9 ms·

Man this reminds me of this trip I took to the Maldives as a kid. While spending time with locals, I learned the word "feyli," a term unique to their Dhivehi la

Man this reminds me of this trip I took to the Maldives as a kid. While spending time with locals, I learned the word "feyli," a term unique to their Dhivehi language. "Feyli" describes the feeling of sand between your toes as waves recede on a beach, a sensation familiar to many but so specific that English doesn't have a singular word for it. Before being introduced to feyli I simply enjoyed beach walks as a sum of various experiences - the warmth, the sound, the view. having a label for that specific feeling of sand sifting between my toes made it stand out in isolation. Each time I walked along the shore, my attention would hone in on that particular sensation, heightening my awareness and deepening the experience. It felt as though that one word added a new layer to my sensory palette Love how nuances in language can carve out niches in our perception, spotlighting elements of our environment that might otherwise blend into the background

PunchTornado 3y ago
as my old fried Witty used to say, the limits of my language are the limits of my world.
- wilg 3y ago
  Do languages have limits? I mean, the poster explained the situation in English. How much does terseness matter I wonder?
  - grey-area 3y ago
    Clearly they do have limits.
  - godelski 3y ago
    > Do languages have limits? Yes. Language is itself compression of thoughts. Thoughts themselves are compression of something larger (observations, experiences, combinations of other thoughts, etc). It seems that there is more than one very famous mathematical proof that dictates that systems such as these cannot be complete, or even consistent.
    - wilg 3y ago
      I meant different human languages. Is there something that cannot be expressed in one vs another in any way, even if it's long? I doubt it. Seems like there is something similar to Turing-completeness in effect.
    - defrost 3y ago
      It's a question sorely lacking in a definition of "limit" > It seems that there is more than one very famous mathematical proof that dictates that systems such as these cannot be complete, or even consistent. At least three approaches to similar results arising from questions posed by Hilbert - but do these results impose "a (undefined) limit"? Axiomatic systems that can never be complete or consistent can still be used to reason about objects without limit; both the countable and uncountable numbers spring to mind. Is an axiomatic system that can never be complete "limited"? Surely there's always something more to add on that asymptotic(?) approach to 'completeness'? Is it possible that being complete or consistent is a limit, bounded by completeness , unable to discuss the paradoxical? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert%27s_problems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert%27s_problems
- resolutebat 3y ago
  That's the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which has been pretty thoroughly discredited: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity
  - godelski 3y ago
    I think you're thinking of the strong version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. The strong version is that language dictates how one thinks while the weak form influences. The weak version is near universally accepted and it should be fairly easy to see why. Most people think in words, but note that not everyone does. That sentence alone should give evidence to the strong being false and the weak being true.
  - numpad0 3y ago
    you know, Turing completeness doesn't mean you can actually port arbitrary Turing complete code on another Turing complete environment. You can't transpile x86_64 Linux Kernel image into a bare HTML+CSS file, or random generated and filtered valid sequence of Turing machine tape instructions into a well structured and annotated Rust code. I believe that is what "languages determine perceptions of the world" in Sapir-Whorf hypothesis means. Not "not all languages are Sapir-Whorf complete, only some are", which is obviously wrong, and also what is probably catching you. All languages on Earth are probably complete, just except that says nothing about modeling paradigms and syntaxes and all sorts of mannerisms shared and not shared among those equal and complete languages.
    - greiskul 3y ago
      > you know, Turing completeness doesn't mean you can actually port arbitrary Turing complete code on another Turing complete environment. You can't transpile x86_64 Linux Kernel image into a bare HTML+CSS file, or random generated and filtered valid sequence of Turing machine tape instructions into a well structured and annotated Rust code. It depends on how you define things, but in a very reasonable definition it does actually mean that. If we consider a computational model to be a way using a finite string in countable alphabet to represent every single computable function, then yes, there is an algorithm that can take a program in any computational model 1 and find another program in computational model 2 that also implements the same computable function. Implements here means that both programs will for the same input return the same output if they both halt, or both will not halt. Now the running time, or algorithmic complexity of both algorithms, is not under consideration here. The x86_64 program running in native hardware might finish the computation in milliseconds, where a browser that does the same computation using purely HTML and css that our universal transpiler generated might run in trillions of years.
- braindead_in 3y ago
  The quote "The limits of my language mean the limits of my world" is attributed to Ludwig Wittgenstein, an Austrian-British philosopher. He expressed this idea in his work "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus." It's one of Sw Sarvapriyananda's favourite quotes. Wittgenstein was quite Vedantic it seems.
politelemon 3y ago
I did s a search for 'feyli' and it shows that the term is used for the ethnic wear in Maldives. > Feyli (the ethnic attire of the Maldivian) was worn both by men and women in Maldives during the monarchy. Is it the same word used for both things, or maybe a slightly different word?
- tired-turtle 3y ago
  For reference, here’s a Dhivehi-English dictionary. https://twothousandisles.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/dhivehi-dictionary.pdf https://twothousandisles.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/dhiv... (It lists only ethnic wear as a translation for “feyli.”)
  - psychphysic 3y ago
    Hah now I'm picturing like that urban legend about Yucatan meaning "I don't know". Op is being asked by natives of he'd like some local clothes while he repeatedly jams his foot into the wet sand and points at it.
    - arrowsmith 3y ago
      It's not really an "urban legend" that Yucatan means "I don't know"; it 's a credible theory that linguists take seriously. You might be thinking of "kangaroo", which is also said to originate from a local word for "I don't know", but in that case it's not a serious hypothesis.
      - almostnormal 3y ago
        "Vasistas" in french originated from "was ist das?" (what's that?) in german. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transom_(architecture) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transom_(architecture)
- rvba 3y ago
  > “The forest of Skund was indeed enchanted, which was nothing unusual on the Disc, and was also the only forest in the whole universe to be called -- in the local language -- Your Finger You Fool, which was the literal meaning of the word Skund. > The reason for this is regrettably all too common. When the first explorers from the warm lands around the Circle Sea travelled into the chilly hinterland they filled in the blank spaces on their maps by grabbing the nearest native, pointing at some distant landmark, speaking very clearly in a loud voice, and writing down whatever the bemused man told them. Thus were immortalised in generations of atlases such geographical oddities as Just A Mountain, I Don't Know, What? and, of course, Your Finger You Fool." --Terry Prachett
dfawcus 3y ago
Your simply mentioning the sensation was enough to distinctly bring it to mind. Having grown up by a beach, I've experienced it a lot, from childhood through to as an adult at different beaches around the world. While a specific word for it may be useful, I don't see how it is necessary as an aid to recall of the sensation.
- ethanbond 3y ago
  I don’t think they said it’s necessary. They said it helps to isolate it in consciousness from the countless other phenomena you’re experiencing every second of every day.
  - psychphysic 3y ago
    Reminds me of mindfulness practices, having a word for it, and linking that word to a trip to the Maldives is likely what makes it so intensely memorable.
    - Lamad123 3y ago
      Very "intensely memorable" feelings/things don't have names!! The smell of old grass or barnes or rain on dry soil or kinds of breeze at certain temperature and level of humidity.. Many of these random things without names are still there and don't require words.
      - yesco 3y ago
        No one said they were required, just that words may help induce mindfulness of these sensations
      - atdrummond 3y ago
        Smell of rain on soil does have a name, though - petrichor.
        ethanbond 3y ago
flangola7 3y ago
Attention is all you need!
MrVandemar 3y ago
Language and words are so important. "… they discovered the best way not to be unhappy, was not to have a word for it." — Douglas Adams, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy And Newspeak similarly sought to remove the concept of "bad", by making it "ungood" (Orwell, 1984)

PunchTornado 3y ago

as my old fried Witty used to say, the limits of my language are the limits of my world.

wilg 3y ago
Do languages have limits? I mean, the poster explained the situation in English. How much does terseness matter I wonder?
- grey-area 3y ago
  Clearly they do have limits.
- godelski 3y ago
  > Do languages have limits? Yes. Language is itself compression of thoughts. Thoughts themselves are compression of something larger (observations, experiences, combinations of other thoughts, etc). It seems that there is more than one very famous mathematical proof that dictates that systems such as these cannot be complete, or even consistent.
  - wilg 3y ago
    I meant different human languages. Is there something that cannot be expressed in one vs another in any way, even if it's long? I doubt it. Seems like there is something similar to Turing-completeness in effect.
  - defrost 3y ago
    It's a question sorely lacking in a definition of "limit" > It seems that there is more than one very famous mathematical proof that dictates that systems such as these cannot be complete, or even consistent. At least three approaches to similar results arising from questions posed by Hilbert - but do these results impose "a (undefined) limit"? Axiomatic systems that can never be complete or consistent can still be used to reason about objects without limit; both the countable and uncountable numbers spring to mind. Is an axiomatic system that can never be complete "limited"? Surely there's always something more to add on that asymptotic(?) approach to 'completeness'? Is it possible that being complete or consistent is a limit, bounded by completeness , unable to discuss the paradoxical? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert%27s_problems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert%27s_problems
resolutebat 3y ago
That's the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which has been pretty thoroughly discredited: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity
- godelski 3y ago
  I think you're thinking of the strong version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. The strong version is that language dictates how one thinks while the weak form influences. The weak version is near universally accepted and it should be fairly easy to see why. Most people think in words, but note that not everyone does. That sentence alone should give evidence to the strong being false and the weak being true.
- numpad0 3y ago
  you know, Turing completeness doesn't mean you can actually port arbitrary Turing complete code on another Turing complete environment. You can't transpile x86_64 Linux Kernel image into a bare HTML+CSS file, or random generated and filtered valid sequence of Turing machine tape instructions into a well structured and annotated Rust code. I believe that is what "languages determine perceptions of the world" in Sapir-Whorf hypothesis means. Not "not all languages are Sapir-Whorf complete, only some are", which is obviously wrong, and also what is probably catching you. All languages on Earth are probably complete, just except that says nothing about modeling paradigms and syntaxes and all sorts of mannerisms shared and not shared among those equal and complete languages.
  - greiskul 3y ago
    > you know, Turing completeness doesn't mean you can actually port arbitrary Turing complete code on another Turing complete environment. You can't transpile x86_64 Linux Kernel image into a bare HTML+CSS file, or random generated and filtered valid sequence of Turing machine tape instructions into a well structured and annotated Rust code. It depends on how you define things, but in a very reasonable definition it does actually mean that. If we consider a computational model to be a way using a finite string in countable alphabet to represent every single computable function, then yes, there is an algorithm that can take a program in any computational model 1 and find another program in computational model 2 that also implements the same computable function. Implements here means that both programs will for the same input return the same output if they both halt, or both will not halt. Now the running time, or algorithmic complexity of both algorithms, is not under consideration here. The x86_64 program running in native hardware might finish the computation in milliseconds, where a browser that does the same computation using purely HTML and css that our universal transpiler generated might run in trillions of years.
braindead_in 3y ago
The quote "The limits of my language mean the limits of my world" is attributed to Ludwig Wittgenstein, an Austrian-British philosopher. He expressed this idea in his work "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus." It's one of Sw Sarvapriyananda's favourite quotes. Wittgenstein was quite Vedantic it seems.

politelemon 3y ago

I did s a search for 'feyli' and it shows that the term is used for the ethnic wear in Maldives. > Feyli (the ethnic attire of the Maldivian) was worn both by men and women in Maldives during the monarchy. Is it the same word used for both things, or maybe a slightly different word?

tired-turtle 3y ago
For reference, here’s a Dhivehi-English dictionary. https://twothousandisles.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/dhivehi-dictionary.pdf https://twothousandisles.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/dhiv... (It lists only ethnic wear as a translation for “feyli.”)
- psychphysic 3y ago
  Hah now I'm picturing like that urban legend about Yucatan meaning "I don't know". Op is being asked by natives of he'd like some local clothes while he repeatedly jams his foot into the wet sand and points at it.
  - arrowsmith 3y ago
    It's not really an "urban legend" that Yucatan means "I don't know"; it 's a credible theory that linguists take seriously. You might be thinking of "kangaroo", which is also said to originate from a local word for "I don't know", but in that case it's not a serious hypothesis.
    - almostnormal 3y ago
      "Vasistas" in french originated from "was ist das?" (what's that?) in german. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transom_(architecture) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transom_(architecture)
rvba 3y ago
> “The forest of Skund was indeed enchanted, which was nothing unusual on the Disc, and was also the only forest in the whole universe to be called -- in the local language -- Your Finger You Fool, which was the literal meaning of the word Skund. > The reason for this is regrettably all too common. When the first explorers from the warm lands around the Circle Sea travelled into the chilly hinterland they filled in the blank spaces on their maps by grabbing the nearest native, pointing at some distant landmark, speaking very clearly in a loud voice, and writing down whatever the bemused man told them. Thus were immortalised in generations of atlases such geographical oddities as Just A Mountain, I Don't Know, What? and, of course, Your Finger You Fool." --Terry Prachett

dfawcus 3y ago

Your simply mentioning the sensation was enough to distinctly bring it to mind. Having grown up by a beach, I've experienced it a lot, from childhood through to as an adult at different beaches around the world. While a specific word for it may be useful, I don't see how it is necessary as an aid to recall of the sensation.

ethanbond 3y ago
I don’t think they said it’s necessary. They said it helps to isolate it in consciousness from the countless other phenomena you’re experiencing every second of every day.
- psychphysic 3y ago
  Reminds me of mindfulness practices, having a word for it, and linking that word to a trip to the Maldives is likely what makes it so intensely memorable.
  - Lamad123 3y ago
    Very "intensely memorable" feelings/things don't have names!! The smell of old grass or barnes or rain on dry soil or kinds of breeze at certain temperature and level of humidity.. Many of these random things without names are still there and don't require words.
    - yesco 3y ago
      No one said they were required, just that words may help induce mindfulness of these sensations
    - atdrummond 3y ago
      Smell of rain on soil does have a name, though - petrichor.
      - ethanbond 3y ago

flangola7 3y ago

Attention is all you need!

MrVandemar 3y ago

Language and words are so important. "… they discovered the best way not to be unhappy, was not to have a word for it." — Douglas Adams, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy And Newspeak similarly sought to remove the concept of "bad", by making it "ungood" (Orwell, 1984)