CreativeChaos

Here is a clip from an article on language and culture from http://anthro.palomar.edu/language/language_5.htm:

Quote:
Language is more than just a means of communication. It influences our culture and even our thought processes. During the first four decades of the 20th century, language was viewed by American linguists and anthropologists as being more important than it actually is in shaping our perception of reality. This was mostly due to Edward Sapir and his student Benjamin Whorf who said that language predetermines what we see in the world around us. In other words, language acts like a polarizing lens on a camera in filtering reality--we see the real world only in the categories of our language.



For those of you who are multi-lingual, or have traveled broadly, how true do you think this is? What are your thoughts about the article?

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Multi -Lingual Type Forum - need translators
http://www.globalintuitive.org/wiki/

The_FD

Well I did not read it all but as I said in a previous thread (in the forum of philosophy) It is clear for me that I don't feel the world the same way when talking different languages

I'll be back there later with more thoughts though

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L'histoire de la famille Bourdillon
Les fêtes d'Hébé
The flying dancer dancing

The_FD

Well am right back with a bit more thought

Well to me the first point is that people feel reality through their organs and senses. Thus they don't know the reality but only an personal representation of it. Our central nervous system (CNS) analyses the incoming information with what it knows (from previous similar experiences) from the outside world. It is clear that our organs play a determinant role in building our own feelings by selecting differently the incoming information. One's CNS analyses the information since its own knowledge (and there language is a knowledge). So two different people cannot react exactly the same way to a given reality even if basic emotions are supposed to be the same in every humans.

Then the problem is what knowledge one has, interferes with the construction of the feeling facing a given situation. There, we may list thousands of things... but there are a couple of things that seem more important and that interfere in almost every single situation. One of them is language.

Real quick, from my own experience (I can speak both english and french) I can say I don't use to think the same way when I stay and live in the US or in France. A couple of times I noticed that I was talking in english of some topics I would never have in french. And I noticed as well I react differently in when living whether in one or the other of those two different countries... That might be due to me belonging more or less to the local culture of course but I bet language has to do with it. Yet I cannot say since my personal experiences what it is all about.

Hope you got me so far

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L'histoire de la famille Bourdillon
Les fêtes d'Hébé
The flying dancer dancing