LL-L "Grammar" 2009.01.08 (02) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 08 January 2009 - Volume 02
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From: Luc Hellinckx <luc.hellinckx at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar"

Beste Marlou,



You wrote:



>thank you for the info, Luc & Reinhard! This idea of language influencing
3-dimensional thinking is most fascinating, but surely must be considered
cum grano salis. >If there is a statistically significant effect like what
you describe, I see three possibilities:

>1. As Luc put it: They have difficulties with 3D, because their language is
not quite up to 3D.

>2. Their language can't cope with 3D, because they have difficulties with
3D perception and thus neglect it.

>3. Their brains just work differently, and the language peculiarities as
well as 3D problems result from that quite independently.



>The last one sounds not quite plausible, at least very little probable, but
still --. If the second assumption should be true, then it must have been a
recent change or evolution must have >been slumbering deeply, for what
hunter-gatherer-people could survive without clear 3D perception?

>So your No.1 assumptions sounds most logical. All that, mind you, only *if*
a real difference in 3D perception in turkish people could be proven beyond
statistical >errors and unter conditions otherwise strictly the same.



Some background information: the person who told me of this suspected
handicap among Turkish students having more difficulty with geometry, was
speaking of teenagers whose command of Dutch was utterly basic (Turkish
first language, French second, Dutch came only third). Education however was
happening exclusively in Dutch.



Personally I believe that anybody can master any subject, given the right
teacher and enough time, but the starting position can be quite different.
Even today, some people (hunter-gatherers in Africa, Brazil and Australia)
are still counting on a "one, two, three, many" basis. More info:



http://www.es.flinders.edu.au/~mattom/science+society/lectures/lecture3.html<http://www.es.flinders.edu.au/%7Emattom/science+society/lectures/lecture3.html>
.



If you've been raised in such an environment, I tend to believe that it
could take more time getting used to say hexadecimal counting than one who
is already accustomed to a binary system for example. Sometimes people can
learn very fast, but sometimes old habits stick for a long time. Take the
old national European currencies (Francs, Marks, Guilders...). Right before
the introduction of Euro, many people in the know thought it would only last
a very short time before everybody would get a feel for the new currency.
Look at the situation now: some have still not come to terms with it.



Speaking of hunter-gatherers, there's another belief that has been around
for a while. Some think that Kalahari Bushmen have better eyesight (seeing
four moons of Jupiter) and better hearing capacities than Europeans.
Cambridge University Press has an article on this, "The Acuity of Hearing in
the Kalahari Bushmen", but unfortunately it's not for free...so, I can't
tell you what the scientific value of this urban myth is.



Kind greetings,



Luc Hellinckx

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