Human vocal cords are capable of producing a very large ( but not un-
limited ) number of sounds of varying range in wavelength and frequency.
As these sounds are to be distinguishable to the human ear, the number
of acceptable sounds in a particular language get still more limited. When
combined together into bunches, these provide a very large number of sound
options available for humans to communicate with. Every language however
chooses from amongst these large number of options to decide upon a few
acceptable ones. Thus a limited number of sound combinations are chosen in
a language to provide them with meaning and then the social group enforces
their usage.
Clearly to start with a child has several options. It starts to make various
sounds, experiments with them and relishes in them. But to survive and
to be able to communicate with others it learns that only a few sounds are
acceptable to the social group that it belongs to. So, if a child insists on
calling a cat a ”dog” and a dog a ’’cat” it soon learns to use the proper
acceptable sound when it has to inform its parents as to whether it was a
dog or a cat that bit him. A ’’rose” in English and ’’gulab” in Hindi or Urdu
are different words for the same object. But the associations they are meant
to convey are significant in those languages. Sound and its association is an
arbitrary property of a particular language. Clearly cultural and sociological
factors determine as to how a particular language develops.
Note that within the periphery of a particular language a sound which
does not fall within the acceptable category is considered gibberish. For each
acceptable sound in a language there are clearly many more gibberish sounds.
Thus the range of gibberish sounds outside any language is much larger than
that of acceptable sounds in the language.
The above statements are supported by the following definitions of lan-
guage. Noam Chomsky defines it thus, ” A language is a set ( finite or infinite
) of sentences each finite in length and constructed out of a finite set of ele-
ments” ( Chomsky(1957) ). Also as per Trager, ” A language is a system of
arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which the members of a society interact
in terms of their ” total culture ” ( Trager(1949) ).
Just as English is the language of residents of London and Hindi or Urdu
is of those residing in Delhi, mathematics is the language of scientists. And
as the scientists when using mathematics are communicating about nature,
mathematics turns out to be the language of nature.
The fact that mathematics is the language of nature has been known to