Languages and Thought

Language doesn't affect the way our mind works, it is a PART of the way our mind works.

The original question I believe actually had to do with different languages - the answer to that version is no.

Princess. you probably didn't take typing classes in German in elementary school, so that's why you can't type in it. If someone taught you how to play the piano really well and then switched all the keys around, do you think you'd still be able to?

My typing in French and in English is as bad as In German - without having had typing lessons in any language.

rufio said


I went back to the beginning again and reread rosborne979's original post. I think the original question might be rephrased as, Do a native English speaker and a native Japanese speaker have minds that work alike, and if not, is the difference due to language?

I believe that they do have minds that work differently, and that part of the difference is due to the language they learn as young children.

rufio, I gather that's not what you think. Can you answer my rephrased question in a simple sentence or two? (Not the arguments you have, just what you believe.)

princessash, when you type in German, do you think about what the English meaning is, or does your brain work in German?

I don't know, how princess does it, but when I type in English "my brain works in English" = I'm thinking (more or less) English .... on a German keyboard.

It's a pity we can't ask her exactly what she meant.

Getting back to the point, it's generally accepted that adults don't have many memories from their very early childhood. My own first memory, I'm about 5 years old - very old I know. Most children can't remember much before the age of 3, however, by the age of 2 they should have mastered the basics of language. So I can't see a direct link between language and memory, as you describe it.

However, it is know that during early child development (to the age of puberty) the brain is a storm of activity, perhaps, as the brain gradually matures the earliest connections are destroyed and rebuilt as something more useful to our survival?

Iain

Have a read of the first couple of paragraphs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir-Whorf_Hypothesis

Most linguists accept the weaker form of the hypothesis, that is, language does affect our thinking.

Iain

I think that most minds are basically the same. Not many of us think we're birds and try flapping our arms around trying to fly. We are able to form groups because of our similarities - we adapt our thinking and behaviour to fit in with the group. We establish agreed patterns of speach and bahaviour within our group. If we wander into another group we begin to notice different patterns - unsure of what the new rules are, we become unsure of ourselves - sometimes even rejecting the new group. However, if an enduring link is formed between these groups, each group begins to influence the other. If this influence continues with sufficient strength eventually no one will be able to tell the difference between the groups. Essentially, both have become one.

In conclusion, the way we think and behave is governed by our group identity, but this cannot be seen as a permanent and unchanging thing. The mind is adaptable in all of us, or in other words, the same.

Iain

Rufio, no offense, but I don't think typing classes have much to do with me, since I've never taken a single one. . . incidentally, when I type on German keyboards, once I remind myself where the y is located, I type just as well as on an English keyboard. I don't type by rote or by the qwerty system.

When I type, I tend not to phrase what I'm saying in my head before I make the movements- that is, as I'm typing this, my fingers automatically make the words I'm going to say next without me having to do to much "ok, fingers, the w is here and the a here". My fingers know what combinations make certain words and sounds.

Now, I've only been typing in German for, err, six or seven years now, but I've never attained that direct connection. While I think and operate in German, I know the words I want to use, and yet some words still come out clumsily. And the mistakes I make while typing are interesting. . . I miss keys a lot more and do silly things like switch around letters which, no matter how fast I type, doesn't happen in English. I assume that's because my brain just simply isn't sending the proper messages out fast enough so that my fingers know what to do.

I talk very fast when I speak English, and even after extensive immersion time and work on both English and French, I cannot talk fast in either language, even though I do think fast. My rhythm is entirely different and I get caught up in certain places (on the word 'nachdem', for instance, I get constant reminders from a certain person that one should stress the 'dem', and, yet, my mouth will not do it without a struggle. As a result, my rhythm for the rest of the sentence goes all kablooey).

I think the way certain languages are organized is also not conducive to fluid transformation. In French I have very little problem getting into the flow of things and transforming my thoughts from English, but, and I blame this on the verbs at the end of the sentence :-), in German I tend to forget where I am, what I've said, and how many worden haben sein wollens I need to add before the sentence I started is complete. Consequently, the Germans I know tend to leave out pesky details like helping verbs because they're so used to having only one. Even those Germans who've been speaking English nearly flawlessly for years.

Some brain wiring dies hard :-)

Same with me .

Honestly, I type a little bit longer in English than princess in German, but the 'difficulties' were the same (and would be more, if I used an US/English keyboard!).

I guess, if you are exercising some more weeks, princessash, you will get used to it and can even change within seconds, young as you are :wink:

Now this is where the original question by rosborne caught my attention, because I don't 'transform' my thoughts from one language to another. I think in a different way when I'm thinking in English or German (or French, when that still happened). The way I dream is different when I'm dreaming in English or German or French. My brain really does seem to be effected by the language I'm dialed into at different times.

Hehe. . . this is interesting. . . I never dream in German. Ever. I dream that I'm in Germany having conversations with people in German, but they're in English. I do dream in French. So, I think, in Beth's terms, I can dial into French, but not German, even though German is the language I know much better.

People tell me that I would have an easier time as a native speaker of German, because German is hard to dial into. . . I just never feel one hundred percent comfortable in German-land. . .

[and I thought, there was someone in attendance just for that]


[obviously not taught on JLU]

Hahaha. . . no, he's not allowed to help, because he says things like "What's wrong with 'nichtdestotrotz'?! I LOVE 'nichtdestotrotz'!!"

He's also responsible for my nachdem hangup :-)

Nichtsdestoweniger you spek better German and know more about it than many aboriginial Hessians, I suppose!

Yeah, I have a problem with that one, too. . . :-)

I mean, any 20-something year old kid, law student though he may be, who uses words like nichtdestotrotz cannot be all that helpful at getting me into German-land successfully, eh? :-)

[Referendar, I suppose by now.]

However, that's basic knowledge, helpful to get around ... besides, it differs you in an extraordinary exclusive way from, let's say. someone from the "facilities"

I was once so immersed in French, that i not only spoke and thought in French, i began to dream in French. It was truly frustrating, too, as i would speak French badly in my dreams, but everyone else spoke well. Given that it was all going on inside my head, i was aggravated by it all.

dduck, thou hast slain me. Useless I sit, with my nose against the Wikipedia and my brain whorled into click after click after....

Wy, one of those odd little idiosyncrasies about biology is that all creatures that are part of the same species have the same parts. So anyone who's human has the same type of brain as anyone else who's human, and it works in more or less the same way. I think that's a pretty solid argument. If you think that what we learn has the power to make us something other than human, back it up. Sapir and Whorf and "most linguists" haven't - I am unimpressed.

If people's minds are truly different depending on language, how do kids grow up bilingual? How do people move to a new country and become fluent in a new langauge? How do people manage to communicate to others in other languages if their minds worked differently? That'd be like us trying to learn how to communicate to our dogs by barking at them.

Princess, you don't think about individual words when you're talking either, you just say them. But your brain is actually reminding you of vocabulary, grammar rules and formations, and common phrases and idioms all the time. If you had to take the time to notice it, you wouldn't be fluent. When you type, your brain "remembers" sequences of keys of commonly used words by recording the movements of your fingers while typing. The movements are probably associated with words when the words are very common - such as then, and, and probably more complicated words once you have more practice. Your hands get into a habit. I used to misspell things all the time (typing AND writing) because I would tack extra e's onto the end of nearly every word, since that's such a common thing in English, and since I was so used to typing silent e's onto the ends of words. If you'd been typing German all your life, you'd have similar automatic mechanisms. The reason you can't type as well is because you haven't been typing it for as long, not becuase your brain can't handly German.

Oh, good. Another happy customer!

The next step, you realise, is to start adding to it. Then it gets really interesting!

Iain