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Are We Different People in Different Languages?

167 points by benbreen 10y ago

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
spraak 10y ago
I often feel less shy about sharing personal details in languages I've learned (vs. my 'mother tongues'). Or similarly, I feel more comfortable lying.
- sateesh 10y ago
  Something along similar lines, I am not very comfortable in using cuss words in my native language whereas I feel less compunction in using cuss words in languages I have learned. In general I swear rarely, but when I do feel like swearing I feel it easier to do so in learned languages. Probably with my native language the cuss words trigger a stronger emotions, and making their usage repugnant (for me).
- maxxxxx 10y ago
  Me too. I also prefer public speaking in English over my mother language.
- Razengan 10y ago
  It's the reverse for me. In fact, in the society where my mother's native tongue is the dominant language, it's the social norm to be reserved and "on your guard" vs. other people, to not show any weaknesses or be too candid. In English or Japanese, I feel liberated and free to say what's on my mind. So I definitely agree with this article's premise. I do believe that the feel, tone, nuances and the "taste" of a language defines its adopting culture and society, more than the other way around.
deepuj 10y ago
Pls consider making the website mobile friendly.
two2two 10y ago
This article doesn't really go into what the title suggests so much as it explains that we prefer languages for different reasons. The author talks about several of her students that chose not to use their native language to write because of their negative associations with the language. "For me, language was a kind of initiation into multiple realities." This is how I feel about learning a second language. I feel that I'm opening a door to a land of adventure that had previously been closed.
- ommunist 10y ago
  You are very right. After learning the third, you start to feel a glimpse of some more universal structure in your brain, that pinpoints meaning to expression in languages you know. So you can tell "this cant be said in English, it is too Spanish", or something like that. And it is very useful to learn at least one Eastern Asian language with non-latin script, to get full experience of this kind. Your own depths are unfathomable, and every language pulls the cover, unraveling the abyss of your own mind.
  - dmingoddd 10y ago
    Do you know a substantail number of Indians speak atleast 3 languages. 1st is their regional language where they were born, another is Hindi and the third is English. And it's not considered out of the ordinary at all..
    - ommunist 10y ago
      This may well be the reason of the very fact that India has more kids with IQ>120 than the U.S. has all kids combined.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      - mamon 10y ago
        Maybe what you're saying is true, but I work for an Indian IT consulting company in Europe and from my experience Indians with IQ > 120 (or even > 100) are extremely hard to come by.
ommunist 10y ago
As a Latvian speaker, I must say, that particular language is very poor in expressing abstract concepts and expressing suspense. The language was quite literally designed by Germans as 'slave language'. It had major redesign in 20-ies, but surprisingly most of books in Latvian were published during Soviet times. I agree with hero, Latvian is 'sweet'. It is very good in expressing practical concepts, and as daily conversational speak is much more 'positive' than Russian or English with their multitude of meanings behind simple expressions. UPD: Example of sweet positive character of Latvian. Latvian for "How do you do?" is "Ka labi iet?", means literally the same, but asking person is also telling that he is sure that everything is OK and somehow cheers up spirits of the respondent in this short expression. UPD2: For those native Latvian speakers who care to read Russian and they are many, here is study summing up the first 400 years of Latvian books https://dspace.lu.lv/dspace/bitstream/handle/7/2152/Konference_2006_Dagnija_Ivbule.pdf?sequence=1 https://dspace.lu.lv/dspace/bitstream/handle/7/2152/Konferen... And you know, in 1956 there were 7.9 million books printed in Latvian language (!). Quite a figure for a nation of 2.5 mln people.
- euyyn 10y ago
  I'm very intrigued by what you're saying, but can't imagine it. What makes it easier to express practical concepts? How is it more positive than others? How are others better at expressing suspense, and abstract concepts?
  - ommunist 10y ago
    Learn Latvian, than Tibetan. Than try to translate a piece of classic buddhist text to Latvian. You will simply have no words to express what you need. UPD: On other side of the coin, translation of iPad user instruction from English to Latvian is a breeze. All terms meet their pairs in translation. @tikums. Of course they are. Read Aurobindo Ghosh, for English equivalents. I know, its a popular Latvian meme, that Latvian is close to Sanskrit.
- tikums 10y ago
  As a native Latvian speaker, I have no idea what you're talking about. In comparison to other languages spoken on the European continent, Lithuanian and Latvian have retained more of the features of what linguists call Proto-Indo-European (PIE), a language spoken circa 3500 BCE. It was certainly not "designed by Germans as 'slave language'". Perhaps that's what you were taught during the "ommunist" times under the Soviet occupation. Incidentally, this was also a time of Russification[1], i.e., marginalization of languages spoken by the native population. You can see how this would fit nicely into their narrative. Latvian speakers today, though, would really appreciate if people could stop spreading such falsehoods. That'd be really nice too, Jevgēnij. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russification
crazygringo 10y ago
Short answer? Yes, you certainly can be. A friend of mine is a foul-mouthed dirty scoundrel when he speaks Portuguese with Brazilian friends (where he grew up for half his childhood), a normally-swearing Texan cowboy when he speaks with American friends (where he went to college), and a swear-words-have-never-touched-my-lips gentleman when he speaks received pronunciation with his British friends (other half of childhood in London). He's the same person... but entirely different people. Another anecdote, when I taught English in Brazil, I had one adult student, a lawyer, who was entirely serious and down-to-business with a deeper voice when speaking her native Portuguese, but in English she spoke like a little girl, at a much higher pitch, and a much sunnier personality. But on the other hand, another very multi-lingual friend of mine is exactly the same person in every language -- same attitude, same swearing, same everything. So not sure what it says about your personality... or personalities... :)
- vog 10y ago
  Is this really the different country with the different language, or "just" the other people? As far as I know, everybody behaves differently towards old school friends than towards later friends, colleagues at work, their spouse, and so on. How can we eliminate this effect? A study would need to observe the same group of people, all multilingual, in different langauges. It would be interesting to see whether these behave differently depending on the language (or mix of languages) they use. But I personally doubt it. I believe it is "just" the people.
- mbrookes 10y ago
  I believe, at least for your anecdotes, that this has less to do with language, and more to do with context. We all speak (and behave) differently when we are with our parents, our colleagues and our friends - and arguably online, even when speaking in our native tongue in all these (and other) scenarios. That is not to say that certain languages don't lend themselves better to certain forms of expression, but I'm not convinced your anecdotes support that argument.
  - hkmurakami 10y ago
    Anecdote, but I speak Japanese and English both as native languages (learned them simultaneously growing up). I definitely have different personalities in each language, and can attest to both there contextual influences (working in bigcorp Jalan does things to you) and also that inherent influences of the language mechanisms. Japanese is grammatically and structurally built with a control and deference mechanism.
vinchuco 10y ago
Answering the question https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilingualism#Personality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilingualism#Personality
bangda 10y ago
You should read this http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-morality-changes-in-a-foreign-language/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-morality-chang...
ganfortran 10y ago
Obviously. I am dumb in any other languages, except English and my mother tongue.
- Broken_Hippo 10y ago
  This made me laugh. For a long time, I felt like I could only speak like a child using Norwegian (my second language). It has improved, but there are things I still can't properly express.
pesfandiar 10y ago
Personal anecdote: My mother tongue (Persian) is very complicated when it comes to conveying respect to strangers. You need to be very careful to use the right terms and exchange obligatory niceties. That's why I often try to hide my mother tongue when interacting with fellow Iranians. For instance, it's a lot easier to order food at an Iranian restaurant in English than Persian. English just means business.
- dmingoddd 10y ago
  languages where you can convey respect by certain forms of words and its inherent link with social status or superiority are a pain to get the initial social coordination. cause you're judging and gauging consistently on how to play it especially with strangers.
  - bitwize 10y ago
    Frickin' Japanese. There are some social customs that tie into this: when two salarymen meet for the first time, the first thing they do is wordlessly exchange business cards, so that the right honorifics, registers, verb forms, and such can be used depending on who outranks whom.
    - ommunist 10y ago
      And they have so many words to express degrees of gratitude and denote degrees of favours. So I was told by a fellow startup guy who speaks Japanese.
- Florin_Andrei 10y ago
  I speak an Eastern European language. I know exactly what you mean. I suspect all this linguistic baggage slows down communication and must have some impact on business. Compare it to English - it's so much easier to just get things done when you speak it.
- kpil 10y ago
  In Sweden, there was a campaign to drop titles and respectful pronouns in the late 1960s, and instead use "du" - "you" or "thou" rather - the singular form, which was considered impolite. It worked out to be a success, and when I was a kid in the 80s I can't remember anything else than the new system, except perhaps on film and maybe by some rather old conservatives. Interestingly, and somewhat both ironically and telling, younger people, those younger than 30 perhaps, have reinvented a NEW formal address ("Ni" [you]) that was previously considered to be rather rude. I must say that although I'm not old enough to really know the old system, I still get a bit annoyed by just that failed attempt to be polite. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du-reformen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du-reformen]
ommunist 10y ago
ROTFL. This is translation not from Sanskrit, but from Traditional Chinese. Dude, you really need to learn some languages. Try Russian. Latvian has many words taken from Russian in 19th century.
- tikums 10y ago
  > try to translate a piece of classic buddhist text to Latvian Here is a translation of a classic buddhist sūtra in Latvian: http://www.ugis.info/?t#sutra_ http://www.ugis.info/?t#sutra_ > You will simply have no words to express what you need That is a challenge that all translators face, no matter the language pair. There are no direct equivalents of "अभिधर्म" or "Ānanda" in any of the Western languages either, be it Latvian, English or Welsh. Incidentally, both Lithuanian and Latvian happen to be closer to Sanskrit than the latter. Again, I don't quite see the point you're making. Care to elaborate?
  - maligree 10y ago
    You said it yourself - the lack of direct equivalents is nothing special. What is amusing however, is how in some languages you'll find a lot of "untranslatables" grouped around a particular concept or theme. Language X may have a curiously large amount of untranslatable words that have to do with describing how one feels, while language Y may have a plethora of quick, informal words and phrases that are very hard to translate.
- tikums 10y ago
  Why, thank you, I speak Russian fluently. It doesn't matter whether the text has been translated from Traditional Chinese or Sanskrit, the issue remains the same: Buddhist terminology is specific to the Buddhist tradition. You will face the same challenge, as long as the language that it is being translated to is not steeped in the same tradition.
  - ommunist 10y ago
    You have a lot to discover in original Buddhism before making statements like that. I am fascinated and struggling with help of Roerich's Tibetan-English-Russian dictionary, and I must say, there is difference in meanings, whether its sutra in Chinese or Tibetan. Ancient translators had their own problems, and direction of tradition is more like India -> Tibet -> China. So Sanskrit originals prevail, and I am yet to learn the script.
blacksmith_tb 10y ago
This is a commonly-observed phenomenon, in linguistics it's called code switching[1] 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching
noisy_boy 10y ago
I speak four languages (English, Bengali (mother-tongue), Hindi fluently and Lao semi-fluently). I just find that every language has some specific quality of expression that is unique to it and hence when you use that language to its maximum potential, you are expressing a side of you that you could not express in another language. My speech is much more colorful (I don't mean in a dirty foul-mouthed way) in Bengali than any of the other languages I speak - I can express nuances while maintaining a style that I cannot in another language I speak without losing either the style or the nuance. I find Hindi is also very expressive that way. For the lack of a better word, I feel I'm unable to be equally "juicy" in English. Of course, I'm not a native English speaker so probably the limitation is me and not the language.
- chimeracoder 10y ago
  I'm a native speaker of both Bengali and English, and my experience matches yours. Out of curiosity, which dialect of Bengali do you speak? Separately, something I've long found interesting: sarcasm (the way we understand the concept in English) doesn't really come across in Bengali. I don't mean that Bengali people are incapable of sarcasm, but almost invariably, the Bengali speakers I know only make sarcastic comments in English, never in Bengali. Or, to put it more accurately: there is a way of expressing ironic sentiment in Bengali, but it's very different from how we'd think of it in English, both textually and in the delivery.
  - dang 10y ago
    Perhaps we should make Hacker News a Bengali site instead of an English one.
    - noisy_boy 10y ago
      That would be beautifully ironic because I perceive HN as an Adda[1] of intellectually stimulating nature. And everybody knows, Bengalis love Adda. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adda_(South_Asian) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adda_(South_Asian)
british_india 10y ago
I speak two languages fluently: English and Russian with English being my mother tongue. I find when people speak a language other than their mother tongue, their voice is higher from the concentration it takes to make the second language. Also, I do agree--when you speak a language your personality is affected by the culture of the language you're speaking. One personality for English, another for Russian--in my case.
- lacampbell 10y ago
  > I find when people speak a language other than their mother tongue, their voice is higher from the concentration it takes to make the second language. Huh! I've wondered about this. I'm male, and my voice is much higher when speaking my girlfriends language - who unsurprisingly has a higher pitched voice than me. I figured it was just because I mimic her to pronounce things, but that actually makes sense as well.
- Broken_Hippo 10y ago
  I find this funny. I've been told my voice sounds nice when I speak Norwegian, despite the errors (I don't think I'm fluent yet). I always somewhat assumed it was due to Norwegian being nearly song-like compared to English, but you might be onto something with the higher pitch.
avenoir 10y ago
I'd say yes, but to some extent. My native tongue is Russian, but i'm also fluent in English. I often find myself cursing like a sailor in English (mostly in a group of close friends) while I find cursing in Russian absolutely disgusting. This is hard to explain, but when I say "fuck" and "shit" it really doesn't mean much to me because it isn't said in my native language. Somehow it doesn't register as me cursing the same way it does when I curse in Russian. If i do slip and curse in Russian i always catch myself right away and then feel bad about it for a few hours. I always found this weird and wonder if anybody else experiences it this way? PS. It makes me wonder how much of it has to do with Russian cursing being more "colorful" for a lack of a better word and more diverse than in English. You can make a dictionary of Russian curse words which will rival English lol. I'm exaggerating of course, but it's a pretty massive vocabulary of vulgar terms.
- nier 10y ago
  There were consequences for swearing in my mother tongue. I’m not only talking about my own trespasses. You hear someone say a bad word, you can reasonably expect somebody voicing their problem with that. It’s social control. It changed me to have barriers when it comes to certain words. There was no such opposition in my consumption of English language movies and music.
- robteix 10y ago
  I am the same. I curse a lot in English and French (I live in Quebec) but I can't stand cursing in my native language. I always shared your theory too. I think we are somehow shielded from the cultural baggage of foreign swear words. They're just "funny" instead of offensive.
- yepgo 10y ago
  Same situation here. My first language is Russian and i find myself using curse words more freely in English than I do in Russian. For some time it felt like following some kind of "double standard", but then I realized it has to do a lot with the differences in cultures and how it shapes the way we speak in different languages. Words like "fucking" etc. are more engrained in everyday language and life in the English-speaking world and are used by mostly everyone. For instance, one of my professors who has a great sense of humour is known for dropping the f bomb during his lectures. This is always followed by the burst of laughter by us students. I cannot imagine the same situation and reaction happening with one of the Russian equivalents for F word if the university professor would use it publicly. Russian curse words do sounds more rough and offensive to me, but I think it has to do with culture. I think there is a greater separation between the slang/curse language and "elevated" language in Russia than in the English-speaking world.
poofyleek 10y ago
Korean language has built-in social framework for respecting the elders. Different words used when speaking to someone older vs. younger. The language enforces filial piety. When I learned German, French and Spanish I struggled with gender specific features in them. When I learned English, I struggled and still struggle with the use of articles, like the "the". Languages reflect and reinforce culture and mindsets. I am a different person in each language. Reading translated books is a great mental and cultural exercise. Elena Ferrante reads better in English than the original Italian. Jhumpa Lahiri reads better in English than Italian.
- skyisblue 10y ago
  Indonesians also use honorifics when addressing elders. I find that i'm much more respectful to elders that i talk to in Indonesian than in English.
  - int_19h 10y ago
    Many languages have the sigular vs plural "you" distinction that is heavily used to indicate degrees of social standing and/or respect, that are utterly lacking in English. When you come to English from those languages, it sounds very blunt and disrespectful initially. Russian also uses names for this purpose, since we have first + last + patronymic, various combinations of those when addressing someone denote various degrees of familiarity and deference. E.g. first + patronymic is respect for authority or seniority (but sometimes used jokingly); last name alone is very impersonal; first name + plural you is respectful while asserting equal authority; and first name + singular you indicates a more personal relationship (friend or at least close acquaintance). Some combos, like last name + singular you, are outright insulting in and of themselves - curiously, historically that was the combo used by aristocracy to address inferiors. And as conversation develops, it's not uncommon for people to start with the most formal form of address, and gradually dial it down by mutual consent, often implicit. And, because of all this, addressing someone by name repeatedly over the course of the conversation is more common in Russian than it is in English - because of all that extra meaning attached to it.
    - 10y ago
woodandsteel 10y ago
Interesting article, but very one-sided. Yes, there are a great many ways people are different when they switch languages. But the basic realities of human existence, like being bodies that have to eat and so on to survive, and living in a three-dimensional world, and, are still basically the same. Oh, and that is why it is possible to translate, imperfectly but still to a great extent, between different languages.
- ommunist 10y ago
  It however asks an important question about our internal wiring. During the lat two years I started to think that our wetware runs different AIs, when we think in different languages.
liberte82 10y ago
I lived and worked in France for two years in my early twenties and really made an effort to make good friendships with local French and try to adapt to and understand the culture. Once in awhile people would hear me speak to people back home in Canada on the phone and on several different occasions they commented to me that I speak much more loudly and boisterously in English. It was very unconscious to me. In short, yes, speaking a different language can very much affect your personality. But it is not just the language, it is the culture that you express that language within, and also how the structure and vocabulary of that language itself reflects the culture in which it is used. My favorite thing in France was when I would learn some new word or concept and I would "get" how to use it in French, but I couldn't fully and perfectly translate it to English because of how it just doesn't work quite the same within our culture. e.g.: "C'est normal." It seems like an easy translation, but it requires a real understanding of the differences between French and English/American cultural views of conformity to really be able to see how it doesn't translate quite correctly. It means sort of "how things should be" or "as expected", but even that isn't quite correct, because the "should" is so implicit and assumed in a way that we don't assume in English.
- combatentropy 10y ago
  Could c'est normal be translated "That's how it goes"? I am not fluent in French, but I know that just because English has a word that looks like a Latinate one, it doesn't mean we use it the same way. In English, "normal" has two uses. First, it has a kind of insulting meaning, like "boring", "average", etc., as is often captured when people say things like "I don't want to be normal, I want to be unique." When we use it more straightforwardly, we tend to limit it to medical or scientific situations: "My blood pressure is normal." So it feels a little stiff. Another thing to think about is whether a word's meaning is bent by its sound. In English, "normal" is stressed on its first syllable. NORmul. It kind of just stops there and stands, boringly. But isn't in French it stressed on the second syllable? NurMAAAAAL. It kind of trails off, and by doing so, seems at least to me to convey the meaning of "Oh whatever, c'est la vie, that's just how it goes". So you have to use an English word that also trails off, like goes.
  - 10y ago
kafkaesq 10y ago
From a neurological point of view -- quite possibly yes. In that, as one becomes fluent in new language, different centers of the brain (perhaps entirely different from those used for developing one's mother tongue) are activity. And literally new brain tissue grows in these regions. So when these newer centers are activated... in part, it's literally a different "you" that's being engaged. Just another among the many side benefits of becoming bilingual.
Nadya 10y ago
Yes. In my opinion, entirely. I'm also a believer that how one chooses to speak impacts their behavior and ultimately how they think (of themselves and others). People who speak negatively tend to be negative people. I find the opposite to be true as well, as long as the speech is genuine. Someone "faking" their optimism could of course be a really negative person, regardless of how they speak. I think believing what you say plays a big role. I find myself complimenting others and thanking people for things more frequently in Japanese. Not just as a formality - but because it seems so much more natural than in English. And I think it is very important that any person who speaks only one language does their best to embrace another culture and learn a second. It will change how you think about many things.
blacksmythe 10y ago
I probably am. My wife could tell if I was speaking English or Japanese on the phone based on my body language.
ommunist 10y ago
Are you openly threatening me, Mr Artis Schlossberg? Application of Your skills in infosec in this paricular case may lead to the end of your career at UBS. Besides, your rude remark about my Latvian is in contradiction with my academic grade in it, and results of the State Language Examination Commission.
- tikums 10y ago
  I care very little what you do with this rather uncivil "doxxing" here, Mr. J.Č and certainly plan to take no action.
- dang 10y ago
  This is beyond the pale and we warned you repeatedly, so this account is now banned. I hate to ban anyone who posts as interestingly as, e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9908878 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9908878, but poison like this leaves no choice. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13768283 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13768283 and marked it off-topic.
bonoboTP 10y ago
> “River” in Polish was a vital sound, energized with the essence of riverhood, of my rivers, of my being immersed in rivers. “River” in English is cold—a word without an aura. It has no accumulated associations for me, and it does not give off the radiating haze of connotation. It does not evoke.” This is how I feel about foreign languages as well. Things don't feel as "heavy" somehow. In my native language, official things sound very official, strict and serious, in English it's just the meaning, factually. Or for example when I read English technical (CS, math) books it evokes the same feeling that I took from Numberphile, or online tutorials etc, while the equivalent book in my language would sound and smell like school and obligations instead of exciting and fun things.
BeetleB 10y ago
>Only one—my single American—was monolingual. Two American cyclists were cycling in Europe. Someone flagged them for help. He spoke to them in German. The Americans indicated they did not understand. He then tried French. Then Italian. Then Spanish. Then Portugese. Then Russian. Finally, the person showed his irritation and took off looking for someone else who could help him. One America turned to the other and said "Do you think we Americans should learn more languages?" The other scoffed "Why? Look at this dude. He knew so many languages but it didn't help him, did it?"
- lacampbell 10y ago
  English is the worlds most important language. 52.3% of websites pages are in English, the next highest percentage is Russian at 5.4%. People in other countries learn it just to study things not related to English, like Medicine. The advantages gained by say a French speaker learning English are huge. An English speaker learning French, or even Mandarin? Really not so much. This attitude of "those Europeans are so much more intelligent than us, look at all the languages they know" really needs to die. They know English because they need it and it gives them an advantage. Or often just because they want to watch popular TV shows. BTW English is the most commonly language spoken in Europe as well. The days of Europeans learning the languages of their neighbours is largely over; Norwegians and Swedes, Germans and Dutchmen are much more likely to converse in English than to know each others languages. In your hypothetical scenario, the person would have almost certainly tried the national language first, then English.
  - flukus 10y ago
    > or even Mandarin? Really not so much Not right now, I can easily see that being different within the next century though. Probably too late for us, but not for our children and grand children.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - lacampbell 10y ago
chairmanwow 10y ago
This article is unreadable on my Android mobile.
dboreham 10y ago
My French definitely gets better the more drunk I am.
known 10y ago
"You are a product of your environment." --Clement Stone

167 points by benbreen 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

I often feel less shy about sharing personal details in languages I've learned (vs. my 'mother tongues'). Or similarly, I feel more comfortable lying.

sateesh 10y ago
Something along similar lines, I am not very comfortable in using cuss words in my native language whereas I feel less compunction in using cuss words in languages I have learned. In general I swear rarely, but when I do feel like swearing I feel it easier to do so in learned languages. Probably with my native language the cuss words trigger a stronger emotions, and making their usage repugnant (for me).
maxxxxx 10y ago
Me too. I also prefer public speaking in English over my mother language.
Razengan 10y ago
It's the reverse for me. In fact, in the society where my mother's native tongue is the dominant language, it's the social norm to be reserved and "on your guard" vs. other people, to not show any weaknesses or be too candid. In English or Japanese, I feel liberated and free to say what's on my mind. So I definitely agree with this article's premise. I do believe that the feel, tone, nuances and the "taste" of a language defines its adopting culture and society, more than the other way around.

deepuj 10y ago

Pls consider making the website mobile friendly.

two2two 10y ago

This article doesn't really go into what the title suggests so much as it explains that we prefer languages for different reasons. The author talks about several of her students that chose not to use their native language to write because of their negative associations with the language. "For me, language was a kind of initiation into multiple realities." This is how I feel about learning a second language. I feel that I'm opening a door to a land of adventure that had previously been closed.

ommunist 10y ago
You are very right. After learning the third, you start to feel a glimpse of some more universal structure in your brain, that pinpoints meaning to expression in languages you know. So you can tell "this cant be said in English, it is too Spanish", or something like that. And it is very useful to learn at least one Eastern Asian language with non-latin script, to get full experience of this kind. Your own depths are unfathomable, and every language pulls the cover, unraveling the abyss of your own mind.
- dmingoddd 10y ago
  Do you know a substantail number of Indians speak atleast 3 languages. 1st is their regional language where they were born, another is Hindi and the third is English. And it's not considered out of the ordinary at all..
  - ommunist 10y ago
    This may well be the reason of the very fact that India has more kids with IQ>120 than the U.S. has all kids combined.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - mamon 10y ago
      Maybe what you're saying is true, but I work for an Indian IT consulting company in Europe and from my experience Indians with IQ > 120 (or even > 100) are extremely hard to come by.

ommunist 10y ago

As a Latvian speaker, I must say, that particular language is very poor in expressing abstract concepts and expressing suspense. The language was quite literally designed by Germans as 'slave language'. It had major redesign in 20-ies, but surprisingly most of books in Latvian were published during Soviet times. I agree with hero, Latvian is 'sweet'. It is very good in expressing practical concepts, and as daily conversational speak is much more 'positive' than Russian or English with their multitude of meanings behind simple expressions. UPD: Example of sweet positive character of Latvian. Latvian for "How do you do?" is "Ka labi iet?", means literally the same, but asking person is also telling that he is sure that everything is OK and somehow cheers up spirits of the respondent in this short expression. UPD2: For those native Latvian speakers who care to read Russian and they are many, here is study summing up the first 400 years of Latvian books https://dspace.lu.lv/dspace/bitstream/handle/7/2152/Konference_2006_Dagnija_Ivbule.pdf?sequence=1 https://dspace.lu.lv/dspace/bitstream/handle/7/2152/Konferen... And you know, in 1956 there were 7.9 million books printed in Latvian language (!). Quite a figure for a nation of 2.5 mln people.

euyyn 10y ago
I'm very intrigued by what you're saying, but can't imagine it. What makes it easier to express practical concepts? How is it more positive than others? How are others better at expressing suspense, and abstract concepts?
- ommunist 10y ago
  Learn Latvian, than Tibetan. Than try to translate a piece of classic buddhist text to Latvian. You will simply have no words to express what you need. UPD: On other side of the coin, translation of iPad user instruction from English to Latvian is a breeze. All terms meet their pairs in translation. @tikums. Of course they are. Read Aurobindo Ghosh, for English equivalents. I know, its a popular Latvian meme, that Latvian is close to Sanskrit.
tikums 10y ago
As a native Latvian speaker, I have no idea what you're talking about. In comparison to other languages spoken on the European continent, Lithuanian and Latvian have retained more of the features of what linguists call Proto-Indo-European (PIE), a language spoken circa 3500 BCE. It was certainly not "designed by Germans as 'slave language'". Perhaps that's what you were taught during the "ommunist" times under the Soviet occupation. Incidentally, this was also a time of Russification[1], i.e., marginalization of languages spoken by the native population. You can see how this would fit nicely into their narrative. Latvian speakers today, though, would really appreciate if people could stop spreading such falsehoods. That'd be really nice too, Jevgēnij. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russification

crazygringo 10y ago

Short answer? Yes, you certainly can be. A friend of mine is a foul-mouthed dirty scoundrel when he speaks Portuguese with Brazilian friends (where he grew up for half his childhood), a normally-swearing Texan cowboy when he speaks with American friends (where he went to college), and a swear-words-have-never-touched-my-lips gentleman when he speaks received pronunciation with his British friends (other half of childhood in London). He's the same person... but entirely different people. Another anecdote, when I taught English in Brazil, I had one adult student, a lawyer, who was entirely serious and down-to-business with a deeper voice when speaking her native Portuguese, but in English she spoke like a little girl, at a much higher pitch, and a much sunnier personality. But on the other hand, another very multi-lingual friend of mine is exactly the same person in every language -- same attitude, same swearing, same everything. So not sure what it says about your personality... or personalities... :)

vog 10y ago
Is this really the different country with the different language, or "just" the other people? As far as I know, everybody behaves differently towards old school friends than towards later friends, colleagues at work, their spouse, and so on. How can we eliminate this effect? A study would need to observe the same group of people, all multilingual, in different langauges. It would be interesting to see whether these behave differently depending on the language (or mix of languages) they use. But I personally doubt it. I believe it is "just" the people.
mbrookes 10y ago
I believe, at least for your anecdotes, that this has less to do with language, and more to do with context. We all speak (and behave) differently when we are with our parents, our colleagues and our friends - and arguably online, even when speaking in our native tongue in all these (and other) scenarios. That is not to say that certain languages don't lend themselves better to certain forms of expression, but I'm not convinced your anecdotes support that argument.
- hkmurakami 10y ago
  Anecdote, but I speak Japanese and English both as native languages (learned them simultaneously growing up). I definitely have different personalities in each language, and can attest to both there contextual influences (working in bigcorp Jalan does things to you) and also that inherent influences of the language mechanisms. Japanese is grammatically and structurally built with a control and deference mechanism.

vinchuco 10y ago

Answering the question https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilingualism#Personality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilingualism#Personality

bangda 10y ago

You should read this http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-morality-changes-in-a-foreign-language/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-morality-chang...

ganfortran 10y ago

Obviously. I am dumb in any other languages, except English and my mother tongue.

Broken_Hippo 10y ago
This made me laugh. For a long time, I felt like I could only speak like a child using Norwegian (my second language). It has improved, but there are things I still can't properly express.

pesfandiar 10y ago

Personal anecdote: My mother tongue (Persian) is very complicated when it comes to conveying respect to strangers. You need to be very careful to use the right terms and exchange obligatory niceties. That's why I often try to hide my mother tongue when interacting with fellow Iranians. For instance, it's a lot easier to order food at an Iranian restaurant in English than Persian. English just means business.

dmingoddd 10y ago
languages where you can convey respect by certain forms of words and its inherent link with social status or superiority are a pain to get the initial social coordination. cause you're judging and gauging consistently on how to play it especially with strangers.
- bitwize 10y ago
  Frickin' Japanese. There are some social customs that tie into this: when two salarymen meet for the first time, the first thing they do is wordlessly exchange business cards, so that the right honorifics, registers, verb forms, and such can be used depending on who outranks whom.
  - ommunist 10y ago
    And they have so many words to express degrees of gratitude and denote degrees of favours. So I was told by a fellow startup guy who speaks Japanese.
Florin_Andrei 10y ago
I speak an Eastern European language. I know exactly what you mean. I suspect all this linguistic baggage slows down communication and must have some impact on business. Compare it to English - it's so much easier to just get things done when you speak it.
kpil 10y ago
In Sweden, there was a campaign to drop titles and respectful pronouns in the late 1960s, and instead use "du" - "you" or "thou" rather - the singular form, which was considered impolite. It worked out to be a success, and when I was a kid in the 80s I can't remember anything else than the new system, except perhaps on film and maybe by some rather old conservatives. Interestingly, and somewhat both ironically and telling, younger people, those younger than 30 perhaps, have reinvented a NEW formal address ("Ni" [you]) that was previously considered to be rather rude. I must say that although I'm not old enough to really know the old system, I still get a bit annoyed by just that failed attempt to be polite. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du-reformen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du-reformen]

ommunist 10y ago

ROTFL. This is translation not from Sanskrit, but from Traditional Chinese. Dude, you really need to learn some languages. Try Russian. Latvian has many words taken from Russian in 19th century.

tikums 10y ago
> try to translate a piece of classic buddhist text to Latvian Here is a translation of a classic buddhist sūtra in Latvian: http://www.ugis.info/?t#sutra_ http://www.ugis.info/?t#sutra_ > You will simply have no words to express what you need That is a challenge that all translators face, no matter the language pair. There are no direct equivalents of "अभिधर्म" or "Ānanda" in any of the Western languages either, be it Latvian, English or Welsh. Incidentally, both Lithuanian and Latvian happen to be closer to Sanskrit than the latter. Again, I don't quite see the point you're making. Care to elaborate?
- maligree 10y ago
  You said it yourself - the lack of direct equivalents is nothing special. What is amusing however, is how in some languages you'll find a lot of "untranslatables" grouped around a particular concept or theme. Language X may have a curiously large amount of untranslatable words that have to do with describing how one feels, while language Y may have a plethora of quick, informal words and phrases that are very hard to translate.
tikums 10y ago
Why, thank you, I speak Russian fluently. It doesn't matter whether the text has been translated from Traditional Chinese or Sanskrit, the issue remains the same: Buddhist terminology is specific to the Buddhist tradition. You will face the same challenge, as long as the language that it is being translated to is not steeped in the same tradition.
- ommunist 10y ago
  You have a lot to discover in original Buddhism before making statements like that. I am fascinated and struggling with help of Roerich's Tibetan-English-Russian dictionary, and I must say, there is difference in meanings, whether its sutra in Chinese or Tibetan. Ancient translators had their own problems, and direction of tradition is more like India -> Tibet -> China. So Sanskrit originals prevail, and I am yet to learn the script.

blacksmith_tb 10y ago

This is a commonly-observed phenomenon, in linguistics it's called code switching[1] 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching

noisy_boy 10y ago

I speak four languages (English, Bengali (mother-tongue), Hindi fluently and Lao semi-fluently). I just find that every language has some specific quality of expression that is unique to it and hence when you use that language to its maximum potential, you are expressing a side of you that you could not express in another language. My speech is much more colorful (I don't mean in a dirty foul-mouthed way) in Bengali than any of the other languages I speak - I can express nuances while maintaining a style that I cannot in another language I speak without losing either the style or the nuance. I find Hindi is also very expressive that way. For the lack of a better word, I feel I'm unable to be equally "juicy" in English. Of course, I'm not a native English speaker so probably the limitation is me and not the language.

chimeracoder 10y ago
I'm a native speaker of both Bengali and English, and my experience matches yours. Out of curiosity, which dialect of Bengali do you speak? Separately, something I've long found interesting: sarcasm (the way we understand the concept in English) doesn't really come across in Bengali. I don't mean that Bengali people are incapable of sarcasm, but almost invariably, the Bengali speakers I know only make sarcastic comments in English, never in Bengali. Or, to put it more accurately: there is a way of expressing ironic sentiment in Bengali, but it's very different from how we'd think of it in English, both textually and in the delivery.
- dang 10y ago
  Perhaps we should make Hacker News a Bengali site instead of an English one.
  - noisy_boy 10y ago
    That would be beautifully ironic because I perceive HN as an Adda[1] of intellectually stimulating nature. And everybody knows, Bengalis love Adda. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adda_(South_Asian) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adda_(South_Asian)

british_india 10y ago

I speak two languages fluently: English and Russian with English being my mother tongue. I find when people speak a language other than their mother tongue, their voice is higher from the concentration it takes to make the second language. Also, I do agree--when you speak a language your personality is affected by the culture of the language you're speaking. One personality for English, another for Russian--in my case.

lacampbell 10y ago
> I find when people speak a language other than their mother tongue, their voice is higher from the concentration it takes to make the second language. Huh! I've wondered about this. I'm male, and my voice is much higher when speaking my girlfriends language - who unsurprisingly has a higher pitched voice than me. I figured it was just because I mimic her to pronounce things, but that actually makes sense as well.
Broken_Hippo 10y ago
I find this funny. I've been told my voice sounds nice when I speak Norwegian, despite the errors (I don't think I'm fluent yet). I always somewhat assumed it was due to Norwegian being nearly song-like compared to English, but you might be onto something with the higher pitch.

avenoir 10y ago

I'd say yes, but to some extent. My native tongue is Russian, but i'm also fluent in English. I often find myself cursing like a sailor in English (mostly in a group of close friends) while I find cursing in Russian absolutely disgusting. This is hard to explain, but when I say "fuck" and "shit" it really doesn't mean much to me because it isn't said in my native language. Somehow it doesn't register as me cursing the same way it does when I curse in Russian. If i do slip and curse in Russian i always catch myself right away and then feel bad about it for a few hours. I always found this weird and wonder if anybody else experiences it this way? PS. It makes me wonder how much of it has to do with Russian cursing being more "colorful" for a lack of a better word and more diverse than in English. You can make a dictionary of Russian curse words which will rival English lol. I'm exaggerating of course, but it's a pretty massive vocabulary of vulgar terms.

nier 10y ago
There were consequences for swearing in my mother tongue. I’m not only talking about my own trespasses. You hear someone say a bad word, you can reasonably expect somebody voicing their problem with that. It’s social control. It changed me to have barriers when it comes to certain words. There was no such opposition in my consumption of English language movies and music.
robteix 10y ago
I am the same. I curse a lot in English and French (I live in Quebec) but I can't stand cursing in my native language. I always shared your theory too. I think we are somehow shielded from the cultural baggage of foreign swear words. They're just "funny" instead of offensive.
yepgo 10y ago
Same situation here. My first language is Russian and i find myself using curse words more freely in English than I do in Russian. For some time it felt like following some kind of "double standard", but then I realized it has to do a lot with the differences in cultures and how it shapes the way we speak in different languages. Words like "fucking" etc. are more engrained in everyday language and life in the English-speaking world and are used by mostly everyone. For instance, one of my professors who has a great sense of humour is known for dropping the f bomb during his lectures. This is always followed by the burst of laughter by us students. I cannot imagine the same situation and reaction happening with one of the Russian equivalents for F word if the university professor would use it publicly. Russian curse words do sounds more rough and offensive to me, but I think it has to do with culture. I think there is a greater separation between the slang/curse language and "elevated" language in Russia than in the English-speaking world.

poofyleek 10y ago

Korean language has built-in social framework for respecting the elders. Different words used when speaking to someone older vs. younger. The language enforces filial piety. When I learned German, French and Spanish I struggled with gender specific features in them. When I learned English, I struggled and still struggle with the use of articles, like the "the". Languages reflect and reinforce culture and mindsets. I am a different person in each language. Reading translated books is a great mental and cultural exercise. Elena Ferrante reads better in English than the original Italian. Jhumpa Lahiri reads better in English than Italian.

skyisblue 10y ago
Indonesians also use honorifics when addressing elders. I find that i'm much more respectful to elders that i talk to in Indonesian than in English.
- int_19h 10y ago
  Many languages have the sigular vs plural "you" distinction that is heavily used to indicate degrees of social standing and/or respect, that are utterly lacking in English. When you come to English from those languages, it sounds very blunt and disrespectful initially. Russian also uses names for this purpose, since we have first + last + patronymic, various combinations of those when addressing someone denote various degrees of familiarity and deference. E.g. first + patronymic is respect for authority or seniority (but sometimes used jokingly); last name alone is very impersonal; first name + plural you is respectful while asserting equal authority; and first name + singular you indicates a more personal relationship (friend or at least close acquaintance). Some combos, like last name + singular you, are outright insulting in and of themselves - curiously, historically that was the combo used by aristocracy to address inferiors. And as conversation develops, it's not uncommon for people to start with the most formal form of address, and gradually dial it down by mutual consent, often implicit. And, because of all this, addressing someone by name repeatedly over the course of the conversation is more common in Russian than it is in English - because of all that extra meaning attached to it.
  - 10y ago

woodandsteel 10y ago

Interesting article, but very one-sided. Yes, there are a great many ways people are different when they switch languages. But the basic realities of human existence, like being bodies that have to eat and so on to survive, and living in a three-dimensional world, and, are still basically the same. Oh, and that is why it is possible to translate, imperfectly but still to a great extent, between different languages.

ommunist 10y ago
It however asks an important question about our internal wiring. During the lat two years I started to think that our wetware runs different AIs, when we think in different languages.

liberte82 10y ago

I lived and worked in France for two years in my early twenties and really made an effort to make good friendships with local French and try to adapt to and understand the culture. Once in awhile people would hear me speak to people back home in Canada on the phone and on several different occasions they commented to me that I speak much more loudly and boisterously in English. It was very unconscious to me. In short, yes, speaking a different language can very much affect your personality. But it is not just the language, it is the culture that you express that language within, and also how the structure and vocabulary of that language itself reflects the culture in which it is used. My favorite thing in France was when I would learn some new word or concept and I would "get" how to use it in French, but I couldn't fully and perfectly translate it to English because of how it just doesn't work quite the same within our culture. e.g.: "C'est normal." It seems like an easy translation, but it requires a real understanding of the differences between French and English/American cultural views of conformity to really be able to see how it doesn't translate quite correctly. It means sort of "how things should be" or "as expected", but even that isn't quite correct, because the "should" is so implicit and assumed in a way that we don't assume in English.

combatentropy 10y ago
Could c'est normal be translated "That's how it goes"? I am not fluent in French, but I know that just because English has a word that looks like a Latinate one, it doesn't mean we use it the same way. In English, "normal" has two uses. First, it has a kind of insulting meaning, like "boring", "average", etc., as is often captured when people say things like "I don't want to be normal, I want to be unique." When we use it more straightforwardly, we tend to limit it to medical or scientific situations: "My blood pressure is normal." So it feels a little stiff. Another thing to think about is whether a word's meaning is bent by its sound. In English, "normal" is stressed on its first syllable. NORmul. It kind of just stops there and stands, boringly. But isn't in French it stressed on the second syllable? NurMAAAAAL. It kind of trails off, and by doing so, seems at least to me to convey the meaning of "Oh whatever, c'est la vie, that's just how it goes". So you have to use an English word that also trails off, like goes.
- 10y ago

kafkaesq 10y ago

From a neurological point of view -- quite possibly yes. In that, as one becomes fluent in new language, different centers of the brain (perhaps entirely different from those used for developing one's mother tongue) are activity. And literally new brain tissue grows in these regions. So when these newer centers are activated... in part, it's literally a different "you" that's being engaged. Just another among the many side benefits of becoming bilingual.

Nadya 10y ago

Yes. In my opinion, entirely. I'm also a believer that how one chooses to speak impacts their behavior and ultimately how they think (of themselves and others). People who speak negatively tend to be negative people. I find the opposite to be true as well, as long as the speech is genuine. Someone "faking" their optimism could of course be a really negative person, regardless of how they speak. I think believing what you say plays a big role. I find myself complimenting others and thanking people for things more frequently in Japanese. Not just as a formality - but because it seems so much more natural than in English. And I think it is very important that any person who speaks only one language does their best to embrace another culture and learn a second. It will change how you think about many things.

blacksmythe 10y ago

I probably am. My wife could tell if I was speaking English or Japanese on the phone based on my body language.

ommunist 10y ago

Are you openly threatening me, Mr Artis Schlossberg? Application of Your skills in infosec in this paricular case may lead to the end of your career at UBS. Besides, your rude remark about my Latvian is in contradiction with my academic grade in it, and results of the State Language Examination Commission.

tikums 10y ago
I care very little what you do with this rather uncivil "doxxing" here, Mr. J.Č and certainly plan to take no action.
dang 10y ago
This is beyond the pale and we warned you repeatedly, so this account is now banned. I hate to ban anyone who posts as interestingly as, e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9908878 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9908878, but poison like this leaves no choice. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13768283 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13768283 and marked it off-topic.

bonoboTP 10y ago

> “River” in Polish was a vital sound, energized with the essence of riverhood, of my rivers, of my being immersed in rivers. “River” in English is cold—a word without an aura. It has no accumulated associations for me, and it does not give off the radiating haze of connotation. It does not evoke.” This is how I feel about foreign languages as well. Things don't feel as "heavy" somehow. In my native language, official things sound very official, strict and serious, in English it's just the meaning, factually. Or for example when I read English technical (CS, math) books it evokes the same feeling that I took from Numberphile, or online tutorials etc, while the equivalent book in my language would sound and smell like school and obligations instead of exciting and fun things.

BeetleB 10y ago

>Only one—my single American—was monolingual. Two American cyclists were cycling in Europe. Someone flagged them for help. He spoke to them in German. The Americans indicated they did not understand. He then tried French. Then Italian. Then Spanish. Then Portugese. Then Russian. Finally, the person showed his irritation and took off looking for someone else who could help him. One America turned to the other and said "Do you think we Americans should learn more languages?" The other scoffed "Why? Look at this dude. He knew so many languages but it didn't help him, did it?"

lacampbell 10y ago
English is the worlds most important language. 52.3% of websites pages are in English, the next highest percentage is Russian at 5.4%. People in other countries learn it just to study things not related to English, like Medicine. The advantages gained by say a French speaker learning English are huge. An English speaker learning French, or even Mandarin? Really not so much. This attitude of "those Europeans are so much more intelligent than us, look at all the languages they know" really needs to die. They know English because they need it and it gives them an advantage. Or often just because they want to watch popular TV shows. BTW English is the most commonly language spoken in Europe as well. The days of Europeans learning the languages of their neighbours is largely over; Norwegians and Swedes, Germans and Dutchmen are much more likely to converse in English than to know each others languages. In your hypothetical scenario, the person would have almost certainly tried the national language first, then English.
- flukus 10y ago
  > or even Mandarin? Really not so much Not right now, I can easily see that being different within the next century though. Probably too late for us, but not for our children and grand children.
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chairmanwow 10y ago

This article is unreadable on my Android mobile.

dboreham 10y ago

My French definitely gets better the more drunk I am.

known 10y ago

"You are a product of your environment." --Clement Stone