Comment by rramadass
4 days ago
> The idea that all non-western practices, language included, have a deep and amazing and metaphysical quality that westerners simply couldn't understand is so tiresome.
The author did not say this; this is your unnecessarily negative take. However the author is comparing Chinese with English where this is somewhat true and well studied; eg. A Comparison of Chinese and English Language Processing - https://archive.org/details/wordandtheworldindiascontributio...
It is pretty unanimously agreed by linguists that all language is equally expressive, which makes sense considering they were all made by humans to do the same thing.
No; I had already refuted this in my earlier comment.
Language is a product of Geography and Culture to express a "Philosophical Worldview". Mere study of its Phonology, Morphology, Syntax and Grammar are not enough. What is important is whether a given language has specialized technical vocabulary to express specific concepts/ideas i.e. the "complexity of semantics" involved. These are usually context/culture dependent.
As an example, compare the language of the Xhosa people living in equatorial Africa with that of the Chukchi people living in the Arctic Circle. It should be obvious that they each have concepts expressed via language unique to their Geography/Culture and which are unknown to the other.
As another example, consider the Sanskrit word Karma (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karma). It is impossible to understand this word in all its connotations (it actually is a stand-in for a whole lot of concepts) without having an idea of Reincarnation which is specific to Hinduism/Buddhism philosophical worldviews.
Frankly, you are not qualified to make the claims you're making. You're not a linguist; you're just some guy. Not all opinions are equal.
2 replies →
Are there any languages in existence that lack a facility for counting numbers, to your knowledge?
"idiotsecant" is clueless but according to Daniel Everett's studies/research the Pirahã language lacks a proper numeral system - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirah%C3%A3_language#Numerals_...
Thank you. Exactly the frame of reference I was speaking from.
See also the psychologist Richard Nisbett's (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_E._Nisbett) works specifically;
The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently...and Why - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Geography_of_Thought