Posted on 11/07/2013 6:07:10 AM PST by Cronos
IF YOU speak two or more languages fluently, you may be familiar with the feeling that you act differently in them. I tend to be more excitable in Spanish and ruder in Hebrew, for instance, than I am in English. Now a study by Shai Danziger of Ben-Gurion University and Robert Ward of Bangor University, published in Psychological Science, has confirmed that the language you're speaking can affect the way you think.
(Excerpt) Read more at economist.com ...
This is very true. I am myself when I speak English, someone very cautious and polite when I speak formal Japanese, and very myself again when I slip into Osaka dialect around my family.
I speak a few languages, but except for Arabic which I've forgotten as I knew it as a teen, all are Indo-European and I see commonalities -- but when I tried to look at Japanese,the logic just stumped me!
I remember reading about this phenomenon back in the 60’s. There was a Defense Research Project If I remember correctly that was looking into the phenomenon and wondering if a ‘artificial’ language could be developed for use in the military or at least small specialized units. The language was supposed to modify behavior of the soldiers in such a way that certain actions could not be performed because there was no word in the language to convey the concept. Such words as surrender, mercy, survivors; concepts like that.
I remember talking it over with my Dad and we both thought it was a terrible idea.
There are plenty of people who cannot speak their own native language. You know who I’m talking about. Being so inarticulate, they cannot possibly think well.
I really enjoyed that awful movie... :)
People always ask me why the hell I’m so comfortable with the language and it’s just one of those things...I worked hard to learn it and it just became a native tongue to me.
Then I saw the trailer. Oops.
I am hilarious in Greek... but that’s because I speak it so badly.
My mother (who reads and writes in Greek and English) laughs at me... but she gets what I say.
Yer not the only one!
Okay, I’ll say it- Black English and/or Ebonics.
When I speak French I am condescending to Americans and crave Gaulois cigarettes.
Good line!
When I speak German I have the strangest desire to invade the office next to mine.
Makes sense - the way a person speaks English would affect the way they think too.
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