8 ms·

Learning Tibetan changed the way I think (2023)

86 points by whereistimbo 2y ago

mandmandam 2y ago
If anyone wants a book that lays a lot of the foundation for this line of thought, do check out Language, Thought, and Reality by Benjamin Lee Whorf. It's accessible, but brilliant.
- smitty1e 2y ago
  Ah, yes, the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis => https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity
  - K0balt 2y ago
    As a multilingual and multicultural person, I experience this daily. When I want to think about emotional things or intimate relationships, I think in Spanish. When I want to do math, I think in English. Engineering is in English. Social analysis in Spanish. English is my primary language and I learned Spanish in my 40s. But many things work much better in Spanish, so I do them in Spanish. In my experience , language absolutely influences your thoughts and your values. I have an entire identity in Spanish that contains many relationships. If I think about or talk about those people in English, it is as if I am talking about someone I barely know. It is really odd, actually.
    - armitron 2y ago
      What is the everyday sense of self that you have if not a linguistic construct? Without language and higher order thinking, you'd be back to being an ape. Modern life drenched in information flows, much more so than the past, accellerates our fragmentation into multiple personalities.
      - lxgr 2y ago
        Language and higher order thinking might not be as intrinsically related as we think. For example, not everybody has an inner voice – and this usually comes as a surprise to both people having or not having one. Another good counterexample might actually be LLMs: Definitely well-spoken, definitely still not the greatest abstract higher-order thinkers, and domain-specific “intelligences” run circles around them.
        Tor3 2y ago
        I have an inner voice when I think about dialogue. When I construct a discussion in my mind. And only then. I don't use an inner voice when I think about other things, how to do things, or figure out problems. Way too slow, and after all you can't use an inner voice to figure out how to get through a tricky four-car driving situation. You have to figure out what do do by entirely non-verbal means.
        Tor3 2y ago
        (Just to add - I also don't use an inner voice when I read, unless I decide to. And when I do, reading slows down to a crawl, obviously. So in general I don't)
        armitron 2y ago
        It's not solely about the inner voice. Abstract concepts, symbol manipulation, mathematical logic and reasoning are for the most part "linguistic" constructs.
        K0balt 2y ago
        Anecdotally, when I say I am thinking in English or Spanish, I’m not usually thinking in words, more in a cultural context and in concepts that are not symbolically articulated. Some of those concepts only exist (to me) in one cultural context or another and not in both. Basically wherever I learned something is where it “lives” in my mind. I can know “of” it in another context, but to think about it directly, in the first person, I need to “enter” the context in which it was acquired. That’s why I can’t even -think- about math in Spanish, it just doesn’t work for me. I never learned mathematical concepts inside of that thought context. And when I think of some people inside of English context, I can’t remember what it feels like to talk to them. When I am tired I sometimes slip between contexts without knowing and cannot easily discern what language I am speaking or listening to. I find it absolutely fascinating. It seems like there might be some insight to be had studying the phenomenon in people that experience it.
    - fsckboy 2y ago
      and when you can't remember the word for something, but you are thinking of the thing, what language is that?
      - riwsky 2y ago
        Mentalese
    - gyomu 2y ago
      https://lithub.com/are-we-different-people-in-different-languages/ https://lithub.com/are-we-different-people-in-different-lang...
JoeDaDude 2y ago
I'm sure language learners all over have felt this way. Once one starts learning another tongue, one realizes that languages do not exist in isolation, they are part of a larger culture and the language comes with customs, traditions, norms, and even beliefs from that culture. In learning a language, you internalize that culture and, even if just a tiny bit, develop an identity as a member of that culture. Phoenix Ho said it better than I can is this video: Learning Languages Ruined My Life https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ_4gzoDDAE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ_4gzoDDAE
- rramadass 2y ago
  Very True. This is particularly true when one translates/studies philosophical texts where there are lots of abstract concepts to interpret and more often than not if one doesn't understand the culture and everything it entails, one will make a mess of it. > In learning a language, you internalize that culture and, even if just a tiny bit, develop an identity as a member of that culture. This actually explains how Indians practice "Unity in Diversity" via their shared culture. For example, i grew up learning 4 languages viz; Tamil (mother tongue and 1st language), Bengali (since i grew up in West Bengal), English (medium of instruction and 2nd language) and Hindi (3rd language in school). It has given me a certain breadth of mind to appreciate our differences and yet have a shared common identity. A lot of Indians have similar multiple language upbringing and hence it is one of the reasons we can adapt and be successful anywhere in the World.
  - DiscourseFan 2y ago
    Indian philosophy is not translingual though, its all written in one language, Sanskrit, and translated from that language. If anything, Indian philosophy demonstrates hierarchal dominance in its cultural context.
    - rramadass 2y ago
      That is not quite true. It so happened that much of what has survived under the rubric "Hinduism" (itself an umbrella term for a whole gamut of philosophies, religious beliefs, rituals etc. and everything in between) has been through Sanskrit texts. It does not mean that all the concepts/ideas originated in that language domain. This is why you have the many schools of Hindu Philosophy categorized as orthodox (six recognized) vs. unorthodox (three recognized) and there are still more schools (notably many Tantric philosophies) not recognized under either of the above categories. Given the bewildering diversity of languages in the Indian Subcontinent it is almost certain that Sanskrit texts recast/reformulated philosophies/concepts/ideas from other languages (eg. Tamil and Sanskrit). The situation is analogous to what happened after the Scientific Revolution where knowledge from German/French/Other European languages got disseminated via the English language through colonialism to the wider world.
unscaled 2y ago
> When talking about someone or something external to you, Tibetan grammar forces you to express whether what you’re talking about is something you’ve experienced or seen with your own eyes, whether it’s an assumption you’re making, or if it’s something that is generally true to everyone else. The grammatical category the author describes here is called Evidentiality[1], and it's surprisingly rather common[2], but most European languages, especially the popular ones, don't have a system like that as a mandatory part of their grammar. > In Tibetan, there is an honorific language that goes beyond the French vous or the Spanish usted. Rather than conjugating the verbs differently to indicate politeness, many words are modified, or can even be entirely different, to indicate honor itself. For instance, you can have a regular picture (par) or an honorific picture (kupar) of, say, your lama. There’s even a way to talk about an honorific dog. However, you never use honorific language when talking about yourself. Instead, you can use humble language to help you decrease your sense of ego importance. Honorifics are also common in many other languages. Japanese also commonly use noun prefixes (especially "o-" and "go-"), while Korean has honorific versions of some particles (e.g. the subject marker "-i/-ga" turns into "-kkeseo". Korean also has many speech formality levels (at least 7 different levels AFAIK), while Japanese has 3 or 4. Both languages have a highly developed system of plain, honorific and humble verbs, where most verbs are modified in a regular manner, but some common verbs are completely replaced by another verb for the honorific or humble version. Tibetan also seems to have a honorific verb system, but I don't know if it's as developed as the ones in Japanese and Korean. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidentiality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidentiality [2] https://wals.info/chapter/77 https://wals.info/chapter/77 - WALS is not extremely accurate and in my experience it tends to overestimate features that are not fully grammaticalized, but I think it is safe to assume at least 50 out of the 418 languages languages have an evidential system that is as developed as Tibetan's.
- BobaFloutist 2y ago
  It's also worth mentioning that although English doesn't explicitly require you do do any of this, we generally have ways of conveying respect/familiarity (by tweaking the formality of our register).
  - 2y ago
tiahura 2y ago
My understanding is that Chomsky formally proved that this is impossible, ie all languages are exactly equal.
- kjellsbells 2y ago
  Not sure about mathematically rigorous "proof", but a powerful theory of grammar at least. His claim is "true" in the sense of computation, ie the lowest level Chomsky grammar[1] is just like a Turing machine and consequently can generate anything. But the analogy with computing languages also supplies a practical insight that isnt captured by the academic theory, ie that some concepts are easier to express in one language than another. If I'm inverting a matrix, I'd reach for Python over C for example. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chomsky_hierarchy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chomsky_hierarchy
  - unscaled 2y ago
    I think Chomsky's theories became popular in anglophone linguistic circles (and later in the rest of the world) because their math-like structure and close applicability to computer science. They've proven to be useful in some cases, but there has been no proof of a universal grammar. The fact that you can create a formal system to represent an idea, is not a proof by any stretch of that definition. This is why some people would even go as far as classifying Chomsky's theories as pseudo-science (see one of the replies to GP). I wouldn't go as far, but considering the almost toxic disdain Chomsky himself has to every linguist who is not interested in researching his supposed Universal Grammar (he has famously compared structural and functional linguistics to "butterfly collectors"), we should view this theory with more criticism.
    - DiscourseFan 2y ago
      Well, the real issue with Chomsky is that he came into vogue during the “linguistic” turn, except he misunderstood the anglo philosophers, thinking their theories had a natural basis, and misunderstood the french, thinking that their studies of writing and discourse made them philosophers of language. But the Kantian project still stands, one must have an architectonic, before one can make a scientific approach. But Kant was always sure to set his critical project within its dialectic, and placed the basis of cognition below language and discourse. That is what the French were able to capture, and its why contemporary philosophy today is so suffuse with discourses on aesthetics (though I’m being a bit broad with what I refer to as “Philosophy,” perhaps it’d be better to say “philosophical work”).
FredPret 2y ago
I learned English and honestly the only thing that happened was my life got 100 times better socially and professionally. My thinking is exactly the same. The only cognitive skills I've noticed improving is my ability to play word games and figure out simple phrases in third languages when traveling, because I have two languages to reference when thinking about word origins and relationships.
- calimoro78 2y ago
  Maybe English is not a mind-opening language :(
  - fuzztester 2y ago
    Yes, instead it is an opening-minded language :), as in, it creates work and business openings, being the de facto international language of business.
  - freilanzer 2y ago
    Depends where you are coming from.
  - ted_bunny 2y ago
    Look at how English treats time as money. You save, invest, spend, waste it. There are plenty of these things out there, but they're subtle.
- nine_k 2y ago
  Is your first language Germanic? Romance? Indo-European at all? The difference with English may be not stark enough to make you notice a different point of view. Compared to English, say, Spanish has forms of verb so detailed that a single word expresses aspects that require a whole phrase in English: "venceremos" = "we will prevail", or "quisiera" = "I would like". You cannot opt out of this level of detail. Also in a ton of languages you have to care about nouns being masculine / feminine (la ciudad, ein Stadt, etc). In e.g. Slavic languages you have to also care about nouns being animate / inanimate. Regarding the Slavic languages, while e.g. Ukrainian has the typical English-like possessive construction, e.g. "I have a car", Russian uses something like "by me there is a car". It also has the perfect tense designation as a part of the verb, in all forms and tenses. With that, some verbs lack some tenses! Formally these tenses could possibly be formed, but are never used and are considered unacceptable. Notably, you can say "we will win", but cannot say "I will win" using the same verb. Opposed to that, Japanese is highly regular, it has like 2.5 irregular verbs in the entire language. Its verb system is hugely flexible and expressive, but it lacks a future tense; you have to infer it from the context. Nouns also lack a regular plural form; you can mark a noun as plural in a pinch, but usually you have to infer it from the context, and omit when speaking. Most sentences are built around topic markers: instead of "I have a car" you say "Regarding me, a car exists". Adjectives are actually lightweight verbs, and can have a past tense. The system of politeness / honorifics permeates the language: not only "younger sister" and "elder sister" are different words, but "your wife" and "my wife" are completely different words, same for "my home" and "your home". To say nothing about the writing system that uses ideographic characters for halves of many words. Imagine using emojis for writing, with attached strings of letters for things like -ed, -s, -ing, etc. Knowing stuff like this is mildly entertaining. What changes your perception is an honest attempt to use such a language, translating texts, and especially for daily communication. You start noticing untranslatable stuff, things that cannot be expressed in a different language, except with a lengthy and awkward explanation. Congrats, now you have a new mental tool.
yongjik 2y ago
I think the author is overthinking about Tibetan to create a story. For example: > Tibetan language has shaped the way I think and look at life. Even simple, everyday words such as “hello” and “thank you” have taken on a new, more profound meaning. The Tibetan greeting of “tashi delek” means “may everything be auspicious.” An expression of thanks, “tug je che,” means “great compassion.” You can say the same thing for English. When English speakers part ways late at night, they say "good night" - not just that it was pleasant to meet, but wishing the remainder of the night be good (for everyone), whatever they choose to do. How thoughtful! Even the simple "good bye" is easily decipherable as "(may) god be with you," blessing the other with the almighty god. > When speaking Tibetan, instead of saying, “I have a phone,” we would say something closer to “a phone abides by me.” My concept of the things I “own” has changed from “this is mine” to “this happens to be near me, and I happen to be able to use it,” with no inherent possession. This can be a wonderful and helpful tool to work with attachment. Well, I can also relate because Korean also doesn't like the verb "have," so instead of "I have a phone," we'll say something like "(speaking of) me, a phone exists." But woe to the poor soul who thinks the expression precludes inherent possession - you'll quickly and violently discover the errors of your ways if you try to take a phone from a random Korean speaker, or - I strongly suspect - a random Tibetan speaker.
- kgeist 2y ago
  Irish and Russian also have "there's a phone near me (by me)" instead of "I have a phone"
- rramadass 2y ago
  > I think the author is overthinking about Tibetan to create a story. Maybe, Maybe Not. Because of the permeation of Buddhist philosophies throughout Tibetan Culture and the harshness of their living environment they developed a system of "Mind Training" aka "Lojong" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lojong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lojong) to train themselves to adapt using various attitudes, aphorisms, sayings etc. and expressed verbally through language. This most certainly has bled into everyday usage amongst common folk which is what i suspect the author picked up on.
- sinuhe69 2y ago
cafard 2y ago
Anthony Burgess wrote that learning Malay, where semantics trumped syntax, made a considerable difference to his understanding of language.
calimoro78 2y ago
The whole sci-fi short story and movie Arrival is based on this concept
ngcc_hk 2y ago
Could it be that Tibetan is invented to translate Buddhism has something to do with it I wonder.

86 points by whereistimbo 2y ago

If anyone wants a book that lays a lot of the foundation for this line of thought, do check out Language, Thought, and Reality by Benjamin Lee Whorf. It's accessible, but brilliant.

smitty1e 2y ago
Ah, yes, the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis => https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity
- K0balt 2y ago
  As a multilingual and multicultural person, I experience this daily. When I want to think about emotional things or intimate relationships, I think in Spanish. When I want to do math, I think in English. Engineering is in English. Social analysis in Spanish. English is my primary language and I learned Spanish in my 40s. But many things work much better in Spanish, so I do them in Spanish. In my experience , language absolutely influences your thoughts and your values. I have an entire identity in Spanish that contains many relationships. If I think about or talk about those people in English, it is as if I am talking about someone I barely know. It is really odd, actually.
  - armitron 2y ago
    What is the everyday sense of self that you have if not a linguistic construct? Without language and higher order thinking, you'd be back to being an ape. Modern life drenched in information flows, much more so than the past, accellerates our fragmentation into multiple personalities.
    - lxgr 2y ago
      Language and higher order thinking might not be as intrinsically related as we think. For example, not everybody has an inner voice – and this usually comes as a surprise to both people having or not having one. Another good counterexample might actually be LLMs: Definitely well-spoken, definitely still not the greatest abstract higher-order thinkers, and domain-specific “intelligences” run circles around them.
      - Tor3 2y ago
        I have an inner voice when I think about dialogue. When I construct a discussion in my mind. And only then. I don't use an inner voice when I think about other things, how to do things, or figure out problems. Way too slow, and after all you can't use an inner voice to figure out how to get through a tricky four-car driving situation. You have to figure out what do do by entirely non-verbal means.
        Tor3 2y ago
        (Just to add - I also don't use an inner voice when I read, unless I decide to. And when I do, reading slows down to a crawl, obviously. So in general I don't)
        armitron 2y ago
        It's not solely about the inner voice. Abstract concepts, symbol manipulation, mathematical logic and reasoning are for the most part "linguistic" constructs.
      - K0balt 2y ago
        Anecdotally, when I say I am thinking in English or Spanish, I’m not usually thinking in words, more in a cultural context and in concepts that are not symbolically articulated. Some of those concepts only exist (to me) in one cultural context or another and not in both. Basically wherever I learned something is where it “lives” in my mind. I can know “of” it in another context, but to think about it directly, in the first person, I need to “enter” the context in which it was acquired. That’s why I can’t even -think- about math in Spanish, it just doesn’t work for me. I never learned mathematical concepts inside of that thought context. And when I think of some people inside of English context, I can’t remember what it feels like to talk to them. When I am tired I sometimes slip between contexts without knowing and cannot easily discern what language I am speaking or listening to. I find it absolutely fascinating. It seems like there might be some insight to be had studying the phenomenon in people that experience it.
  - fsckboy 2y ago
    and when you can't remember the word for something, but you are thinking of the thing, what language is that?
    - riwsky 2y ago
      Mentalese
  - gyomu 2y ago
    https://lithub.com/are-we-different-people-in-different-languages/ https://lithub.com/are-we-different-people-in-different-lang...

JoeDaDude 2y ago

I'm sure language learners all over have felt this way. Once one starts learning another tongue, one realizes that languages do not exist in isolation, they are part of a larger culture and the language comes with customs, traditions, norms, and even beliefs from that culture. In learning a language, you internalize that culture and, even if just a tiny bit, develop an identity as a member of that culture. Phoenix Ho said it better than I can is this video: Learning Languages Ruined My Life https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ_4gzoDDAE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ_4gzoDDAE

rramadass 2y ago
Very True. This is particularly true when one translates/studies philosophical texts where there are lots of abstract concepts to interpret and more often than not if one doesn't understand the culture and everything it entails, one will make a mess of it. > In learning a language, you internalize that culture and, even if just a tiny bit, develop an identity as a member of that culture. This actually explains how Indians practice "Unity in Diversity" via their shared culture. For example, i grew up learning 4 languages viz; Tamil (mother tongue and 1st language), Bengali (since i grew up in West Bengal), English (medium of instruction and 2nd language) and Hindi (3rd language in school). It has given me a certain breadth of mind to appreciate our differences and yet have a shared common identity. A lot of Indians have similar multiple language upbringing and hence it is one of the reasons we can adapt and be successful anywhere in the World.
- DiscourseFan 2y ago
  Indian philosophy is not translingual though, its all written in one language, Sanskrit, and translated from that language. If anything, Indian philosophy demonstrates hierarchal dominance in its cultural context.
  - rramadass 2y ago
    That is not quite true. It so happened that much of what has survived under the rubric "Hinduism" (itself an umbrella term for a whole gamut of philosophies, religious beliefs, rituals etc. and everything in between) has been through Sanskrit texts. It does not mean that all the concepts/ideas originated in that language domain. This is why you have the many schools of Hindu Philosophy categorized as orthodox (six recognized) vs. unorthodox (three recognized) and there are still more schools (notably many Tantric philosophies) not recognized under either of the above categories. Given the bewildering diversity of languages in the Indian Subcontinent it is almost certain that Sanskrit texts recast/reformulated philosophies/concepts/ideas from other languages (eg. Tamil and Sanskrit). The situation is analogous to what happened after the Scientific Revolution where knowledge from German/French/Other European languages got disseminated via the English language through colonialism to the wider world.

unscaled 2y ago

> When talking about someone or something external to you, Tibetan grammar forces you to express whether what you’re talking about is something you’ve experienced or seen with your own eyes, whether it’s an assumption you’re making, or if it’s something that is generally true to everyone else. The grammatical category the author describes here is called Evidentiality[1], and it's surprisingly rather common[2], but most European languages, especially the popular ones, don't have a system like that as a mandatory part of their grammar. > In Tibetan, there is an honorific language that goes beyond the French vous or the Spanish usted. Rather than conjugating the verbs differently to indicate politeness, many words are modified, or can even be entirely different, to indicate honor itself. For instance, you can have a regular picture (par) or an honorific picture (kupar) of, say, your lama. There’s even a way to talk about an honorific dog. However, you never use honorific language when talking about yourself. Instead, you can use humble language to help you decrease your sense of ego importance. Honorifics are also common in many other languages. Japanese also commonly use noun prefixes (especially "o-" and "go-"), while Korean has honorific versions of some particles (e.g. the subject marker "-i/-ga" turns into "-kkeseo". Korean also has many speech formality levels (at least 7 different levels AFAIK), while Japanese has 3 or 4. Both languages have a highly developed system of plain, honorific and humble verbs, where most verbs are modified in a regular manner, but some common verbs are completely replaced by another verb for the honorific or humble version. Tibetan also seems to have a honorific verb system, but I don't know if it's as developed as the ones in Japanese and Korean. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidentiality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidentiality [2] https://wals.info/chapter/77 https://wals.info/chapter/77 - WALS is not extremely accurate and in my experience it tends to overestimate features that are not fully grammaticalized, but I think it is safe to assume at least 50 out of the 418 languages languages have an evidential system that is as developed as Tibetan's.

BobaFloutist 2y ago
It's also worth mentioning that although English doesn't explicitly require you do do any of this, we generally have ways of conveying respect/familiarity (by tweaking the formality of our register).
- 2y ago

tiahura 2y ago

My understanding is that Chomsky formally proved that this is impossible, ie all languages are exactly equal.

kjellsbells 2y ago
Not sure about mathematically rigorous "proof", but a powerful theory of grammar at least. His claim is "true" in the sense of computation, ie the lowest level Chomsky grammar[1] is just like a Turing machine and consequently can generate anything. But the analogy with computing languages also supplies a practical insight that isnt captured by the academic theory, ie that some concepts are easier to express in one language than another. If I'm inverting a matrix, I'd reach for Python over C for example. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chomsky_hierarchy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chomsky_hierarchy
- unscaled 2y ago
  I think Chomsky's theories became popular in anglophone linguistic circles (and later in the rest of the world) because their math-like structure and close applicability to computer science. They've proven to be useful in some cases, but there has been no proof of a universal grammar. The fact that you can create a formal system to represent an idea, is not a proof by any stretch of that definition. This is why some people would even go as far as classifying Chomsky's theories as pseudo-science (see one of the replies to GP). I wouldn't go as far, but considering the almost toxic disdain Chomsky himself has to every linguist who is not interested in researching his supposed Universal Grammar (he has famously compared structural and functional linguistics to "butterfly collectors"), we should view this theory with more criticism.
  - DiscourseFan 2y ago
    Well, the real issue with Chomsky is that he came into vogue during the “linguistic” turn, except he misunderstood the anglo philosophers, thinking their theories had a natural basis, and misunderstood the french, thinking that their studies of writing and discourse made them philosophers of language. But the Kantian project still stands, one must have an architectonic, before one can make a scientific approach. But Kant was always sure to set his critical project within its dialectic, and placed the basis of cognition below language and discourse. That is what the French were able to capture, and its why contemporary philosophy today is so suffuse with discourses on aesthetics (though I’m being a bit broad with what I refer to as “Philosophy,” perhaps it’d be better to say “philosophical work”).

FredPret 2y ago

I learned English and honestly the only thing that happened was my life got 100 times better socially and professionally. My thinking is exactly the same. The only cognitive skills I've noticed improving is my ability to play word games and figure out simple phrases in third languages when traveling, because I have two languages to reference when thinking about word origins and relationships.

calimoro78 2y ago
Maybe English is not a mind-opening language :(
- fuzztester 2y ago
  Yes, instead it is an opening-minded language :), as in, it creates work and business openings, being the de facto international language of business.
- freilanzer 2y ago
  Depends where you are coming from.
- ted_bunny 2y ago
  Look at how English treats time as money. You save, invest, spend, waste it. There are plenty of these things out there, but they're subtle.
nine_k 2y ago
Is your first language Germanic? Romance? Indo-European at all? The difference with English may be not stark enough to make you notice a different point of view. Compared to English, say, Spanish has forms of verb so detailed that a single word expresses aspects that require a whole phrase in English: "venceremos" = "we will prevail", or "quisiera" = "I would like". You cannot opt out of this level of detail. Also in a ton of languages you have to care about nouns being masculine / feminine (la ciudad, ein Stadt, etc). In e.g. Slavic languages you have to also care about nouns being animate / inanimate. Regarding the Slavic languages, while e.g. Ukrainian has the typical English-like possessive construction, e.g. "I have a car", Russian uses something like "by me there is a car". It also has the perfect tense designation as a part of the verb, in all forms and tenses. With that, some verbs lack some tenses! Formally these tenses could possibly be formed, but are never used and are considered unacceptable. Notably, you can say "we will win", but cannot say "I will win" using the same verb. Opposed to that, Japanese is highly regular, it has like 2.5 irregular verbs in the entire language. Its verb system is hugely flexible and expressive, but it lacks a future tense; you have to infer it from the context. Nouns also lack a regular plural form; you can mark a noun as plural in a pinch, but usually you have to infer it from the context, and omit when speaking. Most sentences are built around topic markers: instead of "I have a car" you say "Regarding me, a car exists". Adjectives are actually lightweight verbs, and can have a past tense. The system of politeness / honorifics permeates the language: not only "younger sister" and "elder sister" are different words, but "your wife" and "my wife" are completely different words, same for "my home" and "your home". To say nothing about the writing system that uses ideographic characters for halves of many words. Imagine using emojis for writing, with attached strings of letters for things like -ed, -s, -ing, etc. Knowing stuff like this is mildly entertaining. What changes your perception is an honest attempt to use such a language, translating texts, and especially for daily communication. You start noticing untranslatable stuff, things that cannot be expressed in a different language, except with a lengthy and awkward explanation. Congrats, now you have a new mental tool.

yongjik 2y ago

I think the author is overthinking about Tibetan to create a story. For example: > Tibetan language has shaped the way I think and look at life. Even simple, everyday words such as “hello” and “thank you” have taken on a new, more profound meaning. The Tibetan greeting of “tashi delek” means “may everything be auspicious.” An expression of thanks, “tug je che,” means “great compassion.” You can say the same thing for English. When English speakers part ways late at night, they say "good night" - not just that it was pleasant to meet, but wishing the remainder of the night be good (for everyone), whatever they choose to do. How thoughtful! Even the simple "good bye" is easily decipherable as "(may) god be with you," blessing the other with the almighty god. > When speaking Tibetan, instead of saying, “I have a phone,” we would say something closer to “a phone abides by me.” My concept of the things I “own” has changed from “this is mine” to “this happens to be near me, and I happen to be able to use it,” with no inherent possession. This can be a wonderful and helpful tool to work with attachment. Well, I can also relate because Korean also doesn't like the verb "have," so instead of "I have a phone," we'll say something like "(speaking of) me, a phone exists." But woe to the poor soul who thinks the expression precludes inherent possession - you'll quickly and violently discover the errors of your ways if you try to take a phone from a random Korean speaker, or - I strongly suspect - a random Tibetan speaker.

kgeist 2y ago
Irish and Russian also have "there's a phone near me (by me)" instead of "I have a phone"
rramadass 2y ago
> I think the author is overthinking about Tibetan to create a story. Maybe, Maybe Not. Because of the permeation of Buddhist philosophies throughout Tibetan Culture and the harshness of their living environment they developed a system of "Mind Training" aka "Lojong" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lojong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lojong) to train themselves to adapt using various attitudes, aphorisms, sayings etc. and expressed verbally through language. This most certainly has bled into everyday usage amongst common folk which is what i suspect the author picked up on.
sinuhe69 2y ago

cafard 2y ago

Anthony Burgess wrote that learning Malay, where semantics trumped syntax, made a considerable difference to his understanding of language.

calimoro78 2y ago

The whole sci-fi short story and movie Arrival is based on this concept

ngcc_hk 2y ago

Could it be that Tibetan is invented to translate Buddhism has something to do with it I wonder.