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The strong version is hilariously easy to destroy: if you're cognitively limited to your language, then you cannot create new words, let alone new concepts. Sin

The strong version is hilariously easy to destroy: if you're cognitively limited to your language, then you cannot create new words, let alone new concepts. Since it is patently false that no new words or new concepts are created, by Modus Tollens, it is also false that you are cognitively limited to your language. The weak version seems true to me. I think it is absolutely the case that your language colors your thought.

dmreedy 8y ago
I'm not sure that argument is a complete route of the strong (or at least, stronger) hypothesis. The conscious creation of new words is often done using fusions or appropriations of existing words, per Lakoff's Metaphors. Over time, the meanings shift and expand, but it's not a raw, instantaneous act of creation, that, to your point, would seem to be impossible under Strong Sapir-Whorf. Now, we can, here and now, 'invent' a 'new' word from what we believe to be whole cloth. But it's hard to prove that that there's not some unconscious process similar to the above going on! That really all we're doing is finding the intersections of existing semantic distributions. Incidentally, my favorite SIGBOVIK paper: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tom7/papers/sigbovik2011tom7whatwords.pdf https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tom7/papers/sigbovik2011tom7whatword...
jfengel 8y ago
I'm not sure that even the weak case is true: while it could be that language colors thought, it could as easily be the reverse. We may pick our languages to reflect the thoughts we have. Those thoughts are heavily influenced by culture, and language is a strong tool for communicating culture, but it's not the only one. Apes communicate culture by watching rather than speaking, and my cat learns that she's not supposed to go on the table even though she doesn't understand when I tell her. So while language and thought patterns may be correlated, the arrow of causation isn't necessarily one way. Experiments that show people thinking in certain grooves divided by language, but concluding that the latter causes the former may be putting the cart before the horse.
arebours 8y ago
> The strong version is hilariously easy to destroy: if you're cognitively limited to your language, then you cannot create new words, let alone new concepts. It depends on what's the thing you define a language. It might be that dictionary and grammar are only a kind of projection of a more blurry, hidden structure - a language "core". Think of how children sometimes invent new words and how these words immediately "click" with fluent speakers even if they mean shit. IANAL(inguist) so take it with a grain of salt.
- arebours 8y ago
  Oh, and another thing. Knowing a word is not a 0 or 1 kind of situation. More often than not if you're not sure about some word you're able to successfully guess some of its meaning or at least a sentiment associated with it.
notduncansmith 8y ago
I think this is a limited interpretation of the hypothesis. The version of your brain that doesn’t have an idea is unable to think of it. You can then synthesize a new idea from your existing ideas, and no longer have that version of your brain (you have a minor, or in some cases major, version bump). Then once you have the new version of your brain with the new idea, you can use it to further synthesize new ideas. This process of reflection and intellectual growth is the only way to break out of your SW prison is to synthesize new ideas - until you do, you are exactly as the hypothesis says, limited to the ideas you currently have. Sometimes this process is involuntary, so it doesn’t feel like you just booted up a new version of yourself.

dmreedy 8y ago

I'm not sure that argument is a complete route of the strong (or at least, stronger) hypothesis. The conscious creation of new words is often done using fusions or appropriations of existing words, per Lakoff's Metaphors. Over time, the meanings shift and expand, but it's not a raw, instantaneous act of creation, that, to your point, would seem to be impossible under Strong Sapir-Whorf. Now, we can, here and now, 'invent' a 'new' word from what we believe to be whole cloth. But it's hard to prove that that there's not some unconscious process similar to the above going on! That really all we're doing is finding the intersections of existing semantic distributions. Incidentally, my favorite SIGBOVIK paper: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tom7/papers/sigbovik2011tom7whatwords.pdf https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tom7/papers/sigbovik2011tom7whatword...

jfengel 8y ago

I'm not sure that even the weak case is true: while it could be that language colors thought, it could as easily be the reverse. We may pick our languages to reflect the thoughts we have. Those thoughts are heavily influenced by culture, and language is a strong tool for communicating culture, but it's not the only one. Apes communicate culture by watching rather than speaking, and my cat learns that she's not supposed to go on the table even though she doesn't understand when I tell her. So while language and thought patterns may be correlated, the arrow of causation isn't necessarily one way. Experiments that show people thinking in certain grooves divided by language, but concluding that the latter causes the former may be putting the cart before the horse.

arebours 8y ago

> The strong version is hilariously easy to destroy: if you're cognitively limited to your language, then you cannot create new words, let alone new concepts. It depends on what's the thing you define a language. It might be that dictionary and grammar are only a kind of projection of a more blurry, hidden structure - a language "core". Think of how children sometimes invent new words and how these words immediately "click" with fluent speakers even if they mean shit. IANAL(inguist) so take it with a grain of salt.

arebours 8y ago
Oh, and another thing. Knowing a word is not a 0 or 1 kind of situation. More often than not if you're not sure about some word you're able to successfully guess some of its meaning or at least a sentiment associated with it.

notduncansmith 8y ago

I think this is a limited interpretation of the hypothesis. The version of your brain that doesn’t have an idea is unable to think of it. You can then synthesize a new idea from your existing ideas, and no longer have that version of your brain (you have a minor, or in some cases major, version bump). Then once you have the new version of your brain with the new idea, you can use it to further synthesize new ideas. This process of reflection and intellectual growth is the only way to break out of your SW prison is to synthesize new ideas - until you do, you are exactly as the hypothesis says, limited to the ideas you currently have. Sometimes this process is involuntary, so it doesn’t feel like you just booted up a new version of yourself.