Issue 11 April 2011
Quantum
HEALTH
F
rom the February 2011 issue of Scientific American comes a fascinating appraisal about how language influences our reality—that how you see the world and even how you think is a matter of what language you speak. There are more than 7000 different languages, and each influences the understanding of the world.
In her article “How Language Shapes Thought,” Lera Boroditsky uses the example of communicating the fact “I saw Uncle Vanya on 42nd street”. She writes, “In Mian, a language spoken in Papua, New Guinea, the verb I used would reveal whether the event happened just now, yesterday or in the distant past, whereas in Indonesian, the verb wouldn’t give away whether it had already happened or was still coming up. In Russian, the verb would reveal my gender. In Mandarin, I would have to specify whether the titular uncle is maternal or paternal and whether he is related by blood or marriage, because there are different words for all these different types of uncles and then some… In Pirahã a language spoken in the Amazon, I couldn’t say ‘42nd’ because there are no words for exact numbers, just words for ‘few’ and ‘many.’”
The World in a Word
www.quantumhealthmagazine.com
Language influences not just what we are able to communicate, but our cognitive abilities. Some cultures have languages where there is no sense of right or left, or only a few colour words or number words. In others, the sense of the cardinal directions is so refined that speakers indicate precise spatial locations: “The cup is southeast of the plate.” In most Western cultures, the past is situated spatially as being behind us and the future in front of us. But in other cultures, such as in some South American cultures, the opposite is true: because we know what has already happened, the past is in front us (it is known and so in full view), whereas the future, still unknown, is behind us. Studies mentioned in the article even demonstrates how language affects memory and how easy or difficult it is to learn new information or skills.
In this modern world, we may be a global community, but the evidence shows that we perceive very different worlds according to what language we speak.
Quantum Health 17
Science in the News
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