2.5.3 expression of language, 1.5.3 biopsychology

Q: It has been emphasized that the sounds used in language originate in human biopsychology. What about the structure of grammar? Is there some deep brain wiring or other factors that make certain features of grammatical structure innate?

The brain is a physical manifestation of the mind. You must remember that the outermost kos'a appears to be physical to the entities of this world, but is merely formed of the condensation of mind. So it is the most condensed form of mind with the most influence of tamaguna. Now, when the mind has configured in this external physical structure, it can find expression in the physical world. The patterns of the synapses represent the workings of the subtle mind in the physical world. So it is the outermost layer of the mind.

You know, when the baby is young, it will say, "baba, baba, mama, mama, tata, tata". It will make these basic sounds in all cultures, does it not? So when the child is very small, it will begin to make the basic sounds before language is learned. And so one may say that these basic sounds are universal, are a part of the functioning of the brain. But they become individualized as the child begins to learn a specific language, and they then are limited to the expressions of that language. But the capacity for language is innate. It is a part of the brain function of a fully developed human being.

Now, whether the person will make certain intonations becomes governed by the culture and language of that particular time and place. Innately, the capacity is very wide. Many sounds and intonations can be made by the human structure. But that structure develops in a particular time and place in which certain configurations of sound will be utilized and other configurations, other intonations and patterns, will have no meaning within the language of that particular place. Thus, when the baby begins to learn the spoken word, they will drop those sounds which they find appear to have no significance to those around them. Soon they will forget those sounds altogether. The capacity to make sounds is there in the baby and there in the adult also, but the adult has not learned to form those sounds. They have forgotten at a very early age. So when they go to learn another very different language it is very hard for them. Yet all the sounds are natural to the human being. The repertoire is indeed wired into the brain pattern and into the vocal patterns, and so many sounds can be made. But when language is learned, the baby will limit what it says, what it intonates, to what is acceptable and what it gets a response to from the people around him or her.

Now, the language of the child is very different from the language of the adult. The child will make many sounds that are not produced by adults. But as the child grows and the child learns what is proper and what is not proper, what may be said and what may not be said, the child will only make those sounds which it finds fitting and acceptable. Thus the child learns the language of the land.

Now, the particular patterns of the grammatical structure are developed through a combination of environmental circumstance and necessity. The human brain and vocal system has the capacity for many intonations, sounds and patterns and has preference for certain patterns. The baby will say the basic syllables, "ba, ba, da, da, ma, ma". It will say them naturally; no one needs to teach the baby this. It will just say because it is inherent in the vocal system and brain patterns to make these sounds.

So the fundamentals of language are indeed inherent within the structure of the human being. You have a kind of machine that has certain capacity. It is inherent in the machine that it may do these things. The human brain, the human vocal system, has a certain language capacity which is wider than any language in use, but it adapts to the environment and necessity. So the baby may make so many sounds in so many patterns that are natural, inherent in it's brain function and it's potentiality, but when it finds that milk will only come when it says "milk" or "mama", then it will isolate these sounds. These sounds and these patterns will be made but the other patterns will not.

What I am saying is that the fundamental structure of language is inherent in the human being, in the structure of the human body. The way it expresses is environmentally conditioned so that the grammatical patterns of different languages are indeed based upon the biological potentialities of the human mind and body, but their particular configurations are a collection of environmentally selected and adjusted formations.