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<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 - 06 January 2009 - Volume 07<span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><br>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"><br>
From: <span class="ep8xu"><span><span style="color: rgb(91, 16, 148);">M.-L.
Lessing</span></span></span><span class="hccdpe"> </span><span class="ldacoc"><<a href="mailto:marless@gmx.de">marless@gmx.de</a>></span><br>
Subject: <span class="hccdpe">LL-L "Grammar" 2009.01.05 (06) [E]</span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: times new roman,serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Dear Luc & all,</span></p>
<p style="font-family: times new roman,serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: times new roman,serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">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:</span></p>
<p style="font-family: times new roman,serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">1. As Luc put it: They have
difficulties with 3D, because their language is not quite up to 3D.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: times new roman,serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">2. Their language can't cope
with 3D, because they have difficulties with 3D perception and thus neglect it.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: times new roman,serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">3. Their brains just work
differently, and the language peculiarities as well as 3D problems result from
that quite independently.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: times new roman,serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: times new roman,serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">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?</span></p>
<p style="font-family: times new roman,serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: times new roman,serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">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.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: times new roman,serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: times new roman,serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">This seems a thin ice we
tread, because I feel we are near something like assigning "the better
language"-badge to some or other language, which cannot be done in
earnest. It seems like saying: "If you turkish midfield players can't pass
the ball on forward precisely, just change your language, and turkey may
be european champion soon!" (They are not so bad...!) But
anything like ranking, spite, language racism aside -- it just fascinates
me so much!! And it seems plausible, too: Language is what thoughts are
made of, and we conceive the world with our thoughts. So our language is
somehow the world. Investigating the mechanisms of how we acquire our world is
a delicate business. (I imagine infuriated turkish soccer players.) If anyone
can tread this round, honest science can. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: times new roman,serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: times new roman,serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">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. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: times new roman,serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: times new roman,serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Hartlich!</span></p>
<p style="font-family: times new roman,serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: times new roman,serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Marlou</span></p>
<p style="font-family: times new roman,serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>