 |
The Hard Lexicon, photo Alamy
|
There aren't many who share with me The Language of Smell
search results.
Zoologist Robert Burton wrote a book mostly about insect olfaction back in the 70’s. But the owner
of the majority of the search-result volume goes to Dr. Asifa Majid and
her work on the language of olfaction.
She studies people native to the lands of the Bay of
Bengal. These people are very different from the post-industrial person in many
ways, the most salient of which, for Majid at least, is in their “olfactory
vocabulary”.
Unlike the post-industrial citizen, these people have a
rich lexicon by which they can identify the odorous information surrounding
them. Via Majid, these peoples are also the quintessential rebuttal to the
argument that there is no such thing as a “language of smell”. And I couldn't
be more disheartened every time I hear it.
I write here in the utmost respect for Dr. Majid, her
work, and the people she studies. She is, after all, the only person known to
be pursuing this distinct line of inquiry with such precision, so her
contributions are much appreciated. I will not go so far to say that we are
wrong in saying that these people are living proof of a working language for
olfactive experience, only that the devil is in the details. So let us begin
this exercise of relative measurement; I'll cut to the easiest point.
The people in question do not use language in the same
way as the scientists studying with them, and so the very word “language” must
be clearly defined. Here’s a reminder: in conducting linguistic studies upon
many indigenous people, the first thing the intrepid scientist must do is to
explain what a word is. That's right, the very concept of the sentence as
constructed of simpler words is very unfamiliar if not unknown to certain
cultures, and must be painstakingly explained before any “studying” can take
place.
I ask the reader – if the Sigma Aldrich chemical catalog
for flavors and fragrance ingredients describes 1000 molecules using 3000
descriptors all of which occur as single words, and yet the group of people in
question do not even have words, how can we begin to make comparisons between
their olfactory lexicon and that of a common Westerner?
I insinuate not even a whisper of Whorf
hypothesis in this: A common Westerner of the 21st century spends
a great deal of time in the virtual mindspace, very much removed from the
physical environment, very much interacting not with molecules but with
thoughts. There is an interstitial space which exists between the person and
the world, and this is the collective mindspace of culture.
The post-industrialized human does not perform in a cycle
of environmental stimulus and bodily response, but separates the two in time,
opening a place for reflection and deliberation. Subjectively-conscious, self-reflective
thought interrupts our direct connection with the world around us. Furthermore,
systems functioning only via chemical stimuli are de-prioritized for others
better suited to simulation and virtual manipulation.
The rich olfactory vocabulary of Majid’s study groups, is
it not an indication of the direct reliance upon their physical environment?
Instead of it proving that there can be such a thing as a ‘language of smell’,
does it not further support that the two – olfaction and language – are mutually
exclusive? I believe this is a case of apples and oranges, but because the
subject matter straddle disciplines (psychology, linguistics, sensory studies)
it evades such critical analysis.
Post Script
readings from Primitive Mentality
Lucien Levy-Bruhl, 1923, trans 1966
No comments:
Post a Comment