Thanks Thistooshallpass9.
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”?
Although English grammar is rather forgiving as compared to other languages, a person wishing to learn English must effectively learn two similar but distinct languages, English as written and English as we speak it. Consonants and vowels are so frequently omitted, changed, and slurred in spoken English, one familiar only with its written form would have difficulty holding a conversation. For just one example, consider the simple sentence “I cannot do it.”. It is usually spoken as “I Kant” or “I knit”, which bears little resembelence to how it is written.
Fascinating commentary!
I agree wholeheartedly.
It’s often we have an intuition but we do not have words to convey that thought to others [think “silent majority”].
Also, there are cases where words to convey our thoughts to to others are forbidden words...
Chinese keep mixing up the words for “he” and “she”
I think they have one thing backwards.
I think the limited cognitive ability results in limited language.
People create words for things they think of and about.
Giving people words for concepts they don’t understand is not going to do any good.
I have cousins in Europe who speak a language which has different masculine, feminine, and neuter pronouns. They speak English pretty well but often get the third person masculine and feminine pronouns mixed up.
It took me some time and conferring with others to figure out what was going on.
Ultimately, to simply things, we explain it like this; everything in Chinese is in a box. Deviate from the confines of the box and it's no longer the same box. In other words, it cannot mutate. It is fixed and locked down.
Without mutation, good or bad, you cannot figure out winners or losers. Innovation, in general, is built on every innovation that came before. We push out the margins of the box. In Chinese, outside the margin is a new box. If no box currently exists, well, maybe they just figure it can't exist. In English, outside the margin is something that can be two or more things or be the same box, just bigger. I believe this bakes rigidity into Chinese brains, artificially limiting innovation.
Again, this is not saying it can't or isn't being done, but when innovation does come from Chinese, it is almost always from the multi-lingual. Maybe it's just the smartest Chinese, or maybe it's because English or other languages gave them freedom from artificially induced restraint from their native language.
If language didn’t matter, then why are the leftists screeching so hard to limit it and dictate what kinds of words, ideas, and concepts we’re allowed to express and how?
“I think this builds into them the inability to create and innovate.”
I came to the same conclusion having studied with Chinese and Japanese grad students in biz and math...then working with their most senior engineers on large mechanical and electronic installs of THEIR designs in factories. They were excellent mimics. But if it didn’t work, it was amusing watching them doing the same thing over and over...then an American,German, or less often, an Italian engineer much junior in age and experience “figure it out” for them. The fix would leave the Asians marveling at it all.....and taking copious notes and pictures.
The fact that the Chinese have 3,000? standard characters in their simplified lexicon to our 26 has to be extremely limiting as well in communicating and logging ideas efficiently and just as important, flexibly to denote something novel.
That doesn't mean I'm not open or interested in some salient factoids....my English teachers would be disappointed - I'm paying more attention to you than I did them.
While still young, I figured out “Y’all” has it’s distinct place, even though I’m not from the South. Seems silly to not have a plural “you”.
Chinese does not have words for “yes” or “no.”
The Montagnard counting system is “1, 2, 3, many.” They can not express or conceptualize any higher numbers.
The lack of words in a language implies the absence of the relevant concept in that culture.
This brings us to”Political Correctness.” The Cultural Marxist mindset seeks to control our available expression by making a whole spectrum of thoughts and words unacceptable, and therefore prohibited from discourse. Any arguments with Progressives are lost before they begin, because traditional words/thoughts are prohibited, and thus can not be expressed.
That’s because in Chinese “he” and “she” are pronounced exactly the same only written differently. They are not used to having to pronounce different sounds for “he” and “she”.
It has nothing to do with them being “rigid”.
In Chinese tone is part of the way the spoken language differentiates between difference words.
Take the “Shen” of “Shenzhen” for example, in tone 1 Shen can mean the verb “to Stretch”, in tone 2, Shen is a noun, it means “God”, In third tone, it a verb “to Judge”, and 4th tone, it’s a verb “to seep through”.
The same “Shen” to you can means things that are vastly different when pronounced with different tones. That’s why without the context of “near HongKong”, when you prounce it in the wrong tone, it can prove very difficult for someone decipher your meaning.
I understand that Chinese is a tonal language. I also work very hard to pronounce things(what limited words and phrases I know) with the right tone. My point is that if something isn't EXACTLY correct, it doesn't mean the same thing. This leads to binary thinking. It means that as children, they spend a lot of time reciting things, exactly. It means they copy things very well because that is how they must learn.
In my particular case with Raymond, our driver, he asked me where we went. He knew we went somewhere. My poor toning of Shenzhen should have been decipherable. It was not. That was just one example, I've been dealing with native Mandarin speakers and some Cantonese for over 15 years. It's something we've become accustomed to. We tend to just text or email when they don't understand and they run it through a translator and then they get it.
I’m not even from the south but I think there are three You forms.
You (singular)
Y’all (two or small group)
All y’all (big group, whole world, etc)
Yes, Chinese is one of what they call a “tonal” languages where a change tone and/or pitch, not just the base sound, can change the meaning.
On the other hand, people who grow up as speakers of a tonal language will, a lot more frequently then others, develop “perfect pitch” or near perfect pitch; as their hearing practices in their language have required greater appreciation of, and greater recognition of tone and pitch. Thus that recognition becomes more highly developed.
I once tried learning spoken Chinese (Mandarin). Gave it up.
Thanks Thistooshallpass9.
English is the collective collaboration, originally, of words from ancient Celtic languages, German directly and from the Germanic languages of the Angles and the Saxons, as well as the Scandanavian languages of the Norse and the Danes (both of which were derived from Germanic tribes that gradually moved north of what we call Germany today), and Latin from the Romans and the Continental (Frankish) Norman (Norse/French/Latin) from Normandy; as well as loan words from outside each of those languages that had previously entered them from many other languages.
One of the greatest assets of English has been its constant and ongoing adaptations from other languages.
Meanwhile poor France has tried to turn French into “legal” and “illegal” French, and spends billions promoting and preserving French, to no avail, while English with all its as hoc additions just marches on.
I am fully expecting that in time (100-200 years) English will be the primary spoken language in India and China. That is not an “imperialistic” motive.
Chinese has many dialects and India has many (100s) of languages. When there is a situation with so many possible languages, one that is neither a native minority language, nor a native dominant langauge, like a learned outside language it can provide a less prejudiced language change that all can find a common use of without feeling they are showing favoritism between the many possible “native” languages. This works quite well in India today, in business, academia and the professions, where a native language or dialect still spoken at home, is often set aside during the workday for English which most of one’s peers - no matter the language of their parents - will understand. Yes, right now it seems sort of a “class” prejudice, as it is less common among common laborers, farmers and others, and more common where higher education was needed. I think time will spread the use of English in India, not slow it.
Y'all and all y'all...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
