Please excuse the use of verbal communication throughout this post.
Last night, while training home with some friends after watching an incredible performance of classical guitar at a coffee shop in a suburb, it was somehow decided that it would be interesting to hang out with friends while not using verbal communication. I believe this was inspired by Jordan’s comment, “Man, I wish you guys didn’t speak English.” He seemed to feel that our not speaking the same language would help him achieve insanity, which is definitely one of his most solid goals in life.
We discussed the terms of the experiment while walking to get something to eat. We pledged that once we’d procured 40s and ‘za, the experiment would commence. (While we naturally wanted to start it as early as possible, we thought it’d be inexcusably rude to try to order food without using words.) It was decided that sounds were legal, but referencing any phonemes already existing in any established language (of which any of us had knowledge) was not.
There was much debate surrounding the use of gesticulations. Ultimately it was agreed that while nearly every physical gesture is culturally constructed and therefore constitutive of language, a high degree of abstraction of which would imply associations with verbal communication, certain gesticulates should be made legal, as we did not trust ourselves to avoid them: squinting to convey lack of comprehension; a widening of the eyes to mean surprise; and of course nodding of the head to mean “yes” and shaking to mean “no.”
What surprised me about the experiment is how fluidly we four were able to communicate with each other. I made a your-mom joke, and everyone got it—and we were all stunned at how that was possible. A few hours into the evening, I expressed to one friend that our rapidly codifying system of grunts and gestures was for all intents and purposes identical to our regular spoken language. In other words, it didn’t end up feeling much like an experiment at all, once we got into it. We realized that the next step was to attempt to hang out with no verbal communication, and no nonverbal communication.
Naturally that’s a concept we can approach only asymptotically at best, but I’m intrigued at the chance to try. Somehow I’d expected that the language experiment we ran last night would test my motives to hang out with my friends; for example, if we can’t talk to each other, what else is there? What do we do? But talk we could, because, as it turns out, most of the meaning we have of each other is assumed and might reside within ourselves.
We even renamed each other.
So, I feel I’ve learned a lot about how languages evolve. It was like a crash course in memetics. I highly recommend the experiment to anyone at all curious about communication theory, or merely who’s introspective. Maybe someday I can impose it on a class during a 3-hour session. That would be fun.
very interesting dude, sounds like a good time, yet challenging. I would love to see a nonverbal your mom joke haha. your writing still amazes me, it’s very good.
The next day, I more or less forgot what we had done. I recalled speaking even though we obviously hadn’t. I do think we succeeding in driving him one step closer to insanity. I’m sure that one day he’ll get there.
Getting Jordan to drink from the goblet of madness is generally as simple as tossing a soggy napkin in his direction. So I think it’s safe to say that we’ll definitely drive him totally insane, and soon.
I’m still interested in seeing how far we can pare down our communication. Obviously just by being in the same room we’ll be communicating to some degree, but nixing grunts and gestures might be interesting (and more maddening).
Can one gesticulate the interjection, “Dude?”
How can you have only 3 responses on one of the deepest things anyone has written about language in the last 20–500 years?
I’m guessing at the year range, because I have not yet done the google scholar search…
Express love with no words. Duh, it’s actions. Loving actions before they have become codified into units of meaning that can be symoblized, before that, they still remain actions done for the good of the other…
Now, try expressing music with no sound. All you get is dance. Not bad that, but it makes you wonder what it sounds like….
By the way, Google Scholar sucks at anything written 500 years ago!
Half way through the experiment, it dawned on me that this wasn’t that much different than a normal Friday night, other than Nick grunting more than usual.
Would be interesting to do it in a group of people one doesn’t know nearly as well, as even if we communicate something between us, we’re also passing it through our knowledge of the person and our previous 5 years together. Trying to do something like this with a stranger? Okay, then I might go insane.
You may have avoided known phonemes, but gestures and inflection already constitute more of “spoken language” than we realize. I’m impressed that you managed a “your mother” joke, but not surprised that the experiment was largely successful.
@Jordan: I definitely agree that we didn’t have to do much genuine communicating, because most of our meanings were assumed. That was a neat thing to realize about our friendship, but also a little spooky, in that we don’t have to talk, we just kind of “get” each other.
Also, one thing I totally should have talked more about in the post is musicality. It was weird to hear familiar chord progressions. For the first time ever, in my head I filled int he vocal melody without the lyrics. it was just notes. Somehow the immersion was that immediate and total that I didn’t hunger for the words. I never expected that, to be sure.