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The idea is that it shapes your thoughts. You're drawn to things that are easier to express. It's not that you can't express any arbitrary concept, but if you h

by kemayo 10y ago

The idea is that it shapes your thoughts. You're drawn to things that are easier to express. It's not that you can't express any arbitrary concept, but if you happen to have a concise word for something then you're more likely to use that than to try to ramble through something that takes a paragraph of explanation.

k__ 10y ago
can't really relate to that. I often have thoughts that can't be phrased in language
- StevenRayOrr 10y ago
  > I often have thoughts that can't be phrased in language Is it that they can't be phrased or that you can't phrase them? I often have thoughts that I can't express through drawing, but that doesn't mean it is an impossibility. I think that we often ignore that the act of putting ideas or thoughts to words is a skill that can be made easier through training.
  - TelmoMenezes 10y ago
    That does not mean that all human experience is communicable. In fact, internal mental states are only communicable to the extent that they are universal. Suppose I am eating cake and you ask me what it tastes like. I say strawberry. Ok, but now supposed that you never tasted strawberrys. How do I describe in language the flavor of strawberry to someone who never tasted them? I can make an approximation based on flavors you know, but once you taste strawberrys you realize that, although what I said is true, it does not convey the sensation of eating strawberrys at all. Even more: the less types of fruit you have tasted, the harder it is to convey an approximation of the flavor of strawberrys through language. So a lot hinges on culture and shared experiences. Languages come from different cultures and sets of shared experiences, so it is natural that they develop more conceptual density in some things than others, and it is also natural that the grammar more naturally fits a certain way of thinking and seeing the world. You can discuss German philosophy in English, but it is a bit clunky. If you ever had the experience of learning a foreign language, you probably felt that you achieved proficiency when you were finally able to "bend" your thought process like the locals do.
    - Dylan16807 10y ago
      > flavor I can't turn senses into words. I can't stare at a scene and capture the equivalent of a photograph by talking. But any thoughts I have about the strawberries or the scene, I can put into words.
    - newman8r 10y ago
      Aldous huxley describes the idea that our own minds are "island universes" and that the way those we call "geniuses" think is an experience that can be described but never fully communicated, "that there is little or no common ground of memory to serve as a basis for understanding or fellow feeling. Words are uttered, but fail to enlighten" http://www.maps.org/images/pdf/books/HuxleyA1954TheDoorsOfPerception.pdf http://www.maps.org/images/pdf/books/HuxleyA1954TheDoorsOfPe...
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- saulrh 10y ago
  The claim isn't that it's impossible to have a thought unless you have language for it, but rather that having language for something makes it easier. It's a close relative of Kolmogorov Complexity and a variety of theorems from machine learning regarding hypothesis classes - different languages have more or less effective ways to express the same concept, and choosing a language with better notation for a given topic can make that topic easier to handle. In many cases (especially technical topics) this change makes the difference between the topic being completely intractable and being a two-week unit in eighth grade. As a concrete example, consider mathematics. I can mostly handle the theory behind integration by eyeballing it and using spatial intuition, but I can't get any farther than that without introducing language that allows me to precisely circumscribe concepts and relate them precisely. edit: also note that "the thoughts that I'm having don't use words" doesn't mean that those thoughts aren't using language. It's just not a language that you could serialize to something that could come out of your mouth - it's some private, unique internal representation that your brain has constructed for it to work with concepts on its own. Still a language, for the purposes of this discussion, since that internal representation will have all the same properties as above - some people have better internal representations for particular topics.
- Dylan16807 10y ago
  Really? I don't, at least not that I've noticed. Can you give a rough description or something of one of those?
kowdermeister 10y ago
That's true. I tend to think in English sometimes instead of Hungarian. It's easier to keep focus because the language is more "compressed".
- type0 10y ago
  Knowing different languages you could have inner monologue in the language of your choice, but one doesn't have to. I think when you speak enough languages it's easier to come to the point where your thoughts don't have a language or at least one could loose that sense. When speaking, you almost have to think in a specific language, anyone who conversed with different persons in different languages would know that it takes time to "switch" to a different though model, that's because you have a loop between Wernicke's area, Broca's area and (pre)motor cortex and it takes effort to change language fast. Hence verbal translators only become good with a lot of practice.
peterbotond 10y ago
Language helps me express what is in my head without an actual human or machine language. I think in objects that are not words, so i always translate to human language when expressing my thoughts. Learning a new language helps me understand culture and the people mostly using it and as importantly the vocabulary of the already known languages. i am a poliglot. When I converse in one language i never translate to another it just flows.
nitwit005 10y ago
People have tried for a long time to find correlations between language traits and cultural or political effects. For the most part, it doesn't seem to be there. What people actually do in practice in the situation you're describing is to just use the foreign word directly. That's how languages end up filled with loanwords.
moptar 10y ago
Many of the examples tend to be about very hard to grasp concepts in the first place, specifically emotions. Maybe those ideas are so close to the line between important and unimportant that it's no great gain or loss if a few slip over the line one way or the other.
Certhas 10y ago
Indeed. The power of language in shaping our perception of the world is the subject of much of twentieth century philosophy [1]. For an analogy for this crowd though: All programming languages are Turing complete. Any algorithm can be expressed in any of them. Would you thus conclude that your choice of programming language does not limit you? Especially when it comes to working in a large team on a complex project? (and there are no larger and more complex projects than human society) An analogous concept would be Dennetts intuition pumps [2]. An answer that is more idiomatic and more easily expressed will present itself more rapidly. It will be communicated to your teammates more efficiently, and it might win out due to its linguistic superiority rather than its inherent superiority or correctness. Thus it quite literally shapes my world. None of this requires me to suppose that thoughts outside of language can not be expressed or that I can not extend and develop language to better express my thoughts. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_turn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_turn [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuition_pump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuition_pump

by kemayo 10y ago

k__ 10y ago

can't really relate to that. I often have thoughts that can't be phrased in language

StevenRayOrr 10y ago
> I often have thoughts that can't be phrased in language Is it that they can't be phrased or that you can't phrase them? I often have thoughts that I can't express through drawing, but that doesn't mean it is an impossibility. I think that we often ignore that the act of putting ideas or thoughts to words is a skill that can be made easier through training.
- TelmoMenezes 10y ago
  That does not mean that all human experience is communicable. In fact, internal mental states are only communicable to the extent that they are universal. Suppose I am eating cake and you ask me what it tastes like. I say strawberry. Ok, but now supposed that you never tasted strawberrys. How do I describe in language the flavor of strawberry to someone who never tasted them? I can make an approximation based on flavors you know, but once you taste strawberrys you realize that, although what I said is true, it does not convey the sensation of eating strawberrys at all. Even more: the less types of fruit you have tasted, the harder it is to convey an approximation of the flavor of strawberrys through language. So a lot hinges on culture and shared experiences. Languages come from different cultures and sets of shared experiences, so it is natural that they develop more conceptual density in some things than others, and it is also natural that the grammar more naturally fits a certain way of thinking and seeing the world. You can discuss German philosophy in English, but it is a bit clunky. If you ever had the experience of learning a foreign language, you probably felt that you achieved proficiency when you were finally able to "bend" your thought process like the locals do.
  - Dylan16807 10y ago
    > flavor I can't turn senses into words. I can't stare at a scene and capture the equivalent of a photograph by talking. But any thoughts I have about the strawberries or the scene, I can put into words.
  - newman8r 10y ago
    Aldous huxley describes the idea that our own minds are "island universes" and that the way those we call "geniuses" think is an experience that can be described but never fully communicated, "that there is little or no common ground of memory to serve as a basis for understanding or fellow feeling. Words are uttered, but fail to enlighten" http://www.maps.org/images/pdf/books/HuxleyA1954TheDoorsOfPerception.pdf http://www.maps.org/images/pdf/books/HuxleyA1954TheDoorsOfPe...
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
saulrh 10y ago
The claim isn't that it's impossible to have a thought unless you have language for it, but rather that having language for something makes it easier. It's a close relative of Kolmogorov Complexity and a variety of theorems from machine learning regarding hypothesis classes - different languages have more or less effective ways to express the same concept, and choosing a language with better notation for a given topic can make that topic easier to handle. In many cases (especially technical topics) this change makes the difference between the topic being completely intractable and being a two-week unit in eighth grade. As a concrete example, consider mathematics. I can mostly handle the theory behind integration by eyeballing it and using spatial intuition, but I can't get any farther than that without introducing language that allows me to precisely circumscribe concepts and relate them precisely. edit: also note that "the thoughts that I'm having don't use words" doesn't mean that those thoughts aren't using language. It's just not a language that you could serialize to something that could come out of your mouth - it's some private, unique internal representation that your brain has constructed for it to work with concepts on its own. Still a language, for the purposes of this discussion, since that internal representation will have all the same properties as above - some people have better internal representations for particular topics.
Dylan16807 10y ago
Really? I don't, at least not that I've noticed. Can you give a rough description or something of one of those?

kowdermeister 10y ago

That's true. I tend to think in English sometimes instead of Hungarian. It's easier to keep focus because the language is more "compressed".

type0 10y ago
Knowing different languages you could have inner monologue in the language of your choice, but one doesn't have to. I think when you speak enough languages it's easier to come to the point where your thoughts don't have a language or at least one could loose that sense. When speaking, you almost have to think in a specific language, anyone who conversed with different persons in different languages would know that it takes time to "switch" to a different though model, that's because you have a loop between Wernicke's area, Broca's area and (pre)motor cortex and it takes effort to change language fast. Hence verbal translators only become good with a lot of practice.

peterbotond 10y ago

Language helps me express what is in my head without an actual human or machine language. I think in objects that are not words, so i always translate to human language when expressing my thoughts. Learning a new language helps me understand culture and the people mostly using it and as importantly the vocabulary of the already known languages. i am a poliglot. When I converse in one language i never translate to another it just flows.

nitwit005 10y ago

People have tried for a long time to find correlations between language traits and cultural or political effects. For the most part, it doesn't seem to be there. What people actually do in practice in the situation you're describing is to just use the foreign word directly. That's how languages end up filled with loanwords.

moptar 10y ago

Many of the examples tend to be about very hard to grasp concepts in the first place, specifically emotions. Maybe those ideas are so close to the line between important and unimportant that it's no great gain or loss if a few slip over the line one way or the other.

Certhas 10y ago

Indeed. The power of language in shaping our perception of the world is the subject of much of twentieth century philosophy [1]. For an analogy for this crowd though: All programming languages are Turing complete. Any algorithm can be expressed in any of them. Would you thus conclude that your choice of programming language does not limit you? Especially when it comes to working in a large team on a complex project? (and there are no larger and more complex projects than human society) An analogous concept would be Dennetts intuition pumps [2]. An answer that is more idiomatic and more easily expressed will present itself more rapidly. It will be communicated to your teammates more efficiently, and it might win out due to its linguistic superiority rather than its inherent superiority or correctness. Thus it quite literally shapes my world. None of this requires me to suppose that thoughts outside of language can not be expressed or that I can not extend and develop language to better express my thoughts. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_turn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_turn [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuition_pump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuition_pump