4 ms·
Obese? No Retirement Savings? Perhaps It's Because of the Language You Speak
- ColinWright 15y agoFascinating. For discussions on similar questions do a search on HN for "Sapir Whorf": http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=sapir+whorf http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=sapir+whorf In particular, we have: How language shapes thought (scientificamerican.com) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2594625 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2594625 Sapir-Whorf with Programming Languages (nklein.com) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2374796 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2374796 In what language do deaf people think? (straightdope.com) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1505365 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1505365 ... and many, many more. Sapir-Whorf has fallen out of favor, and perhaps in its original, or more correctly "more extreme" form it is not true, but there are so many studies and anecdotes that polyglots I speak with claim it's "obviously true. Sort of." So this article is another piece of evidence in the attempt to construct a model of what's really true, and to avoid the unseemly trap of "linguistic relativism." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir-Whorf_hypothesis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir-Whorf_hypothesis
- reirob 15y agoYes it is fascinating. And thanks for posting the link to Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. I never heard about this before.
- lukevdp 15y agoI'm a bit skeptical. The lines between what makes a language "strong future-time-reference" and "weak future-time-reference" aren't clear cut. All languages have ways of separating future from present. Choosing a slightly different way of categorising languages makes the correlation with savings dissapear. http://languagesoftheworld.info/language-and-mind/you-save-what-you-speak.html http://languagesoftheworld.info/language-and-mind/you-save-w...