LL-L "Grammar" 2009.01.09 (07) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 09 January 2009 - Volume 07
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From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2009.01.09 (01) [E]

> From: M.-L. Lessing <marless at gmx.de>
> Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2009.01.08 (02) [E]
>

> As to the finer sight and hearing of the bushmen, I would love to see
> the Jupiter moons without a glass or telescope! I had not heard it of
> the bushmen, but I have read a similar thing about native americans:
> They were able to see *by daylight* not only the moon (when there),
> which we also can, but several bright stars/planets. Not at dawn, but
> in the bright afternoon. The colonists wondered and controlled the
> points the natives had shown in the sky, and it turned out that they
> fitted well with the astronomical positions of the planets. -- Perhaps
> Reinhard knows something as to the truth of this myth or non-myth?

As a long-time naked-eye observer I wouldn't put the moons of Jupiter
thing as such an outstanding feat. These would be quite clearly visible
in the night sky if they weren't obscured by the glare of Jupiter so
given the clear skies of the bush and frequent observation and a few
individuals with extra-sharp eyesight I don't see why they shouldn't
know a thing or two about them.

When I was a habitual observer I could also tell people where planets
and stars were by full daylight. It's not that I could actually see them
(except for the moon), it's that I was so used to the rhythms in the sky
I just knew where they were whether I could see them or not.

I suspect therefore that this is yet another case of "the natives"
playing tricks on unsuspecting anthropologists  :)

Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/

----------

From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2009.01.06 (07) [E]

> From: M.-L. Lessing <marless at gmx.de>
> Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2009.01.05 (06) [E]
>
> 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:

I would hardly ascribe the effect of ones native language such
importance. In learning sign languages, for example, in the end I stop
having trouble with the fact that sign languages work in three
dimensions and thus express positions, scales and so on with a high
degree of precision and conciseness, and I'm quite sure that this
doesn't confer superior football skills on Deaf players!

> Does anyone know, read, admire Peter Dickinson? He is a writer of
> novels and crime stories, of a sort that really stuns me. In one of
> his books, "The poison oracle", he describes a people whose language
> cannot express causality. In effect of this (!) they have no idea (!)
> of the cause-and-effect concept. Their brains cannot perceive
> cause-and-effect mechanisms. This is a bold sketch, but Dickinson does
> it all so well that you really think a people could survive without
> his, despite the sharp teeth of natural selection. However when an
> individual is isolated from the tribe and taught English, her brain is
> quite capable of learning what causality is. -- Can this be
> possible? We might need a neurologist here perhaps :-) For me it is
> all guesswork, but I would love to know more.

Yes, it's possible. Anyone who studies maths to university level will
tell you that all sorts of new ideas can be learned: imaginary numbers,
countable and uncountable infinities, topological spaces and so on,
although there's nothing in any natural language to describe many of the
features that you learn in mathematics. In physics you ultimately get
that General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics seem to make sense,
despite the more difficult bits being not actually well understood by
anybody yet.

I think there's also too much importance assigned to the power of
natural language. Much of the power comes not from the words or grammar
of the language but from metaphor. Natural languages often don't
describe abstract concepts directly, but use metaphor to talk about
abstractions in terms of something more concrete. Generally, if your
language doesn't have a way of talking about a thing and people really
need to talk about it, a metaphor will be created rather than new syntax
or grammar.

In English for example love and relationships are often spoken of as a
journey rather than having ways of speaking about what we're really
speaking about:

The path of true love never did run smooth.
We're at a crossroads.
Their marriage is on the rocks.
We're in for a bumpy ride.
It's the parting of the ways.
It's the end of the road.

Organisation is often spoken about by speaking about plants:

The local branch of the bank.
My family tree.
He's got roots.
We're pruning the workforce.
It's a growth area.

and so on.

I think that this means that ultimately it doesn't matter what tools
your language provides you with, there are other ways of putting across
you want to say.

It can be interesting to look at a sentence and try to identify the
metaphors. In the above sentence, for example, I see "tools", and
"putting across" as metaphors for things that the English language
doesn't seem to provide.

Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/

•

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