RE: Do Asians and Westerners Think Differently? -> Sapir-Whorf hypothesis ?

From: Paul Grant (shade999@optonline.net)
Date: Sun Jul 27 2003 - 22:44:10 MDT

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    From: owner-extropians@extropy.org [mailto:owner-extropians@extropy.org]
    On Behalf Of Lee Corbin
    Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2003 4:51 PM

    Paul Grant writes
    Paul writes
    > I think it's through an availability mechanism; I speak Arabic and
    > English fluently, and certain thoughts or mechanisms are very
    > difficult to "translate" semantically (ergo there exists no
    > corresponding word or short phrase in the other language). In any
    > event, I don't think that a language in and of itself necessarily
    > limits thought development; however it can delay it.... Sufficiently
    > intelligent people come up with new words all the time in their
    > day-to-day dealings [that map to something significant missing from
    > their current semantic set].....And eventually it filters down to the
    > masses. Put another way, knowing several languages expands ur ability

    > to capture a thought precisely {and thus is highly recommended};
    > knowing one language does not necessarily hinder that development of a

    > thought, just delays it. And that goes for radically different
    > languages (like English or Chinese), in that left to their own
    > devices, the English and Chinese would eventually identify all the
    > notions they want... The order in which a particular semantic notion
    > is discovered however, would probably be vastly different in such
    > extremes.

    [Lee] Sounds quite sensible. I especially appreciate your observation
    that one language can *delay* the conclusions that one could or would
    come to, without preventing them. Even that is quite a concession to
    the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. While of course it can be harder to convey
    in one language what is easy in another, it surely is about equally
    difficult or easy to *think* certain thoughts. At least that's what I
    am concluding from this discussion.

    <Me> Actually whats really cool about something like that is the
    function
    it sets up for comparing the fitness between languages; that is,
    depending
    on the domain u're discussing, certain languages are better suited than
    others
    for arriving at a particular sequence or arrangement.

    I've picked out a set of languages I wish to learn based on the
    following criteria:
    a) reading material of interest [based on who's publishing what types of
    material]
    b) different mode of thinking <the point we're discussing>
    c) usefulness as it relates to # of people speaking that particular
    language...

    I also believe that language strongly shapes culture;
    which implies a transitive nature to evaluating *cultures*
    within a domain. Again for the simple reason that people
    <generally speaking> use what comes to mind first rather
    than examining all their options rationally.

    I'm extremely interested in linguistic structures :)

    omard-out



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