I've always believed the language you speak profoundly molds, or frames, the way you think.
I once took an Arabic language class. Wish I’d had the money to continue it because I was picking it up really fast and I was enjoying it. Anyway, I quickly noticed that the way a language is constructed can have an *enormous* effect on how you think about things.
Arabic and Farsi must make you a bit crazy.
Totally agree - I have a lifelong struggle to acquire some competency in French. I’d have to say English is more direct, more practical while French is a bit more roundabout, more indirect.
It’s said it’s the language of diplomacy - probably because diplomats are trained to say “nice doggie” while searching for a big stick. The French language is well suited for that.
Finally just as in computer languages - it’s not all about the language per se - it’s about the libraries that come with it. If you speak French you inherit the culture that goes with it - Flaubert, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Zola, Dumas etc. English, you get the whole English literary, cultural and scientific tradition.
And the two differ by quite a lot. So some of this is about the words, the grammar, the expressions, but some of this is also the 100s of years of civilization that goes along with it.
I’m goin gto learn Mexican, so I can invade another country, break its laws, not pay taxes, and due the work that Mexicans can’t do, high tech!
My wife speaks three and a half languages.
German, her native language, English, her second language, spoken longer than she has spoken German, French, a learned language, rarely spoken, but still used by her, and the half language, Spanish.
She can cuss you out in any of them, but she is a sweetie-pie in English, a b#t&h in German, downright scary in French and "get-the-hell-out-of-the-way" in Spanish.
She is able to express her feelings for me better in English than German.
She has a harshness in German that I've observed in quite a few German women, a harshness she hasn't lost in nearly 20 years of being a naturalized US citizen.
I can converse with her in all her languages, if need be, but prefer English, since it's my native language and she is much sweeter in it.
But when she switchs languages, you can, quite literally, see the difference in her demeanor, posture and attitude.
Funny, sometimes.
She says she doesn't see any difference in me, between languages.
Probably not, as I communicate more via body language, no matter what the spoken language.
So maybe there is something to this idea that language affects your personality.
Yes, it is true. Seems like native Finnish speakers are naturals for programming databases.
This from the article made me laugh out loud: found that women classified themselves and others as more assertive when they spoke Spanish than when they spoke English.
Translation: "It's okay for me to call you a hateful scum male to your face because Espanol is a passionate language. It's not that I'm trying to be anti-male.
uh-huh. lol.!!!
Curiously, at 7:04 P.M. on this date, I finished the most horrible book I’ve ever had to read about how our schools should all be taught bilingually...I mean, in Spanish AND English...I mean, our kids should have to learn SPANISH!
It levels the playing field, donchaknow.
This is a very interesting article and thread. Thanks for posting it.
I might add that the “language” one uses can be different even when it is the same, and by that I mean tone, dialect, style, etc. can also influence how we think.
I have always liked reading Jane Austen, maybe weird for a male nerd scientist—so what? She improves me! I tell my kids that “reading Jane Austin makes me a better thinker (and speaker and writer).” For me, that’s the truth! And while she may write in English, it is definitely not the language I hear or speak every day.
Whatever “English” Jane writes in molds my brain. It takes a while before I lose that improvement. Then the web and the news and the unnecessarily “dense” scientific and medical writing I deal with every day takes back over.
Conversely, I deal with patients every day with tremendously limited vocabularies and language skills. They speak English but not the same English we all speak. And they think very poorly, and that often seems to be tied to their lack of adequate language.
Maybe I need to learn a second language! Which one other than English would be the best workout for our American brains?
the biggest example of this is the current occupant of the white house george bush.
the guy is totally schizophrenic.
never never again elect a bilingual president. He just won’t have the best interests of the USA at heart.
Does southern/west Tampa spanglish count as another language? Because I’ve had to learn to speak actual English too.
And don’t get me started on cajuns!
I was learning Spanish but I quit after my neighbor took a shot a me when I cut a hole in his chain link fence.
Damn Gringo.