5 ms·

"As a linguistics major, you're no stranger to the idea that a person is only capable of having thoughts and ideas that can be expressed in their language." Th

by sp4rki 16y ago

"As a linguistics major, you're no stranger to the idea that a person is only capable of having thoughts and ideas that can be expressed in their language." This is, IMO, so wrong on many levels. My native tongue is Spanish, but I'm also fluent in English, French and German; however I find myself thinking in all of them with the exception of German (I guess I'm not as fluent as I thought I was in it ;)). In the same way, I started with C when I was around 12 years old, and I've had no problem thinking in C, Java, Ruby or Python (which are the languages I use mainly). I think as long as you understand the language itself you won't have to think back to a different one to process your thoughts. And don't get me started on the math. Math is extremely important in programming. I have a friend that shares that though that math is not important, and his code is hideous (Ok he uses ONLY Php, as it's his opinion all other languages are complicated and inflexible). Math can help you accomplish a plethora of things easily, faster, and more productively.

sdasds 16y ago
"As a linguistics major, you're no stranger to the idea that a person is only capable of having thoughts and ideas that can be expressed in their language." I am sorry but this is bullshit, I am glad I no longer visit this crappy forum filled with linguist turned Ruby Dev masquerading as Software Engineers and Computer Scientists. If you have an idea and if you can make it run on a machine, then it means you can convert it into the machine code, which is what everything gets finally converted into. Also if this guy knew math it is called as Turing Principle and as long as the language is Turing complete it makes no difference.
Natsu 16y ago
Agreed. It makes it sound like we cannot come up with new ideas or new words, which we all know that we can. My first language was a form of BASIC. Then I mostly programmed on my calculator in another BASIC-derived language not far removed from assembly (GOTO was the only flow control it offered). When I moved to C, suddenly the patterns of if/then and do/while/for loops immediately made sense: I had been using them the entire time without realizing it. And math? I can't help but use it. When people ask for estimates, I always do some math based on known quantities rather than just guessing. I keep track of how far off my estimates were to apply later corrections and reason backwards to figure out which of my assumptions were wrong (leading to better estimates in the future). I've done merge sort by hand on stacks of paper (and found the speedup when you have a big gap between two merged piles and can move an entire chunk to the sorted pile). And that's not even counting my job, where I end up doing lots of geometry. Knowing the formulas for mutually tangent circles or the formula to find the two intersection points of two circles is surprisingly useful (the case where you have zero or infinity intersection points just doesn't come up and even having one point multiplicity two is rare). I wish I knew more math. I know more than most people and I even have a degree in it, but there's so much great stuff like linear algebra, statistics, graph theory, and game theory that I never feel like I know enough about any of them.
perlgeek 16y ago
The idea that language limits what you can think has been obsoleted for quite some time, see http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/magazine/29language-t.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/magazine/29language-t.html for example. 'Languages differ not in what you can say, but in what you must say" -- Roman Jakobson
- johnaspden 16y ago
  That is a fascinating article, but isn't its point rather that languages probably do have an influence on how you think? And no-one is claiming that you can't do closures in C, but I am claiming that C-only programmers don't usually think in those terms, because the language makes them more complicated than they need to be.
  - sp4rki 16y ago
    Actually I think they have more an effect on how you express yourself. If closures are the solution to my problem I'll probably think about it in language agnostic way first, and then express it in code in whatever language I prefer or need to write in.
- RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago
  Many linguists claim that the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (SWH) has been soundly disproved. They have bags of evidence to show that the usual, strong interpretation is false. And yet every programmer with proficiency in several languages knows that some problems are easier solved in Python, others in C++, and others in AWK. Further, every polyglot I know will shift language according to nuances in the thoughts they're trying to express, because some languages have more/better/finer distinctions about different things. In Spanish the words for "to wait" and "to hope" are the same. In some contexts the words for "Even" and "Same" are both translated into the Frech as "meme" (as in "meme chose" - "same thing"). Perhaps these conflations of words show a conflation of concept. Yes, the differences in concepts exist in the minds of the speakers, but the language to express them precisely isn't always there. There's a Spanish joke: "¿Cómo se llama a un ascensor en Inglés?" - "Con su dedo." It doesn't translate into English - you need to read the Spanish. Again, vocabulary conflation. SWH has been debated here on HN before, many times, and no doubt it will again, with the research-based linguists saying there's no difference in lanugage chosen, and the polyglots snorting derisively. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1505365 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1505365 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658951 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658951 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=218862 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=218862 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1595991 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1595991 I've repeated this comment in a new submission since I think the subject deserves a discussion of its own: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1814973 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1814973
Twisol 16y ago
> My native tongue is Spanish, but I'm also fluent in English, French and German; however I find myself thinking in all of them I think the point is that you can only readily think in terms of what you know. Now, if you're fluent in English, French, German, and Spanish, it's almost a given that you'll be able to think in terms of any of the prominent concepts in those languages. I think the author was really saying that, if you learn a language with a broad range of concepts first, it can only help you as you progress, because you'll be able to actively use those concepts. For example, I know a number of imperative languages, but I've only recently experimented with functional languages like Lisp. The conceptual shift is fascinating, and something I wouldn't have quite grasped if I constrained myself to imperative languages.
- sp4rki 16y ago
  Actually the author kind of made the distinction that he believes your first language should be so an so, so it becomes the 'base thinking platform' (so to speak) in which a programmer develops code in his mind. I agree with you though, you can mostly think (in real life and in programming) in terms of languages you're already fluent in; however being introduced to a new concept can give way to new ways of thinking that can probably be expressed in every language, albeit poorly in some.
johnaspden 16y ago
Is there really no piece of Spanish that you cannot translate into English without changing the meaning? And no English poem that will not translate into Spanish without losing some of its power?

by sp4rki 16y ago

sdasds 16y ago

"As a linguistics major, you're no stranger to the idea that a person is only capable of having thoughts and ideas that can be expressed in their language." I am sorry but this is bullshit, I am glad I no longer visit this crappy forum filled with linguist turned Ruby Dev masquerading as Software Engineers and Computer Scientists. If you have an idea and if you can make it run on a machine, then it means you can convert it into the machine code, which is what everything gets finally converted into. Also if this guy knew math it is called as Turing Principle and as long as the language is Turing complete it makes no difference.

Natsu 16y ago

Agreed. It makes it sound like we cannot come up with new ideas or new words, which we all know that we can. My first language was a form of BASIC. Then I mostly programmed on my calculator in another BASIC-derived language not far removed from assembly (GOTO was the only flow control it offered). When I moved to C, suddenly the patterns of if/then and do/while/for loops immediately made sense: I had been using them the entire time without realizing it. And math? I can't help but use it. When people ask for estimates, I always do some math based on known quantities rather than just guessing. I keep track of how far off my estimates were to apply later corrections and reason backwards to figure out which of my assumptions were wrong (leading to better estimates in the future). I've done merge sort by hand on stacks of paper (and found the speedup when you have a big gap between two merged piles and can move an entire chunk to the sorted pile). And that's not even counting my job, where I end up doing lots of geometry. Knowing the formulas for mutually tangent circles or the formula to find the two intersection points of two circles is surprisingly useful (the case where you have zero or infinity intersection points just doesn't come up and even having one point multiplicity two is rare). I wish I knew more math. I know more than most people and I even have a degree in it, but there's so much great stuff like linear algebra, statistics, graph theory, and game theory that I never feel like I know enough about any of them.

perlgeek 16y ago

The idea that language limits what you can think has been obsoleted for quite some time, see http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/magazine/29language-t.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/magazine/29language-t.html for example. 'Languages differ not in what you can say, but in what you must say" -- Roman Jakobson

johnaspden 16y ago
That is a fascinating article, but isn't its point rather that languages probably do have an influence on how you think? And no-one is claiming that you can't do closures in C, but I am claiming that C-only programmers don't usually think in those terms, because the language makes them more complicated than they need to be.
- sp4rki 16y ago
  Actually I think they have more an effect on how you express yourself. If closures are the solution to my problem I'll probably think about it in language agnostic way first, and then express it in code in whatever language I prefer or need to write in.
RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago
Many linguists claim that the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (SWH) has been soundly disproved. They have bags of evidence to show that the usual, strong interpretation is false. And yet every programmer with proficiency in several languages knows that some problems are easier solved in Python, others in C++, and others in AWK. Further, every polyglot I know will shift language according to nuances in the thoughts they're trying to express, because some languages have more/better/finer distinctions about different things. In Spanish the words for "to wait" and "to hope" are the same. In some contexts the words for "Even" and "Same" are both translated into the Frech as "meme" (as in "meme chose" - "same thing"). Perhaps these conflations of words show a conflation of concept. Yes, the differences in concepts exist in the minds of the speakers, but the language to express them precisely isn't always there. There's a Spanish joke: "¿Cómo se llama a un ascensor en Inglés?" - "Con su dedo." It doesn't translate into English - you need to read the Spanish. Again, vocabulary conflation. SWH has been debated here on HN before, many times, and no doubt it will again, with the research-based linguists saying there's no difference in lanugage chosen, and the polyglots snorting derisively. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1505365 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1505365 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658951 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658951 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=218862 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=218862 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1595991 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1595991 I've repeated this comment in a new submission since I think the subject deserves a discussion of its own: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1814973 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1814973

Twisol 16y ago

> My native tongue is Spanish, but I'm also fluent in English, French and German; however I find myself thinking in all of them I think the point is that you can only readily think in terms of what you know. Now, if you're fluent in English, French, German, and Spanish, it's almost a given that you'll be able to think in terms of any of the prominent concepts in those languages. I think the author was really saying that, if you learn a language with a broad range of concepts first, it can only help you as you progress, because you'll be able to actively use those concepts. For example, I know a number of imperative languages, but I've only recently experimented with functional languages like Lisp. The conceptual shift is fascinating, and something I wouldn't have quite grasped if I constrained myself to imperative languages.

sp4rki 16y ago
Actually the author kind of made the distinction that he believes your first language should be so an so, so it becomes the 'base thinking platform' (so to speak) in which a programmer develops code in his mind. I agree with you though, you can mostly think (in real life and in programming) in terms of languages you're already fluent in; however being introduced to a new concept can give way to new ways of thinking that can probably be expressed in every language, albeit poorly in some.

johnaspden 16y ago

Is there really no piece of Spanish that you cannot translate into English without changing the meaning? And no English poem that will not translate into Spanish without losing some of its power?