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An interesting corollary to this is the effect that the specific symbol map and grammar of a language has on native speakers. Do languages which have only an ac
by madaxe_again 11y ago
An interesting corollary to this is the effect that the specific symbol map and grammar of a language has on native speakers. Do languages which have only an active voice, or only the imperative, lead to a more authoritarian culture? What of languages like basque which almost exclusively use the gerund?
I don't know the answer but it'd be fascinating to find out.
- balabaster 11y agoThis is an interesting perspective... in those languages, is what we consider the active or imperative voice actually imperative? Or are their perceptions of the language differing from ours? What we consider imperative may not actually be perceived as imperative in their native tongue.
- nine_k 11y agoThere is a number of widely spoken languages that lack a grammatical future tense. Chinese and Japanese spring to mind, but there are more, like Finnish and Hungarian. There must be an extensive body of research comparing cultures that have a future tense in the language to those who don't.