Endolinguistics

Endolinguistics is an abstract psycholinguistic theory that holds there exists a subconscious "inner language" in all users of language, with certain consequences for ethics and linguistic morphology. The idea was proposed by the Beligian linguists Dr. Joseph A. Ellias and Dr. Christiane Meulemans.

The theory

Cosmic vision

The Endolinguistic theory (Endolingüística in Spanish) posits that everyone has a possibly DNA-derived "cosmic vision" (cosmovisión) of language. (This may be related to the proposed language module of the brain.) This vision lends itself to a type of Socratic ethical guideline that is bound to the language they use, defining a wisdom accumulated by generosity and the following of one's principles. This might be compared to Noam Chomsky's theory that humans have an innate Universal Grammar, containing the underpinnings for grammatical rules in all languages.

imultaneaous teaching of different languages

Meulemans and Elias suggest that simultaneous teaching of different languages can be successful using an "endolinguistic" approach, involving viewing a language from the "inside"- reliant on a more intuitive and "natural" process, before teaching by analysis of the language's elements.

Morphology

Their work compares and contrasts the structures of different languages to show the surprising continuity between words of different language families from Indo-European to Turkish or Amerindian languages. The languages are viewed musically, by focusing on the tone of each language, defined as the rhythm and the intonation, as an explanation of phonetic changes.

When language-translation processes are analyzed within a single language, this is called "endolinguistic translation".

External links

* [http://www.fundacionmeulemans.org/m1_3_endolinguistica.html Endolinguistics page at the Dr. J. Meulemans Foundation web site (Spanish)]

Further reading

*Studies in Language Origins, Volume 1, Glossogenesis in endolinguistic and exolinguistic perspective: Palaeoanthropological data, Éric de Grolier