Sometimes, when I am studying French, I think idly about how people say the same concept differently in different languages. For example, time. We say 'seven thirty'; the French say 'sept heures trente', or 'sept heures et demi'. We say 'ten to eight', they say 'huit heures moins dix". I find myself wondering if the different ways of saying an identical concept have an effect on the way that we think, so that we think about other identical concepts differently.
Guess I'll never know.
4 comments:
Oh, definitely. Someone did a study of some indigence group; this group had a good counting system: one, two, many. (Something like that, anyway.) They perceived quantities differently to other indigenous groups. And it's been observed that if you know what specific colors are (beyond "red, blue, yellow", etc), you definitely see more colors than someone who knows what "blue" is!
Interestingly, it's also been shown (I watch a lot of Nova, what can I say? :-) ) that simply being able to read, never mind write, changes how you think about things. In Mexico, for instance, "the glass broke itself" is how you describe a glass knocked off a table; in the English speaking world, "the glass broke when it fell off
the table". Different concepts to describe the same event.
The language used to describe things affects how we perceive those, and other, things. There's definitely a limited amount of feedback, but the general concept is sound.
And then of course there's the Internet and Fox News...
Surely not Fox News. We're talking about thinking, not anti-thinking.
As for colors, have you seen this, originally from Doghouse Diaries?
Cute!
I think it's entirely accurate, too.
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