i always tought that it is other way around, that thoutgh shape language. maybe my language was not good enough.
Language may shape human thought
11–20 of 27 posts
Re: Language may shape human thought
#12http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/boroditsky09/boroditsky09_in...
is a good article on how language can/does affect thought
Re: Language may shape human thought
#13I believe this man went to brazil and then came back and presented the same idea fifty years ago:
Re: Language may shape human thought
#14This seems to be the original paper from 2004:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/surprise/llog/Gordon_Pi...
Re: Language may shape human thought
#15I remember reading about similar phenomenon concerning colours - people who have one word for red and purple in their language treat them as same colour; I can't find a link to those information provided in concise manner on this topic. However, I think both of these facts are smaller than the title could suggest - though it seems that usually we put 'things' we think about into buckets (so if you put both 4 stones a…
I think you are referring to the famous Berlin and Kay study (here's a chapter detailing it: http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~kay/KBMM.ps).
Re: Language may shape human thought
#16Sapir Whorf all over again?[1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir-Whorf_hypothesis#Computer...
I know. It's kinda tiresome hearing these old claims trotted out as "AMAZING NEW THEORY".
As a note, the initial Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is considered to be based off of flawed research.
Re: Language may shape human thought
#17I wonder how this correlates to children growing up in bilingual households. Does access to multiple language alter the thought processes. Do they learn to think in one language vs. the other or do they think in both languages depending on the task.
Re: Language may shape human thought
#18From the article: "Gordon says this is the first convincing evidence that a language lacking words for certain concepts could actually prevent speakers of the language from understanding those concepts." I've studied multiple different human languages over the years, and have also studied the methods of linguistics fieldwork used when scientists encounter previously unknown languages. I find it interesting that the a…
The argument is just a little circular, isn't it? The Piraha ignore colors and numbers, they lack words for colors and numbers, so the lack of words must be causing their general ignorance of colors and numbers.
It could be the other way round - people tend to come up with words (or terms) for anything of interest to them. For example, linguists might come up with a terms like "linguistic relativity" or "Sapir–Whorf hypothesis" for the suspicion that linguistics drives thought.
It does ignore a very common principle of linguistics - that language is flexible. If you don't have a word, people tend to invent one.
Re: Language may shape human thought
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, and I think most programmers have profoundly experienced the effect, you are not thinking the same way before and after learning a new programming paradigm. You don't think the same way after learning LISP, Erlang, or...
Precisely the arguments of many posts about programming: * http://brandonbyars.com/2008/05/13/beating-sapir-whorf/ * The creator of ruby on the "The power and philosophy of ruby: or how to create Babel-17" [1][2][3] However these usually imply the weak version of Sapir Whorf, not the strong one. [1] http://www.rubyist.net/~matz/slides/oscon2003/mgp00001.html [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity#cite…
Didn't Einstein say something like "all mathematical advances are notational"?
Re: Language may shape human thought
#20How many people did they test this on? one, two or many?
Many: "Gordon set seven Pirahã a variety of tasks."