LL-L "Lexicon" 2008.10.04 (03) [E]

Sun Oct 5 03:39:55 UTC 2008

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From: Mike Morgan <mwmosaka at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Lexicon" 2008.10.04 (02) [E]

Yes, of course one wonders if, EVEN to the Japanese mind the bitter
gourd (苦瓜 /nigauri/, quite literally 苦 = bitter + gourd 瓜) is
"related" to the water melon (西瓜 /suika/, literally Western = 西 +
gourd 瓜)?

To me they are miles apart. And the former preferably miles from my
plate! (Though I will readily admit to not knlwing how to fix it, I
guess to my taste noone who has ever served it to me knows how to fix
it.)

And as for what R/R notes about "people that try it for the first time

tend to be horrified if they are not "mentally prepped" but expect a

certain taste because of the name "melon"), it reminds me of my wife's
story of her travels in Ladakh and her initial response to ubiquitous
Tibetan tea ... which is salty and has yak's butter in it. She just
could NOT get it to go down ... until she decided that she just needed
to think of it as Tibetan soup. Then it went down just fine!

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From: Luc Hellinckx <luc.hellinckx at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Lexicon"

Beste Ron,

Re "perception":

 Mark, while on a related note, I meant "Does language influence
> perception?" with regard to a more fundamental level:
>
>    * If in a given language two items have unrelated names (e.g.
>      "cushion" vs "pillow"), do speakers think of these items as
>      unrelated?
>    * If in a given language two items have related names (e.g.
>      /Kissen/ vs /(Kopf-)Kissen/), do speakers think of these items
>      as related or even as the same item with slight variation?
>
> Of course, you might argue that this is a "chicken or egg" question, since
> related naming usually presumes perceived relatedness to begin with. But I
> am talking about us, those that carry on the linguistic heritage, come into
> contact with each other and learn each other's languages, thereby are
> confronted with apparent differences in perception.
>

Language explicitly formats your mind (sleep too, but implicitly). It makes
your brain sort of "workable". Well, part of it anyway, maybe comparable to
a partition on a computer disk that gets formatted with a certain file
system. Another language may then install itself on a new partition with
another file system. Different file systems are no problem per se.

Makes me think of the "noumenon"..."das Ding an sich". I personally don't
believe in so called "bundle theory", which states that an object is nothing
but the sum of its properties. Reason is that I consider "relation" to be a
property as well. Therefore you can't define your object, unless you include
"das All". Moreover, language itself is inept, because it seems to support
bundle theory, read this (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundle_theory):

    /Language-reality/ objection

The /language-reality/ objection to bundle theory relates to the impact
language <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language> has on understanding
reality <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality>. The objection maintains that
language causes confusion that supports bundle theory.

Per the objection, properties are synthetic constructions of language and
thinking alone provides reality to the properties of any object. An apple <
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple>, it claims, does not have the properties
/Red <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red>/ or /Juicy <
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juicy>/, but rather observers who already
believe in a concept called /Red/ use that concept to experience an apple as
red. Further, the objection maintains that /Red/ can not be distilled from
an apple because /Red/ is an abstraction from other experiences and not an
innate property an apple might contain. Per the objection, expressions such
as, "An apple is red and juicy," includes at least six concepts and would
best be left as dead-end logical propositions. Since the objection regards
the words "Red" and "Juicy" as simply abstractions of previous experiences,
it contends that they contain only a personal summary concept of one
individual. Thus, the experience of an apple is as close to the /Apple/
concept that one can get. The objection regards any additional analytic work
of the mind as a synthesis of other experiences that is incapable of
logically revealing any true essence of /Apple/.

The /language-reality/ objection asserts that language encourages the belief
that /synthetic exercises/ distill experiences, yet it rejects the results
of such exercises by maintaining that observers actually combine experiences
to create each concept of any particular property. It holds that language is
a complicated belief system whose only connection to reality is an
abstraction of experience. The /language-reality/ objection may even suggest
that /reality/non-reality/ or /objective/subjective/ distinctions themselves
are merely artifacts of language and therefore are also solely abstractions
of experience.

Couldn't have said it any better myself *s*. Philosophically I believe more
in Pratītyasamutpāda, but that's another matter.

You also wrote:

>
> Although the exact origin of this tropical vegetable is unknown, here in
> North America it is perceived as Asian, predominantly Chinese, secondarily
> East and West Indian. I assume that it was Chinese traders that translated
> its name into English inappropriately as "bitter melon". The Chinese word 瓜
> stands for the family of /Cucurbitaceae/, including cucumbers, gourds,
> melons, pumpkins, luffas and watermelons. Chinese people using English tend
> to use "melon" to refer to all of them, which is quite inaccurate. If this
> particular vegetable has to be named with one name of the family it would
> have to be "gourd" or "cucumber", certainly because of its shape, flesh and
> seeds. Some people /are/ trying to remedy this by insisting on calling it
> "bitter gourd". But it seems to be a losing battle. Granted, this vegetable
> is an acquired taste, being quite bitter. (You need to know how to prepare
> it.) What I have observed is that people that try it for the first time tend
> to be horrified if they are not "mentally prepped" but expect a certain
> taste because of the name "melon". They like to tell horror stories about it
> and thus deter others from trying it. I bet that the vegetable would be more
> successful in the Western market if it were called "bitter gourd" or "bitter
> cucumber", for this would influence associations and expectations.
>
> What's in a name, huh?
>

Aaah: "taxonomy"! Maybe it's time that the cladistic method finds its way in
linguistics. It got popular in biology because evolution is seriously taken
into account (rather than "similarity"). Analysis is quantitative and done
through computers, but unfortunately very labor-intensive due to an
algorithm, being NP-hard.

More here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cladistics

Kind greetings,

Luc Hellinckx

PS: These days, most people only use the general term "kussen" for any
pillow in Brabantish. Older folks though, still say "nen huppelink" <
"hoofdpeluw" = "head pillow" for a pillow that you (usually) lay your head
on:

http://littlurl.com/o24qk
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