Posted on 10/02/2018 4:15:16 AM PDT by Thistooshallpass9
A growing body of evidence shows that language doesn’t just give people a set of words to express their thoughts. It actually can have a heavy influence on those thoughts and on the behaviors they lead to. What would this mean for the thinking and behavior of a person who learns a “pure language”?
Engrish apparently has the largest lexicon.
Maybe that is why it is The Greatest?
I have absolutely no doubt about this.
If your language is inflexible, your thought patterns will match.
I have extensive interactions with Chinese people. They can mangle their broken English extensively and I am still able to figure out what they mean. One word, hello for example, can be said high pitch, low pitch, tone anywhere on the spectrum, emphasis on either end of the word, letters mispronounced, etc. It’s all the same.
My Chinese however must be exactly right or they simply don’t understand it. Since I speak it poorly and know only a few handfuls of words, it makes it extremely difficult for me to discuss something new.
I recall one conversation with our driver who was asking me in broken English what we did the day before.
“We went to Shenzhen” I said, tone off a bit
I got a questioning look.
“huwhel?” he was trying to say where.
“Shenzhen” tone still not quite right.
He shakes his head, furrows his brow.
I took a different tack. “Hong Kong” said properly, then motioned with my hands, as if next to it
He responded “OOOOH Shenzhen” which to my ear, sounded exactly like what I had said twice.
“yeah, exactly” LOL
I think this builds into them the inability to create and innovate. This is not to say it can’t be overcome, but I believe it is a big impediment for them. It’s why it’s so easy for them to adopt things already created but very difficult to innovate things never made.
Since I started to learn Japanese I have definitely noticed that the Japanese word ordering has started to pop up in my English.
Maybe that is why it is The Greatest?
Oney fo those that can speaks it goodly...that's why the Left constantly bans age-old words and co-opts meanings - to dumb everyone down.
Very interesting observations here, thanks for sharing that!
I’ve noticed that some Chinese keep mixing up the words for “he” and “she”. This seems very odd and makes me wonder if anyone else observed it too.
In the novel “1984”, one observation was that, by eliminating words with which to describe a concept, you eliminate the ability to THINK the concept.
The Left has been very busy with the definition of certain words, like “racism”. Racism, for example, can only describe white antipathy against blacks. In the Left’s vocabulary, there is no word which can describe “hatred by a black person towards whites, with a desire they come to harm”. You can use a word like “prejudice”, for example, but it does not cover the emotional depth.
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This has NOTHING to to with the language. It has to do with the frequency of consciousness of the person.
The Tower of Babel concept does however apply to consciousness and language. A person can raise above the level of language, which is merely a series of metaphors representing patterns of consciousness.
Of course it does, particularly as most other languages aside from english still use masculine/feminine objects, think of how this creates interesting paradigms in how one describes anything? A building or bridge or even an animal, will be subject to adjectives that we associate with one gender or the other. But even language structure and syntax will have an effect on how we perceive, whether its fact based or contextual.
Latin
English is made up of words from many languages. words and phrases seemed to show up out of nowhere in the various former colonies as local languages were absorbed. Plus we have the bonus of dual words for lots of things, a carry over from when the rulers and clergy were all speaking Norman French and everybody else was still muttering in Saxon, Dane, or Welsh / Scot Gaelic for a hundred plus years.
It’s a miracle...
Spanish speakers too.
Chinese has only one word for "third person" (he/she/it) as do many other languages. That may cause some confusion for speakers of those languages when speaking like English.
English has only one word for "you." Some languages have two, or more. ("You" [everyone in the room] and "You" [just the one I'm talking to]).
They appropriate words and actions to control.
In the novel “1984”, one observation was that, by eliminating words with which to describe a concept, you eliminate the ability to THINK the concept.
~~~
I used to believe this but I’ve done nearly a 180 on it. Not only do I believe that it’s very possible to conceptualize without specific words, I feel that giving a word to a concept crystallizes it in a way that often limits the concept, particularly to the way that the word gets used most repeatedly. The concept is no longer pure, but it is easier to remember, and much much easier to communicate.
Words are shortcuts to communication. If we had to use new words in every sentence while we were having a conversation, we would have to stop and expend many many sentences clarifying the meaning of the new word, and the conversation would take forever to proceed. If we were able to communicate telepathically we learn to do with without words and tranceive the images and feelings of concepts, not only would conversations be much faster, but there would be a great deal more clarity.
So when you eliminate a word, you’re not eliminating the ability to THINK about it, but you are very very much limiting the ability to get others to THINK about it.
"Systemic racism" now means Capitalism, and racism is any move to resist full scale socialism.
"You" - singular.
"Y'all" - plural
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