In the Beginning was Information

(tongo), or from the same level (bano). In a mountainous country thesedistinctions are very meaningful, but they would not be required in theNetherlands. The Nepalese have five different words for “mountain”which indicate various altitudes. This language also has an extensivevocabulary for describing family relationships; not only do they distinguishbetween paternal and maternal lines, but they also encompass variousage groups. There are four different words for “we”, indicating forexample whether the addressed person is included or not, and they alsodifferentiate between many persons and two only.In Sunba sentences a single sound is included which has no inherent meaning,but indicates how the person who is talking, acquired the information.This caused problems until the Wycliffe missionary involved discovered thatit meant that the person either experienced it personally, or was relatingsomething which he had heard. This usage is important for Bible translation,since the Bible writers usually report personal experiences.Approximately one-third of all languages on earth are tonal. This meansthat the same word expressed with a change of pitch (or pitch contour)carries a different meaning. With some tonal languages, when writtendown, the pitch contour is indicated. To do this it would conceivably bepossible to employ musical notation, but this would be too cumbersomefor daily use. In any case, in tonal languages it is not the absolute pitchwhich is important, but the correct change in pitch (pitch contour) whenone pronounces individual syllables. Most tonal languages use from twoto six pitch contours, which may be indicated by a superscript behind eachsyllable (see block 7 in Table 2), or by using accent marks as in French.Tonal languages are found in and around China, and also in Africa andAmerica. We often find tonal and nontonal languages in close proximity,but often there is no indication of a “family tree of languages”.Metaphysical ideas can be expressed exceptionally well in the Amerindianlanguage Hopi, while an ephemeral state cannot be formulated abstractly inthe Indo-Germanic languages. For example, the word “run” usually elicitsthe questions: where?, whence?, or whither? But to describe the essence ofrunning, we require combinations like “running as such”, or “simply running”.In the Hopi language a single suffix is appended for such a purpose.We should not regard the Amerindian languages as primitive in the lightof the following important statements about them [O4]:210“As counted in 1940, there are about 150 Indian languages which havenothing in common with the European linguistic heritage. Their vocabulariesare enormous and their grammar indicates that the gruntingnoises made by Indians in western movies are far removed from their