On the influence of different types of languages on literature and spiritual development

Anyone who has ever thought about the nature of language will not dare to assert that language is a collection of arbitrary or accidentally used signs of concepts, that a word has no other purpose and power, except to refer to an object represented either in external reality or in thoughts, and that it does not matter which language one or another nation uses it. It can be considered generally accepted that different languages are organs of their original thinking and perception for nations, that a large number of objects are created by the words that designate them and only find their being in them (this can be extended to all objects in the sense that they are thought in words and in thought affect the spirit through language), that languages they did not arise arbitrarily or by contract, but came out of the recesses of human nature and are (we can add: as relatively independent entities inherent in a certain personality) self-regulating and developing sound elements. The field of thinking includes the nature of the impact of language on thinking, the manifestation of those of its features on which it is based on the achievement of this or that stage, the reflection of this or that difference of thoughts; the study of the dependence or independence of a nation from its language, the impact that a nation can have on language, or the reverse effect of language on a nation is an open field of activity, and when starting these issues, you need to remember that you can get into a hard-to-reach, and not a long-trodden area.

The purpose of this work is to undertake the research described above and expand it as widely as it seems necessary and possible in order, considering the language in its pure form and penetrating into its general nature, to interpret it also historically, using data from the most significant and well-known languages, and thus try to detect the influence of the various nature of languages (the establishment of which itself the task itself is not an easy one) for literature and spiritual development.

If we assume that languages are divided into grammar and vocabulary, then we are dealing here with their physiological functions, with how their constituent parts work as a whole and separately, and how the organic life of language develops through them. The existence of such a language should be recognized. Generations pass, but the language remains, each of the generations finds the language already being before it, and moreover stronger and more powerful than this generation itself; none of the generations ever penetrates to the end into its essence and thus leaves it to descendants; the character of a language, its originality, is known only over a number of generations, but it connects all generations, and they all manifest themselves in it; one can see what a language owes to a certain period of time, to individual people, but it remains indefinable what they owe to it. In essence, a language that is transmitted to descendants - not only in the form of fragmentary sounds and speech constructions, but in its active living being - a language that is not external, but precisely internal, a language in its unity with the thinking that exists thanks to it, this language represents the nation itself and the nation itself. What is language but the flowering to which the whole spiritual and bodily nature of man aspires, in which for the first time everything indefinite and fluctuating takes shape, and the refined and ephemeral appears intertwined with the earthly? Language is also the flowering of the whole organism of the nation. A person can master a language only by adopting it from others, and the mystery of its origin is connected with the mystery of the split and again in the highest sense and irrevocably reunited individuality.

It may seem strange to choose literature to study the influence of language on a nation, since it is often only an artificial, non-independent, thanks to its own language, a creation that goes beyond its own limits. Any nation, even if it has not reached the level when literature is born, observes in private and public life many remarkable phenomena, strong movements of energy, which, of course, do not arise without the influence of language; the results of these observations break through with a powerful, meaningful flow only in the everyday speech of the people; in literary works and works, this flow of energy falls mostly in a weakened and impoverished form. The emergence of literature can be compared with the formation of ossification in an aging human skeleton: at the moment when a language that sounds freely in speech and singing turns out to be locked in the prison of writing, the language first undergoes the so-called purification, then becomes impoverished and finally comes to its death, no matter how rich and used it is. The letter does not tolerate anything that goes beyond its limits, it numbs the recently free and diverse colloquial speech that existed next to it, suppresses its free eruption, its various forms, its every tiny nuance, figuratively denoting the modifications that the folk language brings to it. On the other hand, this inevitable evil also arises from the fact that language is transitory, like everything earthly. If it were not fixed on the letter, if the present for the transmission of the sounds of the past was nothing but dark and vague traditions, improvement would be impossible, and everything by chance would only return to the same thing in circles. Here we can mention a rarely repeated set of circumstances in world history, when language, when transferred from everyday folk speech to a separate area of ideas, lacks purity, nobility and dignity. But to consider the presence or absence of literature as the only sign of the influence of language on spiritual development would be erroneous. In studies like the present one, it is necessary not only not to leave aside national literatures, but to begin by directing attention to such literatures, since they alone convey strong and reliable forms in which the influence of languages is imprinted and thanks to which it can be unmistakably detected. At the same time, we must be free from any underestimation, highly inappropriate for a linguist, of those languages that have never possessed literature, but will still possess it and, undoubtedly, can bring great benefit to such research. Then an impartial proof will show that languages, at first glance meager and rude, carry a rich material for refined and multifaceted education, which, because it is not written, does not cease to act on speakers. Since the human soul is the cradle, homeland and home of language, all its features remain unnoticed and hidden for us. We will return to the influence of writing on language indicated here, which has already been noted many times, especially with regard to the recording of the Homeric epic. The change in many languages can be explained only by the transition of languages from oral to written state, and comparing Montaigne with Voltaire, it must be borne in mind that the language of an entire nation has turned into the language of urban society.

Now there are still people, and quite a few, who consider language itself a rather indifferent tool and attribute everything that relates to its character, to the character of the nation. For such people, our research will always contain something false, because for them it will not be about the influence of languages, but about the influence of nations on their own literature and education. To challenge this point of view, it is necessary to point out the fact that certain linguistic forms undoubtedly give a certain direction to the spirit, impose certain restrictions on it, and also that if we want to express the same idea verbatim or briefly, we have to choose different ways and at least mutually replace positive qualities utterances, which would be impossible without any, even a distant influence of language.

Further Readings

Maslow, A.H. (1971). The farther reaches of human nature. New York: Viking Pargament, K.I. (Ed.) (2013). APA Handbook of psychology, religion and spirituality (2013; Vols. 1 and 2). Washington: American Psychological Association.

Wilber, K. (1980). The atman project: A transpersonal view of human development. Wheaton, IL: Quest

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