3 ms·

It won’t happen except in the imagination of mono-lingual-future dreamers on HN (popular idea here for some reason).

altruios 2y ago
Well, speaking in different languages facilitates different modes of thinking which results in different thoughts. Some thoughts are easier to have in one language than another. It takes all sorts to make a world and multiple languages means a broader mental space to explore ideas. People against that tend to lean totalitarian. People for a monoculture, that is. That is an inherently limiting philosophy which can only die out as it narrows the 'acceptable ideas' list over time.
- keybored 2y ago
  > Well, speaking in different languages facilitates different modes of thinking Sapir-Whorf? Can’t that just be put to bed by now? > People against that tend to lean totalitarian. People for a monoculture, that is. On the topic of languages at least. Some technologists seem to want to get rid of all ostensibly useless things. More than one language being one of them.
  - FabHK 2y ago
    Exactly. Culture obviously influences thinking, language less so. Sapir-Whorf has been refuted, except for some minor minor areas (names of colours - some people call these two colours two different names, some call them the same - big deal!; left-right vs north-east-south-west; etc.)
  - numpad0 2y ago
    no, that's just chomskists getting desperate. Polyglots can't be Sapir-Whorf denialists, and Internet is only broadening paths to be that, so support for UG theory must increasingly become irrational and negative.
    - keybored 2y ago
      I understand that polyglot means at least three languages most commonly, but I’m bilingual and haven’t experienced this effect. Would it come with my third language?
      - numpad0 2y ago
        I'm a Japanese speaker with maybe above Japanese average but way below professional English and effectively nothing else except I've taken _a_ Chinese class, and it's currently obvious to me that UG theory is largely BS and most of the rest tautological, except I have no ability to succinctly point it out in a logical, academia accepted language. There's been too many anecdotal cases I've had that aren't going to fit with the basic premise of UG theory that there's a hard-wired common human language engine with output stage that is language. Like they seem to have logical constructions that feels sound but aren't going to be linguistically valid in languages I know in Chinese, and there are of course phenomena of people's attitudes switching along with their languages, etc. One counter example to UG theory I've come across recently is an easily understood phrase "verbalizing one's feelings": if UG theory holds some water, feeling == thoughts == language, or at least they should be close to each others, and we should be able to just `^C dump-sumerian<CR>` at any moment at zero cost, and we can't. Not that it takes unreasonable bandwidth or storage to do so but we can't. Doesn't that perhaps suggest that languages are both external yet natural to yourself as much as a keyboard is to a man? Maybe it actually needs exposure to the third language so your subconscious can eliminate the possibility that you're just not good at the second one, I don't know, though I do believe multi(>=3) lingualism is sufficient condition.
        keybored 2y ago
        You’re bilingual like me? UG means Universal Grammar? I guess you have me pegged as a Chomskyist because it makes sense to me. But I can’t understand you taking a Chinese class made you an embittered opponent of some advanced, nerdy linguistic theory. For my part I wouldn’t be able to understand it at a technical level.
  - altruios 2y ago
    >Sapir-Whorf? Can’t that just be put to bed by now? Said by someone who only speaks one language? Nice Idiom: shame if something were to happen to it. It is SO EASY to prove this (literally just talk to any multilingual and watch their entire personality shift when they change languages {some languages have larger gaps}, they themselves don't often notice the effect)! >On the topic of languages at least. At least, you say... hmmm... why does that raise ALL THE RED FLAGS... > Some technologists seem to want to get rid of all ostensibly useless things. More than one language being one of them. which is why programmers keep inventing new languages (rust), which is the defacto standard everyone uses now. /s Your arguments are as singularly cultured as what you argue for.... Which - as it so happens to be - (the quality of your arguments) is exactly my argument against such a future state. And on one more note: Dave Ackley has some nifty ideas about the opposite of efficiency being robustness instead of waste. having a monoculture promises efficiency, but with that comes a brittleness that will cut us.
    - keybored 2y ago
      You didn’t pick up on the tone then. I was being derisive towards the mono-lingual-future dreamers.
      - altruios 2y ago
        thank you! Sorry, tone is very hard on the internet sometimes. Any sass would be directed at mono-lingual-future dreamers.
  - aeonik 2y ago
    I thought the weak form was pretty solid? It's pretty obvious to anyone who learns math or programming, that once you find the right vocabulary or equation for something, that your brain chunks it, and it's easier to reason about that domain moving forward. Of course it's not like if you don't have the word "blue" you are color blind, it's just that it's really hard to have a conversation about 10 different shades of blue if you don't even have a word for it. The strong version of Sapir Whorf is obviously false because everyone has perceptions and feelings that they can't put words to.
    - keybored 2y ago
      Getting tired of people replying to me about how it is obvious to anyone who speaks more than one language[1] when I’ve said already that I speak two languages. [1] Which is more applicable than learning programming or math since this is linguistics.
      - aeonik 2y ago
        I don't think it's even limited to written or spoken languages. I've been learning a lot of CAD and mechanical principles lately, and I can tell that my brain has some sort of kinematic/movement language that is expanding, and helping me understand how things work, and how to build more things.
Wytwwww 2y ago
Depends on the country probably. In some places, at least reasonably high English fluency is near universal. It wouldn't be surprising if these countries eventually became effectively bilingual.
- keybored 2y ago
  That’s different. GP said “first language”…
  - nkozyra 2y ago
    Yeah, the multi-lingual stuff isn't what I'm talking about. I'm referring to countries where English is spoken enough by this generation that it may just leak into a first language for their children or grandchildren.
    - keybored 2y ago
      First language means the first language, the mother tongue. Which implies supplanting the existing first language. Kids becoming bilingual is a different thing. It’s sort of weird if that was what you were talking about.
      - nkozyra 2y ago
        > Kids becoming bilingual is a different thing. It’s sort of weird if that was what you were talking about. It explicitly isn't. I'm talking about English becoming the first language in countries where the mother tongue is currently still the first language.
        keybored 2y ago
        Good. That is wrong for all the reasons I’ve stated.
    - ywvcbk 2y ago
      If you’re a born in a Welsh speaking household English is of course technically not your fist language. Yet by the time you’re an adult you’ll probably be indistinguishable from a native English speaker and likely use this as your primary language outside of your home. It really matters very little that English isn’t technically your “first” language in a situation like this.
darby_nine 2y ago
Eh it'll probably be the de-facto public/professional/transactional register and people will speak another language at home.
- keybored 2y ago
  Based on what? Again we’re just throwing eventualities out there with no basis in current reality. People are pretty good at understanding English in Norway. But the only factor that introduces English into the conversation is when someone does not speak Norwegian. In my experience. People are extrapolating from the fact that people use English-borrowed slang to these far-fetched scenarios. Yeah? Slang and words have always been borrowed. Not even medical doctors speak Latin to each other.
  - darby_nine 2y ago
    > Based on what? I never expected to be taken as declaring an objective fact; I just notice that this is already how workplaces are shaping up. I could easily be very wrong. Anyway, with the internet the understanding of proximity changes. With an increasingly global economy everyone will be closer to people they only share english with. Or maybe mandarin, if you want me to emphasize skeptacism.
- numpad0 2y ago
  No offense, but sometimes an annoying aspects of monolingual people(those without substantial second language training, not just ** monolingualism totaritarianists) is that sometimes the only aspect of the concept of a language some of them understand is words. About 30% each of English vocabulary is to have been borrowed from French. That means the phrase "it's all French to me" in free standing could logically imply that you do have good idea of what is being said. That's obviously never the case. That's because dictionary vocabulary is just an asset file for a language. It's a major, but still a part of a language. Integrating bunch of words into a language only inflates that dataset. Dinitrogen tetroxide(N2O4) is apparently called "tetraoksid diazota" in Russian. Do memorizing bunch of those compounds in Russian makes you fluent in that language? I'd very much doubt it.

Well, speaking in different languages facilitates different modes of thinking which results in different thoughts. Some thoughts are easier to have in one language than another. It takes all sorts to make a world and multiple languages means a broader mental space to explore ideas. People against that tend to lean totalitarian. People for a monoculture, that is. That is an inherently limiting philosophy which can only die out as it narrows the 'acceptable ideas' list over time.

keybored 2y ago
> Well, speaking in different languages facilitates different modes of thinking Sapir-Whorf? Can’t that just be put to bed by now? > People against that tend to lean totalitarian. People for a monoculture, that is. On the topic of languages at least. Some technologists seem to want to get rid of all ostensibly useless things. More than one language being one of them.
- FabHK 2y ago
  Exactly. Culture obviously influences thinking, language less so. Sapir-Whorf has been refuted, except for some minor minor areas (names of colours - some people call these two colours two different names, some call them the same - big deal!; left-right vs north-east-south-west; etc.)
- numpad0 2y ago
  no, that's just chomskists getting desperate. Polyglots can't be Sapir-Whorf denialists, and Internet is only broadening paths to be that, so support for UG theory must increasingly become irrational and negative.
  - keybored 2y ago
    I understand that polyglot means at least three languages most commonly, but I’m bilingual and haven’t experienced this effect. Would it come with my third language?
    - numpad0 2y ago
      I'm a Japanese speaker with maybe above Japanese average but way below professional English and effectively nothing else except I've taken _a_ Chinese class, and it's currently obvious to me that UG theory is largely BS and most of the rest tautological, except I have no ability to succinctly point it out in a logical, academia accepted language. There's been too many anecdotal cases I've had that aren't going to fit with the basic premise of UG theory that there's a hard-wired common human language engine with output stage that is language. Like they seem to have logical constructions that feels sound but aren't going to be linguistically valid in languages I know in Chinese, and there are of course phenomena of people's attitudes switching along with their languages, etc. One counter example to UG theory I've come across recently is an easily understood phrase "verbalizing one's feelings": if UG theory holds some water, feeling == thoughts == language, or at least they should be close to each others, and we should be able to just `^C dump-sumerian<CR>` at any moment at zero cost, and we can't. Not that it takes unreasonable bandwidth or storage to do so but we can't. Doesn't that perhaps suggest that languages are both external yet natural to yourself as much as a keyboard is to a man? Maybe it actually needs exposure to the third language so your subconscious can eliminate the possibility that you're just not good at the second one, I don't know, though I do believe multi(>=3) lingualism is sufficient condition.
      - keybored 2y ago
        You’re bilingual like me? UG means Universal Grammar? I guess you have me pegged as a Chomskyist because it makes sense to me. But I can’t understand you taking a Chinese class made you an embittered opponent of some advanced, nerdy linguistic theory. For my part I wouldn’t be able to understand it at a technical level.
- altruios 2y ago
  >Sapir-Whorf? Can’t that just be put to bed by now? Said by someone who only speaks one language? Nice Idiom: shame if something were to happen to it. It is SO EASY to prove this (literally just talk to any multilingual and watch their entire personality shift when they change languages {some languages have larger gaps}, they themselves don't often notice the effect)! >On the topic of languages at least. At least, you say... hmmm... why does that raise ALL THE RED FLAGS... > Some technologists seem to want to get rid of all ostensibly useless things. More than one language being one of them. which is why programmers keep inventing new languages (rust), which is the defacto standard everyone uses now. /s Your arguments are as singularly cultured as what you argue for.... Which - as it so happens to be - (the quality of your arguments) is exactly my argument against such a future state. And on one more note: Dave Ackley has some nifty ideas about the opposite of efficiency being robustness instead of waste. having a monoculture promises efficiency, but with that comes a brittleness that will cut us.
  - keybored 2y ago
    You didn’t pick up on the tone then. I was being derisive towards the mono-lingual-future dreamers.
    - altruios 2y ago
      thank you! Sorry, tone is very hard on the internet sometimes. Any sass would be directed at mono-lingual-future dreamers.
- aeonik 2y ago
  I thought the weak form was pretty solid? It's pretty obvious to anyone who learns math or programming, that once you find the right vocabulary or equation for something, that your brain chunks it, and it's easier to reason about that domain moving forward. Of course it's not like if you don't have the word "blue" you are color blind, it's just that it's really hard to have a conversation about 10 different shades of blue if you don't even have a word for it. The strong version of Sapir Whorf is obviously false because everyone has perceptions and feelings that they can't put words to.
  - keybored 2y ago
    Getting tired of people replying to me about how it is obvious to anyone who speaks more than one language[1] when I’ve said already that I speak two languages. [1] Which is more applicable than learning programming or math since this is linguistics.
    - aeonik 2y ago
      I don't think it's even limited to written or spoken languages. I've been learning a lot of CAD and mechanical principles lately, and I can tell that my brain has some sort of kinematic/movement language that is expanding, and helping me understand how things work, and how to build more things.

Wytwwww 2y ago

Depends on the country probably. In some places, at least reasonably high English fluency is near universal. It wouldn't be surprising if these countries eventually became effectively bilingual.

keybored 2y ago
That’s different. GP said “first language”…
- nkozyra 2y ago
  Yeah, the multi-lingual stuff isn't what I'm talking about. I'm referring to countries where English is spoken enough by this generation that it may just leak into a first language for their children or grandchildren.
  - keybored 2y ago
    First language means the first language, the mother tongue. Which implies supplanting the existing first language. Kids becoming bilingual is a different thing. It’s sort of weird if that was what you were talking about.
    - nkozyra 2y ago
      > Kids becoming bilingual is a different thing. It’s sort of weird if that was what you were talking about. It explicitly isn't. I'm talking about English becoming the first language in countries where the mother tongue is currently still the first language.
      - keybored 2y ago
        Good. That is wrong for all the reasons I’ve stated.
  - ywvcbk 2y ago
    If you’re a born in a Welsh speaking household English is of course technically not your fist language. Yet by the time you’re an adult you’ll probably be indistinguishable from a native English speaker and likely use this as your primary language outside of your home. It really matters very little that English isn’t technically your “first” language in a situation like this.

darby_nine 2y ago

Eh it'll probably be the de-facto public/professional/transactional register and people will speak another language at home.

keybored 2y ago
Based on what? Again we’re just throwing eventualities out there with no basis in current reality. People are pretty good at understanding English in Norway. But the only factor that introduces English into the conversation is when someone does not speak Norwegian. In my experience. People are extrapolating from the fact that people use English-borrowed slang to these far-fetched scenarios. Yeah? Slang and words have always been borrowed. Not even medical doctors speak Latin to each other.
- darby_nine 2y ago
  > Based on what? I never expected to be taken as declaring an objective fact; I just notice that this is already how workplaces are shaping up. I could easily be very wrong. Anyway, with the internet the understanding of proximity changes. With an increasingly global economy everyone will be closer to people they only share english with. Or maybe mandarin, if you want me to emphasize skeptacism.
numpad0 2y ago
No offense, but sometimes an annoying aspects of monolingual people(those without substantial second language training, not just ** monolingualism totaritarianists) is that sometimes the only aspect of the concept of a language some of them understand is words. About 30% each of English vocabulary is to have been borrowed from French. That means the phrase "it's all French to me" in free standing could logically imply that you do have good idea of what is being said. That's obviously never the case. That's because dictionary vocabulary is just an asset file for a language. It's a major, but still a part of a language. Integrating bunch of words into a language only inflates that dataset. Dinitrogen tetroxide(N2O4) is apparently called "tetraoksid diazota" in Russian. Do memorizing bunch of those compounds in Russian makes you fluent in that language? I'd very much doubt it.