Language influences the way you think

[Onur Senarslan]

Sotaro Kita
Social Sciences Complex
8 Woodland Road
Clifton
Bristol
BS8 1TN

Dear listmembers and Dr. Kita,

The mentioned article appeared at http://www.bris.ac.uk/news/2003/256

I think that Dr. Kita was misinformed. There is a word (verb) in Turkish that describes the motion mentioned here (that is swinging.)

The root of the word to describe this motion is "sal-." Sal-la-mak, sal-la-n-mak, sal-in-cak, sal-in-mak, sal-la-n-dir-mak, sal-kim.

Indeed there is even a syllabic sign dedicated to this verb in Kokturk script used as early as 732 BC (2735 BP) which is used to describe harvesting/swinging machete (orak). Moreover there is always ways to make noun verbs in Turkish, such as oraklamak (ormak) , capalamak, yabalamak, etc. In conclusion if there is a noun we'll always have a verb.

I checked my information with Azeri, Uzbek, Kazakh speakers as well (in addition to my native tongue Turkish.)

A small reminder: same verb used also to describe similar motions (hanging grapes in a vineyard, metaphorically a paricular way of walking etc)

All the best,

Onur Senarslan, Indiana University


MJ Hardman <hardman at UFL.EDU> wrote:
And, of course, the study is a 'deficit' study -- English comes out on top!
Not difference, but hierarchy!

Deficit grammars are prohibited in my classroom.

Dr. MJ Hardman
website: http://grove.ufl.edu/~hardman/


On 09/12/2003 12:18 PM, "Phil CashCash" wrote:

> Language influences the way you think
> http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_818420.html
>
> Speakers of different languages not only describe the world differently
> but think about it differently too, according to a new study.
>
> Researchers used a cartoon featuring black and white cat Sylvester to
> study how language was reflected in the gestures people made.
>
> Dr Sotaro Kita of the University of Bristol's Department of Experimental
> Psychology, showed the cartoon to a group of native English, Japanese
> and Turkish speakers and then watched their gestures as they described
> the action they had seen.
>
> He found speakers of the three different languages used different
> gestures to depict the same event, which appeared to reflect the way
> the structure of their languages expressed that event.
>
> For example, when describing a scene where Sylvester swings on a rope,
> the English speakers used gestures showing an arc trajectory and the
> Japanese and Turkish speakers tended to use straight gestures showing
> the motion but not the arc.
>
> Dr Kita suggests this is because Japanese and Turkish have no verb that
> corresponds to the English intransitive verb 'to swing'.
>
> While English speakers use the arc gesture as their language can readily
> express the change of location and the arc-shaped trajectory, Japanese
> and Turkish speakers cannot as easily express the concept of movement
> with an arc trajectory so they use the straight gesture.
>
> Dr Kita said: "My research suggests that speakers of different languages
> generate different spatial images of the same event in a way that
> matches the expressive possibilities of their particular language.
>
> "In other words, language influences spatial thinking at the moment of
> speaking."
>
> Story filed: 14:06 Friday 12th September 2003
>

Onur Senarslan
He Who Brought Back the Distant One.
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