Poorly Understood Linguistics is Magic
Feb. 9th, 2019 07:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dsrtaoThe strong version of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis goes like this: humans think in words, therefore the words that you think in constrain your thoughts. If you don't have a word for a concept, you can't think about that concept. If you learn new words, you gain the ability to think about that concept.
It's not clear that humans must think in words.
And it is definitely the case that humans can come up with new words by themselves, and then teach them to others. Words don't spring from the void. (Although that's how Genesis says the world was created.)
But people really like the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis because it takes a universal experience -- learning new words, a thing that happens to every single one of us -- and extends it into magic: if only you knew the right language, you could think thoughts that you can't think now, and maybe some of those thought-words can do things that you can't do yet. Some people clearly have verbal skills that allow them to influence other people to do their bidding -- is that because they know the right words? Maybe the whole universe can be coerced if you only knew how to speak to it properly.
It's not clear that humans must think in words.
And it is definitely the case that humans can come up with new words by themselves, and then teach them to others. Words don't spring from the void. (Although that's how Genesis says the world was created.)
But people really like the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis because it takes a universal experience -- learning new words, a thing that happens to every single one of us -- and extends it into magic: if only you knew the right language, you could think thoughts that you can't think now, and maybe some of those thought-words can do things that you can't do yet. Some people clearly have verbal skills that allow them to influence other people to do their bidding -- is that because they know the right words? Maybe the whole universe can be coerced if you only knew how to speak to it properly.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-02-09 05:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-02-09 05:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-02-10 05:59 pm (UTC)