Re: does conlanging change your sense of reality?

Why must there be a "point" to the variety of languages?  Can't things
just be, without all having to fit into some master plan? The variety
is interesting of itself.
     But even assuming there is a point, I don't think guiding
speakers through different patterns of thought is the only possible
one.

On 3/31/09, Lars Finsen <lars.finsen@...> wrote:
> Den 31. mar. 2009 kl. 19.37 skreiv Brett Williams:
>
>> It's possible to think something unsupported by language, in other
>> words, but it is relatively difficult to sustain such a thought, to
>> remember it,
>
> Nevertheless it is a useful thing to do, because it may make it
> easier to exploit your ability, inherited from your wordless
> ancestors, to deeply understand physical nature, which is non-verbal
> in character.
>
>> and very difficult to express it to another person.
>
> That is true. In my youth I was even much less verbal than I'm now. I
> understood relativity theory with relative ease, but chatting up
> girls, that was another matter, not to mention explaining the theory
> to others.
>
> As for Sapir-Whorf, I think that if the Sapir-Whorf effect is not
> valid, there really isn't any much point in having all this variety
> of languages, is there? So I tend to prefer to believe in it.
>
> LEF
>
--
Sent from my mobile device

Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>

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