Re: does conlanging change your sense of reality?

Hallo!

On Tue, 31 Mar 2009 17:31:54 +0100, R A Brown wrote:

> Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
> > RoseRose skrev:
> >> I'm personally of the Whorfian persuasion that different languages
> >> "cause"
> >> different forms of thinking and different thoughts therefore arise.
> [snip]
>
> > <RANT length="questionable" irascibility="moderate"
> >    inflammability="considerable"> <!-- Be warned! -->
>
> 	:-)
>
> > I'm of the opposite persuasion that life
> > conditions and culture shape our perception of
> > reality and thought- processes, which in turn
> > shape language.
>
> As you know, I am in absolute agreement with you.
I also agree.  Language, or rather the way it is used, *reflects*
the way a person thinks, and doesn't *determine* it.  I concede
that the language that someone has grown up with influences his
way of thinking to some degree, but there are many, many other
sources of influence that are at least as potent as language.

I speak the same native language as those who commited the most
barbarious crimes in human history; certainly, I still think in
utterly different ways.  Of course, I don't use the euphemisms
used by the latter, and use many other words very differently,
so it is not exactly the same language - but claiming that
patterns encoded in a language's grammar and vocabulary determine
the way someone thinks is nonsense.

>       My sig sort of says
> so, I think.
Indeed.

> [...]
> > Basically you can express anything in any
> > language:
>
> Yep - if you wish. And the argument that such-and-such language doesn't
> have words for this, that or the other holds no water. the language will
> do what English has done; it will borrow, re-use old terms and coin new
> ones. Where would English be if Greek & Latin hadn't provided handy
> quarries from which to mine morphemes and whole words?
Right.  You can write about quantum physics in Yanomami or
about historical phonology in Dyirbal, once you have defined
the vocabulary needed for it, I am sure.

> To answer the question in the subject line: "No, it doesn't." I think at
> my own expense and I continually interfere with language    :)
Indeed.  Much of my own thought is reflected in the structure
and vocabulary of Old Albic, and certainly also in the way
I speak and write in German or English.  My conlanging did not
change my sense of reality as much as it *reflects* the way
I see reality (and already saw it when I started working on
my conlangs) - but it taught me much on how languages work!

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