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Languages and Memes

Languages and memes, as we have seen in previous sections, are intimately interrelated; indeed, language may have evolved as a memetic, not genetic, adaptation. Different aspects of the relationship between memes and genes have been explored in Language and Culture, The Development of Writing, and Words and Languages. In this section we will take a closer look at how languages and memes interact and influence one another.

Languages: Parts of the Memeplex

Languages can be seen as just one subset of the larger memeplex of culture. Indeed, languages are memeplexes in and of themselves; though the culture with which they are associated may cease to exist, the language itself may be adapted to a new cultural context. This is almost exactly the case with the language of Latin, which was spoken by the Roman civilization. Though the Roman Empire fell, medieval scholars continued to use it as the language of academia, and it also remained the language of the Roman Catholic services. Through these routes, Latin was preserved over hundreds of years (with a few modifications; Church Latin and Roman Latin are distinct, especially in pronunciation) and is even now studied in many schools. Thus, the memes associated with Latin still propagate, even in modern times.

Hebrew is another case in point. The language of the ancient Jews was virtually dead, with the exception of church services and a few ancient documents. However, modern Jews in Israel made a conscious decision to revive this vestige of their ancient culture, and it is now making a comeback, especially as a ceremonial and scholarly language. Hebrew has also been successfully preserved through the efforts of adherents of memes associated with Hebrew (namely, Judaic culture).

Language is also a strong indicator of memetic preservation. If a language, such as many American Indian languages, is moribund (that is, mainly adults speak it), it and the memes associated with it are in danger of becoming extinct. This is indeed true of American Indian languages and cultures; more and more American Indians are deserting their tribal memes in favor of more the successful replicators found in Western society. Indeed, the same is true of many traditional languages and their memeplexes; adherents are increasingly converting to more attractive and competitive Western memes.

Language and Immigration: Meme Flow

The flow of languages - and the adoption of a new language - is often an excellent indicator of how memes are competing with each other. A good example of this is seen in foreign immigrants and their descendants: the immigrant himself still speaks his native language, and generally retains his traditions and customs. He commonly uses his native language, rather than his adopted one, in personal communication, and he is still an adherent of the memes associated with his native culture.

The sons and daughters of immigrant parents often find themselves in transition between memeplexes; their parents transmit traditional memes vertically and their peers transmit the memes of the new country horizontally. These children often speak both languages, reflecting their transitional position. Finally, their children (or, at most, their children's children) generally do not speak the language of the original immigrant at all, or do so only awkwardly. They now speak the language of the adopted country, and their memes are more closely correlated with the new country than with the old.

In this way, the use of one language or another can be used to track meme flow, both in contemporary society and in history. The best example comes from the near-universality of English in the modern world: as Western ideas and culture spread over the globe, English spreads with it, and often the extent to which English is taught in a country's schools or spoken by its people reveals the extent to which the country has adopted Western memes.

Linguistic Cross-Flow

Meme spread need not result in such drastic consequences as the replacement of an entire language by another. Memetic "interbreeding" is also revealed in "loan words", or words from one language that have been integrated wholesale into another. English is known to be especially receptive to memetic transmission in this way; examples of such words abound, including negligeé, sushi, and cappuccino. Indeed, there was an influx of literally thousands of French, Latin, and Latinate words into English after the conquest of Britain by the Normans. This influx is the explanation for English's large Latin-derived vocabulary (sometimes estimated at around 80%) despite its Germanic-derived grammar and function words, which lead it to be classified as a Germanic language.

Linguistic cross-flow is also common out of English and to other languages, especially now when Western memes are spreading at light speed across the globe (and being increasingly vilified for their replicative success). Examples include the French le weekend, and the Spanish computer vocabulary: cables, computadora, micrófono. Another example is the nearly ubiquitous English slang expression OK.

Words and Memes

Words can function and behave as memes, undergoing competition for adherents - in this case, users of the given words. Examples of this phenomenon have been given in Words and Languages. However, the existence or coinage of words is yet another way in which memes affect language.

Take, for example, the Catholic meme of transubstantiation, which states that bread and wine can be transformed into the body and blood of Jesus. This meme, once vilified as barbaric, has long been considered one of the most important elements of the Catholic service; however, it was once probably quite difficult to explain to non-Catholics who were unfamiliar with the practice. The coinage of the word transubstantiation associated a single word with the meme, thereby increasing its replicative advantage slightly and making it easier for hosts to communicate with nonhosts who shared a language but not a memeplex. The same idea applies to the use of the word quanta to describe the discrete energy packets discussed in quantum physics.

In this way, a language bears the marks of the memes that made up its cultural context. Without Catholicism, transubstantiation would not exist, or would refer to a very different practice; the same applies to quantum physics and quanta. In the same way, English speakers have no history of revering the spirits of dead ancestors; as such, we have no single word for the common Asian concept and refer to it via the rather cumbersome phrase veneration of ancestors. Most likely, if this meme ever became popular in the English-speaking world, a new word would be coined for it.

Looking Further: Links and References

The following links and references are useful in the study of the relationship between languages and memes.

• Books
  • The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker
  • How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker
  • Words and Rules by Steven Pinker
  • The Meme Machine by Susan Blackmore

• Websites
  • Linguistics FAQ
  • Linguistic Society of America
  • Language and Language Family Information
  • Chapters 3 and 8 of The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker
  • Language Miniatures - collection of language essays by William Z. Shetter

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