Conlangery #92: The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

Conlangery #92: The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

Published: Mon, 29 Jul 2013 04:00:11 +0000 \

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Transcript

utterance-id1 <unk> <unk> <unk> <unk> <unk> <unk> [noise] welcome coupon learn two languages people's breeding them poorly with me and then the roadways william manager [noise] and [noise] over in maine we have michael empty hello and a couple of notes at the top uh william was just recently on a radio show by the time you get this up so it'll be a couple of weeks old but we'll give you a lake too the archives he was interviewed about uh mostly the <unk> yes and and sort of <unk> in general yeah so we'll have a link to that and uh mike still has no air conditioning [laughter] thing over here and i also i'm away from any fans because they create a lot of background noise that comes with my um my <unk> for the show uh blood in tears go into this is mike mike mike suffers for us yeah well uh maybe we should uh we should create a language for you to learn that has a lot of words or ice and coal we're going to talk about this the pier war i caught a also known as um linguistic relativity it's basically in in general uh the it's the idea that language influences now there are two forms of this hypothesis it was um i don't think it was ever really formally proposed by anyone it's sort of grew out of right a lot of thoughts expressed mainly uh in an article by what is it benjamin <unk> yeah uh about hopi which yes where he he wrote paragraph after paragraph about <unk> the hopi world view and how the language interact with hokey world world view without ever giving a hoagie example mm yes [laughter] people who study <unk> had been tortured by this ever sentence because a lot of what he said it's just complete <unk> nothing you have to wonder <unk> <unk> so did you ever talk to a hoping he must have but i don't know how well he did his work yeah but anyway to summarize a little bit of the actual high pastas and the way that it's grown out of there are too uh sort of version of <unk> <unk> <unk> the strong version since that language determines thought and at that linguistic categories limited limit and determine cob cognitive categories i'm reading directly from the the <unk> the article here most linguists i think will say that is kind of absurd basically the <unk> this is this strong version is that you know what language you speak completely utterly restricts what you can potentially think of which is completely idiotic yes so reason we're <unk> we said this is sort of why there's there's a whole lot of evidence that you could you could site to say that this is a little bit ridiculous people who speak radically different languages can still share elements of their culture a lot of this this kind of makes people think of like what words a language has for a particular concept but words or cheat if for cultural reasons you end up meeting a word you can pointed we're borrow it yeah so it's not really a good it it it doesn't really hold up now there's a week version that i think most ah many linguists will think is probably likely to some degree uh it's that linguistic categories and usage influenced thought in certain kinds of <unk> behavior but it does it like put a cage around your mind but it just sort of it's sort of guides used towards certain ways of thinking possible yeah uh-huh and there is some evidence to suggest that um well you mean can you you're more familiar with a lot of things right and uh you're more familiar with talk about things about color terms which i think is one particularly uh uh place where there's a particular he um i'm actually much less interested in the <unk> i'm reading like the whole color turns discussion bores me years really the city that um is the most interesting to me um 'cause we get back a little bit i wanna say do you think this is sort of interesting this is not directly related to <unk> with more about people who are uh invent languages with agendas is that <unk> of linguistic german isn't are really popular in certain kinds of political discourse because it's really attractive [noise] um both in politics and some kinds of science fiction where if you want to envision a new kind of humanity you need a new kind of language to stress new kinds of saw um the shows that in certain kinds of academic lifted them where that never gets out of their library um and then in science fiction novels like strangers and strange land has a lot of this i'm suzanne hating elgin la done was created specifically was you know if you're working mine she named them uh things like the languages upon which is a famous old science fiction [noise] i'm in the idea that you can change people in fundamental ways my changing the language they speak and uh one thing we were talking about early and we'll talk about i mean before the show started we'll talk about again is there is no evidence that changing the language you speak we'll give you magical special pounds either no it's which is also a popular idea that using the right thing which will somehow changed pretty fundamentally right and if you get you and your capabilities and there's no particular reason to believe that either um so i just want to mention of his backgrounds 'cause it pops up a lot in sort of certain kinds of science fiction and i i can think of examples where it pops up in a negative way to nineteen eighty four sure if that's another one that's another one i had i'd forgotten a list of mine just posted on there um has a few <unk> a lot on yeah yeah <unk> yeah george orwell had some odd ideas about language and journal very odd anyway i can rent them out and spend time yeah but yes um but in in general yeah is very popular with science fiction and and and in some kinds of philosophical languages i mean i really think something like loews one also has this at the back of it's mind yeah because <unk> is is sort of based on formal electric and it's an idea that you can you can make you yourself more logical speaking it yeah you should take a look at the list because um i haven't heard of some of them like that <unk> <unk> and then some fictional languages and um yeah pretty mentions the lines of expletives if you weren't hypothesis which is <unk> you know um what was going to say ah right so for me the most interesting experiments that demonstrate that this is going on in this that there is um a modest influence in cog mission is has to do in the difference between s. languages in the language it's we've talked about these in previous episode i foolish to look up which one it was um so um satellite framed versus verb framed languages so this is the question of do your main verbs of motion and code um manner directly or do you have to add some extra and junk or do your verbs in code manner and um rather not include manner and you have to use uh other kinds of verbal complements to the big difference is like english basically we have go come but manner is also included you run you jump you skip you <unk> you know get all of this and direction is syndicated by satellite i <unk> i get to the ice cream man or ice cream truck versus romance languages where you are main verb in codes um direction and some of the location and stuff and manner of motion has to be handled by some sort of um [noise] and her or um percival so you know i went into the house running late <unk> and and this is this is uh sort of a general friends' thing right languages tend to be primarily s. versus v. there are a few which fall right in the middle is always um and there's always exceptions but in general there's a tendency for language to be more strongly satellite friend versus more strongly for <unk> [noise] the point is is if you have people see pictures and you ask them to describe what's going on you'll get certain kinds of characteristic description in people who are speaking satellite prank languages versus those that are speaking for playing languages and it really shows up strongly if you asked them to recall the scene later right what you recall um he's strongly influenced by the kind of lazy 'cause you're speaking mm um basically whatever your primary bourbon coating is what you are likely to remember oh okay so in preparing languages you are likely to remember kinds of direction stuff um whereas into like print languages you're more likely to remember mannered type stuff you skipping or jumping or running or what versus where are you going into her out of her up or down and that sort of stuff [noise] um so that's where that shows up um and that's a really modest kind of severe wharf evidence it changes a little bit how you remember stuff with a little training you could make the effort to learn you know remember other parts i mean this is the the point that i'm going to keep harping on nothing limits what you're capable of thinking but you are predisposed to certain kinds of thinking seems to be the strongest we can convincingly saying about severe morphine true mhm [noise] no no go ahead oh it was gonna say in um in boston there you can set to go yeah seventy one five foot by vehicle and when you went <unk> multiple nationally and that was just an interesting <unk> you can't go and how did you say this but it's just what you have to cut it in the in the one short who's not <unk> you know doesn't limit it just says well you must i <unk> i think um uh other things are like you know spanish you will more often see words for things like i spend a decent which we rarely use an english but in in spanish you have to <unk> or or use often there's ways to sort of show which way it is but it's interesting to think of how how this could can be um different another thing that is also has to do with space that i find that interesting bit is um [noise] you know we hear about ah various australian language is like ah you <unk> immature uh where there are no egocentric directions everything's north south east or west or some sort of like absolute directions right left and right are not used very often yeah apparently there's some times used to describe where are you might have a pain in your body but other than that they're not [noise] oh really yeah see i i was wondering about that because i i would presume that like even if they didn't have those words before other people came that they might hire them or something so i know they they still have them but they're limited to a very i mean even like if you're sitting at the fire uh-huh and you know someone might say use your north foot to kick that long back in it's only if there's like something going on inside your body that left or right or <unk> and i don't think it's in google humid there but one of the sort of related australian languages that that did that okay that's um that makes sense but yeah the point is like very obviously there is going to be something that those people are going to be able to do and that is no matter what direction they're facing at all times uh well i live most about this i was reading this recently reading nicholas evans book called dying words where he talks about this even that blind person speaking one of these languages is always going to know where north is right and uh you know this is not this is not something that we normally do with the the language and we speak i don't really i guess i can think about it and project um a map of madison and realize that i think i'm facing west at this point but i have to think about it and um so this is not something that's really strange or a magical ability it's just something that most people don't have to do all the time i mean that that's probably where you're going to get the biggest effects is where the language forces you to to to know certain information or market right and like you said earlier it might have kind of uh really subtle effects like i don't know if in a place where the language removed was more likely to use not southeast less r._c. for example the rules of houses more likely to be you know exactly lined up so you could say that <unk> you know i mean i don't that's some just using over this summer is no evidence of that though they just know we just keep track of it it's not like like one thing that's uh more extra linguistics is that they have taken people who speak these languages and taking them to a remote place and ask them about places that they they have been too and they're able to like point with a high degree of act accuracy where that place is so it may sort of allow give people even more of a a general navigational and special awareness than than just knowing where north is so yeah i i really like um evans explanation for you know how to explain what's going on here um and basically when our language forces us to attend to certain things like north south east west our background the mental activity that were mostly not conscious of make sure that we are tending to those things right right we trained are sort of background brain processes to keep in mind all the things we need to to speak our language correctly mhm most of it is pretty conscious and you know is presumably i i would guess that it takes kids little kids a while to master the system [noise] um so that explains what's going on is with training your brain learns to keep track of the things you need to know to use the language correct yeah that makes makes a whole lot of sense you could think of like like basically at some point they they got a reference for what direction they're facing and yeah they train their brain such that it sort of remember what direction that was and and keeps track of what direction 'cause they don't <unk> these people don't have to look at the sun or anything right right right some constant monitoring yeah yeah i would say pretty conscious <unk> more than subconscious outlook low yeah making it over find distinction um so the places where this kind of <unk> and really shows up is like we've been talking about the special stuff location in motion like <unk> versus satellite frank [noise] it's not terribly surprising that certain kinds of social cut mission pops up here too right in languages where you have to keep track of whether your uncle is on your mother's side of your father's side and when they're older than you are probably in all of that stuff you know that's another place where this affect appears to be pretty strong too mhm [noise] like there's some one or two languages again of australia where to say the word mother um it's like you have to keep track of um the relationship you they don't just have a word from other like you might have a word that means [noise] this person is my mother but your assets versus versus my mother but the person you're talking to their sister um so you have depending on who you're talking to the word for the same person is going to change because you need to in code the relationship and the person you're talking about two both these speaker and the listener um um my guess is the average american cannot cope with that test [noise] [laughter] and i was working training now without some training not without country right [noise] so it kind of makes sense it's really overt unimportant things humans worrying about out in the world where we are and what is going on around us um and our relationships um are there are places where these effects appear to be strong ah one thing i'm <unk> um <unk> tend to another place were interesting things happen with this as well yeah one thing i just uh i was thinking about this is not really <unk> more of a cultural thing but for some reason i feel like talking about um i'm in chinese so you have the distinction between older and younger siblings yeah that <unk> again is not really necessarily <unk> but that <unk> distinction get sort of medical <unk> extended um often to talk about like coworkers and such right there there's an anthrax logical term for this sort of false <unk> where you use <unk> term to describe all sorts of people depending on their age and sort of social standing um that happens in various places i mean <unk> there's hardly just chinese wherever this happened yeah i don't know i thought it was was interesting thing again it's not really working but um it is it's it's probably in a different kind of phenomenon one thing that uh you have in your notes here with william is they uh what you're talking about <unk> this is probably something you want to avoid [laughter] crime yeah something yeah yeah um uh the famous uh <unk> uh so terrible [noise] first of all the rain forty words for snow an eskimo is wrong and about three different way [laughter] right of all the concept of a word is so different in many of these languages then um it is an english second of all there is no eskimo language [noise] there are a good dozen or so languages spoken by various people called eskimos there anyway they're not the same language right [noise] [noise] yeah [noise] so anyway in most of those languages they have two or three roots relating to snow those that are coming yeah the distinction in terms of primitive roots has to do with it on the ground or is it falling from the sky right um but the the different problem with with words is um there's a common suffix in one of these language families which means material for so if you say material for building a house and you're really gonna <unk> well now you have another network for no no you don't give a word for a material for building a house that happens to also be snow in certain context it might also be <unk> in another country [noise] one thing um four when people ask me about this and they're like oh well you know that's not has forty where it's just now unlike well you know i think of it as like any of those we have blizzard no flurries but then you can also have snow <unk> snow drifts and it's i mean they're not it's not as cut and dry as oh well then i'm forty <unk> no well and that's that's the the whole point that i want to <unk> to draw sort of a broader points from this you want to be careful about i mean yes there are circumstances where something that's culturally important to speakers of a language could produce lots of words for something yeah look at the <unk> the number of words relating to reindeer right um oh yeah i've ever done that um somali has made a lot of us are gambled or camels yeah there's that that does happen but you want to not uh that's not really <unk> that can be an interesting thing to work on when you're doing your <unk> but it's more of a culture influencing language thing and words are cheap if your language for whatever reason needs a word for something then it can easily be <unk> or borrowed from or the language mhm so it's uh <unk> not necessarily coin because we usually don't <unk> but you know derived in some way [noise] um so it's not really i'm definitely you can say people aren't usually limited by what words they have maybe maybe if those words make up a system there's there's some you know there's the the whole controversy of uh about <unk> having uh numerals mhm and and perhaps that could be a uh an instance but again that's like if they truly lack numerals lets them lacking an entire system uh like uh higher like segment of grammar rather than just lacking words for things yeah i know it's just [noise] like i think we were we were talking about this before the uh <unk> i i think we talked a lot of it and [noise] with um the number and record recalling details of the story afterwards if you have a language for example like um low okay wrestling has worked for light blue and orange <unk> usually just say blue so later on and you're calling story it may be easier to remember that particular sheet of meaning if you have to distance one sport um but as far as actual conception of it <unk> you know new <unk> or anything yeah yeah yeah i don't think it's not um that's not the way it is yeah a lot of people sometimes um beginning <unk> ah especially those who might have some sort of agenda get really moved by the idea of this linguistic determined is uh i mean my favorite example of how it all falls apart is people who create languages without grammatical gender and think that somehow this is less sexist yeah i was going to like there are plenty of huge gigantic languages on this planet that have no grammatical gender at all do not even have separate words for he and she [noise] to to come to mind our mandarin chinese and from persian spoken in iran neither places are hot bed to feminist thinking mhm right i i was going to bring that up a whole lot of <unk> have this idea of grammatical gender being sexist and that's not exactly the case no and there's that there's sort of um there's a whole lot of issues in fact you know even even going the other direction of culture instant obviously language influencing thought i don't really think like for example i don't think germans think the fires female [noise] great again this is one of those situations where if you draw cartoon figures of certain concepts and draw them innate gender way right then people who speak languages that have gender pre occupations will be happier with one picture that another right that is true but it it's very unclear that this has some systematic influence on people's real thinking about the world and more specifically real thinking about a gender election yeah and there's there's studies of sort of subtle affects like right do you know um i think there was there there was a study of how spanish in german speakers describe a bridge yes and they describe it differently because of the gender that it's a sign language but it's it's very subtle affects it's not going to be really highly visible um the what i was i was going to get it though is if you're if you talk outside of the the worst thing in his <unk> and going in the other direction of <unk> of of culture influencing language sought influencing language some sometimes sort of like feminist uh leanings can cause people to like really sub zoom uh grammatical gender into things uh i think i don't know if this is really the reason for this but it's uh i think it's a possibility that that sort of thing might be an influence in ah some <unk> some ah some spanish speakers we'll say precedent pat within ah to make it feminine but <unk> then they would not normally require changing for gender because it's that it doesn't have any gender morphology on it but i mean people can speak their language and take her with it to make points and that's that's certainly common enough and yeah that's going the other way yeah it's definitely going and the other i think almost the thing is with this <unk> as as we decided to discuss this it's almost like the other direction is more important for congress because i feel like it's more important to think of how your how a con culture is reflected in your hotline than necessarily how the hotline would affect comical um there there wouldn't be some effects on the culture but yeah maybe you could think of it as like a cyclical or uh uh the <unk> like uh uh uh feedback short yeah interdependent relationship yeah mhm such i mean as long as we're talking about humans and human languages strong morphine as it is <unk> right now that you're aliens and all sorts of weird things are possible of course but it's assuming that you're inventing a human language i'm going to go with george or that you should focus on the impact of the culture on the language and that does not necessarily mean forty words were things that they care about and and also remember the culture historically on language because like language ends up preserving ah things that are not necessarily current and the culture little alright certain <unk> such a load of a gray area more metaphors in english that many english speakers have no connection to anymore no and haven't for quite a while i mean my favorite example 'cause it's always my favorite example for things it's not <unk> mhm right that's an avid baskin language after basket <unk> way the hell up in northern canada where it is very cold and then altogether different lifestyles <unk> and yet you know we have is that about can language which changed in various ways to accommodate the new circumstances in the desert southwest mhm [noise] um so right languages obviously adapt themselves and accommodate all sorts of new thoughts on the time but it's it's the local circumstances the impact of language i think are probably more useful to begin or calling or even in advance calling [noise] then trying to imagine ways in which you can alter people's brains um speaking speaking with the language yeah i mean there's some people from trying right we we don't have one on um two and a certain degree it's real it's sort of an ex uh [noise] kind of going in that direction but ah well not uh not at the <unk> the creator well are you there are people who are i think they're trying to do something similar to what was in stranger and strange language yes yes they are trying to get of magic powers by thinking that yeah well i don't know if they really considerate magic but more like <unk> better cognitive ability <unk> right right but you know there's no real reason to think that uh that that's possible so the only thing i think is it like if you want it like the north <unk> uh direct connection thing you're gonna <unk> online where you had some code that you could train yourself to always be monitoring it and you maybe i'm better at if used it and how to need to let me try another one to speak to you i can't imagine even murder system like that without having occasion to use it a lot for years yeah there are so are are ease and there are easier ways to do [laughter] yes get if i <unk> yeah just a little bit of training or um there was uh i remember a story about a guy who like putting magnets on his belt that would sort of hug him in the direction of north so that he always knew where it was and then drained himself that way i'll keep your credit cards away from that man [laughter] it may not strong enough to tell your belt north oh my goodness [laughter] [noise] but i think that you'd call computers away there's proudly [laughter] much easier ways to train yourself <unk> than to learn entirely new language and that's probably the truth about any of these any sort of effect that could actually result from morphine affects is is it's probably easier to find some other training method then to learning entirely new like yeah that's just about as logical as if he wants to get better multiplication meeting the whole language a space state versus these ten [laughter] [laughter] i mean i <unk> i like it was only as a buying our system so that that's like you know which would be incredibly and you <unk> cumbersome yes <unk> a bit like uh uh pays twenty system are obese i don't know i i could i could see some programmers wanting to speak the language that has <unk> eight just mhm like get into their heads but idle the wedding whole line or do i have to move to the deserts of of north central mexico to learn a language <unk> oh there is a language in north central mexico that has basically yeah maybe not <unk> not being paid eight apparently in mexico they kind of between their fingers rather than the fingers mm oh interesting that's a thought i mean i i mean we don't know that's adjusted store we have no evidence of that but that appears to be well <unk> it's a possibility if there was <unk> pretty <unk> considerable of evidence that finger counting caused most languages to be based on her face twenty <unk> or what five or five yes uh all all of those are very calm so it's possible but it could have come from another source um i mean and it could be interesting if a if you had a culture that tried to do this i've i'm i would be very interested if um sort of with the uh re boot of star trek if they actually went to putting more development into vulcan and make it in sort of uh uh uh <unk> sort of thing because it's so that strikes me as something that <unk> would do with their extreme like religious devotion to logic maybe they might or they could just have a i mean like <unk> have an extremely terrifying way of talking about logic is well which just uses standard normal english kind of weirdly yeah let me it could it could be more of they end up altering their own language in a way that that is odd and that does seem like i mean it's sort of cannon that they still speech some language that's related to what they spoke before they didn't invent something <unk> because there's whatever language they speak is related to what the <unk> but anyway that's getting too much in [laughter] or let's let's let's not let's not delve too far into that but uh i don't know [laughter] i think probably the take away for hung lingers on this subject is <unk> culture and let the rest taking care of itself yes that's that's that's good again assuming you're going for a literary or naturalistic coming if you're going to get your determined to make an engineering there's nothing we can do to help you [laughter] well yeah yeah and you want to make an <unk> tests uh some we're feeding hypothesis go ahead good luck getting people to learn it's actually tested but [laughter] you know uh yeah uh i have to think of all the languages that had been invented specifically with the ghost of the pure more hanging around a lot that was the only one i can imagine actual human beings speaking speaking yeah although i mean lawyers bond is very difficult very few speaker and it will forget it it's kind of i mean that's kind of a kind of meditation sort of linguistic meditation is what it <unk> it to produce any sentencing a great deal of work yeah it will it will i could actually see trying to learn as well as being a sort of training technique in itself because of the like the hyper <unk> precision that he built into it but at the same time you are not really learning language at that point ah right even chunky <unk> it <unk> you know it takes him uh you know hours and hours to translate things <unk> well yeah twenty to thirty minutes with the normal time when uh for that article that came out of new yorker back in december yeah for a single word yeah [laughter] but yeah it takes it takes them a long time to translate things he doesn't speak it's <unk> like i don't know if anyone could really learn it fluently because of the extreme precision involved mhm but you know i think i think it's theoretically possible a very smart person probably could but i don't know how many people they'd have to check yeah i kind of wonder if they would end up speaking like light is quill though but that defeat the purpose entirely right but the same time like it requires i don't know i don't know i i guess i have to go back in investigate what all the verbal categories were however but it seems like it would require more information than humans normally at ten too yes yes it was so <unk> it's it's sort of i i have serious doubts as to whether you could you could learn to speak it fluently and not alter the language a little bit um but in in general i think for naturalistic con language yes do the culture first and maybe you can pull in a couple small example but realized that most of the time the effects are very subtle right you have to do <unk> weird scientific study designs often do demonstrate defects right and the scientific experiment is not normal is is not how most of it's been their days thinking so when you have to do weird things to show in effect in effect just real i don't want to diminish that yeah but you have to worry about how deeply really um the impact is in your day to day life yeah and like it's sort of like i have thought about this because i wanted to create a culture that speak the language that that is like there's australia languages and doesn't have um egocentric directions or doesn't use them very often and um i was thinking about it and i thought about okay well maybe this is a fantasy novel involves it involves some travel maybe you could talk about the dead reckoning in that context but and then there's a character from outside it's learning that language a little bit and you talk about a little bit of language so but otherwise it's not really a big thing and i worry a little bit about if i describe it too much in a certain way people think these people just have this as a magical ability right rich it's not magical it's something real human beings do now if you want to do an end slang that <unk> test some morphine hypothesis that some <unk> some things some people are interested in maybe they went to try it um if um it's it's sort of a weird experiment poll a method in itself i'm trying to think there was one something else i was going to say about that um i ain't nothing more to say but i mean but i think we've covered a good <unk> good bit of a thing the business mission right right right yeah i think that's about all that we have to say [noise] um but oh two things i want to say like we said we we've said from the beginning we can't you can't make languages that you have people magical abilities [laughter] the second thing i would say is that that extends to magical abilities about language so you can imagine things that aliens might be able to perceive and and and make words for the humans camp like an alien scene into alter violet or having some sort of <unk> ability or something like that [laughter] but i think it's probably there's a few things that are probably not possible the the language an embassy town and i love that book but the language there is an <unk> [laughter] a language that has no sing to fire sing to five relationship is uh is just doesn't make sense well language where you can't lie <unk> it's more it if that book sort of only makes sense to me if i think about it as it's not the language inherently that causes that it's like the weird psycho linguistics which sort of is how it's presented and even then it stretches credibility ah you probably will never have a language that can describe the experience of quality of the <unk> is your own personal experience of something if i ask you to describe the color red you can't describe what you actually see when you see red you could describe other like physical properties of the wave length of light or something but you could describe the actual experience and i don't think it's possible to create a language that would describe that <unk> those are things that i would also <unk> <unk> put in this category of things that <unk> couldn't do yeah but other than that that's about all the points and i had my <unk> did you have any <unk> other final points to say or [noise] um i'd say that it's you know keep them on that [noise] you know like you said the language doesn't make the <unk> the the abilities or the shortcomings or the physical you know what you can conceive of in your mind language does reflects the culture in languages it it's not gonna <unk> upon you [noise] the ability to do something special it'll just you know kind of it could force you to think about it more but that's not necessarily something that language by virtue of just being that language has done right you have just been forced to take that into consideration much more frequently than if you had language that doesn't care when you walk by foot by car with three sets of twelve stuff's whatever the case may be right so um if you were if that's something that's important to you and not something that you think your <unk> do you think <unk> you know it's not inconceivable sort of language to do that but um if you're trying to be realistic i think you should keep in mind that language does like the culture and they'll do culture first and then <unk> what happened you know organically <unk> not so sure we're all sort of a green go with the culture <unk> first if you wanna work in effect noted it's gonna be very subtle when it's going to encourage abilities that your speakers already have and and not give them any anything extra that's really not possible other ways and then uh finally it's it's it's going to be subtle and culture culture cultures so now what little just for example one of the thing you could um think about if you want to try to think the <unk> the main language and you're not sure if it happens in real language i'd say just go and do what you want because it's your language if you want to make um [noise] a language where instead of the same night and day they have forwards daddy depending upon of sons right over your head or or the the right sunset or whatever [noise] bill crazy if it doesn't have to <unk> it's wrong [noise] it just means that doesn't have natural language and [noise] if you listen to meet the natural language than you might be living alone just research but people are a lot in those kinda things you can have a cultural explanation for [noise] me neither this ah whole trouble uh hey hey fussy killer tradition of astronomy their paws those words i'm not much more interesting if you take that route then just saying oh well this is what happened is um [noise] the language doesn't come from nowhere [noise] invest in your [noise] that's right well yeah <unk> [laughter] so anyway i think we can probably drop off the subject i think we've said probably as much as he really wants to say about it and then some [laughter] and ah i'm wanting to close uh um uh next episode we are going to be talking about that and we have special gas coming on that so uh [noise] uh [noise] watching your fees for that person and i may be doing some uh uh some more of my [noise] some more for [noise] in between episodes so [noise] what's that [noise] i will say [noise] <unk> [noise]

Tags

  1. Conlangery Podcast
  2. Podcast
  3. conlang
  4. language
  5. linguistic determinism
  6. linguistic relativity
  7. linguistics
  8. Sapir-Worf

Conlangery Podcast/Conlangery 92 The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (last edited 2017-09-09 06:33:38 by TranscriBot)