IB Theory of Knowledge Exhibition

Theme: Knowledge and Language

IA Prompt #6: How does the way that we organize or classify knowledge affect what we know?

Name: Joaquin Rafaele C. Marcelino

IB Candidate Number: 000251-0087

Word Count: 946

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Object 1: English-Tagalog Dictionary1

The Filipino dialect Tagalog, like many other

Austronesian languages, is gender neutral.2 Many of

the gendered words that are present in the modern-day

language are products of colonial influence from Spain,

China, and the United States, such as the words

kuya/ate3 or doktor/doktora.4 However, the original

gender-neutral essence of the language is preserved in its personal pronouns like siya5 and other

nouns like asawa6 and anak,7 with no gender specific word to indicate husband/wife or

son/daughter.

Because of the lack of gendered nouns or verb inflections, the way that gender is understood

in Filipino society, both in the modern-day and in pre-colonial times, highly differs from how

gender is delineated in our Western society. In the modern-day, my parents and other Filipinos

1
“Tagalog to English: Siya,” Tagalog Translate. Tagalog Translate,
https://www.tagalogtranslate.com/tl_en/22693/siya. (accessed April 22, 2021).

2
Francesca Di Garbo, Bruno Olsson, and Bernhard Wälchli, eds., Grammatical Gender and Linguistic Complexity
Volume I: General Issues and Specific Studies (Berlin: Language Science Press, 2019),
https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/223. (accessed May 10, 2021).

3
older brother/older sister; my translation.

4
doctor (masculine)/doctor (feminine); my translation.

5
he, she, it, they; my translation.

6
spouse, husband, wife; my translation.

7
child, daughter, son; my translation.
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mix up gendered nouns when speaking in English. Often when referring to a person who

identifies as a boy, they use the feminine “she”; when referring to someone who identifies as a

girl, they use the masculine “he”. In pre-colonial times, Filipino societal structures differ from

societal structures today because of the past centuries of foreign influence. Filipino society was

widely accepting of women in positions of power, non-heterosexuality, and had a concept of a

third gender, bakla, which exists today but is often mistranslated as “gay”.

Including the dictionary in this exhibition shows how different societies categorize and

understand gender, differently. For people who speak gender neutral languages, gendered

delineations in language, gendered syntax, and grammar rules are often difficult to comprehend.

Gender neutrality in language affects the way that societies view gender roles, or lack thereof,

and the acceptance of fluidity in gender and sexuality, in contrast with Western ideals of

heteronormativity and the segregation of binary gender roles.

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Object 2: First Simplified Chinese Characters8

The simplified character system was implemented by the

Chinese Communist Party during the Cultural Revolution in order to

raise literacy rates amongst the general population and to break away

from the traditions of the past. Hundreds of Chinese characters were

fused together or reduced in number of strokes or radicals9 through the

usage of “print” versions of the traditional cursive forms,10 deletion of certain components, or the

creation of entirely new characters. Mainland China, Malaysia, and Singapore use simplified

Chinese, but Hong Kong, Macau, the Republic of China,11 and most diaspora communities still

use traditional Chinese.12

The simplification of the Chinese characters changed characters’ aesthetics, phonetic

correlations, and personal understandings of the semantics of characters in individual

8
“Dì yī pī jiǎntǐzì biǎo 第一批简体字表” [The First Batch of Simplified Chinese Characters Table], Bǎidù bǎikē
百度百科. Bǎidù 百度, https://baike.baidu.com/item/第一批简体字表. (accessed April 22, 2021).

9
Kangxi radicals are components of Chinese characters, which are either characters themselves or morphed versions
of characters, that contribute to some deeper meaning of the character or provide phonetic markers. An example of a
whole character as a radical would be character xīn 心 (heart) which can be found in the bottom of the word liàn 戀
(love). An example of a morphed version of a character as a radical of another character would be the morphed
version of 心, which is 忄, which can be found on the left side of qíng 情 (passion).

10
An example of this would be how the traditional zhuān 專 (specific to) was simplified to zhuān 专 (specific to);
the simplified version is highly similar to how the traditional version would be written in a more cursive, artistic
form.

11
Taiwan.

12
Traditional Chinese refers to the Chinese characters before simplification. They are referred to as either fántǐzì 繁
體字 (complex form characters) or zhèngtǐzì 正體字 (standard/orthodox form characters); the latter is how the
government of Taiwan officially recognizes traditional Chinese characters.
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components. Meanings and pronunciations became ambiguous due to the fusion of certain

characters: both 發 and 髮 were both simplified to 发; its meaning and pronunciation only

becomes apparent when used in phrases like 头发 and 出发.13 Phonetic correlations differ

between communities of simplified-users and traditional-users as entire characters changed: 華 is

simplified to 华 to form the phonetic correlation to 化.14 As semantic components are simplified,

deeper meanings in characters are lost to simplification: 愛 is simplified to 爱. The middle

component of 愛 is 心, which symbolizes that the heart is the center of love, whereas 爱 loses

that component making the bottom half of the character 友.15 Entire radicals were also

simplified, making the connection to the radicals’ “regular” character form to their radical form

in a character harder to recognize. 言 is found as a radical in numerous words such as 謝, where

the radical component on the left is very similar to its regular character form; however, the

correlation becomes more ambiguous through simplification as 謝 turns to 谢.16

Including this in the exhibition shows how the structure of our writing systems affects the

way we correlate meanings and recognize phonetic patterns. Since I am already familiar with

13
fā 發 (to send out); fà (Taiwan pronunciation: fǎ) 髮 (hair); fā/fà (Taiwan pronunciation: fǎ) 发 (to send out; hair);
tóufà (or tóufǎ) 头发 (hair on one’s head); chūfā 出发 (to set off on a journey); my translation.

14
huá/huà/huā 華 (magnificent; China; flower); huá/huà/huā 华 (magnificent; China; flower); huà/huā 化 (to
change; to spend); my translation.

15
ài 愛 (love); ài 爱 (love); xīn 心 (heart); yǒu 友 (friend); my translation.

16
yán 言 (language); xiè 謝 (to thank; to wither); xiè 谢 (to thank; to wither); my translation. The radical 訁 in 謝
changes to 讠 in 谢.
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traditional, learning simplified in IB Mandarin Chinese has made me notice the differences

between how the teacher tried to correlate meanings to the characters and draw similarities in

character components and how I was taught when I was younger with traditional Chinese. This

difference in the understanding of the Chinese language between simplified Chinese and

traditional Chinese-users exacerbates the idea that the structure of written language affects the

way we understand semantics.

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Object 3: IsiXhosa Clicks17

Xhosa is one of the various languages spoken in South Africa. While the language does use

a Latin alphabet, much like the one we use in English, its phonics are very different from

English. Xhosa, like many African languages, involves “click” sounds. The sounds that we

associate to certain Latin letters are thus very different from the sounds that Xhosa speakers

attribute to the same Latin letters.

Xhosa includes three basic clicks that are associated with the letters C, X, and Q. English

speakers may look at these letters and immediately try to pronounce them similar to how they are

pronounced in the words “cool”, “xylophone”, and “queen”. However, these are far from the

Xhosa pronunciation of these words. The C is a click sound similar to a “tsk” sound; the X is a

distinctive click made by clicking the tongue on the side of the mouth; and the Q is similar to a

17
Travis W. Perry, “African Ecology: IsiXhosa,” Conservation Ecology: Department of Biology | Furman
University. Furman University, http://facweb.furman.edu/~perrytravis/courses/bio39/Academics/Isixhosa/
pronunciation.html. (accessed May 25, 2021).
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tongue pop. The difference in these sounds can be exemplified in the word Xhosa or in

Qongqothwane.18

This adds to the exhibition by exemplifying the various ways that different phonic systems

can be understood and classified. In different cultures and societies, language phonic sets can be

so strikingly different as one has sounds that the other may have never regarded as being able to

be considered language. The way our phonics is organized thus changes the way that we

understand what language can be comprised of and how we read its scripts.

18
Qongqothwane is the title of a popular South African song that is widely known to English speakers as the “Click
Song”.
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Bibliography

Di Garbo, Francesca, Bruno Olsson, and Bernhard Wälchli, eds. Grammatical Gender and
Linguistic Complexity Volume I: General Issues and Specific Studies. Berlin: Language
Science Press, 2019. https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/223. (accessed May 10, 2021).

“Dì yī pī jiǎntǐzì biǎo 第一批简体字表” [The First Batch of Simplified Chinese Characters
Table]. Bǎidù bǎikē 百度百科. Bǎidù 百度, https://baike.baidu.com/item/第一批简体字表.
(accessed April 22, 2021).

Perry, Travis W. “African Ecology: IsiXhosa,” Conservation Ecology: Department of Biology |

Furman University. Furman University.
http://facweb.furman.edu/~perrytravis/courses/bio39/Academics/Isixhosa/
pronunciation.html. (accessed May 25, 2021).

“Tagalog to English: siya.” Tagalog Translate. Tagalog Translate.

https://www.tagalogtranslate.com/tl_en/22693/siya. (accessed April 22, 2021).