Umwelt

What is "Umwelt?"

Definition

Umwelt is the world as it is experienced by a particular organism. That specific organism's perception or view of the world. Not only that, but what their world actually is. Each organism has their own umwelt, defined by their biological makeup down to their experiences, which shape them, to their environment, which molds them.

It originated from the German word "umwelt" which means "environment" or "surroundings." "Umwelt" in turn is from the root word "welt." The plural of umwelt is umwelten. According to Sebeok, the more complex definition would be "biological foundation that lie at the very epicenter of the study of both communication and signification in the human and the animal."

A term also mainly used in semiotics, under zoosemiotics and anthrosemiotics; umwelt is focused on the interpretation of signs, not the communication of such.

Authors

Jakob von Uexküll was a biologist from the olden Baltic Germany, and he lived from 1864 - 1944. He was the one who wrote about the Umwelt, and was what he was known for. Through his writings, he established biosemiotics as a field of research. Umwelt was conceptualised under biosemiotics before it was applied anywhere else.

Thomas Sebeok was a polymath American semiotician and linguist, born 1920 in Hungary and as Hungarian, and died 2001. 

Umwelt und Innenwelt der Tiere

Uexküll wrote Umwelt und Innenwelt der Tiere, when translated directly into English, means Environment and Inner World of Animals. In this book, he writes and theorises about umwelt in length.