What you will get from this article

The answer first. For Saussure language (spoken speech) and writing are two separate sign systems. The only reason writing exists is to represent language. What linguistics studies is not the combination of written and spoken word but the spoken word alone. Yet writing quietly seizes the leading role, and Saussure warned against it.

Quotations are from the 1916 French original (Introduction, chapter 6, §2). English renderings are ToL’s.

The original text

In the chapter’s first section Saussure admits that linguists in practice know most languages through writing. In the second he takes up writing’s “prestige.”

Langue et écriture sont deux systèmes de signes distincts ; l’unique raison d’être du second est de représenter le premier ; l’objet linguistique n’est pas défini par la combinaison du mot écrit et du mot parlé ; ce dernier constitue à lui seul cet objet. Mais le mot écrit se mêle si intimement au mot parlé dont il est l’image, qu’il finit par usurper le rôle principal ; on en vient à donner autant et plus d’importance à la représentation du signe vocal qu’à ce signe lui-même. C’est comme si l’on croyait que, pour connaître quelqu’un, il vaut mieux regarder sa photographie que son visage.

ToL translation Language and writing are two distinct systems of signs; the sole reason for the existence of the second is to represent the first. The linguistic object is not defined by the combination of the written word and the spoken word; the latter alone constitutes that object. But the written word mixes so intimately with the spoken word of which it is the image that it ends by usurping the principal role; one comes to give as much importance, or more, to the representation of the vocal sign as to that sign itself. It is as if one believed that, to know someone, it is better to look at their photograph than at their face.

Cette illusion a existé de tout temps, et les opinions courantes qu’on colporte sur la langue en sont entachées. Ainsi l’on croit communément qu’un idiome s’altère plus rapidement quand l’écriture n’existe pas : rien de plus faux. L’écriture peut bien, dans certaines conditions, ralentir les changements de la langue, mais inversement, sa conservation n’est nullement compromise par l’absence d’écriture. Le lituanien, qui se parle encore aujourd’hui dans la Prusse orientale et une partie de la Russie, n’est connu par des documents écrits que depuis 1540 ; mais à cette époque tardive, il offre, dans l’ensemble, une image aussi fidèle de l’indo-européen que le latin du IIIe siècle avant Jésus-Christ. Cela seul suffit pour montrer combien la langue est indépendante de l’écriture.

ToL translation This illusion has existed at all times, and the common opinions hawked about language are tainted by it. Thus it is commonly believed that a language alters more quickly when writing does not exist: nothing could be more false. Writing may, under certain conditions, slow the changes of a language, but conversely its preservation is in no way endangered by the absence of writing. Lithuanian, still spoken today in East Prussia and part of Russia, has been known through written documents only since 1540; yet at that late date it offers, on the whole, as faithful an image of Indo-European as Latin of the third century before Christ. That alone suffices to show how independent language is of writing.

Commentary 1: what does “separate system” mean?

Saussure’s claim splits into two.

  1. Writing is a separate sign system, with conventions and rules of its own.
  2. Its only reason for existing is to represent language: writing is an “image” of spoken speech.

From this follows the stance that the object of linguistics is the spoken word. This is a methodological choice of the Course, not the claim that writing is unimportant. In the preceding section he says linguists know many languages only through writing, and even for their mother tongue rely on documents at every turn, so they must know writing’s “usefulness, defects and dangers.”

Commentary 2: the “photograph and face” analogy

The analogy is: to know someone, you decide it is better to look at a photograph than at the face. A photograph is handy and looks accurate, but it is a stand-in; the face is the original.

The psychology it points to is probably this: writing fixes speech in a visible form, so it looks stable and certain. Speech flows and vanishes; writing stays. So “the written form” starts to feel like the “correct shape” of the word.

Commentary 3: testing the illusion

English spelling is good for testing it, because spelling and sound often disagree. (The following are ToL’s examples.)

SpellingSoundMismatch
“knight”/naɪt/the k and gh are written but not pronounced
“though,” “through,” “tough”three different vowels/endingsone spelling “-ough,” many sounds
“to,” “too,” “two”same soundthree spellings, one sound

Spelling changes more slowly than sound, so gaps open between them, many of them survivals of earlier pronunciations.

Here Saussure’s point bites. Someone who feels that “too” and “two” must somehow sound different, because they look different, is falling into the illusion that a distinction in writing is a distinction in sound. The pronunciation draws no such line, but the spelling does, so a difference is imagined. That is one instance of taking the photograph for the face.

Commentary 4: is language really unstable without writing?

In the second paragraph Saussure rejects the common belief that an unwritten language quickly deteriorates: “nothing could be more false.”

His evidence is Lithuanian. No written records exist before 1540, yet at that late date it preserved an old Indo-European form as faithfully as third-century BC Latin.

Two things follow.

(The reasons language changes seen in the previous article are also on a different plane from writing.)

Commentary 5: using this stance, and its limits

Where it helps. When learning a foreign language or dialect, relying on spelling in your own alphabet drags your pronunciation toward your mother tongue. Respelling a Japanese word in English letters can hide actual sound differences. This is a familiar application of the warning that writing takes the lead from sound. (ToL’s application.)

Not saying too much. Two cautions.

Summary

Next