4 ms·

Disproven is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Is there a study you are citing?

taeric 4y ago
Fair. I meant my claim there more as a question. I only have vague memories of the Sapir Whorf hypothesis. Quickly scanning, I can't find anything definitive. Probably the criticism from Pinker, is what I remember?
- solardev 4y ago
  OK, whoa, sorry... let's take a step back here. I did not mean to imply that language is the sole or complete determinant of culture, or anything remotely that definitive. My statement was overbroad and should've been something way more limited, like "language reflects cultural groupings" or some such. I am not a linguist or an anthro-anything, just a random guy on the internet making observations... sorry if I overstepped. I did not realize the whole color relativity thing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity_and_the_color_naming_debate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity_and_the_...) or the underlying linguistic models (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity) were under such continued debate (but of course they are, how naive of me). It's an interesting thing to ponder, but I don't think my underlying claim is extraordinary -- that the ready-built groupings a language has or does not have in part reflects the commonness of their use in that culture. Essentially, that every culture has their own Venn diagrams, and those overlaps may be similar but not exactly the same across cultures. Is that more limited claim under debate? It seems self-evident to me, but that could just be my ignorance. Like when I think of "French food" as an American, a certain type of restaurant comes to mind, but presumably actual French people don't categorize all their cuisines under one simplistic label like that. I know that's the case with Chinese food, at least. Or other examples, the whole "is a burger a sandwich" debate, or how human races are differently perceived by cultures who don't see a lot of them, or how time is measured and communicated differently across cultures, or animal taxonomies before modern genetics and Linnean classification (e.g. a "whale" sometimes called a "whale fish" in other cultures, or whether a bumblebee is a subtype of a honeybee)... all I'm saying is that linguistic groupings evolve differently across cultures because cultures have different needs. I think even the "is this really a thing outside of movies" question is actually another great example of this, where Hollywood has its own cultural groupings, and those may or may not overlap with real-world American schools (and if so, which schools in which areas/subcultures?). Or, how "nerd" and "jock" fall into relative disuse once you enter the white-collar business world, which is its own subculture with imperfect groupings like "designers (who never touch code? not necessarily)" vs "engineers (who never look at UIs? hardly)".
  - taeric 4y ago
    I don't think you're claim is extraordinarily, either. I just thought it was online with some of the ideas in Sapir Whorf that have been criticized lately. I am not scanning too deep, but I can't find evidence of what I was talking about. Such that I think it is safe to say I was just wrong. At any rate, I sincerely meant that I agree this is neat topic. I just wanted to put in my scepticism that this attitude was fully an American thing.

Fair. I meant my claim there more as a question. I only have vague memories of the Sapir Whorf hypothesis. Quickly scanning, I can't find anything definitive. Probably the criticism from Pinker, is what I remember?

solardev 4y ago
OK, whoa, sorry... let's take a step back here. I did not mean to imply that language is the sole or complete determinant of culture, or anything remotely that definitive. My statement was overbroad and should've been something way more limited, like "language reflects cultural groupings" or some such. I am not a linguist or an anthro-anything, just a random guy on the internet making observations... sorry if I overstepped. I did not realize the whole color relativity thing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity_and_the_color_naming_debate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity_and_the_...) or the underlying linguistic models (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity) were under such continued debate (but of course they are, how naive of me). It's an interesting thing to ponder, but I don't think my underlying claim is extraordinary -- that the ready-built groupings a language has or does not have in part reflects the commonness of their use in that culture. Essentially, that every culture has their own Venn diagrams, and those overlaps may be similar but not exactly the same across cultures. Is that more limited claim under debate? It seems self-evident to me, but that could just be my ignorance. Like when I think of "French food" as an American, a certain type of restaurant comes to mind, but presumably actual French people don't categorize all their cuisines under one simplistic label like that. I know that's the case with Chinese food, at least. Or other examples, the whole "is a burger a sandwich" debate, or how human races are differently perceived by cultures who don't see a lot of them, or how time is measured and communicated differently across cultures, or animal taxonomies before modern genetics and Linnean classification (e.g. a "whale" sometimes called a "whale fish" in other cultures, or whether a bumblebee is a subtype of a honeybee)... all I'm saying is that linguistic groupings evolve differently across cultures because cultures have different needs. I think even the "is this really a thing outside of movies" question is actually another great example of this, where Hollywood has its own cultural groupings, and those may or may not overlap with real-world American schools (and if so, which schools in which areas/subcultures?). Or, how "nerd" and "jock" fall into relative disuse once you enter the white-collar business world, which is its own subculture with imperfect groupings like "designers (who never touch code? not necessarily)" vs "engineers (who never look at UIs? hardly)".
- taeric 4y ago
  I don't think you're claim is extraordinarily, either. I just thought it was online with some of the ideas in Sapir Whorf that have been criticized lately. I am not scanning too deep, but I can't find evidence of what I was talking about. Such that I think it is safe to say I was just wrong. At any rate, I sincerely meant that I agree this is neat topic. I just wanted to put in my scepticism that this attitude was fully an American thing.