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.
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
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.
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?
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.
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
Any Loglan speakers on FR?