ink or a mineral on some surface; to carve stone or metal with some tool; use a finger or even a stick to draw shapes in the sand; make incisions or impressions on clay; press the keys of a device; and so on. In other words, even when our hands and fingers can go without using an instrument, we will still need to resort to an external medium to produce images. We need to manipulate something from outside our bodies. Conversely, spoken and signed languages can do only with human anatomy, so that the production of their symbols will always require less time and effort than the creation of graphs. Ultimately, what is difficult is to imagine (for now) a scenario in which a graphic language could gain independence from spoken language and evolve in parallel to it – not even speech impairment, which signed languages address, seems to do. (Unless, of course, we enter the terrain of speculative fiction and imagine a future in which human anatomy has evolved to the point where it can produce fast and transient pictures on its own.)
We could also be suspicious about the idea that any new fully fledged language, with its own syntax and rules, might develop bypassing spoken language. Language mediates in all human action and some form of verbalization would surely be involved in the creation and first acquisition of a new code. Yet, suitably, Morin seems to have in mind a process comparable to the historical development of pidgins (among speakers of different languages) and their evolution (on occasion) into full-blown creole languages, and the creation of signed languages and their subsequent transmission: “Self-sufficiency is about usage, not acquisition” (target article, sect. 2.2, para. 3).
If despite its disadvantage of production a viable ideography were still to emerge and spread in the future, unlike Morin we do not think it could “break language barriers” (target article, sect. 1, para. 3). At least no more than any spoken or sign language, however large its number of users. First, users of other languages would have to learn it. Second, it would hardly ever be the only language around. Once set in motion, we can suspect it would undergo variation and change, eventually splitting into varieties of codes that would ultimately become mutually unintelligible – like any language. Its potential asynchronous nature would then emerge as its main advantage. Yet spoken and signed languages are now just as asynchronous, thanks to audio and video recorders, which Morin is perhaps too quick to dismiss as very recent changes.
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Morin's article poses a puzzle and a solution. The puzzle is that ideography is “conceptually and cognitively plausible” (target article, short abstract), but rare. Perhaps nonexisting is more accurate, as there is no demonstrable real-life example of a functioning, full-blown ideography: Nsibidi is reportedly a Nigerian secretive code whose precise nature cannot be scrutinized by outsiders, whereas the designed ideographies of Wilkins, Bliss, and Neurath did not gain a community of users. By ideography Morin means a graphic code (a code made of pictures, and not necessarily iconic ones) that is both self-sufficient and generalist. The former implies that it encodes meaning directly and does not need aid or glossing from other codes (including spoken language) to communicate properly; the latter means that the topics on which it communicates are broad (potentially infinite, one might say). Writing does both those things, and Morin does well to stress that it does so because it borrows such traits from spoken language, which is what it encodes (it is a glottography), always through a mix of semantic and phonetic signs. Hence, writing does not count.
The solution Morin offers for the puzzle is that the development of fully fledged ideographies is deterred by a problem of standardization: It is difficult to get all users of the code to “ascribe the same meanings to the same symbols” (target article, sect. 1, para. 12). In that regard, he well notes that spoken and signed languages have an advantage over ideography because they produce “cheap,” “fast,” and “transient” (target article, sect. 6.2) symbols. Phonemes and gestures “require little effort or time to produce” (target article, sect. 6.2) and so they can easily be corrected through replacement. These traits make spoken and signed languages self-sufficient as well as “self-standardizing”. With them, communication can be maintained and repaired without the aid (or intromission) of another code.
The argument makes sense, but we find that this is easy to grasp only after we solve a paradox created by Morin. He contends that “it is not helpful to think of graphic codes as languages” (target article, sect. 1, para. 9) and sees convenient to reserve the latter term “for means of expression that are clearly codified, generalist, and self-sufficient” (target article, sect. 2.1, para. 10), by which he means preferably spoken languages. This is the paradox. It is hard to think of a code that encodes meaning directly (rather than a spoken idiom, like writing), is self-sufficient (it needs no glossing), and is used for communication in potentially limitless domains – three things spoken and signed languages do – but is not a language. From that perspective, the kind of ideography Morin has in mind – generalist, self-sufficient, and encoding meaning – is as much a language as spoken idioms and signed languages. The only difference is that, rather than gestures or phones, its symbols are made up of images or, if we will, graphs. To prove this point: Not even Morin can escape terming “visual languages” (target article, sect. 2.1, para. 3) the kind of graphic codes he envisages.
Once we accept that ideography is as much a language as spoken and signed ones, we can compare them. It then emerges that what makes ideographies less practicable is the way the code's symbols are produced. To make graphic signs, humans need to grab a pencil, a pen, a brush, or chalk and apply ink or a mineral on some surface; to carve stone or metal with some tool; use a finger or even a stick to draw shapes in the sand; make incisions or impressions on clay; press the keys of a device; and so on. In other words, even when our hands and fingers can go without using an instrument, we will still need to resort to an external medium to produce images. We need to manipulate something from outside our bodies. Conversely, spoken and signed languages can do only with human anatomy, so that the production of their symbols will always require less time and effort than the creation of graphs. Ultimately, what is difficult is to imagine (for now) a scenario in which a graphic language could gain independence from spoken language and evolve in parallel to it – not even speech impairment, which signed languages address, seems to do. (Unless, of course, we enter the terrain of speculative fiction and imagine a future in which human anatomy has evolved to the point where it can produce fast and transient pictures on its own.)
We could also be suspicious about the idea that any new fully fledged language, with its own syntax and rules, might develop bypassing spoken language. Language mediates in all human action and some form of verbalization would surely be involved in the creation and first acquisition of a new code. Yet, suitably, Morin seems to have in mind a process comparable to the historical development of pidgins (among speakers of different languages) and their evolution (on occasion) into full-blown creole languages, and the creation of signed languages and their subsequent transmission: “Self-sufficiency is about usage, not acquisition” (target article, sect. 2.2, para. 3).
If despite its disadvantage of production a viable ideography were still to emerge and spread in the future, unlike Morin we do not think it could “break language barriers” (target article, sect. 1, para. 3). At least no more than any spoken or sign language, however large its number of users. First, users of other languages would have to learn it. Second, it would hardly ever be the only language around. Once set in motion, we can suspect it would undergo variation and change, eventually splitting into varieties of codes that would ultimately become mutually unintelligible – like any language. Its potential asynchronous nature would then emerge as its main advantage. Yet spoken and signed languages are now just as asynchronous, thanks to audio and video recorders, which Morin is perhaps too quick to dismiss as very recent changes.
Financial support
This research received support from a María Zambrano Postdoctoral research grant (M.V.), funded by the European Union-Next GenerationEU.
Competing interest
None.