Spoken and written languages

Discussion in 'Linguistics' started by rcscwc, Aug 12, 2010.

  1. rcscwc Registered Senior Member

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    Navya-Nyaya Theory of Language


    As per Navya-Nyaya Theory spoken language is natural and primary. Gestures and written scripts are the derived ones. It makes a distinction between gesture language and written language. The former as a language is different kind (vijatiya. A gesture signal by an Indian may not mean the same to a Chinese. They are open to different meanings) while the latter is of the same kind (sajatiya. A wriiten word in Sanskrit may have no meaning another language and it would be illogical to search for meanings at all.) as the spoken language. Still both of them are different from spoken language. They are termed as ‘language’ because gestures and written characters ‘suggest’ spoken words that alone constitute language proper.


    This Navya-Nyaya Theory holds that the written language depends upon spoken language, but not versa. That despite the fact that writing makes possible long and complicated structural constructions that would have not been feasible without writing. The fact that the art of writing gives the permanence and continuity. Being free of accents, it makes a language portable and comprehensible to wider circles. Still the fact remains that written language would have been impossible without spoken language. Thus spoken language is logically prior to written language. Therefore, Navya-Nyaya philosophers regard spoken language alone as of primary significance.


    PS: The NN theory is much more than that and employs ultra logic and Theory of Relations too.
     

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