Mathematics is the universal language. wc
________________________________ From: caldwell-brobeck <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Tue, February 12, 2013 10:09:14 PM Subject: Re: "If we used a different vocabulary or if we spoke a different language, we would perceive a somewhat different world." I'm glad this conversation has bubbled up again, I'm quite bad at keeping up with email conversations... Cheerskep - that bit about Inuit words for snow, or more specifically frozen precipitation, is a bit of an urban legend, but Finnish does have quite a few, and Sami is even worse. Here's a link: http://everything2.com/title/Finnish+words+for+snow or (tinyurl) http://tinyurl.com/a8jojnk Michael - I guess someplace to start is to look at how a change of labels in a single language affects perception. For example, I was eating supper with my German relatives and I thought one of the side dishes was a somewhat overcooked cauliflower glop with toasted breadcrumbs. I was rather enjoying it (being 18 and seriously hungry after hitchhiking around Europe). My cousin Ernst looked over: Ernst: You like that? Me: Hmm, yes it's good. Ernst: Most Americans don't seem to like calves' brains. Needless to say, I almost gagged, and getting through the rest of it was rough going....That one word changed how I perceived what I was eating. Now obviously this kind of effect is intimately tied up with culture - after all, the Germans were perfectly aware of what they were eating, and enjoyed it, whereas I (once I knew what it was) did not. But I don't know if one can be reasonably fluent in another language without picking up significant aspects of the cultural baggage. I know in my own case it took awhile to learn not to laugh when (talking in French) someone said "tabernacle" or "chalice", and only be amused by "merde" (shit). Cheers; Chris On Tue, Feb 12, 2013 at 4:31 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: > In a message dated 2/7/13 6:10:15 PM, [email protected] writes: > > "If we used a different vocabulary or if we spoke a different language, we > would perceive a somewhat different world." > > >> *(from: Recent Experiments in Psychology* (1950) by Leland Whitney >> Crafts, >> Thiodore Christian Schneirla, and Elsa Elizabeth Robinson) >> >> Agree/disagree? >> >> This would-be profundity is far too vague to yield fruitful discussion. The > phrase "we would perceive a somewhat different world" is bound to occasion > all sorts of different notions, hazy "interpretations", in the minds of > various readers. Off this little evidence of what the writer had in mind, I'm > inclined to say we don't have to hypothesize a "different language" to make a > point here. The very same phrase in English can occasion innumerable > different notions. > > But I can imagine the writer responding by saying, "No, no -- I'm not > talking about notions. I'm saying we perceive a different mind-independent > world." But readers might then claim that "perceptions" are themselves mental > entities, notions; we never find pieces of the non-mental world in our minds, > etc. > > Or perhaps the writer means, for example, that the Inuit (eskimos) see snow > differently by virtue of the very fact that they have sixteen different > words for sixteen different kinds of snow. (Although, the last I heard, > scholars who know the Inuit language say it's baloney: they don't have sixteen > different words for different kinds of snow.) Oy vey. What a faulty sieve > language is!
