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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 - 08 January 2009 - Volume 02<span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><br>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"><br>
From: <span class="ep8xu"><span><span style="color: rgb(0, 104, 28);">Luc Hellinckx</span></span></span><span class="hccdpe"> </span><span class="ldacoc"><<a href="mailto:luc.hellinckx@gmail.com">luc.hellinckx@gmail.com</a>></span><br>
Subject: <span class="hccdpe">LL-L "Grammar"</span><br>
<br>
Beste Marlou, </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">You wrote:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">></span>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 style="font-size: 9pt;"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">>1. As Luc put it: They have difficulties with 3D,
because their language is not quite up to 3D.<span style="font-size: 9pt;"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">>2. Their language can't cope with 3D, because they have
difficulties with 3D perception and thus neglect it.<span style="font-size: 9pt;"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">>3. Their brains just work differently, and the language
peculiarities as well as 3D problems result from that quite independently.<span style="font-size: 9pt;"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">>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><span style="font-size: 9pt;"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">>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 style="font-size: 9pt;"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">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.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">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:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.es.flinders.edu.au/%7Emattom/science+society/lectures/lecture3.html" target="_blank">http://www.es.flinders.edu.au/~mattom/science+society/lectures/lecture3.html</a>. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">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.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">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.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">Kind
greetings,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(136, 136, 136);">Luc
Hellinckx</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"><br style="">
</span></p>