Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

[Chucklebug]

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is that:

"a particular language's nature influences the habitual thought of its speakers: that different language patterns yield different patterns of thought. This idea challenges the possibility of perfectly representing the world with language, because it implies that the mechanisms of any language condition the thoughts of its speaker community - Wikipedia."

What do you guys think of this idea? Do you think that is possible to rise above the contraints of our language? Do you think that ideas are separate from the categorical names we give them?

I find it quite scary that maybe we can't think outside our own language. I also find it interesting that many have invented more logical languages that are also much more expressive (apparently - I havn't bothered to learn any) such as Lojban. The other day I was looking up dictionary definitions of words such as intuitive, introverted, introspective etc.. that are used in Myers-Briggs and Keirsey theories and I realised language is such a slippery thing that we can never define something coherently and completely because meaning is constantly changing and is greatly influenced by the reader's experience and emotions. For example, when I write this possibly many will not actually grasp what I had in mind but it will serve as food for thought for those that read it and hopefully trigger a dialogue. I do love the idea of speaking a completely logical and coherant language, but I'm afraid this is a little idealistic.

[thod]

I would take this as true. Many of the far eastern languages require different forms depending on your social status, sex, and age and thus reinforce these concepts. We see with computer languages that each is good for a particular purpose and so it is with human languages. In English for example we describe a table as "the table. The French would be "La table", you are supposed to know that tables are feminine. I can never remember the gender of objects since I am so used to considering them all as neuter.

[Marcus]

I think that culture has much more influence on thought patterns than language. Language may play a role as a 'carrier' of culture, but the problem is not a linguistic one, I think.

Also, your personality (preference for using certain parts of your mind to assess reality) influences your habitual thought patterns. An INTJ sees the world differently than other types, as we know...

[blueback]

I think that the structure of our language does define the "box" we think in. We can think outside the box, it's just harder to do and harder to describe.

I think it's the Hopi indians who made a language entirely out of verbs. When they talk about a tree they don't say "tree" they say "tree-ing". Instead of nouns they use verbs to describe what the thing is doing. We don't think of a tree as doing anything, but they think of a tree as doing what a tree does. That reinforces in their minds the idea that everything is moving, living, and interacting all the time. Our use of nouns reinforces the idea that things have definite boundaries in time and space. Nouns are more useful for science, but they do make it harder to remember that things which move slowly are still moving.

[zibber]

Let me invite you into the terribly disconcerting, yet wonderfully illuminated world of Jacques Derrida (deconstruction).. Language is probably more self-referential than referring to "the outside world", and (arbitrary) cultural norms are stored and transmitted through it. The biggest shock I experienced while reading Derrida was the realisation that there are hierarchical pairs in language, with the grand daddy (;)) of them all being the male/female distinction. So many assumptions rest in those two concepts, and other, less obvious but equally disturbing examples.. Is it inexcapable? I'm not sure. It certainly helps if one's fluent in multiple languages, but there are bound to be huge amounts of general human assumptions trapped in damn near every language. You can only spot these if you scrutinize every aspect of language, every word and every common phrase meticulously, but even in doing this you are still bound to your own frame, your own mode of thinking! Do you think a man-made (again with the male bias) "logical" language would be any better than a heavily scrutinized natural language? If so, would this logical language be that much more noncultural/nonsubjective?

Marcus: I agree that there isn't necessarily a "linguistic" problem here, but natural languages are always severely influenced (I hesitate to say "exclusively shaped") by the culture in which they originate.

[Valiyn]

Tolkien always talked about how languages were the code to cultures. On his speech Welsh and English he even suggested the difference between the native tongue and the crib tongue. The later we are born into the culture and learn the language of that culture. The native tongue however, is the one we prefure the most usually for some obscure reason. If languages are indeed a code to the ways we think, there would be a vast difference with the language we are born into in order to survive in our settings, and the tongue we feel at home speaking. Best example I know of this would be me. Only my dad's side of the family is from the UK area, but all previous to the American revolution. So why is it I have a Welsh accent, and use Welsh terminology instead of American? Long before I ever heard Welsh or any other dialect of English I was using the British pronunciations over the local terms simply because I could never wrap my speaking ability over words like aluminum.

I have fooled native Welsh into thinking I'm Welsh, and Americans living less then a mile from the spot I was born think I'm Welsh. It's not hard or intentional, but if Tolkien is right then the native tongue is the individual code letting us know where we fit in in today's global society.

Languages do not control how you think, just how you work with those around you. Look at the MBTI test, only 16 personalities for the whole race of humanity! Not much when compared to the amount of humans there have ever been walking around. Perhaps the native tongue works more like that? A way of identification to our patterns of thought?

In which case should we be looking at native tongues or the tongue of the people we were born into for this discussion?

[Roland Ansgar]

It's true.

Think of a language as a social context for an idea.

Now, can you abstract from an idea the essence of thought void of culture context?

If you can, then when you are doing so you are free from the constraints of your language. Oh, but wait, what about the guy whom you're reading, or listening to? Was the very basis of thought coloured by his cultural context? How can you tell?

Well, there's an answer to all of this but it is long, and I'm in the mood for short, but this should be enough to get you started.

[Tablelamp]

What do you guys think of this idea? Do you think that is possible to rise above the contraints of our language? Do you think that ideas are separate from the categorical names we give them?
Isn't the description of INTJ's "people who think in wavelengths beyond that which could be easily put into words"? Isn't that why we are generally socially inept, that we think in terms beyond those our native languages have words to describe?

On that note, please, please tell me I am not the only person to have made up words to try and describe things.:embarassed:

[NHere]

Hmm, interesting theory that I must explore later, but first a comment:

As a speaker/learner of two Indo-European languages and a speaker/learner of two languages from other language families, I am fascinated by the impact of language on culture and vice-versa. (My interest lies mainly in the spoken word as I haven’t studied any non-Romanized alphabets yet, so I can’t reflect on how differences in writing might impact the cultural thought process).

I still need to ask: which came first, culture or language?

If, as the theory suggests, language influences culture by, in a sense, "brainwashing" its speakers into thinking in a certain way, then who described the language that created the culture?

And if culture creates language, then do new patterns of thinking in a culture lead to new language?

I would think it must be a dynamic relationship with both the structure of a language influencing thought and the cultural shifts describing how a language is used.

I like using living examples to explore concepts more deeply. I love Blueback's case of Hopi language describing nouns as a state of being rather than a solid existence. Another discussion might be the Malagasy language, which lacks the verb "to be" completely. What generalizations can I make about a culture that lacks such a basic concept?

Maybe it's such a subtle and pervasive difference that I can't see it because I am fully rooted in the concept of "to be." Or maybe there's no impact at all.

Or maybe it's the reason they haven't developed: they can't comprehend the concept of "becoming" something different, so they are unable to imagine an alternative existence or the future (children don't play "pretend" or "what I want to be when I grow up"). Or maybe that's just because they're too busy scraping out their survival and they're unexposed to other possibilities, so they continue to become just what they are.

I would think the interesting point of study for this would be at the intersection between languages - the people who are fluent or partially fluent in another language and with those learning a language. How does learning a different language inform a person's thinking? Again the case of Madagascar where French is taught in schools and Malagasy is the language of daily living. What parts of each language do they keep? What languages do they choose to use to express certain ideas?

There has been a lot of back-and-forth in government policy in the country in the past 75 years: first the French colonial rule indoctrinated generations with French-style language and education, and then with the independence movement and a stretch of socialistic experimentation, there was a strong push to for Malagasy-only ideology. Later they realized this was unsustainable for international relations, etc., and so they returned to French-based education program and are now trying to add English.

Native Malagasy who are well-educated generally prefer to use French or English to express "foreign" concepts. Children who are learning French and English struggle with the proper use of the verb "to be" (more so than other verbs).

Culture confusion? Almost every culture I have lived in has "adopted" certain terms or phrases from other cultures that better express an idea than their own language can. This firmly maintains the cultural origin of a concept while making it useful in a new setting.

Yet there is a return of the pendulum swing to "Malagasy-ize" foreign concepts by creating new words. The Vietnamese have done this very effectively - so effectively, in fact, every development and discovery has a Vietnamese term of its own. Does this simultaneously empower and broaden a culture by making an idea "its own?" By creating new words in a native language, are we breaking down cultural barriers that are created by language? Or does it dilute a culture by introducing concepts that are alien to the elemental thought process created by the language and, in fact, isolates their people by reducing the “need” for one to study a foreign language (and being exposed to foreign ways of thinking?). Indeed this has been used as a propaganda tool by communist/socialist governments in controlling the thinking of the people.

More questions than answers...I know. Wish I had more time to think about these things...

[Antares]

While that's all very interesting, what does it mean for me, for example, who is a speaker of more than three languages? The types of languages I speak are:

-Romance
-Anglo-Saxon
-Oriental

I don't know too much jargon on linguistics, but I can say all three types are fundamentally different. Maybe my Ni is dead these days, but I'm confused to be honest.

- Would I think differently with different languages? Namely: Would I see the world differently if I decide to think in Chinese instead of English? (I do think in English) Or French?
- To escape the bounds of language, would it do to think in mathematical symbols (imagine that!)?

[NHere]

Antares - you were actually one of the people I was thinking of. There are a few true polyglots on this board (I am only vaguely bilingual and a dabbler/survivor) - you are exactly the type of person that might find herself simultaneously culturally isolated and multicultural. As an INTJ, do you think it create even more of a feeling of living "outside" of a situation when with people who only speak/think in one language? Do you have a language of preference for thinking, or do you use an internal language of your own creation?

I use my second language as a language of convenience, but it is by nature such a simplistic language that I rarely use it as a basis for anything more than word choices that fit a situation better.

Is math a truly culture-free form of communication? I don't "speak" enough math and have never used internationally to know.

[Antares]

New Hanoian: I wasn't entirely serious when I suggested math symbols, because frankly a lot of expressions can't be put into mathematics. For example, this works: "Apple is better than orange." translates to (image of apple) > "(image of orange)". But for other expressions like "I am anxious", I'm not quite sure how that's possible.

INTJs have a reputation for being socially inept and bad at communication, so it might be that we think sometimes in impressions and concepts instead of language. That's why I can't vocalize a lot of my thoughts. Even though I mostly think in language, some of the more abstract concepts, I don't. Sometimes I would sit for hours trying to come up with some sort of expression for my ideas or the message I want to get across, but usually someone who knows me well comes along, listens to my broken attempt at explaining my thoughts, and puts it into words for me. I'm often reduced to: "Ah... That's the word I was looking for." In my experience, INTJs are rarely culturally biased and can understand certain expressions in other languages even if no such expression exist in their own language (for example, subjunctive in most Romance languages does not exist in English, but I grasped it faster than my peers did, which is an N thing, because it's conceptual. But memorizing all the conjugations was a different story, because it's a rather S task).

[NHere]

New Hanoian: I wasn't entirely serious when I suggested math symbols, because frankly a lot of expressions can't be put into mathematics. For example, this works: "Apple is better than orange." translates to (image of apple) > "(image of orange)". But for other expressions like "I am anxious", I'm not quite sure how that's possible.

So, if math lacks the subjective and the subjunctive (so to speak), then we'll just have to add the language of music. Hmm, or not.

INTJs have a reputation for being socially inept and bad at communication, so it might be that we think sometimes in impressions and concepts instead of language...

Yes, I agree. Or, I am coming to understand this.

In my experience, INTJs are rarely culturally biased and can understand certain expressions in other languages even if no such expression exist in their own language

In relation to linguistics, I like it.

(for example, subjunctive in most Romance languages does not exist in English, but I grasped it faster than my peers did, which is an N thing, because it's conceptual. But memorizing all the conjugations was a different story, because it's a rather S task).

Ha! Yes, yes, yes! This actually defines how I learn a language - I don't learn the "grammar" per say - I learn what it is I want to say and how it is expressed in a given language. Small example: in Malagasy, the concept of "waterproof" is expressed by saying "not afraid of rain." I latch on to these ways of expressing a concept much more quickly than I do memorizing a series of vocabulary words and how to connect them in a sentence. That stuff just follows the bigger ideas.

A further note on this: I was discussing this topic with a Filipino friend of mine for whom English is a second language, but she is 100% fluent. She lives internationally and says she thinks in English. She has Filipino friends she describes as "fluid" English speakers - mechanically they can read/write as well as her, but they still "think" in their mother tongue. She says she has a hard time relating to them because their thinking is, in fact, described by their language. They seem to have an internal wall between language and culture, and everything is expressed according to the culture they are used to using. They would support this theory.

I also wonder if you would find these speakers/writers a bit awkward to read or understand, because even if they are mechanically correct they may rely on literal translation of expressions and concepts from their own language, rather than adopting those from the culture/language being used.

To push the question further - would an S tend to rely on expressions/concepts from their own culture in a new language, while an N is more readily able to adopt new cultural concepts and expressions?

[Daniel]

I think, write and talk in three different languages. My log book is a mix of all. Every languages gives it's own means of expressing yourself.
In philosophy ideas do seem to look a bit different in the original language and the translation.
In science I don't see any difference.

[NHere]

I think, write and talk in three different languages. My log book is a mix of all. Every languages gives it's own means of expressing yourself.

Just out of curiosity, Daniel, do you consciously choose which language you write certain things in? Or is it an instinct that helps you choose which language to use for which topic?


In philosophy ideas do seem to look a bit different in the original language and the translation.
In science I don't see any difference.

Until only recently, there was little cultural barrier between philosophy and science...philosophy was science and science was philosophy. What changes have taken place in language and culture (impact of increasing globalization?) as a result? If we read older "scientific" writings, is it more prone to cultural interpretation? Has the standardization of language to describe scientific issues actually lead to a greater division between science and philosophy?

BTW, Daniel, I'm intrigued by your avatar: anything like "l'horreur de la page blanche"?

[Daniel]

Just out of curiosity, Daniel, do you consciously choose which language you write certain things in? Or is it an instinct that helps you choose which language to use for which topic?



Until only recently, there was little cultural barrier between philosophy and science...philosophy was science and science was philosophy. What changes have taken place in language and culture (impact of increasing globalization?) as a result? If we read older "scientific" writings, is it more prone to cultural interpretation? Has the standardization of language to describe scientific issues actually lead to a greater division between science and philosophy?

BTW, Daniel, I'm intrigued by your avatar: anything like "l'horreur de la page blanche"?

1. It's based on instinct. The things I want to say just pop out in that language. I couldn't express them that well in the other. I think it's related to the part of information in your head gathered using a certain language.

2. I think science got a lot more mathematized. Moreover science talks about fundamental concepts in nature. Mathematics and the laws of nature aren't something that you can interpret in different ways, depending on the language.
In philosophy you can , as it is more subjective.

3. Avatar. White colour is a symbol. It represents balance, harmony of all colours, simplicity, efficiency, clean design, logic, clarity, precision, sensitivity.

[NHere]

So math again. Math may not (yet?) be able to express the subjective, so it is helping to define a logical communication system like Chucklebug was referring to in the original post. Math may use any particular language as a platform, but it helps remove some of the inherent bias by bringing all languages back to a central, scientific core.

However, as Chucklebug also implied in the first post when referring to terminology in MBTI, how does this work for psychology and sociology and the like - sciences that are less mathematically intense. Will these sciences struggle with more cultural bias when communicating across linguistic lines? For example, "extrovert" and "introvert" can have very strong cultural connotations when translated into different languages (I know this from experience when trying to introduce the concept in one of my other work places). Since they are less "measurable" statistically speaking when used to simply describe a character, will these theories remain ensconced in the language of their birth, or have to be wholly or partially reinterpreted to make "sense" in a different cultural context?





New Hanoian added to this post, 6 minutes and 47 seconds later...

(Oh, yeah, I like your reasoning for the avatar. I still would've personally needed it for the fear of the white page, but more power to you in manifesting the other symbolic qualities.)

[enWTFp]

Ah, finally somebody to notice. To me it's not a hypothesis, it's a fact.

The most major division of languages I like to use is: analytic and synthetic.

Synthetic are the germanic, the italic and the slavic languages, for example. They put a lot of information in a word. Allow creativity in the building of words, their structural modifications. The word gives you gender, gives you grammatical case (nominative, genitive etc) so from an isolated word you already know a lot about its context, its relation with the other words, and its position in the sentence. The article can also be incorporated inside the word itself, giving information whether its something new introduced, or already known.

Making the words so powerful in their isolation, and so rich in their creative ways to build allows the poetry and prose of these languages to have a real sense of beauty that is beyond its meaning, or the way it sounds when pronounced. This beauty is in the variety of way to construct words and to rearrange them - because their isolated power gives them the freedom to be placed in many different ways in the sentence, without changing their value. You get such a great specter of possible rhythms and metric of the phrase. Also the words being "open-source" instead of "black box" allow the reader to draw connections between their parts, not just between them. Finally, since intonation is not relevant to interpretation, the poems of these languages and the theater plays allow to be presented with vast multitude of expressions and emotions attached to the same words.

The major quality of synthetic languages is that they are unambiguous. Hence, they are honest languages that say exactly what they say in terms of meaning, and the interpretations are more in the emotional value behind the meaning.

Analytic languages are Chinese and English, for example. They can be very ambiguous, and even the pronunciation can change the meaning. There your creativity lies in the way you choose the words, and the artistic peaks are measured by the knowledge of a large vocabulary and the ability to apply precise words at precise occasions. But the words themselves are much more "closed", or as I call them "black boxes". Their power is their analytic freedom. You say the same thing and it can be interpreted in ten different ways. Hence, these languages stimulate discrete thinking, and put accent on the choice. They are more extroverted, because they force you to think about how different people would interpret your words, whereas with synthetic languages you don't think so much about that. Analytic languages are more elegant, faster and simpler, but they lack depth and the beauty of complexity.

Tolkien, for example, obviously tries to mix up these trends as much as possible and his artificial languages carry many of the characteristics of synthetic languages as well.

Analytic languages are naturally more popular and easier to use in everyday life, but they do not encourage the mind to construct creatures of its own, instead to 1) know all the existing creatures and 2) to apply the right creatures with variety. There is beauty in the ambiguity of the art based on analytic languages, but this beauty is somehow elusive, uncatchable. Synthetic languages offer indisputable aesthetic values even from single words. They require less knowledge of data (vocabulary) and more knowledge of principles (grammar), and can easily stimulate anyone to be creative on their own. Analytic languages have a stronger sense of elitism, because their fine commandment requires quantity of words to begin with. The natural talent to produce aesthetic creations will not be enough to get at the highest artistic levels of these languages. Analytic languages are trading languages, and Synthetic languages are hardworking.

Analytic languages look more INTP to me, and Synthetic languages look more INTJ, if you allow me this vague correspondence with their qualities. I appreciate the value of both approaches, but I find the synthetic languages simply a little more beautiful. This beauty is probably going to disappear with time, because it requires patience, and the quality seems more and more replaceable by speed nowadays. We go into consumerism and disposability of the individual again, which is too much aside of the topic.

[Daniel]

enWTFp,

Languages are interesting. Never thought about them in that way. Thank you for your post. Very en richening.

[NHere]

enWTFp - thanks for that! That is a perspective that I haven't had the chance to be exposed to - you make me want to study more languages to understand their individual powers more. By chance can you give any brief references for more background reading?

Please excuse my ignorance - I am a dabbler with only practical experience in this area and a lot of questions, but could you explain how you differentiate "English" as an analytical language when its roots are primarily "germanic" which you put as a synthetic language? What specific languages (Italian?) would be a solid example of a synthetic language? Am I correct in assuming most tonal/semi-tonal language (i.e., Vietnamese, Thai) would automatically be classified as analytical? Are there primitive languages that fit into neither category - neither a discrete specificity nor a rich texture to the individual vocabulary?

Thanks for these insights!

[Monster]

I think this is very true. That's why I am thinking english only ;-) It's much better language then any other.

It's hard to prove it, but I can give you a one simple example: "you" in english means "one or more persons". In many other languages they are 2 separate words - first to refer to one person and another to refer to two or more. During conversation in english language it's much simpler to say "you" without thinking if you talking about one person or more. The most important thing is that this little difference has emotional impact of some kind.

Those little diffrences must make a difference in your thought process.