As a speaker of 3 different languages (English, German and Portuguese/Spanish) I believe that although correct this is a wrong discussion. Yes, languages does influence the way we think, but overall culture does influence a million times more.
One example is the democratic debate in English speaking countries compared to the same debate in Portuguese/Spanish countries. I hear a lot of words that don't have a direct translation to a single word: entitlement, pork, accountability, delusion, bullying, patronage, solipsism, ... Because words similar to these don't exist in Spanish/Portuguese I feel that the democratic debate is sometimes so truncated and clunky.
Another example might be how any discussion in English is so strongly focused on providing empirical evidence for claims; even today Anglo-Saxon remains the culture of Sir Francis Bacon and the inductive method.
In Puerto Rican Spanish we have adopted some of those words and we do have translations for others. But this is due, in part, to our close relationship with the USA.
pork (pork barrel) = tocino (barril de tocino)
accountability = no direct translation but "responsabilidad" serves the same purpose and "acontabilidad" is slowly entering our lexicon.
Completely agree. It is the culture that influences how we think, not the language. I speak English and Hindi. English is my second language and I never feel like speaking/thinking in English makes me different than I do in Hindi.
Attributes of many languages are highly influenced by the culture where it is spoken. For example, Japanese may have a word for some concept which English does not have. This is because that concept may not be important in the culture where English is spoken.
Reasoning must be equivalent across cultures, even where language varies, right? If not, wouldn't sciences be culturally relative (y'know, beyond a certain threshold of like not worshiping a sun-god)? So, to me, what's actually being addressed in this article and with the research involved is merely that language shapes the way we perceive, but not necessarily how we think/reason. It's interesting, but more along the lines of anthropological insight, less how does the way I speak affect the way I write code/solve problems.
You say that Anglo-Saxon culture is dominated by inductive reasoning. Is there a different system of reasoning dominant in other cultures? Not trying to be flippant, I'm ignorant of this topic and am interested in hearing what someone who can speak 3 languages knows.
Well, reasoning is indeed equivalent across cultures, but only when these cultures embrace it. Reasoning is a cultural trait too and a lot of people or cultures don't know the rules of logic.
These people/cultures use other ways of convincing and arguing instead of reasoning: strongly held prejudices, religious frameworks, proverbs, tribal loyalties, etc.
Besides, inductive method is not the only form of reasoning; I find it interesting how the Germans are so much at ease with deductive reasoning using so precisely defined words and expressions.
Like reasoning, another example of a western notion that we think as universal but it isn't: the humanist notion that every human being is worth the same regardless of gender and race. I find it shocking how many people find themselves as being worth less just because they are not white and/or male. In Latin-America this is changing fast and a lot but still is a widespread feeling among native South-Americans, blacks and women in rural settings.
This feels like precisely what I was after in picking your brain, especially how German language encourages deductive reasoning (or maybe it's the other way around). It's a pretty obvious connection to me now, knowing German words like gemeinschaft.
Perhaps it's fair to generalize that the more specific the concepts behind a language's vocabulary (maybe just the more frequently used words) the greater the average speaker's tendency to use deductive reasoning. Or at least, that's a good point of departure for more investigating.
I was an English <> Spanish translator in another life.
While I agree with your general idea that there are some untranslatable words, most of the words you cite do have equivalents in Spanish, unless you are referring to false friends. In that case, it'd be great if you could elaborate. But generally speaking, the translations are regionalisms. Also, I'd like to add that language is very much embedded in culture and vice versa. They work off each other and influence each other.
I think words are concepts. Some of the discourse of translatability in the Spanish-speaking world, especially when the source language is English, usually deals with the illogical sense of English words. Bullying is a good example, actually. Bullying comes from the Dutch word "brother" and its definition has drifted far away from "fine fellow". In Spanish, the word "bullying" in the 21st century English-speaking sense would be related to mean "acosador", which comes from the Latin cursus/currere which can probably best be defined as "to proceed" in English. So "bullying", as you suggest, might not have a one-word translation, but it could be translated as "acosador escolar". However, because Spanish-speakers understand the importance of world integration, "bullying" is also used, though you get purists and word-rebels in some regions who, incidentally, are also anti-American, anti-consumerism and sceptical of the English-speaking world in general.
A similar phenomenon occurs in the UK. You see certain people use an indigenous equivalent instead of adopting a standard "London English" word. It certainly happens in South America. So yes, culture and language are very much tied together.
Personally, I think Portuguese, though a romance language, really shouldn't be grouped together with Spanish, even though I can understand most of it, though I've never taken a single Portuguese course in my entire life. My understanding it has to do with studying Latin and Italian. I think the average, educated Spanish speaker would be able to read maybe 50% and understand spoken Brazilian Portuguese even less. Some words and pronunciations have seeped into Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia, however.
My notion of this is that words are pointers to something in a concept space. The words themselves don't and can't contain everything that the concept is; through cultural immersion, you gain a more complete notion of the concept and can more reliably refer to it by using an appropriate word.
This is why a lot of words are used to mean things completely unrelated (apparently) to their definition. The address they have in concept space simply changed.
And then there's the detail that concepts easily and frequently overlap.
I'm sure this has been covered by an Actual Linguist more credibly, though I've never seen it.
When I wrote "direct translation" I meant that I don't know a single word in Spanish or Portuguese that easily translates the whole meaning of those English words. There might be words translating some partial meaning but not fully (e.g: "responsabilidad" vs. accountability). But the main problem is that all translations are too generic and abstract, without the strong specificity of the English original. You showed it very well with the example of bullying, very few people use the translation. I feel that, because these words become vague and generic, they loose some of their original and focused strength. When there is a strong word in Portuguese & Spanish it becomes much more natural (e.g.: "asedio/assédio" means "military siege" in English but is used very colloquially as a translation for harassment).
I already posted below in this thread about how the origin of Portuguese and Spanish is so close. I grouped them because for the purpose of this discussion, they are a lot closer among themselves then English and German are. But I surely agree they're not the same language, sorry if I gave this impression.
An additional confounding factor is that a lot of the people who are currently in power in these countries grew up and started their careers under the former dictatorships. Indeed the previous systems of entitlement, bullying and patronage nicely describes the way the political parties work in these countries. It will probably need another two generations or so of democracy before the effects of the dictatorships wear off and the limitations or otherwise of the languages start to be visible.
Just because something does not have a direct translation in a person's language doesn't mean it doesn't exist in that person's thinking.
I'm a Turkish native speaker. The other day I was looking for the Turkish equivalent of the English phrase, "calling dibs on something." I asked my mom, my dad, and my sister, and none of them knew. But they knew exactly what I was talking about. Turkish people also call dibs on stuff, they just don't say it out the way English speakers do. At the end of the day you're announcing your claim on something (usually an object), and that's a very common concept.
I think the same would apply to the examples you gave.
Have you ever considered that language affects culture and culture affects language, and the two influence each other like a chicken and an egg? Thus it is very difficult to separate the two.
Not just the word but the whole concept of accountability seems to be lacking in spanish speaking cultures. The language reflects the culture of its speakers...
No, not "quite". They are actually very similar to each other. So much that, for non-native speakers, it becomes very hard to try to learn both at same time.
Portuguese is just a modern version of Galician (Galego), a Spanish dialect from northwest Spain and northern Portugal. After the expulsion of the Moors invaders in the 8th century, it became Portugal's language. Castilian (Castellano), the root of modern Spanish, is a close sibling to Galician.
Good and fluent speakers of Portuguese, Galician and Castilian can understand each other without too much effort.
I am Portuguese and I lived and worked in Spain for more than 3 years and to lump together Portuguese and Castellian as one language is very weird to me.
I had to learn Castellian to be able to be understood in everyday situations, to attend classes and to be able work in an office with natives.
Some words are spelled the same but the phonetics are completely different ( unless you speak Brazilian Portuguese which could be argued to be closer to Gallician-Portuguese ), and although Portuguese natives can understand a bit of Castillian ( not to the level of being able to read a newspaper though ), try to get two youths from the streets of Lisbon and Madrid to talk to each other and most likely they will sadly resort to speaking in broken English.
Portuguese has more distinct vowel sounds than Spanish, which means that for a Spanish speaker, two distinct words in Portuguese can sound the same. This makes it easier for a Portuguese speaker to understand Spanish, assuming the specific vocabulary is also similar enough. But it doesn't make for easy conversations when even one person is struggling to comprehend, as you've noticed.
I think it's more correct to say that Portuguese is a modern version of ancient Galician (usually known as Galician-Portuguese), just as modern Galician is.
Edge.org presents things as 'conversations' but they are generally just essays, with no possibility for other edge members to leave comments. Thats not a conversation. There's no dialogue, nothing anyone says is challenged. None of these 'great minds' at Edge are actually presented talking to each other.
Consequently although Edge.org says its all about conversation and advancing knowledge, I suspect its really just about selling pop-science books.
It would be a much better site if it was a proper forum (for the 'great minds' that are members) and we could all watch the discussion, disagreements, flameouts and ragequits. Seriously.
Well I'm looking at the front page story, "A Conversation with Lee Smolin." It leads with a monologue from Smolin followed by a response from Arnold Trehub, followed by a response from Sean Carroll, followed by an entry from Lee Smolin responding to Carroll's response. Bruce Sterling enters the conversation to express sympathy with ideas Smolin as raised then Trehub comes back with another response and finally Amanda Gefter gives a reply to Smolin.
This event is put under the site's conversations section, and a quick perusal of this section reveals tons of similar conversations with multiple contributors all responding to each other, and they've been doing this for years.
Hmm, I looked before and didn't find much, but you're right. Still, on page 1 of the list of 'conversations' there only seem to be 9 that are genuine dialogues, the other 41 are just singular essays or people all answering an open question. But yeah, thats a bit more like it. Still some way to go before it becomes a bubbling forum of discourse though.
I'm just guessing here, but the video for a lot of the "conversations" seem to be a conversation between the subject and the camera person that was edited down to make a more cohesive video. The videos are fairly well transcribed though, so I don't think this comes across in the text.
From what I understand, the original Sapir-Whorf thesis (now the strong version) was (correctly) discredited because it was about language limiting and determining thought. The weak version, that it influences the way we think, is now widely accepted.
You could rephrase the weak version to make it undeniable (if banal): the whole point of language is to influence the way others think! If I want to create thoughts in your brain, language is a pretty effective means.
Counterexample: Cauchy and Riemann, when pioneering complex analysis. They "proved" many results, but with nonrigorous techniques. When they tried to teach complex analysis to their students, those students applied the same techniques and "proved" absurdities.
Cauchy and Riemann really did understand what they were doing - when Weierstrass finally put analysis on a formal footing, every one of their results turned out to be correct. But they were unable to communicate it to their students, because even though they understood it, they couldn't express it in language.
depends on what you mean by language, people can express themself and communicate different ways without words (music , drawing,art in general...). If you consider music and drawing as a language then there is no limit.
All of which brings back memories of Loglan[1] which was specifically designed as a tool for testing Sapir-Whorf, although in the end and after many years of painstaking development it was never used for that. Loglan has a successor Lojban[2] which is still a hobby project for a small community.
There are a few children who are being raised bilingually with Lojban as a mother tongue so the original purpose may end up being fulfilled. It'll be interesting to see how they turn out.
This is extremely subjective but as a speaker of two languages (English and French), I find it interesting how certain things come to me in one language and other things in the other. I have friends more or less in the same boat as I am and it's funny to see how we switch languages when expressing different ideas without even thinking about it. Funnily enough, I happen to talk in my sleep on occasions, and I apparently speak a mash-up of both languages, but in a fairly consistent manner (i.e. words will be one language or the other). The brain's a wonderfully intricate thing :)
Yep. And I think this linguistic influence means way more for programming languages than for natural languages - when thinking or communication to a human you can always "escape the language traps" by thinking visually or drawing/sketching or just showing things, but when you "communicate" with a computer your minds is basically "trapped" in the language (the only escape is being able to think the "domain language" instead, like thinking an algorithm in mathematical language or a business problem in business terms).
I think you can "escape" a programming language by sketching in quite the same way you can do it for natural languages, if not more easily. After all, we'll been using Flowcharts and the like since the beginning of computing.
There are much more thorough and research-based explanations about why mathematics performance is generally better (recently) among Chinese people than among Americans.
Any math teacher that uses language association to teach math is doing it completely wrong. If you want to teach math to children younger than 7, stop talking and start drawing! (scribbling arabic numerals is good, but things like the Japanese "multiplication by drawing" are awesome in teaching kids to "feel math") Teachers that teach children do things like "say out loud kids, what is two plus seven?* are basically handicapping ~50% of the children's ability to think mathematically for the rest of their lives.
..."spoken mathematics" is to teaching math like COBOL or Visual Basic are to teaching programming :) As the old saying goes, "shut up and do the math", don't try talking about it.
Do you teach math to children? Can you recommend some good resources for this method? My son is not there yet, but in a couple of years will be, and I'm already interested in the subject, and studying different methods so I'll be able to help him and interact with him in a positive way.
P.S. As far as I know, most schools here (Brazil) use a lot of the "Say out loud what is x plus y" way.
No. I'm probably in the same position as you are, thinking and researching about how to teach my children when the time comes. But at one point I'll probably organize all the researched resources and publish them on a blog or website and maybe try to gather an online community around this topic.
What do you mean? The arabic number system that most of the world uses is base 10. Also, I don't see why the base of the number system would make math any easier or harder.
The arabic numeral system is base-10, but English numerals are only sort of base 10: consider 2, 10, 12 and 22. In English, these are spoken as "two", "ten", "twelve" and "twenty-two". The words "twelve" and "twenty" are both derived from "two", it's true, but in two different ways. "Teen" and "ten" are similar, but there's nothing about "twenty" that indicates a connection to "ten".
In Japanese (IIRC), 2, 10, 12, 22 is spoken "ni, ju, ju-ni, ni-ju-ni": "two, ten, two-tens, two-tens-and-two".
It's not that one base is better than another: the idea is that a single consistent base is better than inconsistency.
Thank you. I had flirted with the thoughts before, but never really explicitly considered how odd the English words "eleven", "twelve" and then the "teens" are. Not only is "teen" not quite "ten", we also put it after the ones digit. That is, 19 is "nine-teen", but 91 is "ninety-one".
This is true of Germanic languages more generally, where they have special cases for teens too but also read higher numbers as "five-and-twenty" etc. And then French has their vigesimal thing - 92 is quatre-vingt-douze, ie. "four twentys and twelve". English gets off relatively lightly with teens only...
Interestingly, this is how I was always taught to think of numbers. Beads on a stick represent all numbers. 1 bead is 1. A ten is therefore a stick with 10 beads on it. A hundred is 10 tens (in a square). A thousand is 10 hundreds stacked on top of each other (or 10 "10 tens" in a cube).
This really made it simple to think of things like carrying (oh, that's just breaking the wire holding the beads together) and squaring/rooting (since 100 was a square of 10 it was trivial). It provided an interesting method of multiplication too (simply align two numbers orthogonally and fill in the grid). I still think in terms of this now.
Incidentally, when I learned Japanese many years later it felt more natural than saying twenty-two or the abomination that is seventeen.
20 is "esrim", meaning tens, which is actually a special case because Hebrew once had a grammatical dual form. Then comes "shloshim", meaning threes. "Arba'im", fours. And so on. So 22 is "esrim ve'shtayyim", tens and two.
This is the case for chinese (japanese, despite being from a completely different language family, inherited the system). Digits are grouped by myriads (10^4) instead of thousands (10^3). Accordingly, you would write 10^6 like this: 100,0000
Very simple - the way you cursing affects how you think. Some cultures are exceptional in using "bad words". Russians, for example, using all the dirty details of a sexual intercourse, while, say, Italians using some blasphemy. Here lies the answer.)
One example is the democratic debate in English speaking countries compared to the same debate in Portuguese/Spanish countries. I hear a lot of words that don't have a direct translation to a single word: entitlement, pork, accountability, delusion, bullying, patronage, solipsism, ... Because words similar to these don't exist in Spanish/Portuguese I feel that the democratic debate is sometimes so truncated and clunky.
Another example might be how any discussion in English is so strongly focused on providing empirical evidence for claims; even today Anglo-Saxon remains the culture of Sir Francis Bacon and the inductive method.