From: Giu1i0 Pri5c0 (gpmap@runbox.com)
Date: Sun Jul 27 2003 - 03:55:58 MDT
I think it is a feedback loop, thought defines language and in turn language
constrains thought, at least when you think with words. I don't think the
effect is very strong when you compare similar languages. I spoke only one
language (Italian) as a child, so most of the times I think in that
language. I know some other languages (English Spanish and French, all
indo-european languages) well enough to think in them when I am speaking
them, and I do not notice any significant difference. But I am sure that if
I could speak Chinese well enough to think in Chinese when speaking Chinese,
I would notice significant differences in my thought patterns. At least this
is what fluent speakers of two very different languages (e.g. a child whose
two mother languages are English and Chinese) say.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Frederik Cheeseman" <mail@cheeseman.sh>
To: <extropians@extropy.org>
Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2003 11:22 AM
Subject: Re: Do Asians and Westerners Think Differently? -> Sapir-Whorf
hypothesis ?
>
> Just take a look at:
>
> http://www.loglan.org/what-is-loglan.html
>
> An excerpt of the above :
>
> ...
> There is a linguistic theory--known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis--that
the structure of a human language sets limits on the thinking of those who
speak it; hence a language could even place constraints on the development
of the cultures that use it.
> ...
>
> Is this true ?
>
> ---------
> Frederick H. Cheeseman
>
>
>
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