3 ms·

I'm not sure how the study you linked is an indictment of the weak version. It seems to fall well under my understanding of the consensus that the weak version

I'm not sure how the study you linked is an indictment of the weak version. It seems to fall well under my understanding of the consensus that the weak version is only true to a certain extent and definitely not to the extent Sapir and Whorf originally claimed. So this does present an interesting result, and one that (AFAICT---I am not a linguist by training) does run counter to the claims of SWH but, more importantly, the study is limited only to spatial reasoning. Surely there are more areas of thought than that?

_emacsomancer_ 5y ago
The study shows that differences in systems of direction words doesn't really affect spatial reasoning. Yes, this one study doesn't disprove every aspect of SWH, but it's a good example of how SWH claims, even in the weaker versions, tend to fare when subject to more rigorous investigation & analysis. What area of thought do you think provides good evidence for (some version of) the SWH?
- lanstin 5y ago
  Given that language is also created or modified by people in order to get their ideas across, wouldn’t it make sense if one can have thoughts arise that don’t fit into language but then they cannot be shared without the creation of appropriate language. I often have the experience of having ideas that I have in a sort of mathematical reasoning space (this here makes that there impossible) that I have to translate into English. (Eg If the the call is routed at the IP layer then they can’t reach this no matter what DNS they have access to)
  - _emacsomancer_ 5y ago
    People do, of course, create new vocabulary, but that's not modifying language on a deep level. And, in part that's a convenience: even when you don't have a "word" for something, you can generally describe it. But if it's something you're going to refer to frequently having a nice lexical entry for it is more convenient. We have memory limitations, so sometimes having convenient handles can free up resources. And your example, I think, also speaks to the point: you're able to reason in mathematical ways; being a speaker of English doesn't block this, even though English perhaps doesn't offer convenient vocabulary for this in all cases.

_emacsomancer_ 5y ago

The study shows that differences in systems of direction words doesn't really affect spatial reasoning. Yes, this one study doesn't disprove every aspect of SWH, but it's a good example of how SWH claims, even in the weaker versions, tend to fare when subject to more rigorous investigation & analysis. What area of thought do you think provides good evidence for (some version of) the SWH?

lanstin 5y ago
Given that language is also created or modified by people in order to get their ideas across, wouldn’t it make sense if one can have thoughts arise that don’t fit into language but then they cannot be shared without the creation of appropriate language. I often have the experience of having ideas that I have in a sort of mathematical reasoning space (this here makes that there impossible) that I have to translate into English. (Eg If the the call is routed at the IP layer then they can’t reach this no matter what DNS they have access to)
- _emacsomancer_ 5y ago
  People do, of course, create new vocabulary, but that's not modifying language on a deep level. And, in part that's a convenience: even when you don't have a "word" for something, you can generally describe it. But if it's something you're going to refer to frequently having a nice lexical entry for it is more convenient. We have memory limitations, so sometimes having convenient handles can free up resources. And your example, I think, also speaks to the point: you're able to reason in mathematical ways; being a speaker of English doesn't block this, even though English perhaps doesn't offer convenient vocabulary for this in all cases.