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[fqllve]

This looks like a bad study to me. There is a world of difference between how English people think, and how Aborigines would, but whether this is due to language is not made any clearer by the study, simply because she didn't bother considering whether culture influences thought. Really, a better way of testing this would be to find people who learned english as a second language, and compare them to see if they think any differently from those who didn't learn it. It still isn't a great way to make a study, but the results would be more convincing.

That seems to be the case with a lot of these studies. For example.

One, Two, Many

However, scientists are far from a consensus. Feigenson points out that there could be other reasons, aside from pure language, why the Pirahã could not distinguish accurately for higher numbers including not being used to dealing with large numbers or set such tasks.

Interestingly, that study was also performed by a psychologist and not a linguist.

[Vattic]

I mostly agree with chaoticag but I could certainly see language shaping thought on an individual basis. I know people who use common idioms to back up their points without really thinking about it. Common misconceptions which are cemented in peoples minds by language could effect the way people think because they can almost replace thought. I could also see language influencing mood but then people use negative words in a positive way without much confusion fairly often where I live.

[Ampersand]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity I'll just leave this here so people don't think that this idea is new.

[scriver]

Oh, and in French you say that someone "has incorrectness" rather than "is wrong."  Same thing for "has correctness" vs. "is right."  I occasionally suspect that has something to do with my arguing style.

Is there any difference, though?

[Vector]

Sure.

In one case, your incorrectness reflects on the qualities of the individual in and of themselves.  In the other case, it can be reified and (theoretically) thrown away.  Though of course we should all know that being incorrect is not an ingrained quality, it is a point of considerably more obviousness in French.

[scriver]

But that is true for right/wrong as well, isn't it? I can't see any difference except the formulation. Basically it's just putting a 'has' before the wrong/right, ans it wouldn't change the intended meaning.
As for it being more obvious that someone who is "wrong" can be made "right", at least for me, this is a foregone conclusion, even though I've grown up with rätt and fel. I don't think using a different phrase would change anything for people who don't feel that way.

[Vector]

To have vs. to be?

I dunno, man, I really pay attention that sort of thing.  Similarly, in arguments, the difference between "you are stupid" and "you are being stupid."  Maybe that clarifies?

[Lagslayer]

Language and culture are inseparable, influencing eachother and growing from eachother. The way we communicate influences the way we do things, similarly, the things we do influence how we talk about it to other people. I believe this happens because language is an ambiguous and arbitrary thing. Any sentence can be taken multiple ways, and many new words are created because it just "sounds better". I would also supply any exceptions to the normal rules in any language as proof, as well as regional dialects.

[Strife26]

I'm surprised that no one has brought up Newspeak yet,  which'd be the ultimate proof that language determines thought.


I've very much got to call cultural shenanigans here. If one were to completely isolate culture from  language, then there wouldn't *be* any of those associations, because there'd be no way for the subject to know whether "is wrong" or "has incorrectness" is the normal, preferred way of doing it, because both are technically correct.

[Vattic]

I'm surprised that no one has brought up Newspeak yet,  which'd be the ultimate proof that language determines thought.

I was at work by the time I realised I should have. Taking it to the other extreme: proper terminology can certainly help you think about complex subjects.

[chaoticag]

The problem with Newspeak is that it's a language that devolves. There is a reason that dictionaries kept getting bigger and bigger, and that's because more and more words are needed. Not desired, needed. It doesn't matter if the government has the full ability to find people who invent new words and execute them, since if new words are needed, they'd be invented. It really is more of a case as language being your tool rather than your hand, and like all tools, it's more or less designated its shape by the environment, therefore, at best, I think we can expect novel differences between the thought patterns of different language speaking people as life goes on.

[fqllve]

Taking it to the other extreme: proper terminology can certainly help you think about complex subjects.

But that's true because complex subjects are confined to the realm of abstract human thought, which is only possible because of language. Since concepts are realized as language, yeah, being better with language will help you with concepts. But being better with language doesn't affect your other faculties.

[Svampapa]

Would you guys say that math is a language?

[Strife26]

It's a set of jargon to allow abstract concepts to be expressed with language.

[Max White]

What about programming languages? Because I can tell you, they affect mood. When I know I'm going to be working in C# I have a very positive outlook because it is a quick language to program in, it isn't at all a brainfuck, and if the program is slightly sluggish for certain solutions, it is because of the high level language, rather then what I did wrong. If I'm working in c++, I have a negative outlook, because it's a slow trudge to program in relatively speaking, it can be some what of a brainfuck, and quick response time is expected of me.

So programming language will certainly affect how your reality!