<div dir="ltr"><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CRon%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C13%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:SimSun;
panose-1:2 1 6 0 3 1 1 1 1 1;
mso-font-alt:宋体;
mso-font-charset:134;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 135135232 16 0 262145 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"\@SimSun";
panose-1:2 1 6 0 3 1 1 1 1 1;
mso-font-charset:134;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 135135232 16 0 262145 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-language:EN-US;}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;
text-underline:single;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{color:purple;
text-decoration:underline;
text-underline:single;}
@page Section1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;
mso-header-margin:.5in;
mso-footer-margin:.5in;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.Section1
{page:Section1;}
-->
</style>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">===========================================<br>
L O W L A N D S - L - 04 October 2008 - Volume 03<span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><br>
-------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
Please set the encoding mode to Unicode (UTF-8).<br>
If viewing this in a web browser, please click on<br>
the html toggle at the bottom of the archived page <br>
and switch your browser's character encoding to Unicode.</span><br>
===========================================</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"><br>
From: <span style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25);">Mike Morgan</span> <<a href="mailto:mwmosaka@gmail.com">mwmosaka@gmail.com</a>><br>
Subject: LL-L "Lexicon" 2008.10.04 (02) [E]<br>
<br>
Yes, of course one wonders if, EVEN to the Japanese mind the bitter<br>
gourd (</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: SimSun;" lang="ZH-CN">苦瓜</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">
/nigauri/, quite literally </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: SimSun;" lang="ZH-CN">苦</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> = bitter + gourd </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: SimSun;" lang="ZH-CN">瓜</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">) is<br>
"related" to the water melon (</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: SimSun;" lang="ZH-CN">西瓜</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> /suika/, literally Western = </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: SimSun;" lang="ZH-CN">西</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> +<br>
gourd </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: SimSun;" lang="ZH-CN">瓜</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">)?<br>
<br>
To me they are miles apart. And the former preferably miles from my<br>
plate! (Though I will readily admit to not knlwing how to fix it, I<br>
guess to my taste noone who has ever served it to me knows how to fix<br>
it.)<br>
<br>
And as for what R/R notes about "people that try it for the first time</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">tend to be horrified if they are not
"mentally prepped" but expect a</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">certain
taste because of the name "melon"), it reminds me of my wife's<br>
story of her travels in Ladakh and her initial response to ubiquitous<br>
Tibetan tea ... which is salty and has yak's butter in it. She just<br>
could NOT get it to go down ... until she decided that she just needed<br>
to think of it as Tibetan soup. Then it went down just fine!<br>
<br>
----------<br>
<br>
<font size="2"><span style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">From: </span><span style="color: rgb(0, 104, 28); font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">Luc Hellinckx</span><span style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;"> <<a href="mailto:luc.hellinckx@gmail.com">luc.hellinckx@gmail.com</a>></span><br style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">
Subject: LL-L "Lexicon"</span></font><br style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">
<font size="2"><br style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;"></font></span><font size="2"><span style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">Beste Ron,</span><br style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">
Re "perception":</span></font>
<br style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">
</p><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex; font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">
Mark, while on a related note, I meant "Does language influence perception?" with regard to a more fundamental level:<br>
<br>
* If in a given language two items have unrelated names (e.g.<br>
"cushion" vs "pillow"), do speakers think of these items as<br>
unrelated?<br>
* If in a given language two items have related names (e.g.<br>
/Kissen/ vs /(Kopf-)Kissen/), do speakers think of these items<br>
as related or even as the same item with slight variation?<br>
<br>
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.<br>
</blockquote>
<br style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">
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.</span><br style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">
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 </span><a style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundle_theory" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundle_theory</a><span style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">):</span><br style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">
/Language-reality/ objection</span><br style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">
The /language-reality/ objection to bundle theory relates to the impact language <</span><a style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language</a><span style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">> has on understanding reality <</span><a style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality</a><span style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">>. The objection maintains that language causes confusion that supports bundle theory.</span><br style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">
Per the objection, properties are synthetic constructions of language
and thinking alone provides reality to the properties of any object. An
apple <</span><a style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple</a><span style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">>, it claims, does not have the properties /Red <</span><a style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red</a><span style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">>/ or /Juicy <</span><a style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juicy" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juicy</a><span style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">>/,
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/.</span><br style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">
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.</span><br style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">
Couldn't have said it any better myself *s*. Philosophically I believe more in Pratītyasamutpāda, but that's another matter.</span><br style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">
You also wrote:</span><br style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex; font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
What's in a name, huh?<br>
</blockquote>
<br style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">
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.</span><br style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">
More here:</span><br style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">
<a style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cladistics" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cladistics</a><br style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">
Kind greetings,</span><br style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;"><font style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;" color="#888888">
<br>
Luc Hellinckx<br>
</font><br style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">
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:</span><br style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;">
<a style="font-family: verdana,sans-serif;" href="http://littlurl.com/o24qk" target="_blank">http://littlurl.com/o24qk</a><p class="MsoNormal"><br style=""><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"></span></p>
</div>