dwise1 writes:
But later, when I had returned to the USA, I found myself thinking sometimes in English, but also sometimes in German. Furthermore, I sometimes found myself thinking at a pre-verbal level in German -- when I then had to explain my train of thought in English, I stumbled, realizing that that train of thought had been non-English.
Among the foreign language majors at my university, there was a common conceit that one's language structures one's thought. We all felt it and had experienced it, but could not necessarily support it empirically.
There are those who say that ultimately all Philosophy at the bottom is actually Linguistics. Even in people who speak the same language we always seem to be harping on & dissecting definitions of terms (see the Peanut Gallery bluegenes thread for example - NO - don't do that!) in discussing the Philosophy of Science.
I had read a long time ago about a Navajo physicist, Fred Begay, who actually had an
advantage in understanding sub-atomic physics because of his Navajo language. Here he is:
Fred Begay | PhysicsCentral
Excerpt:
Over the course of ten years from 1972 to 1982, Begay spent hundreds of hours investigating the relationship between traditional Navajo thought and modern science. For instance, in addition to Navajo concepts corresponding to the modern ideas of radiation and lasers, he has found parallels with relativity, space-time physics, and quantum mechanics.
But [these ideas] are buried in our own abstract language, says Begay, and it is not easy to translate them into English. If I say to you ‘Hatsoo’algha k’aa,’’ you’d have no idea what I’m talking about, says Begay. It’s taken decades for me to make the correlation. In some cases, however, no clear parallels exist, he says. The Navajo has mysterious ideas about science which cannot be interpreted into English.
As a postscript, the U.S. decision in WWII to have Navajo be the base of encryption code was absolutely BRILLIANT.
As a second postscript, Fred's description of his later return to visit the tribal reservations and trying to help his people of origin, from a Ph.D. level, talking & encouraging them to learn, was heart-breaking to read. I cannot imagine what he had to accept then and still has to accept now. Heart breaking.
On the good front, Jacoby McCabe Ellsbury is carving out a very promising career as the first Navajo in Major League Baseball....
dwise1 winds up saying:
Furthermore, the studies showed that the deciding factor was not genetic, but rather it was the language that the individual had been raised on.
Exactly. The language you are brought up with can limit how you think!
- xongsmith, 5.7d