George Orwell seems to have taken the "strong" version of Whorf's idea to heart in the writing of 1984, where those in control want to make it impossible to think certain thoughts. Another influence on Orwell seems to be a movement called Basic English, which sought to simplify language to make it easier to understand. Also, recent discussions I've come across on the web featuring cultists reveal a paucity of vocabulary on their part so that they can only work from scripts to present their ideas. When faced with contrary views or evidence, they simply go back to their memorized or written text. So it does seem that a very limited word bank places a limit on what people can think. And that's within their own language. On the contrary, I've studied (with various degrees of depth) seven languages. Here and there I've picked up expressions that I think are either not directly available (one-to-one) or not as euphonious. Although I'm a native speaker of English, I'm apt to say "Na, und?" when someone proposes something preposterous. Or "Mince alors!" when I need an expletive in polite company. My French father-in-law loved "deuxieme planche" when he heard/saw it in Quebec City. Personally, I like Listopada from Polish and "Chu y!" from Vietnamese. In Japan, the color for the "green" traffic light is "ao," which is also blue. After I learned that expression, I sometimes kept looking at the light after it changed rather than driving on! I started to see blue instead of green. (This is good for me, because I'm red/green colorblind.) And so on. None of these languages, however, has made it impossible for me understand people's meanings in daily conversation. In literature, where metaphors are more explicitly marked, there are problems galore. In the end, I tend to side with Mark Baker (Atoms of Language) who notes that languages are commensurable; if they weren't we couldn't learn another.
I am not sure if the speakers are comparing languages or cultures... Their topic is language but they are comparing cultures... They can't separate language from cultures while they are speaking about language but their talk includes no reference to culture...as if language is independent of the culture of its speakers...
Indeed. It is tricky to separate language (which is a human faculty, but also a cultural artefact) from other aspects of culture, but which are not incorporated into the language faculty/faculties.
You could test a high level L2 Japanese speaker that lives in Japan with someone who has never or rarely been to Japan but can speak Japanese. It's quite obvious that the person who lives in Japan would have a much larger knowledge of Japanese culture. A simple question like ''So how much does the milk cost in Japan?'' or ''What was the weather like today?'' or ''Who do you want to win the election?'' would confuse the person that has never or rarely been to Japan. This can only be tested if we separate the culture of the l2 language. Maybe a teacher living in Japan vs a student studying Japanese in America. Therefore the ''view of the world'' is because one guy has lived in Japan for 20 years and the other lives another America. Ironically you could probably ask the American teacher some questions about his hometown and he would not know.
So, are they saying that one view believes your speaking language shapes your thought and perception while another view believes language has impact to thought and perception on an unleveled biasness?
What of the grammar of gender affecting the way people see the world? E.g. the experiment of Germans vs. Spanish native speakers in how they view various things that have different grammatical gender. This would rebut a bit Pullum's claim that grammar hasn't been shown to have an affect.
Does this mean that a heterosexual male feels a certain attraction to "la casa" that he might not feel toward "das Haus"? Is a misogynist likely to feel repulsion to the one but not to the other? Also, English speakers traditionally think of a vehicle, like a boat or airplane, as "she." Offhand, I can't think of any comparable "he" references. I'd be interested in seeing a link to this experiment. Finally, I suspect Pullum's reference to grammar may be more geared to syntax rather than morphology.
@@kipstanswjego6678 Most heterosexual men don't find most things feminine attractive, only certain things. The experiment showed the Spanish speakers would describe e.g. "key"--a feminine noun (la llave) w/ adjectives like "shiny" and "elegant" whereas the Germans would describe "key" (a masculine noun in their language) w/ more masculine features like "jagged" and "metallic/hard". Lera Boroditsky has a lot of research of effects on both the morphological and syntactical (e.g., use or lack of use of conditionals) and morphosyntactical differences on our view of the world and how we act and react. However, I am now more convinced by John McWhorter who admits to Boroditsky's findings but believes that they are basically insignificant in real-world effects, explaining that this is why in any language you have people of vastly different talents, political opinions, orientations, and interests.
@@kipstanswjego6678 Here's a short video where he explains it, but you can find many longer ones where he elaborates on it: th-cam.com/video/kpAAy7tWMb0/w-d-xo.html
This is an "unfair fight". Monolinguals have a disadvantage: they can only "try" to imagine how the world of bilinguals is shaped. It quickly became a topic on "translatability" and the monolinguals made themselves evident based on their input. The concept of "incest" was also introduced based solely on the parameters of language; I find it best to leave the drives and impulses of "incest" to psychoanalyst and the research of Sigmund Freud, as incestual proclivities go beyond the tags of "a bag of nouns"
Languages of demonstrative activities and guestures are more easily understood, read visually, and verbal additions tend to add qualification to the sensory quantification (?).
I would say that if a recipe to make a cake is projected in different languages to a number of people and the people asked to make the cake, then if they all finish up with similar cakes, tasting the same, then their thinking must have been the same, Perhaps one person speaking diverse languages could read the same recipe ion different language and then make a few cakes form the information in the recipe projected in different language then if the same man finishes up with similar cakes then his thinking was the same after evading the same information in various languages,
who ever made this uh uh em uh uh hu professor the discussion moderator must have been out of their minds eh em uh uh uh uh a linguist with a speech impairment epic
I don't think he has an impairment. Many non-native speakers of English have the same issue. A long time ago, the same thing used to happen to me. In my case, it happened because it was cognitively very demanding to put together a sentence. I was thinking on a word-by-word basis rather than sentence- & discourse-basis. I had to constantly look for the right word in my head. Memorizing phrases with the right intonation eventually helped me overcome the problem, because I was able to chunk many words and phrases into single pieces rather than having to think them through individually like before.
Professor, if you like to actually learn something about language evolution, or if you like to find the 'fossils ' of human languages, than start by Lear Albanian language. Don't wast your life time confusing yourself and others. Read Petro Zheji books. "The Messianic role of Albanian language ".
Exactly... to open the door of understanding you need the key... Albanian language is a symbolic language... it preserves the symbols which could decipher all other languages!
George Orwell seems to have taken the "strong" version of Whorf's idea to heart in the writing of 1984, where those in control want to make it impossible to think certain thoughts. Another influence on Orwell seems to be a movement called Basic English, which sought to simplify language to make it easier to understand.
Also, recent discussions I've come across on the web featuring cultists reveal a paucity of vocabulary on their part so that they can only work from scripts to present their ideas. When faced with contrary views or evidence, they simply go back to their memorized or written text.
So it does seem that a very limited word bank places a limit on what people can think. And that's within their own language.
On the contrary, I've studied (with various degrees of depth) seven languages. Here and there I've picked up expressions that I think are either not directly available (one-to-one) or not as euphonious. Although I'm a native speaker of English, I'm apt to say "Na, und?" when someone proposes something preposterous. Or "Mince alors!" when I need an expletive in polite company. My French father-in-law loved "deuxieme planche" when he heard/saw it in Quebec City. Personally, I like Listopada from Polish and "Chu y!" from Vietnamese.
In Japan, the color for the "green" traffic light is "ao," which is also blue. After I learned that expression, I sometimes kept looking at the light after it changed rather than driving on! I started to see blue instead of green. (This is good for me, because I'm red/green colorblind.)
And so on. None of these languages, however, has made it impossible for me understand people's meanings in daily conversation. In literature, where metaphors are more explicitly marked, there are problems galore.
In the end, I tend to side with Mark Baker (Atoms of Language) who notes that languages are commensurable; if they weren't we couldn't learn another.
I am not sure if the speakers are comparing languages or cultures... Their topic is language but they are comparing cultures... They can't separate language from cultures while they are speaking about language but their talk includes no reference to culture...as if language is independent of the culture of its speakers...
Indeed. It is tricky to separate language (which is a human faculty, but also a cultural artefact) from other aspects of culture, but which are not incorporated into the language faculty/faculties.
You could test a high level L2 Japanese speaker that lives in Japan with someone who has never or rarely been to Japan but can speak Japanese. It's quite obvious that the person who lives in Japan would have a much larger knowledge of Japanese culture. A simple question like ''So how much does the milk cost in Japan?'' or ''What was the weather like today?'' or ''Who do you want to win the election?'' would confuse the person that has never or rarely been to Japan. This can only be tested if we separate the culture of the l2 language. Maybe a teacher living in Japan vs a student studying Japanese in America. Therefore the ''view of the world'' is because one guy has lived in Japan for 20 years and the other lives another America. Ironically you could probably ask the American teacher some questions about his hometown and he would not know.
Boroditsky would be like "HOLD ON JUST A MINUTE"
@11:57 Regarding X1 - one could translate it back to Dutch as Y2 and show that it's different from Y1 (the original sentence in Dutch).
So, are they saying that one view believes your speaking language shapes your thought and perception while another view believes language has impact to thought and perception on an unleveled biasness?
What of the grammar of gender affecting the way people see the world? E.g. the experiment of Germans vs. Spanish native speakers in how they view various things that have different grammatical gender.
This would rebut a bit Pullum's claim that grammar hasn't been shown to have an affect.
Does this mean that a heterosexual male feels a certain attraction to "la casa" that he might not feel toward "das Haus"? Is a misogynist likely to feel repulsion to the one but not to the other?
Also, English speakers traditionally think of a vehicle, like a boat or airplane, as "she." Offhand, I can't think of any comparable "he" references.
I'd be interested in seeing a link to this experiment.
Finally, I suspect Pullum's reference to grammar may be more geared to syntax rather than morphology.
@@kipstanswjego6678 Most heterosexual men don't find most things feminine attractive, only certain things. The experiment showed the Spanish speakers would describe e.g. "key"--a feminine noun (la llave) w/ adjectives like "shiny" and "elegant" whereas the Germans would describe "key" (a masculine noun in their language) w/ more masculine features like "jagged" and "metallic/hard". Lera Boroditsky has a lot of research of effects on both the morphological and syntactical (e.g., use or lack of use of conditionals) and morphosyntactical differences on our view of the world and how we act and react. However, I am now more convinced by John McWhorter who admits to Boroditsky's findings but believes that they are basically insignificant in real-world effects, explaining that this is why in any language you have people of vastly different talents, political opinions, orientations, and interests.
@@chaddavidson3742 Thanks. Can you give the reference or link to this experiment?
@@chaddavidson3742 Also, where does McWhorter say this?
@@kipstanswjego6678 Here's a short video where he explains it, but you can find many longer ones where he elaborates on it: th-cam.com/video/kpAAy7tWMb0/w-d-xo.html
This is an "unfair fight". Monolinguals have a disadvantage: they can only "try" to imagine how the world of bilinguals is shaped. It quickly became a topic on "translatability" and the monolinguals made themselves evident based on their input. The concept of "incest" was also introduced based solely on the parameters of language; I find it best to leave the drives and impulses of "incest" to psychoanalyst and the research of Sigmund Freud, as incestual proclivities go beyond the tags of "a bag of nouns"
Languages of demonstrative activities and guestures are more easily understood, read visually, and verbal additions tend to add qualification to the sensory quantification (?).
I would say that if a recipe to make a cake is projected in different languages to a number of people and the people asked to make the cake, then if they all finish up with similar cakes, tasting the same, then their thinking must have been the same,
Perhaps one person speaking diverse languages could read the same recipe ion different language and then make a few cakes form the information in the recipe projected in different language then if the same man finishes up with similar cakes then his thinking was the same after evading the same information in various languages,
This is an excellent little book that overviews these ideas: The Language Hoax: Why the World Looks the Same in Any Language
Book by John McWhorter
#EapArgumentation
who ever made this uh uh em uh uh hu professor the discussion moderator must have been out of their minds
eh em uh uh uh uh
a linguist with a speech impairment
epic
I don't think he has an impairment. Many non-native speakers of English have the same issue. A long time ago, the same thing used to happen to me. In my case, it happened because it was cognitively very demanding to put together a sentence. I was thinking on a word-by-word basis rather than sentence- & discourse-basis. I had to constantly look for the right word in my head. Memorizing phrases with the right intonation eventually helped me overcome the problem, because I was able to chunk many words and phrases into single pieces rather than having to think them through individually like before.
Professor, if you like to actually learn something about language evolution, or if you like to find the 'fossils ' of human languages, than start by Lear Albanian language.
Don't wast your life time confusing yourself and others.
Read Petro Zheji books. "The Messianic role of Albanian language ".
Exactly... to open the door of understanding you need the key... Albanian language is a symbolic language... it preserves the symbols which could decipher all other languages!
Ben Web all human language is symbolic