Does language inherently influence the mental process...

Does language inherently influence the mental process? It seems that our perception of the world is largely influenced by our native language's grammatical structure. The Sapir–Whorf hypothesis is interesting in that regard but leaves much to be desired. What about bilingual, multilingual people? Does learning a new language change our thinking? Do we "think" something only because we're using a certain language at the moment?

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-mixing
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Cats are trash.

I was thinking about making a thread on this topic.

This might sound strange but is there a correct form of linguistics? When I look at the grammar of different languages, the Germanic ones like English seem the most logical to me. Other language families, like Romantic for instance, seem illogical and "wrong" somehow. The rules just don't seem to work with the way my thoughts are organized.

The obvious answer is that I'm just biased towards the Germanic grammatical structure since English was my first language, and my second was German.

But even with that bias in mind, I still can't help but feel that Germanic grammar makes the most sense.

Without sufficient vocabulary, it is hard to conceptualize many things. Beyond that, I don't think it matters.

Bilingual children have a significant iq boost iirc

>Does language inherently influence the mental process? It seems that our perception of the world is largely influenced by our native language's grammatical structure. The Sapir–Whorf hypothesis is interesting in that regard but leaves much to be desired.
A little bit. The strong Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is extremely discredited but the weak Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is the one of most researched things in linguistics because it's one of the few things in lingustics that are actually falsifiable, like in "real" science. Language influences but doesn't determine perception. See: the Color Naming Debate.

>What about bilingual, multilingual people? Does learning a new language change our thinking?
The Aymara language conceptualizes time as the past in the front and the future to the back. Monolingual Aymara speakers tend to gesture behind themselves when talking about the future. Bilingual Aymara/Spanish or Aymara/English speakers don't do this.

>Do we "think" something only because we're using a certain language at the moment?
Speaking from personal experience, sometimes. Other factors such as social cues and context probably play a bigger role.

I should also add this too:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-mixing

sounds like pseudoscience.

You can conceptualize ideas but you cannot express them in a suitable manner. The limits of your spoken language will provide a natural barrier and give a more or less unique meaning to a same thing.

>Does language inherently influence the mental process?
Yes, but not entirely and very different from person to person.

Most of my thoughts are not verbal and sometimes aren't even visual, and i still have to translate the feeling of that thought into language even it is my native one.

Maybe less autistic (or less introverted, or less "right-brained") people than me CAN have thoughts that just pop up ready to be spoken right away, but mine usually require massaging to shape them into a form others can understand too.

> Does learning a new language change our thinking?
"As many languages you know, as many times you are a human being"

Knowing more languages gives you much wider outlook than just ignorantly thinking your little mother tongue is end all because you don't know better.

>But even with that bias in mind, I still can't help but feel that Germanic grammar makes the most sense.
Complete bias.

Especially considering all germanic grammar is a fucking mess.

Living languages tend to grow a shells of "garbage" -- influence of neighbouring cultures' words, exceptions because hosts of the language refuse to be purely logical AIs and constantly cut corners or even make new ones evolving the language naturally.

I am studying korean and it is kinda interesting how much of a culture is baked into language itself with autistically increasing forms of politeness dominating the speech.

Compare that to English which only has (You) which is jack of all trades regardless of subtleties concerning societal hierarchy. Obviously it had "thee" once in a while but that was dropped from active use.

So English by design cares little about ages, positions and hierarchy -- and by extension so do hosts. Or more accurately -- it is hosts' culture changes the language.

While many asian cultures give a lot of importance on societal status and age and so the language they're speaking reflects it.

Similarly, English is unisex, while most of the languages aren't

>English is unisex
It's that modern English lacks gender distinctions in nouns but this still seems to be preserved subconsciously or for some other reason when people refer to inanimate nouns as a gender like she for country and much of it's romance vocabulary would be gendered originally.

I'd like to know what it feels like to think in some far removed language like Chechen and the Indegenous American languages.

>our native language's grammatical structure is largely influenced by our perception of the world

fixd

>Does language inherently influence the mental process?
It does. Heidegger even elaborated that this is the reason why Germany produced so many philosophers, as opposed to Spain or Italy.

Also in English the politeness could be substituted in the speech of people with higher formation with a choice usage of words like for example "I/we received" as opposed to "we got" or "we were" etc. so like code switching.

And what is one's perception of the world shaped by?

Language. Originally one man's thought/meme takes root in other people's mind and gets solidified into language and culture.

For example, word "privacy" simply doesn't exist in Russian which is very indicative.

People who are not aware of the concept because it doesn't exist in the language would have harder time understanding it's meaning and values standing behind it.

>For example, word "privacy" simply doesn't exist in Russian
It doesn't? Just curious because I'm also a Slavic speaker and we have a word for privacy.

>For example, word "privacy" simply doesn't exist in Russian
Source?

No it's a very alien concept for Russians.

To vaguely reflect what "privacy" means in Russian you say: "нeпpикocнoвeннocть личнoй жизни" which is a clumsy, inaccurate and roundabout phrase saying "safety of private life".

word "yeдинeниe" means just "solace" as in "being alone in some place" and doesn't cover concept of "privacy" at all.

Why did he think German made more philosophical people?
What would English produce? Scientists? Would French produce artists?

I already knew you're a Russian once you started posting those faggot cats.
Also it's interesting how English lacks the distinction between formal and informal "you". You call everyone the same regardless of if it's the president or just some kid on the street, I guess that's part of the reason why Anglo countries are so egalitarian.

>I guess that's part of the reason why Anglo countries are so egalitarian.

That's not it really.

Stop reddit spacing please.

stop

being

triggered

you

fucking

newfag

I said please.

>The Aymara language conceptualizes time as the past in the front and the future to the back. Monolingual Aymara speakers tend to gesture behind themselves when talking about the future. Bilingual Aymara/Spanish or Aymara/English speakers don't do this.

That sounds incredibly interesting, where can I read more about it?

>I already knew you're a Russian once you started posting those faggot cats.
I am neither Russian nor OP actually.

> it's interesting how English lacks the distinction between formal and informal "you". You call everyone the same regardless of if it's the president or just some kid on the street, I guess that's part of the reason why Anglo countries are so egalitarian.
Here's some more bait 4u

Which culture is the biggest proponent of normalisation of homosexual relations?

Culture where people speak the language that is comparably indifferent to gender -- you only have to change pronouns, compared to most languages where verbs suffixes and particles and sometimes even verbs themselves change drastically.

Though, i have to admit turkic languages even less gender dependant than English because nor verbs nor pronouns are the same across genders and you don't see much gender equality nor liberal push from there.

Google "aymara time concept" or something.

ok, i thought you/he had something specific

So should I learn Hebrew if I want to begin constructing an elite social circle I can rule the world with?

Most Jews don't really speak Hebrew, though, do they? You'd probably be better off with Yiddish.

I was reading earlier about the unification of the Chinese written language by Qin Shi Huang. It was rather fascinating because I had never considered the advantages of a logographic writing system in creating a unified culture.

Since every character in written Chinese represents a different word rather than a sound like in western alphabets, people who speak completely different languages will be able to use the same writing system and be able to communicate with one another, since the words (and thus the characters) are the same no matter the language.

The words may be pronounced differently in different languages, but when everyone is using the same glyphs for each word none of that matters, anyone who knows the written language can read the writing of anyone else using the same system no matter what their spoken language is.

That's not reddit spacing at all

It's a very good language with a lot of words because of a process I forgot, it's called conglutinate or something I think. Put together words form new meanings etc.

>tfw reading a translated german text but the translator is completely unable to translate a word, so just writes the german one.

Isn't Yiddish just an amalgamation of German and Hebrew

It's not an amalgamation of anything, it's literally German. Just with some Jewish and Slavic words thrown in.

>Most Jews don't really speak Hebrew, though, do they? You'd probably be better off with Yiddish.
Literally nobody speaks Yiddish anymore other than some crusty 80 year old kikes in Jerusalem ghettos. Most Israelis speak Hebrew and non-Israeli Jews speak the language of their host country, usually.

This isn't necessarily related to OP's question, but one thing that's always fascinated me about languages is loan words, like how tortillas are called, well, tortillas in English. Does that happen simply from cultural diffusion?

Gutter German

its likely the other way, those that are smart enough to learn 2 languages already have higher iqs

You're trash

Agglutinating?

Hebrew culture???

t. cat

Hebrew was basically a dead language until the modern Zionist movement revived interest in it though.