LL-L "Language programming" 2009.01.13 (04) [E]

Tue Jan 13 20:24:22 UTC 2009

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L O W L A N D S - L - 13 January 2009 - Volume 04
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From: Mark Dreyer <mrdreyer at lantic.net>
Subject: LL-L "Language programming" 2009.01.12 (06) [E]

Hi, Sandy:

 Subject: LL-L "Language programming"

Mark

...my assurance that language 'programs' the Mind, to its possessor's great
advantage or otherwise.

I don't believe it for a moment! Time to motivate your thesis if you can,
Mark  :)

Mark

I rather thought I had, in the following passage

...For a modern example, until Einstein developed the concept of a 'Local
Frame of Reference', Classical Newtonian Physics was at a loss to explain
phenomena already subject to observation.

But what's that got to do with language? The language involved (let's
say German in Einstein's case?) has nothing to do with the concepts.

Mark

I beg to differ. It has everything to do with language, which after all if
it is anything at all it communicates information. Some languages can
communicate information more exactly than others, inevitably in cases
specific to the speaking community's experience: Jargon & technical language
more so than most. This is the reason, not to cast aspersions at the
speakers, why English has borrowed so extensively, in the perception that
their native tongue did not meet the needs of the new range of experience, &
other languages (in specific cases) did.

If you were saying that Newtonian physics couldn't explain the precession
of Mercury's orbit because the explanation couldn't be expressed in
English but Einstein managed to explain it because it could be expressed
in German, then I might agree that language programs the mind. But it's
not the case.

Mark

    An excellent case in point. I had Mercury in mind at the time of
writing. Well, I would rather say that Einstein was constrained to develop
an algorithm to meet the needs of the data, & it was necessarily applicable
in English & German. Such as this becomes part of the 'word hoard' of a
tongue, & one that is so endowed is richer, more capable of communicating
useful data, than one that does not.

    Bantu languages, for example, had no native term for the wheel, weaving,
masonry & much besides. This sort of thing is a material hurdle to technical
progress. The Great Missionary Moffat who translated the Bible into Setswana
reported he was repeatedly set back by conceptual lacunae such as this. How
can one, without the patient technical education of an entire generation,
simply report Jehu's wild charioteering to another whose entire exposure to
beasts of burden is limited to an ox towing a wooden sled over rough ground?
Or Queen Jesebel's defenestration to people who live in huts? This sort of
thing in a language without the necessary words! So you invent a word:
Meaningless, without diligently teaching & demonstrating to enough teachers
to carry the concept accurately across to the rest. To this day a pastor in
Setswana is 'Morutisi' - (teacher). A man who cannot communicate a need in
his native language is seriously obstructed in any effort to broadcast a
solution. Cultural diffusion doesn't happen rapidly or smoothly, if it
happens at all.

(About Bushmen & counting)

I didn't write any of that! Nor would I have, even ultimately.
Especially not the bit about being wrong  :)

Mark

Ha! So you say! Erm, beg pardon. I took it raw off the letter, & should
have directed it specifically to the writer, not to you... Did I?

It seems obvious enough that there's some sort of nonsense going on
behind the idea of human beings who can't count past three. I suspect it
was just European colonials trying to say the natives are inferior.

Mark

D'accord

You don't need language in order to count. Perhaps you need a language
of some sort (even if it's only the language of sticks and notches) to
_communicate_ numbers, but you don't need language to employ numbers as
a concept if you're a lone hunter.

Mark

True: However on this continent the term for a lone hunter is 'meat'; with a
bow, a spear or a rifle in some cases. You hunt in a pack because your
competition does, & because your prey congregates for its own safety in
troops, sometimes of thousands. We have a sick joke 'round here; "What do
you call the gummy stuff under an elephant's toenails?"

"Lone hunter."

I think much of this idea of language "programming the mind" is about
the way people tend to inflate the importance of their own subject in
their minds. Mathematicians tend to think that maths is everything and
everything is maths, geographers tend to think similarly about geography
(I know this because I've had this discussion with a geographer!) and
linguists tend to think language is everything.

Mark

Well, isn't it? Heh, heh heh. If you think language doesn't program the
mind, try translating - try translating poetry - try a psalm - from one
language to another. I don't doubt that with any example you'll come to a
hard stop trying to pass a phrase accurately across the hedge of teeth. My
touch-stone is Hebrew. Even those to whom Hebrew is not a native tongue,
(even poor speakers like me) get frustrated trying to carry even
*mundane*information over to another language.

Mark

BTW It may be the elevation & the thin atmosphere of our Highveld, but not a
few of European stock with young eyes can see & are on record as having seen
from here the four moons of Jupiter with the unaided eye.

Yes, as I said, I wouldn't have seen this as unlikely. I suspect that given
good atmosphere and youthful eyesight you could also see the crescent of
Venus. I thought I could when I was a teenager, though others assured me I
must be imagining it!

Mark

I'd be more inclined to believe you. In my early youth that was the only way
I could point it out (that was before I learned it was always nearer the Sun
than any other visable planet).

Mark
The Bushmen I know can certainly count beyond three. Their system is decimal
as I can understand. We all have ten fingers, but their numeral terminology
goes up to twenty. Well we have toes also. Beyond that they go up in
multiples of men under the same system. What I can't understand is the
development in the Middle-East of numerology in base 12 & base 60.

I missed this bit but had meant to answer it.
    Bases 12 and 60 have a mathematical motivation much more sensible than
finger and toe counts, because the most difficult of the four basic
mathematical operations is division and 12 can be divided evenly by more
numbers than ten.
    Twelve divides by 2, 3, 4 and 6, as opposed to 10 dividing by just 2 and
5. I think the existence of base 60 does suggest this as the motivation,
because it's as if someone thought about the fact that five was excluded
from division in base 12, but multiply 12 by five and get base 60: then you
can divide by all integers up to 6.
    Of course this many numerals begins to put a strain on the memory,
otherwise they'd surely have included 7 by using base 420  :)

Mark

Ja, I know this, but have felt all along that so sophisticated a race as the
Chaldeans, or whoever, will have been well aware that not everything in
business or astrology will conveniently fall into halves, thirds or for that
matter even fifths. Far better a system that simply facilitates division by
any number. Well, we had to wait until the fifteenth century for the Arabs
to pass on a Hindu system that does the trick.

Thanks for your response

Yrs,

Mark

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