interesting

[magicicada]

cislyn pointed me towards a very useful article on the Piraha indians.

Under Whorf's theory, people are only capable of constructing thoughts for which they possess actual words. In other words: Because they have no words for numbers, they can't even begin to understand the concept of numbers and arithmetic.

if there was ever a way to describe why everyone should learn a second language, this is it. this is why i study french. this is why my daughter will be learning spanish. learning a new language enables new thoughts which would be difficult or impossible to form without the words to express them.

Discuss.

Comments

[sensational.livejournal.com]

Whorf has, at this point, been pretty much thoroughly debunked. There have been several experiments that prove that people can actually have concepts in their heads for which they don't have words, that words don't define how we think.

I don't have references handy and I'm far too lazy to look them up right now, but if you're curious, there are some experiments having to do with color and the whole Sapir-Whorf thing. Be careful when looking, though--there are some early color word experiments that seem to support S-W, but later on they're redone correctly to show that S-W is mostly crap.

Really, it's kind of unfortunate the way that the S-W hypothesis is used to demonstrate just HOW DIFFERENTLY some cultures THINK, by GOLLY, when really? We're all the same everywhere.

Also, if that kind of thing interests you, there's this great, funny collection of essays by Geoffrey Pullum called The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax and Other Irreverent Essays on the Study of Language that touches on this and other things in a very entertaining way. :)

[gardenwaltz.livejournal.com]

i have heard a lot of argument against the language = thought theory, including the great eskimo hoax, but i think this article makes valid points about the lack of numbers in the language.