how language shapes the way we think

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Fist and Faith
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how language shapes the way we think

Post by Fist and Faith »

Seems to me we’ve talked about this, at least a little bit somewhere other. But I can’t find it right now, so here we go.

Great Ted Talk on the subject.
https://youtu.be/RKK7wGAYP6k



Also, I'm listening to a book about fungi. Entangled Life, by Merlin Sheldrake. He says:
The biologist Robin Wall Kimmerer, a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, observes that the indigenous Potawatomi language is rich in verb forms that attribute aliveness to the more than human world. The word for hill, for example, is a verb. To be a hill. Hills are always in the process of hilling. They are actively being hills. Equipped with this grammar of animacy, it is possible to talk about the life of other organisms without either reducing them to an it, or borrowing concepts traditionally reserved for humans.


And there's a great shory story by Ted Chiang called Understand. A guy gains extremely enhanced intelligence. Love this bit:
I’m designing a new language. I’ve reached the limits of conventional languages, and now they frustrate my attempts to progress further. They lack the power to express concepts that I need, and even in their own domain, they’re imprecise and unwieldy. They’re hardly fit for speech, let alone thought.

Existing linguistic theory is useless; I’ll reevaluate basic logic to determine the suitable atomic components for my language. This language will support a dialect coexpressive with all of mathematics, so that any equation I write will have a linguistic equivalent. However, mathematics will be only a small part of the language, not the whole; unlike Leibniz, I recognize symbolic logic’s limits. Other dialects I have planned will be coexpressive with my notations for aesthetics and cognition. This will be a time-consuming project, but the end result will clarify my thoughts enormously. After I’ve translated all that I know into this language, the patterns I seek should become evident.
What a great line: They’re hardly fit for speech, let alone thought.
All lies and jest
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest
-Paul Simon
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rdhopeca
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how language shapes the way we think

Post by rdhopeca »

That's amazingly detailed. I wonder how much of that makes it into fantasy languages like Tolkien's?
Rob

"Progress is made. Be warned."
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