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Related, I've often wondered whether people have categorized languages by how they change the way you think. While efficient communication of ideas is importan

Related, I've often wondered whether people have categorized languages by how they change the way you think. While efficient communication of ideas is important, what seems just as if not more important to me is how the language allows a brain think. We think in our language, and there are tradeoffs between languages on the patterns of thought that are easy and that which are difficult. I'd rather learn a language that gives me a new model for thinking about the world more creatively, more collectively, or just in an entirely alien way that few people think like. And going a step further, it would be fascinating to experiment with constructing languages with the intention of building a kind of novel "brain firmware" that would help people think in ways no human ever has. I suppose programming languages are like that to some extent.

jhanschoo 5y ago
> Related, I've often wondered whether people have categorized languages by how they change the way you think. This probably has a lot to do with the society of speakers that you use your language with. For example, you use a very different register with very different thought patterns with your gangmates in your bad teenage years than with the client at your luxury sales job. There are concepts that will be simply be taboo to express to either speaker that would be natural conversation in the other. I really disagree that there are expressions that are impossible to express in language, barring that limitation. Either a circumlocution will give an approximation (including where the original is ambiguous), or an expression can be coined to be introduced to that language, the society of speakers willing.
hoseja 5y ago
I don't think everyone thinks "in language" all the time. I certainly find it much more efficient to think in abstract concepts and only compile them down to language when I need to communicate them.

jhanschoo 5y ago

> Related, I've often wondered whether people have categorized languages by how they change the way you think. This probably has a lot to do with the society of speakers that you use your language with. For example, you use a very different register with very different thought patterns with your gangmates in your bad teenage years than with the client at your luxury sales job. There are concepts that will be simply be taboo to express to either speaker that would be natural conversation in the other. I really disagree that there are expressions that are impossible to express in language, barring that limitation. Either a circumlocution will give an approximation (including where the original is ambiguous), or an expression can be coined to be introduced to that language, the society of speakers willing.

hoseja 5y ago

I don't think everyone thinks "in language" all the time. I certainly find it much more efficient to think in abstract concepts and only compile them down to language when I need to communicate them.