Re: Re : Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

Nik Taylor wrote:
>
> > As for concepts like "freedom", I'm not sure that any language
> > could lack it, and if one did, the speakers would certainly have a
> > compound or an expression to render this. Newspeak seems to me an
> > impossibility.
>
> Well, if Newspeakers did have any notion of freedom, they'd be
> immediately arrested for crimethink, so there'd be no compound or
> expression for freedom.  :-)
>
        Then I think they'd run out of Newspeakers very rapidly, except if they
have a cloning device :) . In fact I don't know. Maybe the concept of
freedom is so deeply rooted in my personal culture that maybe I can't
understand that people can lack it. And as for Newspeakers, I think they
could think of freedom by simply negating their own condition (negation
is completely regular in Newspeak if I remember correctly). For me
"negative" concepts  (expressed by negating another concept) can have as
much force as "positive" ones. But it is IMHO.

> --
> "Cats are rather delicate creatures and they are subject to a good many
> ailments, but I never heard of one who suffered from insomnia." --
> Joseph Wood Krutch
> http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/X-Files/
> http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/Books.html
> ICQ #: 18656696
> AIM screen-name: NikTailor
--
        Christophe Grandsire

        Philips Research Laboratories --  Building WB 145
        Prof. Holstlaan 4
        5656 AA Eindhoven
        The Netherlands

        Phone:  +31-40-27-45006
        E-mail: grandsir@natlab.research.philips.com