Dark Matter of the Mind

by Daniel L. Everett

  It is then claimed that since the LXX translation uses the word parthenos for the verse of the prophet Isaiah, that this must mean that Isaiah intended to communicate that the Messiah would be born of a virgin. Again, this is because the same Christian theologians claim that parthenos means only virgin.

  But this is false. Such pontification confuses dark matter and word meaning. What we have here is simply a word that means “young woman,” along with the dark matter expectation that most young women are virgins in that culture. Like almah, parthenos is indeed also ambiguous between “young woman” and “virgin.” For example, the same LXX version, in Genesis 34:2–4, translated the rape of Dinah, the daughter of the patriarch Jacob, by Shechem and refers to her, after her rape, as parthenos. Perhaps the idea that parthenos means exclusively “virgin” comes from the building for Athena in Athens, the parthenon (παρθενών), or “chamber of the young woman or virgin.” Athena was most assuredly considered to be a virgin in Greek mythology, and her temple’s name is usually interpreted as representing her virginity. But this doesn’t entail a fact such that a temple dedicated to her with the name parthenon can only mean “chamber of a virgin.” The cultural and dark matter emic knowledge that Athena was a virgin leads to this interpretation of the name parthenon—not its literal meaning per se.

  Conservative Christian scholars have values, knowledge structures, and roles that give them a vested interest in establishing that Isaiah had foretold that the Messiah (i.e., Jesus in Christian theology), would have an immaculate conception, that he would not be the product of a semen-fertilized ovum. Therefore, they find themselves in the uncomfortable position of having to argue, based on their values, against the commonplace usages of two words from Biblical Greek and Biblical Hebrew.

  What is important for the present discussion is not whether Mary was a virgin, the mother of the Messiah, and so on. Rather, we see in this example that translation is a conflict of dark matters, a culture-plus-individual-dark-matter-controlled, emic-to-emic mapping. It is not possible to do it, except under the most rudimentary circumstances, mechanically. It is a cultural-psychological endeavor always. One’s cultural values and memory-apperceptional constructed self constrain one’s translation preferences, goals, and interests. Word-for-word or literal translations—in literature, operating manuals, and so on—in this regard can be seen as either undesirable or desirable, depending on goals.

  To see this from another angle, consider the controversial Christian concept of baptism. The word baptize is not even a translation but rather a transliteration from the original Greek. (Transliterations arise because on some occasions the translator believes that he or she needs to use a single word for a new concept yet also believes that there is not one available in the target language. Therefore, he or she may employ transliteration rather than translation, the conversion via sound-for-sound or letter-for-letter mapping of a word from one language to another.) In the Koiné (common) Greek dialect of the New Testament, the word baptize usually meant “to immerse.” However, the word baptizo (βαπτίζω) can also mean “to dip repeatedly.” It is used to describe a particular kind of ceremony. Thus for some Christians, one can be baptized only if one is immersed in water. For others, the word allows for sprinkling, since they interpret it merely as ceremonial wetting in some fashion. The translator of the New Testament from Greek to Latin (St. Jerome) simply chose not to create a conflict by translating baptizo as “immerse”—choosing, perhaps wisely, to avoid translating it at all, instead transliterating it. Thus, in addition to translation, the decision to transliterate is also a culturally or dark-matter motivated choice.

  TRANSLATION DIFFICULTIES MORE GENERALLY

  Translation is fraught with issues in which the constructed self’s dark matter or cultural values can affect the type of translation or choices in the translation process (for perhaps the best recent treatment, see Becker 2000). For example, consider two kinds of overlap we find across languages: overlapping meanings and overlapping forms. Take first the case of overlapping forms, especially where these forms come from overlapping histories. Nida (1964, 160) calls these “false friends.” As an example, the words exquisite (English), exquisito (Spanish), and esquisito (Portuguese) serve nicely. All three words derive from the Latin construction that originates as ex quaerere, which means “to seek out”—something sought out. In its development it took on the sense of “rare,” “hard to find.” The word has the sense of “rare” in all three languages. However, in Spanish and English it means “beautiful,” whereas in Portuguese it means “weird” or “odd” or “strange” and so on—extremes of rarity. In cases like this, although the form of the three words overlaps, has a common etymology, and even shares a meaning at a very general level, in everyday usage, the Portuguese term is very different.

  There are also cases where forms are distinct but meanings are similar. For example, the Portuguese word ja, “already,” is distinct in form from the Pirahã word soxóá, but they overlap in meaning. For example, to say, “I am leaving now” in Portuguese, one would say, “Eu ja vou.” To say the same thing in Pirahã, one says “Ti soxóá kahápií” (for both languages, literally, “I already go.”) However, to say that something has been used already in Pirahã—for instance, a used article of clothing—one would say “baósaí soxóái” (“cloth already thing,”, or “used clothes”). This usage is not found for any sense of the Portuguese ja. Thus, although it can be easy to jump to the conclusion that two words have exactly the same meaning, they can in fact have very different meanings, in spite of overlapping in one or more contexts.

  There are many other areas of translation difficulty, including phenomena such as idioms, litotes, metonymy, synecdoche, metaphor, simile, and analogy. These can be very difficult to understand or even to see unless the translator has been able to achieve emic perspectives from both the target and source languages and cultures. The lesson is simply that there is no one-to-one meaning, form, or other correspondence between two languages or cultures. As Quine (1960, 51–52) says, translation is marked by indeterminacy—thus the need to become an insider in both groups.

  In translation we draw upon all the emicized and random dark matter we possess to map the etic and emic of one knowledge domain, person, or society onto another. What enables this? Should it be hard or easy? In 1978, when I first read Quine’s (1960, 29ff) “gavagai problem” from his Word and Object discussion of the indeterminacy of translation, I was returning from my first field trip among the Pirahãs. The phrase I heard most frequently during that research period was tíi óogabagaí, “I almost begin to want (that),” where the most prominent phonological stretch were the morphemes gabagaí “frustrated initiation”—very similar to gavagai and, initially at least, equally inscrutable. And during this trip I had understood almost nothing, had little idea about how to arrive at any understanding of the language, and felt that learning to speak the language would forever remain beyond my ability. Quine’s example was strikingly familiar to me.

  Entering into a new culture and language precisely in order to learn them, with the larger aim of translating meanings from one culture and language (source) into the new one (target), can be one of the most daunting intellectual, personal, emotional tasks imaginable—especially when no language or culture is shared in common. Rereading Quine’s passage on exactly the problems of this sort of field situation many years later, I am struck by the contrast between the mistakes that never got made and the kinds of mistakes that frequently occurred.

  On the side of mistakes never made, however, Quine’s gavagai problem is one. In my field research on more than twenty languages—many of which involved monolingual situations (see D. Everett 2001; Sakel and Everett 2012), whenever I pointed at an object or asked “What’s that?” I always got an answer for an entire object. Seeing me point at a bird, no one ever responded “feathers.” When asked about a manatee, no one ever answered “manatee soul.” On inquiring about a child, I always got �
��child,” “boy,” or “girl,” never “short hair.”

  Why is that? According to Quine, the answers I never got might be as common as the answers that I in actuality received. In other words, Quine would say that I have no idea whether I simply missed crucial answers, whether I failed to elicit or recognize them, or not. The missing answers certainly could make sense in some of the cultures I have worked with. And in some contexts, these answers would be quite reasonable, as if I had touched a child’s head and pointed to their hair, or held a bird and grasped one of its feathers. I believe that the absence of these Quinean answers results from the fact that when one person points toward a thing, all people (that I have worked with, at least) assume that what is being asked is the name of the entire object. In fact, over the years, as I have conducted many “monolingual demonstrations,”3 I have never encountered the gavagai problem. Objects have a relative salience—whole objects (see the discussion in the previous chapter of whole objects in homesigns). This is perhaps a result of evolved perception. Perhaps animals perceive wholes before parts. If we are being threatened by a wolf, we are being threatened by the entire wolf, not merely its ears or paws or even teeth. And it is likely that the wolf sees a person-object when looking at us. We would not last very long in the wild if we saw ears without understanding that ears are part of something else, more important than its parts, that could turn out to be foe, friend, or food. Initial focus always seems to be on the whole. Perhaps this is due to biological values of hunger satisfaction, self-preservation, or the like. In any case, it seems to be what happens transculturally.4

  On the other hand, other kinds of mistakes are common. These involve easily confusable, equally plausible perceptions of situations. For example, in the Pirahã word list collected by the nineteenth-century explorer Karl von Martius, in 1821, most of the words and translations he provides are impressively accurate. Von Martius even attempted to represent tones and nasalization, before the existence of systematic phonetic representations of these features. However, he made a single translation mistake: for the form abaáti, “remain,” his translation is its antonym, “come.” He was likely with the Pirahãs as they were going to the jungle, but did not understand that the Pirahãs apparently did not want him to come with them. Aside from the humor of this nearly two-hundred-year-old misunderstanding, the nature of the problem is easy enough to comprehend—of the two a priori, equally plausible interpretations of the situation in which von Martius found himself, he assumed that he was not being left behind. As one whom the Pirahãs have also asked to stay behind on occasion, in the jungle, while they went on ahead to hunt for hours, I can agree with von Martius that this is unexpected. These kinds of elicitation errors are common, whereas the ones underscored by Quine are not.

  GENRES OF TRANSLATION

  When one is translating, the first decision to make is to decide what kind of translation one wishes to produce. One type of translation is known as “free translation.” In the lines below extracted from a Pirahã text (the full text appears in chap. 6), the first line is the vernacular, the second line the literal translation, and the third line the free translation:

  1.

  Ti

  aogií

  aipipaábahoagaí.

  Gíxai. Hai.

  I

  Braz.woman

  began to dream

  You. Hmm.

  I dreamed about Alfredo’s wife [aside to Sheldon, “you probably know her”].

  2.

  Ti

  xaí

  Xaogií

  ai

  xaagá.

  Xapipaábahoagaí.

  I

  thus.

  Braz.woman

  there

  be

  began to dream

  I was thus. The Brazilian woman was there. I began to dream.

  3.

  Xao gáxaiaiao.

  Xapipaába.

  Xao

  hi

  igía

  abaáti.

  she spoke

  dreamt

  Braz.woman

  she

  with

  remain.

  [Casimiro] dreamt. The Brazilian woman spoke. “Stay with the Brazilian woman.”

  The literal translation (the second line, non-italic, non-bold) is barely coherent from the perspective of English, since it merely uses the order and words of Pirahã, translated without trying to convey purpose, intent, and so on. The third line aims to express the meaning in natural English, even though this natural English might require words, orders, complex or simply structures, and the like, that are not found in the vernacular.

  CULTURAL FORM AND TRANSLATION

  Because of these difficulties, religions take different views on translation of their scriptures into other languages.5 Interestingly, of the two major proselytizing religions, Christianity and Islam, the Muslim view of translation is superficially the more scientifically well founded. In Islam, the prevailing doctrine is that the Quran cannot be translated. One can only make “interpretations” of it in different languages.

  As Wikipedia puts it:6

  Translations into other languages are necessarily the work of humans and so, according to Muslims, no longer possess the uniquely sacred character of the Arabic original. Since these translations necessarily subtly change the meaning, they are often called “interpretations” or “translation[s] of the meanings” (with “meanings” being ambiguous between the meanings of the various passages and the multiple possible meanings with which each word taken in isolation can be associated, and with the latter connotation amounting to an acknowledgement that the so-called translation is but one possible interpretation and is not claimed to be the full equivalent of the original).

  The good part about this idea is that it recognizes the inseparability of form and content—the Quran is not simply a content that wears different forms. No work is. It is a style, a form, cloaked in content as much as the other way around. This is poetry. It is all true art.

  Interestingly, the Islamic view overlaps with Susan Sontag’s (2013) perspective, in at least a couple of respects. In particular her agreement with Islamic views on translation in statements like (21ff): “Style and content are indissoluble . . . the strongly individual style of each important writer is an organic aspect of his work.” And also, “The notion of a style-less, transparent art is one of the most tenacious fantasies of modern culture.” “In almost every case, our manner of appearing is our manner of being. The mask is the face.” And, finally, “It is not only that styles belong to a time and a place; and that our perception of the style of a given work of art is always changed with an awareness of the work’s historicity, its place in a chronology . . . the visibility of styles is itself a product of historical consciousness.”

  Sontag has captured a deep insight here, one that still eludes many linguists, philosophers, anthropologists, and others; namely, that our living in a particular place, time, and society produces a complex network of ideas, values, styles, conventions—a particular dark matter that is responsible for creating an identity that is simultaneously form and function. Our form, or style, can include word choices, chronological or logical structuring of the stories we tell, our body-fat percentage, or—as we saw with the Dutch—even our height. This is also why there is no completely objective or completely skeptical life. None of us ever escapes the wings or the shackles of our dark matter, of the influences of the other and the symbiosis of style and substance.

  Another type of translation is what Nida (1964, 166) refers to as “dynamic equivalence” translation: “In such a translation the focus of attention is directed, not so much toward the source message, as toward the receptor response.” Dynamic translations try to produce the same perlocutionary effect in the target-language audience as was produced in the source-language audience. As unrealistic as such a goal might be, it is an interesting one and places even greater responsibility on the translator to know both the source an
d target cultures and languages well—to begin and end with each of the two emic systems involved and, however unlikely, to have one’s dark matter encompass the nuances of both systems. If the original audience was disgusted, so should the target audience be. If the passage means x to the source audience, it must mean x and not x + 1 or “more or less x” to the target audience. If the original audience believed in the miracle, so should the target audience. If the original audience felt the need to be “saved,” then so should the target audience. If the original audience cried at a particular verse of a poem so should the target audience, and so on. Using this method—or better, philosophy—of translation, one is not concerned so much with the individual words, sentence structures, and the like. One must rather understand how and why things were expressed in certain ways in the source language, and how and why to express exactly those things in the target language.

  These modes of translation—as well as talk of the emic, of dark matter, and of culture—bring us to the question of meaning, or as Ogden and Richards ([1923] 1989) put it, The Meaning of Meaning. Basically, meaning is the referent in the real world, the action desired, the theme or the object of a proposition (Soames 2010) and so on. The information that the meaning conveys is the change in the (informational, emotional, legal, physical, etc.) state in the hearer produced by the words or actions of the speaker or actor. Getting at meaning requires knowledge of language, which in turn requires knowledge of culture.