Understanding the Unspoken
A Brief Discussion of Lahir / Batin
The significance of non-verbal communication has been studied for at least a century. Related issues include: the notion that meaning is sometimes “understood” without being verbalized; the realization that a lot of communication is echoic (e.g., rote memorization, rumor, folk etymology); and the recognition that language follows rules which often cannot be verbalized.
The dual aspect of knowledge was explained by Michael Polanyi using the dichotomous terms explicit / tacit. For example, after settling in a place, finding one's home becomes a form of tacit knowledge that one performs without thinking. However, giving directions to a friend may prove difficult, whether one articulates the explicit route verbally (words) or visually (a map).
Karl-Erik Sveiby explored the complementarity of tacit and explicit, stating that “humans have a huge capacity to absorb signals unconsciously in face-to-face communication” and noting that we can recall the meaning of a message after reading it, even though we rarely remember the exact words.
https://www.sveiby.com/files/pdf/transferofknowledge.pdf
Literacy involves converting explicit knowledge into tacit knowledge, a process of routinization not innovation. When we learn to read, our focus is on the shapes of individual characters; but after we become literate, the alphabet is subsidiary to the act of reading a sentence. If we encounter an unfamiliar word and choose to look it up, we flip from subsidiary awareness back to focal.
In Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, Noam Chomsky pointed out:
“Obviously, every speaker of a language has mastered and internalized a generative grammar that expresses his knowledge of his language. This is not to say that he is aware of the rules of the grammar or even that he can become aware of them, or that his statements about his intuitive knowledge of the language are necessarily accurate. Any interesting generative grammar will be dealing, for the most part, with mental processes that are far beyond the level of actual or even potential consciousness; furthermore, it is quite apparent that a speaker's reports and viewpoints about his behavior and his competence may be in error. Thus a generative grammar attempts to specify what the speaker actually knows, not what he may report about his knowledge.”
When I studied Japanese in the 1980s, the textbook explained a subtle aspect of omitting “understood” actions that contrasted with English. The book gave an example of 3 actions where English and Japanese each express only 2, and not the same 2 (brackets indicate the omitted action).
In English, one would say:
Go to the store and buy some milk [and bring it back].
In Japanese, one would say the equivalent of:
[Go to the store and] buy some milk and bring it back.
A more humorous example happened last year when I bought something from a horticultural supplies store here in Central Java. One of the two women who own the store gave me some new banknotes in change. I quipped, “Did you print these yourself?” She laughingly replied, “Yes, I printed and cut them.”
The joke “print them yourself” has been part of casual banter in the US for years, but the component action of cutting the sheet of newly printed money is omitted. It is widely understood that paper money is printed in sheets.
Beyond generative grammar and tacit knowledge, we can find general dichotomies of behavior recognized in various cultures. In Japan, there is a distinction between uchi (home) and soto (outside). It is acceptable to push strangers into a subway car in order to get on board, because that is soto, but it is unacceptable to physically force people whom one has invited into one’s home (uchi).
In Indonesia, a somewhat overlapping distinction is called lahir (outward, manifest) and batin (inner, arcane), derived from the Arabic terms zahir and batin. The complementary pair in Indonesian is often translated as exoteric/esoteric when referring to spirituality: kebatinan = inner knowledge.
In his landmark book Durga’s Mosque, the anthropologist Stephen Headley explained that a Javanese house is constructed with an exterior “visitor space” (ruang tamu = lahir) and an interior “sleeping space” (ruang tidur = batin). Relationships with guests are formalized with many euphemisms and social niceties, while honest feelings can be expressed among family members within the inner parts of the home. The physical spaces and their social uses reflect the complementarity of lahir and batin.
I will refer to the lahir/batin distinction occasionally in future posts.