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Learning Tibetan changed the way I think (2023)

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Re: Learning Tibetan changed the way I think (2023)

#21

Post by ghotli »

ta988 wrote: post #19
ghotli wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm actually glad you posted this because it reminded me of a quote from Wittgenstein's page on Wikipedia [1] > According to Wittgenstein, philosophical problems arise when language is forced from its proper home into a metaphysical environment, where all the familiar and necessary landmarks and contextual clues are removed. He describes this metaphysical environment as like being on frictionless ice: where the condi…

Wittgenstein also had serious changes of opinions.

Agreed. It's not an appeal to authority it's a paragraph I enjoyed reading and remembered in this context

Re: Learning Tibetan changed the way I think (2023)

#22

Post by fuzztester »

JoeDaDude wrote: post #5

I'm sure language learners all over have felt this way. Once one starts learning another tongue, one realizes that languages do not exist in isolation, they are part of a larger culture and the language comes with customs, traditions, norms, and even beliefs from that culture. In learning a language, you internalize that culture and, even if just a tiny bit, develop an identity as a member of that culture. Phoenix Ho…

yes. so there should be, for human languages, some variation of that Alan Perlis quote, that goes something like: a (programming) language that doesn't change the way you think, isn't worth learning. if not, someone should make one up.

Re: Learning Tibetan changed the way I think (2023)

#23

Post by fuzztester »

calimoro78 wrote: post #18
FredPret wrote: post #12

I learned English and honestly the only thing that happened was my life got 100 times better socially and professionally. My thinking is exactly the same. The only cognitive skills I've noticed improving is my ability to play word games and figure out simple phrases in third languages when traveling, because I have two languages to reference when thinking about word origins and relationships.

Maybe English is not a mind-opening language :(

Yes, instead it is an opening-minded language :), as in, it creates work and business openings, being the de facto international language of business.

Re: Learning Tibetan changed the way I think (2023)

#24

Post by nine_k »

FredPret wrote: post #12

I learned English and honestly the only thing that happened was my life got 100 times better socially and professionally. My thinking is exactly the same. The only cognitive skills I've noticed improving is my ability to play word games and figure out simple phrases in third languages when traveling, because I have two languages to reference when thinking about word origins and relationships.

Is your first language Germanic? Romance? Indo-European at all? The difference with English may be not stark enough to make you notice a different point of view.

Compared to English, say, Spanish has forms of verb so detailed that a single word expresses aspects that require a whole phrase in English: "venceremos" = "we will prevail", or "quisiera" = "I would like". You cannot opt out of this level of detail.

Also in a ton of languages you have to care about nouns being masculine / feminine (la ciudad, ein Stadt, etc). In e.g. Slavic languages you have to also care about nouns being animate / inanimate.

Regarding the Slavic languages, while e.g. Ukrainian has the typical English-like possessive construction, e.g. "I have a car", Russian uses something like "by me there is a car". It also has the perfect tense designation as a part of the verb, in all forms and tenses. With that, some verbs lack some tenses! Formally these tenses could possibly be formed, but are never used and are considered unacceptable. Notably, you can say "we will win", but cannot say "I will win" using the same verb.

Opposed to that, Japanese is highly regular, it has like 2.5 irregular verbs in the entire language. Its verb system is hugely flexible and expressive, but it lacks a future tense; you have to infer it from the context. Nouns also lack a regular plural form; you can mark a noun as plural in a pinch, but usually you have to infer it from the context, and omit when speaking. Most sentences are built around topic markers: instead of "I have a car" you say "Regarding me, a car exists". Adjectives are actually lightweight verbs, and can have a past tense. The system of politeness / honorifics permeates the language: not only "younger sister" and "elder sister" are different words, but "your wife" and "my wife" are completely different words, same for "my home" and "your home". To say nothing about the writing system that uses ideographic characters for halves of many words. Imagine using emojis for writing, with attached strings of letters for things like -ed, -s, -ing, etc.

Knowing stuff like this is mildly entertaining. What changes your perception is an honest attempt to use such a language, translating texts, and especially for daily communication. You start noticing untranslatable stuff, things that cannot be expressed in a different language, except with a lengthy and awkward explanation. Congrats, now you have a new mental tool.

Re: Learning Tibetan changed the way I think (2023)

#25

Post by fuzztester »

JoeDaDude wrote: post #5

I'm sure language learners all over have felt this way. Once one starts learning another tongue, one realizes that languages do not exist in isolation, they are part of a larger culture and the language comes with customs, traditions, norms, and even beliefs from that culture. In learning a language, you internalize that culture and, even if just a tiny bit, develop an identity as a member of that culture. Phoenix Ho…

>Phoenix Ho

Spelled Hou, per the video.

Re: Learning Tibetan changed the way I think (2023)

#26

Post by sureIy »

fuzztester wrote: post #20
BobaFloutist wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also worth mentioning that although English doesn't explicitly require you do do any of this, we generally have ways of conveying respect/familiarity (by tweaking the formality of our register).

>by tweaking the formality of our register). what does register mean in this context? the tone of voice or something similar?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Register_(sociolinguistics)

Formal: "I would like to express my deepest gratitude for your invaluable assistance in this matter."

Neutral: "Thank you so much for your help with this."

Slang: "Thanks bro"

Re: Learning Tibetan changed the way I think (2023)

#28

Post by lxgr »

armitron wrote: post #8
K0balt wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a multilingual and multicultural person, I experience this daily. When I want to think about emotional things or intimate relationships, I think in Spanish. When I want to do math, I think in English. Engineering is in English. Social analysis in Spanish. English is my primary language and I learned Spanish in my 40s. But many things work much better in Spanish, so I do them in Spanish. In my experience , language…

What is the everyday sense of self that you have if not a linguistic construct? Without language and higher order thinking, you'd be back to being an ape. Modern life drenched in information flows, much more so than the past, accellerates our fragmentation into multiple personalities.

Language and higher order thinking might not be as intrinsically related as we think.

For example, not everybody has an inner voice – and this usually comes as a surprise to both people having or not having one.

Another good counterexample might actually be LLMs: Definitely well-spoken, definitely still not the greatest abstract higher-order thinkers, and domain-specific “intelligences” run circles around them.

Re: Learning Tibetan changed the way I think (2023)

#29

Post by yongjik »

I think the author is overthinking about Tibetan to create a story. For example:

> Tibetan language has shaped the way I think and look at life. Even simple, everyday words such as “hello” and “thank you” have taken on a new, more profound meaning. The Tibetan greeting of “tashi delek” means “may everything be auspicious.” An expression of thanks, “tug je che,” means “great compassion.”

You can say the same thing for English. When English speakers part ways late at night, they say "good night" - not just that it was pleasant to meet, but wishing the remainder of the night be good (for everyone), whatever they choose to do. How thoughtful! Even the simple "good bye" is easily decipherable as "(may) god be with you," blessing the other with the almighty god.

> When speaking Tibetan, instead of saying, “I have a phone,” we would say something closer to “a phone abides by me.” My concept of the things I “own” has changed from “this is mine” to “this happens to be near me, and I happen to be able to use it,” with no inherent possession. This can be a wonderful and helpful tool to work with attachment.

Well, I can also relate because Korean also doesn't like the verb "have," so instead of "I have a phone," we'll say something like "(speaking of) me, a phone exists." But woe to the poor soul who thinks the expression precludes inherent possession - you'll quickly and violently discover the errors of your ways if you try to take a phone from a random Korean speaker, or - I strongly suspect - a random Tibetan speaker.

Re: Learning Tibetan changed the way I think (2023)

#30

Post by unscaled »

BobaFloutist wrote: post #11
unscaled wrote: post #6

> When talking about someone or something external to you, Tibetan grammar forces you to express whether what you’re talking about is something you’ve experienced or seen with your own eyes, whether it’s an assumption you’re making, or if it’s something that is generally true to everyone else. The grammatical category the author describes here is called Evidentiality[1], and it's surprisingly rather common[2], but mo…

It's also worth mentioning that although English doesn't explicitly require you do do any of this, we generally have ways of conveying respect/familiarity (by tweaking the formality of our register).

Roman Jakobson (probably one of the most important linguists of the 20th century) has famously said: "Languages essentially differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they can convey".

I think this sums up the weak version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis quite well. The strong version of the hypothesis claims that monolingual speakers of a certain language find it hard to think of concepts that cannot be expressed by their language. But as Roman Jakobson hints, with enough effort you can express most concepts in most languages. Quite frankly, I'm not aware of any evidence of this strong form of linguistic determinism, except for Daniel Everett's research of Pirahã[1], which is rather controversial.

The weak version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is more interesting, but most of the research I've seen was on pretty boring (in my opinion) subjects that seem to appeal to a modern European audience. In other words, it's mostly about color and grammatical gender (obviously only when that gender is Masculine, Feminine and Neuter, not something too foreign like Bantu noun classes).

The most interesting research I remember reading was on the Australian Aboriginal language Guugu Yimithirr, which uses a cardinal direction system. Instead of using the relative direction "left" or "right" to describe the location of objects in relation to you, you'd have to use their compass-direction like "The tree that is westwards of me" instead of "the tree on my west". That pretty clearly forces every Guugu Yimithirr speaker to have to be constantly aware of the compass directions so they can clearly point at things, it's quite unsurprising that they are very good in instinctively knowing where the north is without a compass.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirah%C3%A3_language#Pirah%C3%...

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