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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)

#81

Post by rramadass »

DiscourseFan wrote: post #79
rramadass wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no intrinsic "overall hierarchy" but merely a "a posteriori" appearance of one.

There is no thing in itself here either to which one might ascribe a particular quality. There is a history of violence expressed through the language itself; I am doing my analysis immanently. When I say hierarchy I don't mean hierarchy outside the text.

Not sure what you are trying to say here. My point was that the fact that most Hindu Philosophy today is studied via the Sanskrit language does not mean all the philosophies/concepts/ideas originated in that medium and by extension in the culture that gave birth to it. It is from an amalgamation of various cultures and their languages from the Indian Subcontinent which has been expressed through Sanskrit texts. One can see this in the evolution of the language itself from Vedic to Classical Sanskrit and influences from Prakrit and Dravidian languages.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanskrit for details.

Also see Classical Languages of India here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_India

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

#82

Post by DiscourseFan »

rramadass wrote: post #81
DiscourseFan wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no thing in itself here either to which one might ascribe a particular quality. There is a history of violence expressed through the language itself; I am doing my analysis immanently. When I say hierarchy I don't mean hierarchy outside the text.

Not sure what you are trying to say here. My point was that the fact that most Hindu Philosophy today is studied via the Sanskrit language does not mean all the philosophies/concepts/ideas originated in that medium and by extension in the culture that gave birth to it. It is from an amalgamation of various cultures and their languages from the Indian Subcontinent which has been expressed through Sanskrit texts. One c…

This is all given, however, through Sanskrit, so you are proving to me that the language itself shows the hierarchal dominance that the culture imposed, and that hierarchal dominance shows itself in the philosophy.

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

#83

Post by rramadass »

DiscourseFan wrote: post #82
rramadass wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what you are trying to say here. My point was that the fact that most Hindu Philosophy today is studied via the Sanskrit language does not mean all the philosophies/concepts/ideas originated in that medium and by extension in the culture that gave birth to it. It is from an amalgamation of various cultures and their languages from the Indian Subcontinent which has been expressed through Sanskrit texts. One c…

This is all given, however, through Sanskrit, so you are proving to me that the language itself shows the hierarchal dominance that the culture imposed, and that hierarchal dominance shows itself in the philosophy.

No it does not and that is your erroneous understanding. The proof is self-evident because none of the myriads of other languages in the Indian Subcontinent have been supplanted by Sanskrit. In fact there is a theory that Sanskrit was never a spoken language for common folk but merely a written one due to its precision. Also there exists multiple scripts to express Sanskrit in other Indian languages eg. "Grantha" script for Sanskrit->Tamil. All South Indian Classical Languages use their own scripts to write Sanskrit.

The linguistic complexity amongst the various states in India is very unique and hence simplistic notions of language dominance do not apply to India as a whole but varies from state to state.

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

#84

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#85

Post by ASalazarMX »

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…

> However, you never use honorific language when talking about yourself. Instead, you can use humble language to help you decrease your sense of ego importance.

Spanish culture encourages humility/modesty through idioms, like "tu humilde servidor" (your humble servant), "aquí, humildemente" (here, humbly), etc., but these are frequently used as humblebrags. I wonder if that happens in Tibetan culture too.

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

#86

Post by deepsun »

inkyoto wrote: post #73
deepsun wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typical example in some slavic languages: singular/plural versions of "you". In official speech one almost never says singular "you" even to a single person -- instead using honorific plural "you". I wonder if it was probably the same in English, just at some point people became all too polite and stopped using "thou".

> […] In official speech one almost never says singular "you" […] With a notable exception being addressing the sovereign (king/queen/tsar/etc) where the singular «you», «thou» and similar were used, in all languages. The sovereign was seen as a direct peer, the ultimate protector of the people and the last instance of appeal, and the connection was also perceived as deeply intimate. The practice fell out of favour i…

That probably stems from making people believe that sovereign is a semi-god, God's appointee. In religion, God was always addressed intimately, same when God addressed someone.

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

#87

Post by DiscourseFan »

rramadass wrote: post #83
DiscourseFan wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is all given, however, through Sanskrit, so you are proving to me that the language itself shows the hierarchal dominance that the culture imposed, and that hierarchal dominance shows itself in the philosophy.

No it does not and that is your erroneous understanding. The proof is self-evident because none of the myriads of other languages in the Indian Subcontinent have been supplanted by Sanskrit. In fact there is a theory that Sanskrit was never a spoken language for common folk but merely a written one due to its precision. Also there exists multiple scripts to express Sanskrit in other Indian languages eg. "Grantha" scr…

The linguistic complexity does not exist in the philosophy. You are taking the modern state of India and imposing it on a language which neither originated in the country of “India” nor even had a direct relation to its contemporary history. The Brahmanical laws were absolute—the elite learned Sanskrit, developed the philosophy and literary culture, and justified their own rule through it. That entirely predates the colonial rule which formed the very “diversity” you see today. There was no recognition of any authority outside that produced through the text.

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

#88

Post by tiberious726 »

unscaled wrote: post #30
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).

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…

The strong version is disproven in the original paper: they mention concepts that cannot be expressed in English and then proceed to explain them. In English.

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

#89

Post by rramadass »

DiscourseFan wrote: post #87
rramadass wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it does not and that is your erroneous understanding. The proof is self-evident because none of the myriads of other languages in the Indian Subcontinent have been supplanted by Sanskrit. In fact there is a theory that Sanskrit was never a spoken language for common folk but merely a written one due to its precision. Also there exists multiple scripts to express Sanskrit in other Indian languages eg. "Grantha" scr…

The linguistic complexity does not exist in the philosophy. You are taking the modern state of India and imposing it on a language which neither originated in the country of “India” nor even had a direct relation to its contemporary history. The Brahmanical laws were absolute—the elite learned Sanskrit, developed the philosophy and literary culture, and justified their own rule through it. That entirely predates the…

You have missed a lot of what i said/implied. First i used the phrase "Indian Subcontinent" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_subcontinent) which geographically includes much more than the current nation state of India. Second, the linguistic diversity in the Indian Subcontinent is thousands of years old, well predating the arrival of Muslims/British into India. In fact, the modern Indian state lines were drawn based on linguistic identity which has always existed. So i am not arguing from the modern Indian state pov but quite the opposite.

Your statement that Sanskrit did not originate in the Indian Subcontinent is controversial and is not settled. But regardless, there were groups who had Sanskrit as their lingua-franca and who specialized in orally transmitting and then writing down their own (and borrowed from other cultures) philosophies and worldviews. The other linguistic groups in India did not do it to the same degree and hence you have the current situation where it appears that all knowledge only came through Sanskrit one-way. This is the fallacy that i am pointing out. Note that this is quite apart from what the content of the Sanskrit texts themselves may/may not convey; that is a different matter and has to be looked at through a different lens.

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

#90

Post by Tor3 »

Tor3 wrote: post #45
lxgr wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have an inner voice when I think about dialogue. When I construct a discussion in my mind. And only then. I don't use an inner voice when I think about other things, how to do things, or figure out problems. Way too slow, and after all you can't use an inner voice to figure out how to get through a tricky four-car driving situation. You have to figure out what do do by entirely non-verbal means.

(Just to add - I also don't use an inner voice when I read, unless I decide to. And when I do, reading slows down to a crawl, obviously. So in general I don't)
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