Dialect Geography and Social Science Problems

A LTHOUGH linguistics is one of the most rapidly developing of the social sciences, its position among them is not generally recognized, either by the layman, by the other social scientists, or even by some of the linguists themselves. The concealment of this relationship is due to several circumstances, not the least of which is the traditional modesty of science, which too often contents itself with recording and measuring, and leaves to others the derivation of broad conclusions from its findings. But perhaps the most important block in the way of fully understanding the proper position of linguistics is that the teaching of language in our compartmentalized university curricula is almost exclusively done by departments of literatureEnglish, Romance, Germanic, Slavic, and the like. English grammar is taught as a tool to enable the student to write acceptable literary essays; French or German or Russian grammar, as a tool to prepare the student for reading Les Miserables or Faust or Anna Karenina. These ends are not unworthy in themselves, but the emphasis upon them in our academic system prevents students from realizing that the command of a language is necessary not only for facile reading and fluent conversation but for the understanding of the culture in which the language is spoken. And the historical connection and superficial resemblances between the IndoEuropean languages most commonly taught in our universities often leads students to lose sight of basic differences in the grammatical systems of these languages-to say nothing of the existence in other societies of varying types of grammatical structure, as well as the types which we are accustomed to associate with the languages of Western Europe. The great advances in the techniques of linguistics as a science have come since it became recognized as a social science by the anthropologists of the BoasSapir school. When the study of American Indian languages and cultures was systematically undertaken, it was soon discovered that just as the patterns of Indian culture could not be scientifically appraised by assuming the categories of Western European civilization as the norm from which everything else was a deviant type, so the sound-types and grammatical categories of American Indian languages could not be appraised by assuming as universally normal the patterns of pronunciation and grammar found in Indo-European languages. From this realization came the beginnings of modern linguistics as a descriptive science, with the grammar of each language worked out according to the observations of trained field workers without distortion by the patterns of the field worker's native language.' Along with this advance in linguistic techniques came the realization by cultural anthropologists that language is the medium through which the cultural relationships of a people are expressed, and that without the knowledge of linguistic principles by which an understanding of the native language may be attained, the anthropologist can attain only the most superficial description of a culture. The way in which cultural patterns and attitudes are reflected in the language of the culture has been pointed out by many linguists-perhaps most brilliantly in the articles on Hopi by the late Benjamin L. Whorf.2 lt has been experienced by the linguists who prepared the textbooks on Far Eastern languages for the War Department and by the students who learned those languages. But it can also be found in the English language as spoken in various parts of the United States. Leaving out the