141–150 of 161 posts
The Wittgenstein adage
> The limits of my language mean the limits of my world
rings true for me.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
With proper random sampling you only need something like N = 27 (I forget exactly) to reach p = 0.05 Assuming random sampling, it's a misconception that you need ten thousand participants to have a useful study.
It seems that his objection is he "homogeneity" of the population, they're all from Barcelona, if the sample had different locations I think he wouldn't object the small number( e.g N = 30 ).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I were to immigrate to Barcelona I would learn (Galician) Spanish, but perhaps not Catalan. (Though it’s a beautiful language.) I guess I would count as monolingual in their study.
Galician Spanish? Do you mean Castillian Spanish (which is another name for normal spanish)? Galician is a separate language
What does bilingualism correlate with?
If I'm not mistaken, speaking two languages in Spain is quite common. The country has multiple languages besides Spanish [1]. So I guess it doesn't correlate with much aside from the geographic region. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Spain
Having a logically structured thinking or being good in math (all related with having dementia or not) does not depend on how many times you can say 'street' in different languages.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is a common point of view from modern Catalan nationalism that the bilingual status-quo is conducive to the minoritization of the Catalan language long term. Bilingualism can also mean Catalan and English. On the other hand, pro-union parties [0] and organizations [1] often defend bilingualism under the opposite premise: that supposedly Catalan has an advantageous position over Spanish. [0] https://www.elmundo.es/…
If you see past the rhetoric you will find that Catalan nationalists would like Catalan to be the dominant language in Catalonia while Spanish nationalists would like Spanish to be the dominant language instead. Neither of them are really concerned about English because English is not in a position to replace either Catalan or Spanish.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are immigrants and their children likely to be richer, eat better, etc?
There would need to be research done, nothing has been said if these people were all immigrants to Barcelona or the wages they were on, my guess is they are probably not truly random and replication will be difficult if we chose say bilingual in Wales, for example.
This is pseudo-science. Please refrain from upvoting. You cannot prove (or imply) causation via observation. The only method we know to find causation is by setting up an experiment. This study however merely measures variables in a pre-existing context, without injecting independent variables. The only valid result you may extract from this is a correlation, never causation. Please edit the title to reflect correlat…
> This is pseudo-science. Please refrain from upvoting. You cannot prove (or imply) causation via observation. The only method we know to find causation is by setting up an experiment. This study however merely measures variables in a pre-existing context, without injecting independent variables. The only valid result you may extract from this is a correlation, never causation.
> Please edit the title to reflect correlation or (IMO preferred) delete the submission, because such bad science surely does not pass the quality barrier of HN.
Hmm...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I cant find the episode now, but a few years ago an episode CBC's science show Quirks and Quarks interviewed a researcher that found being bilingual seemed to delay the onset of dementia by a couple of years. Although it doesnt sound like much, from a public policy pov, its pretty significant when you look at what that can mean for quality of life as well as costs for our public health system.
Unfortunately, you can't take an 50-something english only American and tell him to "go learn Italian", for health. It's hard enough to make people eat less, exercise, or quit smoking - picking up new language without another motivation than "for health" is going to be even harder. Most schools introduce more languages today, no ? And I guess there is no motivation to keep language skills active beyond school, so any…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you see past the rhetoric you will find that Catalan nationalists would like Catalan to be the dominant language in Catalonia while Spanish nationalists would like Spanish to be the dominant language instead. Neither of them are really concerned about English because English is not in a position to replace either Catalan or Spanish.
Replace "spanish nationalists" by "everybody else" and you have it. The idea that the main language of a nation, the only that everybody share and knows, should be deterred from part of the territory is surrealist.
Spain is not a single nation, its a state with several historical nationalities.
What does bilingualism correlate with?
FWIW, the study was done in Barcelona, which (along with Montreal) is one of the most fully bilingual cities in the developed Western world.