This link has been bookmarked by 91 people . It was first bookmarked on 27 Aug 2010, by msachleben Sachleben.
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“Languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may convey.” This maxim offers us the key to unlocking the real force of the mother tongue: if different languages influence our minds in different ways, this is not because of what our language allows us to think but rather because of what it habitually obliges us to think about.
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This does not mean, of course, that English speakers are unable to understand the differences between evenings spent with male or female neighbors, but it does mean that they do not have to consider the sexes of neighbors, friends, teachers and a host of other persons each time they come up in a conversation, whereas speakers of some languages are obliged to do so.
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Of course, all this does not mean that speakers of Spanish or French or German fail to understand that inanimate objects do not really have biological sex
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10 Feb 16
burgza01"SINCE THERE IS NO EVIDENCE that any language forbids its speakers to think anything, we must look in an entirely different direction to discover how our mother tongue really does shape our experience of the world. Some 50 years ago, the renowned linguist Roman Jakobson pointed out a crucial fact about differences between languages in a pithy maxim: “Languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may convey.” This maxim offers us the key to unlocking the real force of the mother tongue: if different languages influence our minds in different ways, this is not because of what our language allows us to think but rather because of what it habitually obliges us to think about.
Consider this example. Suppose I say to you in English that “I spent yesterday evening with a neighbor.” You may well wonder whether my companion was male or female, but I have the right to tell you politely that it’s none of your business. But if we were speaking French or German, I wouldn’t have the privilege to equivocate in this way, because I would be obliged by the grammar of language to choose between voisin or voisine; Nachbar or Nachbarin. These languages compel me to inform you about the sex of my companion whether or not I feel it is remotely your concern. This does not mean, of course, that English speakers are unable to understand the differences between evenings spent with male or female neighbors, but it does mean that they do not have to consider the sexes of neighbors, friends, teachers and a host of other persons each time they come up in a conversation, whereas speakers of some languages are obliged to do so.
When your language routinely obliges you to specify certain types of information, it forces you to be attentive to certain details in the world and to certain aspects of experience that speakers of other languages may not be required to think about all the time. And since such habits of speech are cultivated from the earliest age, it is only natural that they can settle into habits of mind that go beyond language itself, affecting your experiences, perceptions, associations, feelings, memories and orientation in the world." -
22 Sep 15
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And in the last few years, new research has revealed that when we learn our mother tongue, we do after all acquire certain habits of thought that shape our experience in significant and often surprising ways.
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Whorf, we now know, made many mistakes. The most serious one was to assume that our mother tongue constrains our minds and prevents us from being able to think certain thoughts.
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“natural.” In fact, Guugu Yimithirr doesn’t make any use of egocentric coordinates at all. The anthropologist John Haviland and later the linguist Stephen Levinson have shown that Guugu Yimithirr does not use words like “left” or “right,” “in front of” or “behind,” to describe the position of objects. Whenever we would use the egocentric system, the Guugu Yimithirr rely on cardinal directions.
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When these peculiarities of Guugu Yimithirr were uncovered, they inspired a large-scale research project into the language of space. And as it happens, Guugu Yimithirr is not a freak occurrence; languages that rely primarily on geographical coordinates are scattered around the world, from Polynesia to Mexico, from Namibia to Bali.
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In order to speak a language like Guugu Yimithirr, you need to know where the cardinal directions are at each and every moment of your waking life.
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studies have shown that children in such societies start using geographic directions as early as age 2 and fully master the system by 7 or 8.
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But when your friend comes into your room, he will see something quite different from this, because everything is reversed north-side-south. In his room the bed was in the north, while in yours it is in the south; the telephone that in his room was in the west is now in the east, and so on. So while you will see and remember the same room twice, a speaker of a geographic language will see and remember two different rooms.
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While we are always at the center of the world, and it would never occur to us that pointing in the direction of our chest could mean anything other than to draw attention to ourselves, a Guugu Yimithirr speaker points through himself, as if he were thin air and his own existence were irrelevant.
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Recently, it has been demonstrated in a series of ingenious experiments that we even perceive colors through the lens of our mother tongue
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E ArmstrongEng Lang students: just finished reading Guy Deuyscher's book on language/ thought: summary of issues by him here http://t.co/yVevHdV NYT
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28 May 11
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20 Oct 10
latriviataSINCE THERE IS NO EVIDENCE that any language forbids its speakers to think anything, we must look in an entirely different direction to discover how our mother tongue really does shape our experience of the world. Some 50 years ago, the renowned linguist
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18 Oct 10
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when we learn our mother tongue, we do after all acquire certain habits of thought that shape our experience
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if different languages influence our minds in different ways, this is not because of what our language allows us to think but rather because of what it habitually obliges us to think about.
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These languages compel me to inform you about the sex of my companion whether or not I feel it is remotely your concern
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English does oblige you to specify certain types of information that can be left to the context in other languages.
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but I do have to tell you something about the timing of the event: I have to decide whether we dined, have been dining, are dining, will be dining and so on
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When your language routinely obliges you to specify certain types of information, it forces you to be attentive to certain details in the world and to certain aspects of experience that speakers of other languages may not be required to think about all the tim
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Languages that treat an inanimate object as a he or a she force their speakers to talk about such an object as if it were a man or a woman
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24 Sep 10
Carla CasilliSeventy years ago, in 1940, a popular science magazine published a short article that set in motion one of the trendiest intellectual fads of the 20th century. At first glance, there seemed little about the article to augur its subsequent celebrity. Neith
brain culture gender language linguistics news psychology science SapirWhorf controversy nyt cognition debate Delicious
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13 Sep 10
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11 Sep 10
Fascinating insights how language shapes our thoughts and lifes.
culture gender language Languages linguistics nytimes psychology science brain
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07 Sep 10
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03 Sep 10
Rey Aquino"Native American languages impose on their speakers a picture of reality that is totally different from ours, so their speakers would simply not be able to understand some of our most basic concepts, like the flow of time or the distinction between objects (like “stone”) and actions (like “fall”)."
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02 Sep 10
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01 Sep 10
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Robert TeeterWhat about gendered languages? And did you know there are geographical languages?
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31 Aug 10
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30 Aug 10
Brooke KreitingerArticle by Guy Deutscher on how different languages shape how it's speakers perceive the world. Particular focus on languages that use gender and different manners of referring to spatial aspects, such as describing locations of things or how a language requires one to locate him/herself in relation to spatial coordinates when narrating, eg egocentric coordinates vs. use of cardinal directions. Article adapted from Deutscher's new book His new book, “Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages”.
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29 Aug 10
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27 Aug 10
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