Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 16:46:15 -0700 From: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> To: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@online.fr> Cc: pgreen <polytarp@m-net.arbornet.org>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Language in danger: Language loss Message-ID: <3CF173C7.8EC49B13@mindspring.com> References: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0205261510470.28571-100000@m-net.arbornet.org> <3CF16722.F4236AC8@mindspring.com> <20020526225602.GC1562@lpt.ens.fr>
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Rahul Siddharthan wrote: > Terry Lambert said on May 26, 2002 at 15:52:18: > > Your ability to think about certain concepts is constrained by the > > language(s) in which you are able to think. > > We don't think in languages -- we think abstractly. That is why one > is sometimes at a loss for the "mot juste" -- you know what you want > to say but not how to say it. I am only at such a loss when I "lose" a word. This is a rare occurance, but it does happen. I will spend as much time as necessary to "find" it again. It's also why I tend to use certain sentence forms and word selections which people might consider archaic: I communicate what I intend to communicate, and my word choice is made to maximize the precision of the message which I intend to communicate. This is also why I get so annoyed when people blur the definition of words like "freedom" and "liberty", since it seems to me that they are trying to eradicate a concept by covert subversion of the meaning of the word which best exemplifies the concept. > That's also why babies can learn a language in the first place. The much vaunted "plasticity" of a babies brain to new language is in reality the training of the neural networks which run our square wave discrimination (hearing). People do not have any more trouble learning a new language at an older age than they would have had at a younger age, except when the new language contains sounds that are indistinguishable from one another, due to the training of their discriminator functions. This is actually the primary reason that the Japanese were unable to decode the messages routed via the Navajo "code talkers": there are a number of sounds in Navajo which are distinct to the native speakers, whose brains were trained at an early age to specifically distinguish them. Brains lacking such training are unable to make the distinction, and thus see homonyms where none exist. A number of these external-observer-apparent homonyms are central to the language. Modern electronic instruments have no problem discriminating them from recorded waveforms. Modern ears continue to have problems, unless they are modern Navajo ears. 8-). > I also think in a language (various languages, depending on the > situation), but then I'm basically "talking to myself" -- repeating > a thought which has already been formulated. Perhaps I've read too much, or perhaps I'm thinking more in terms of abstract conceptualization, which I would argue requires the use of words. But I generally think in terms of words, even for simple concepts like "I'm hungry". -- Terry To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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