Is human thought controlled by language?

This…. I can’t speak for everyone.

But language was made up by humans and modeled after human thought. The reason there’s a word for everything you know is that words were made up for everything you know before you learned about anything. I find words lacking quite often.

No controlled, but heavily influenced. It’s hard to think of things if we don’t have the proper language for it. And a language’s basic formation (syntax and such) implies a lot of things about relationships, or the lack thereof, between the subjects we talk about. And we can see some clear links between language and culture, like when observing that the languages of hunting and gathering cultures routinely involve fewer nouns and are more “verb-y”, focusing more on behavior and relationships in speech.

http://www.angelfire.com/journal/worldtour99/sapirwhorf.html

Some quantum physicists came up with a variation on English that excluded the verb ‘to be’, in order to lessen the idea of things being static.

Also, who says rats aren’t sentient? Just because they don’t speak a human language? It might be a different kind of sentience, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Indeed, there are some interesting studies suggesting that some animal language has effected human language development. I’ll dig up some sources for that when I’m not at work.

The consciousness of the person is unlimited.
From the consciouness comes the thought.
From the thought comes the language.

So we see language is controlled by the thought
and the thought is controlled by the consciousness.

You are what you think.

But human language is the least in all of these and should not preside over none of the others….

Ah…. but…Nevertheless, it was destined be so in many until their awakening comes.

language can be crudely considered as the medium through which thought is conveyed, certainly it can be controlling, but it can also be liberating.

i’d say there is continuously evolving interplay between cognition and language, but this subject is intense, vigorously debated and vast, you need to look at contemporary linguistic theory and philosophy/psychology where the subjects overlap to get a rough idea of current opinion.

This is true chicken-and-egg. Human thought is shaped by language, but language is created by human thought and the need for a word to express a thought.
Only in a culture when snow was significant would there be many words for snow, such as the Eskimo language. Additional words for snow even developed in Alpine regions for defining ski snow.

The thought process is said to be incomplete without articulation. If one lacks the vocabulary to describe a concept, the concept cannot be put forth. The abstract idea is not able to be scrutinized until it can be objectively described in terms that others agree upon as a common starting point.

I think language is primitive in it’s roots, more so than not simply because I feel there may be a common thread connecting all language. That may be why it’s easier to learn another language after you’re already bilingual. Think of cavemen grunting, or Adam and Eve naming things in the garden. Land masses separate, people migrate, language splinters off and then dialects occur. I wonder if I spoke better spanish if I’d think in spanish? Language is built into our DNA, just like ideas of God, and really good chili recipe’s. Learning more languages affects the way someone thinks. That’s all I got.

That is the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/cultural/language/whorf.html
but it is in fact only a small fraction of thought. Many book-smart left brained people think that all thought is in the form of language, but any dancer, any musician, and any artist can tell you otherwise. Try using language to describe the shape of a camshaft for instance. Language is a terrible tool to describe the motion in a ballet (it was um, kinda twirly and sparkly). Try conveying all of the nuances and drama of Beethoven’s 9th symphony through only words, with no music. Contrary to @Trillian‘s assertion “If one lacks the vocabulary to describe a concept, the concept cannot be put forth” there are many non-verbal means of describing concepts. An architect can fully explain an idea through a drawing or a model. It is not a fluke, it is part and parcel of the profession and what every architect is trained from day 1. Similarly, a choreographer can explain a dance concept through a performance. An inventor can explain an invention concept through a model.

Words are merely pointers not the thing, object, concept, or experience itself.

If one was raised devoid of any spoken dialect in isolated conditions there would still be a photogenic memory of expereince and the co-correspondant appraoch/avoid reaction.

My cat has no words for the coyote that almost ate her but she certainly FEELS and remembers the expereince of ‘coyote’ and thus avoids the ravine of death now.

They are interconnected. Conceptualization is far easier with language than without, but it is possible.

The strong version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis says that speakers of one language think differently from speakers of another language because their language forces them to. There is little evidence for this.

But there is evidence that “language nudges thought (in certain circumstances)”.
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2592

I agree with @GeorgeGee. Sometimes words are wonderfully expressive and fulfilling, but sometimes are horribly inadequate, because I’m not thinking in words, but in movement that can’t be pinned down into a sentence, or of a picture too complex for adjectives to do it justice.

I’m in the process of learning French and Spanish, and find that even though they’re with words too, and even though I can barely speak them, what I do say in them sometimes doesn’t translate (or translate well) to English. I also know a bit of ASL (I knew a lot more at one point, but I’ve lost it) and with it found translating not always the same, either.

And sometimes I’m thinking in I don’t even know what to call it, but it’s not words, or movement, or images, sometimes a weird combination of them, sometimes none of them, and I can’t articulate my thought to save my life.

Of course, there are times when everything feels like it’s flowing wonderfully, and then it’s like with the words I’m carving out a riverbed for my thoughts pour out of. But it’s not even that, that’s just the best I can do with words right now.

Thought isn’t being controlled by language, but language is being created in an attempt to translate the thoughts—something that a lot of people have said here already… But I think that all of our forms of communication are languages. (I remember a thread about animal language earlier, and I know a lot of people consider language to be only with words, but I just don’t.) So to what you said, @anothermember, about animals being limited in thought without a language, I don’t think they are. I think they all speak languages in different forms, and even if their expression isn’t neat or concise, languages are only them trying to express thoughts they’ve already formed, whatever they are. The difference is, if we gave them a language we understand better, their thoughts would become tangible to us.

I think that language can get controlling when we’re trying to translate thoughts and don’t know how to with the tools we’ve been given. Then I think we need to be able to find another mode of expression, or become more fluid in the mode we want to use. Something I really have to work on when nothing seems to get across what I’m thinking.

“Human thought is shaped by language, but language is created by human thought and the need for a word to express a thought.”

Exactly. It goes back and forth. Languages shapes our thought, but thought shapes our language. Although typically, the latter happens on a much slower scale. There are many times when I want to express something, but the words I have at my disposal are just not adequate enough. That’s the beauty of creating my own language. I can use one word to describe what would take five in English and inadequately at that.

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is actually excellent to look into. I wrote an anthropology essay on the very thing, and some of it follows:

Daniel Chandler illustrates the key components of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis by first explaining to the reader that there are two dominant theories held by linguists that surround the relationship between language and thought. Those two theories are frequently referred to as “mould” and “cloak” theories.

Chandler then defines a mould theory (using a quote) as “a mould in terms of which thought categories are cast”. This theory is representative of those who believe that thoughts are not directly influenced by language alone; but that we try to mould our thoughts into something definitive and distinctive – such as language, in order to express ourselves. Mould theorists might believe that language is more of a tool to convey ideas, rather than believing that language and thoughts are identical.

Conversely, those who adhere to the cloak theory believe that the opposite is true. Chandler quotes “language is a cloak conforming to the customary categories of thought of its speakers”. What this means is that some believe that language is responsible for directly influencing thought. Or if not fully responsible, cloak theorists believe that thought and language don’t require two wholly separate definitions, but that they are in many ways one and the same.

There is a related and even more extreme view – held by those such as behaviorists – who believe that absolutely no distinction needs to be made between thought and language. The theory holds that thought is language and language is thought. Translation and meaning, then, become irrelevant points to bring up with behaviorists because they literally believe that meaning is already fully contained within words and their given definitions.

The Sapir-Whorf theory (based on American linguists Edward Sapir and his student, Benjamin Lee Whorf) is then defined by Chandler as a mould theory, although the two men appeared to lean in slightly different directions; Sapir more toward linguistic relativity (people who don’t speak the same language may literally perceive and think about the world differently), Whorf slightly more toward linguistic determinism (thinking is defined by language). It should also be mentioned that Whorf did choose to distance himself from the behaviorist standpoint, eventually.

The Whorfian theory is that translation between languages becomes difficult and sometimes impossible, because one language may literally not even have a word to use to describe another language’s word. If these people’s cultures and physical environments so greatly contrast, this theory makes complete sense. It’s not merely that their languages are different, is it that their respective environments are so different that language was molded around the worlds that each group perceived.

Some believe that the Whorfian perspective can also be applied to those within the same cultural and linguistic environments. Meaning that, even among those who are the “same”, translation of individual thought into language still has the potential to be greatly misunderstood. This belief or idea greatly increases the scope of Whorfianism. Very few linguists accept extreme or rigid Whorfianism, but they do accept a weakened, less black and white version. Rather than view language as deterministic of thought, it is seen as influential to thinking; language or thought are not one-way streets – they share a road.

I chose to analyze Daniel Chandler’s “The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis” reading because I found it to be extremely interesting for both academic and personal reasons. In other words, it taught me things that I had never known, but had felt all along. It was a breath of fresh air, an excitement that literally caused me to jump up and down once or twice, followed by a calmness that washed over me. “Other people feel the same way I do! Oh, my god… They get it!” Well, “What do they get?” you might wonder.

For as long as I can remember, I have had a love/hate relationship with words and I was never able to understand why it seemed so much easier for the majority of people to convey their feelings, thoughts and ideas. I was always deeply stricken with the idea that, even should I speak clearly and coherently, I might still face the possibility of being misunderstood. “How do I know they know what I mean?!” I still frequently worry about this – especially when it comes to personal relationships. I want to be understood, badly, by those who I consider to be important parts of my life.

I didn’t see anyone else worrying so much about being truly understood, so what the hell was my problem? Well, something else the reading revealed to me is that artists and writers typically tend to feel this way. “I’m an artist! I write philosophical and creative pieces!” Upon reflection, it would seem like an obvious conclusion to come to since personal expression is such a huge part of an artist’s life. Our worlds are often passionate, chaotic, and we have the desire to accurately convey these complex, crazy feelings. But, frequently, language just doesn’t seem like enough. How can these feelings and thoughts be released, when it seems as if the right words literally don’t exist?

“The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis” taught me that I wasn’t alone with these feelings. I’m not the only one who, despite having the ability to express myself, believes that language can sometimes still feel like a prison.

” The limits of my language are the limits of my mind. All I know is all I have words for.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Make of that what you will.

I definitely believe that language, what we choose to say or what we choose to listen to, controls our thoughts. The same goes for our actions.

@incendiary_dan Yes, I Realize that any animal could be sentient but it was hard to explain what I meant when I was talking about a topic I am only just looking into.

@GeorgeGee Music and art to me are sort of like a language for things that we have no words for as we are still describing our thoughts, just in a different way. ( Which I know does not really go with what we call Language at school but fits with the description of language on http://www.thefreedictionary.com/language.

I would like to see the effects of a deprivation of a consistent language on a human from birth. Although I know this study would never happen… Nor would I really want it happening.
But the results would be interesting. Birds and other animals seem to either have there language imprinted from birth or have no consistent language, as they will always “Talk” or make sounds to other birds even if the bird has not had contact with another bird before.

@anothermember I theorize that if a human was deprived of a consistent language he or she would make up their own.

Studies of how the human brain works indicate that we have a built-in language of thought. It has been dubbed mentalese. Languages of all types appear to be built on top of it, first finding communicable sounds for its concepts, then expanding out to include sounds for physical things around us, actions, and ever more complex and abstract concepts. Clearly we could never have invented language without the ability to think about things in some internal thought “language”. But having words for an ever richer set of things, concrete actions and abstractions makes it possible to think about things that our basic mentalese would never be able to tackle.

Our mentalese evolved to allow us to be effective hunter gatherers, not astrophysicists.

We have a lot of different kinds of thinking, but for simplicity, I think to think we have a linguistic mind and a non-linguistic mind. The linguistic mind thinks with symbols. I.e., it creates a symbol that stands for every idea it wants to think about or communicate to someone else. The symbols don’t have to be words—they can be images or ideograms or movements or, in theory, smells—but words seem to work very well.

How would we think without words? Words are so useful. Words make the thoughts carry on in a somewhat linear or circular way. Ie., it’s about getting from here to there, just not necessarily by a straight line.

The non-linguistic mind thinks in a very different way. It doesn’t use symbols. This makes it very difficult for the linguistic mind to figure out what the other mind is doing. Usually we’ll have an inspiration, and an idea comes to us full blown, as if from god or something. I think that what is going on here is that the non-linguistic mind has been thinking about the problem (it seems to have no problem understanding the linguistic mind) all along. Then it tries to give the linguistic mind the solution, but the linguistic mind is chattering so much, it can’t hear the non-linguistic mind. So the non-linguistic mind waits until the linguistic mind is all slowed down, like when it is sleeping, and it then tries to pass the information across the barrier.

Thinking without symbols is a very different way of thinking. It is holistic, in the sense that it grasps everything at once. It relates to the world directly, without language as an intermediary. When folks are able to quiet the linguistic mind enough (through meditation or yoga or dance or other methods), they can become aware of the non-linguistic mind and how it perceives the world. As I say, this is a holistic way of interacting with the world, so the knowledge appears full of all kinds of interactions and interdependencies and many people call these experiences “spiritual.” They become aware of how we all fit together

This is the second time today I’ve written about this, I think. And about the twentieth time I’ve mentioned this on fluther. So I’m not going to get into it any further.

However, I hope people can see that if my model of thinking is a useful one, then there are different kinds of human thought. Some of it is controlled by language, and some of it has little to do with language. Because it has no language, it has a hell of a time communicating to the linguist mind. Often it fails, I think. People tend to not pay attention to these things because they feel like intuitions and they sound crazy and, well, better to ignore it.

No big whoop. Most of us don’t need that kind of information in today’s world. At least, we don’t need it to be successful, as most would define success. For some, though, it is incredibly important, so they spend a lot of time trying to shut themselves up enough to become aware of this other way of thinking and interacting with the world.

Some have suggested that is true, however, when subjected to a vigorous inquiry, the answer is not clear.

When someone knows multiple languages they are generally able to adapt to sticky situations better. They can think out of the box more from different angles, different perspectives. Linguists are some of the smartest people, next to Forensic Pathologists, or Lurve whores like me, hee haw.

@truecomedian There is no box. Not even the scent of one.

@wundayatta We don’t usually recognize it when we’re thinking inside of a box…..spend half an hour with a kid and it will hit you how rigid your thoughts have actually become.

@Dutchess_III Have you ever read anything I’ve written? Even on this thread? Never mind.

This box is an incredibly tired metaphor. Every time I hear it I nearly throw up. The box is for people who believe in standardization and fear of thinking. They congratulate themselves to high heaven for having a new thought. Or a thought they think is new.

The box represents a self-limiting prophecy. Anyone who believes in the box can’t get out of it.

Trust me. There is no box. Never was and never will be.

Empty boxes of the mind
floating just out of reach
If our eyes could see,
we wouldn’t see them there;
for those who see them are truly blind.

thoughts are provoked by instinct. rats are incapable of a language, they are ruled by natural instincts

@kfmarani Where is the proof that rats are incapable of language? We can teach the that different words are associated to different objects and actions, the only thing that is stopping them developing a full language of this is that we have not found a way to teach them more in depth then a child’s first words.

@anothermember where is the evidence that rats or any animals can use human language in a way approaching how humans use it?

@morphail I never said human language and I never said they could use a language in a way approaching how humans use it. All a was asking was whether kfmarani had seen any research that to back up the statement and where I could find it.

@morphail After a little reasearch I came across these that seem to prove the statement you seem to have draw from my comment:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_language
This explains the difference between human and animal language and adds examples of animals that use language effectively to communicate with each other.

http://tuvalu.santafe.edu/~johnson/articles.chimp.html
Interesting article on the study of thought and teaching primates language although the experiments sound flawed.

http://www.littletree.com.au/koko.htm
Has a story about how a gorilla can use language and even has a statment directly relating to thought, language and sentience in animals.
“When questioned if she was a human or a gorilla, Koko’s response “Fine animal gorilla,” has prompted arguments that Koko is conscious, aware of herself, her thoughts and her use of language (Craighead-George, 1985). ”

@anothermember in the absence of evidence that animals can use human language, it seems reasonable to conclude that they can’t. As far as I know there is no convincing evidence that they can. If you’re interested I recommend the book Aping Language by Joel Wallman.

I have yet to see where I said Human Language. The links a gave show evidence of animals using languages some are human. Thank you for the book recommendation, I might have to go hunting around for it.

Would the lack of language at a very young age also be able to explain why we have no memory of that time at any point in our lives but older people can still remember there teenage years?

@anothermember

But is “language” synonymous with “communication”? The examples on the Wikipedia page are all examples of “animal communication”, but I wouldn’t call them language.

Strongly influenced.

One problem is that “language” means a few things… to me it means a formal structural system of communication where constituents that are arranged hierarchically, but to @anothermember I guess it means simply “communication”. So I think that of course animals can communicate, but they can’t use language. Just because we can teach Koko some words doesn’t mean that Koko can use language.

Rats certainly have ways of communicating, but there brains are not complex as humans. If that can be proven, who needs to prove that they have a language. There brains are the size of an acorn at most.

All I am really interested in is how language effects the thought process. Language to me can range from simple to complex, but in the end my definition is a way communicating. The reason I brought animals into it is because the only way I can see to test this question is to monitor the changes language has to something that has never had language before. Teaching an animal any language would be a process over generations, humans did not magic up language and humans would not be able to magic language into an animal.

From top to bottom. For those I disagreed with, I’m disagreeing with the notion that your statement is true for all humanity. Namely, because I do not apply, and I am not singular.

@Zyx: I agree. Thought came before language, and that explains why we can think thoughts that are difficult to articulate. In the same vein, that explains the incongruity of language because languages other than English have words for concepts that we have no words for. This is proof that thought supersedes language.

@incendiary_dan “No controlled, but heavily influenced. It’s hard to think of things if we don’t have the proper language for it. ”

I highly disagree, because I am not limited in thought by lack of words. If I am not limited in thought by my vocabulary/language, I am certain many others are not as well. Then again, I’m not the type of thinker who talks to themselves in their head – because those would be limited by language. My thoughts are like a river, constantly flowing, and I am a fisherman standing in the rapids. That is the most accurate explanation of how I think, even though I just came up with the analogy.

@kess: <3

@anartist: “This is true chicken-and-egg. Human thought is shaped by language, but language is created by human thought and the need for a word to express a thought.”

I disagree. For some people, human thought is shaped by language. For others, human thought is a stream of consciousness that is tamed by language. One cannot make a blanket statement about all of humanity as if everyone’s brain performs in the same manner.

@Trillian: “The thought process is said to be incomplete without articulation. If one lacks the vocabulary to describe a concept, the concept cannot be put forth. The abstract idea is not able to be scrutinized until it can be objectively described in terms that others agree upon as a common starting point.”

So are you saying that if I think a thought, and either choose not to articulate it, or fail to articulate it – it isn’t a true thought? Or that my thoughts are not valid thoughts until vetted by others? I strongly disagree, and believe you are misled or mistaken.

@GeorgeGee: Ah, someone who thinks as I do? I have never read any studies on this subject, and I am speaking from my own experience. But the common fallacy that is constantly put forth is that everyone thinks in the same way, and therefore conclusions can be made. But the people who are making the conclusions are the ones who are limited by language in their thought [according to your post, they are using a particular side of the brain while others use the other side]...

And I’m here saying “No!!! I don’t think that way at all and I’m not limited by language! What kind of ludicrous thought is that!!? Hehe… I agree with what @GeorgeGee wrote.

@Coloma: I agree.

@CaptainHarley: Agree that it’s true for some humans, but not all.

@morphail: “The strong version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis says that speakers of one language think differently from speakers of another language because their language forces them to. There is little evidence for this.”

There are many studies on just the Chinese language alone, and the way thoughts are formed in contrast to Western languages, but this is because of the writing system and the tonal language. It doesn’t mean that thought comes from language, however, it is rather shaped by language. I will not deny that there is an interconnectedness between language and thought. But to say there is little evidence is to show that you have not searched or inquired. There are mountains of evidence.

@DancingMind: +1

@DominicX: Disagree.

@DrasticDreamer: Our resident expert. I just learned from your post; especially the bit about Mould and Cloak. That’s exactly what I’ve been getting at my entire post, but again, I haven’t studied this subject though I knew how I thought. I love you dearly at this moment, as I do any teacher. Thank you – and I feel that same excitement right now. :) My mind is like a constant flow of thought, and I have to pick out thoughts and then put them through the language blender and then speak. I also struggle with the wondering of whether my point or concept was understood, and I live life feeling misunderstood or not as understood as I would like. Your post brings me joy at the same time it brings me enlightenment; thank you. <3

I don’t need to respond to others’ posts, now that I’ve read hers – I highly recommend everyone read @DrasticDreamer‘s post. There are two types of thought, and possibly even more. If you would acknowledge this, you would do me the honor of acknowledging I actually exist.

Continuing to read after posting this, however.

@squirbel

Disagree with what? And care to explain why?

I stated it at the beginning of my post.

Shows you didn’t read and just skimmed for your name.

@squirbel

Uh, no, actually, I did read it, but there are multiple statements in my post. “Language shapes our thought, but thought shapes our language”. To be honest, that’s kind of an ambiguous statement. Which part of it do you disagree with it? Or was it another part of my post?

Shows you like to jump to conclusions.

I disagreed with the part that said “Language shapes our thought”. In line with the posts before yours, I misinterpreted your meaning and certainly did not notice when you said “thought shapes our language”. What I gathered was that you were saying more of the same, which discounted my way of thinking, ie, “like a river”.

For this, I apologize. Now that you are aware of what I had aught with, this should be settled.

@squirbel Could you direct me to some of the studies you mention?

Ah, one moment. I see you were referring to the Chinese studies.

[Journal]
[Journal]
[Journal]
[Book]
[Journal
[Journal]
– this one is cool, shows how Chinese stroke patients can still read
[Thesis/Dissertation, must be rented]
[Book]

There are more, but this will get you started.

@squirbel I can’t read all of these, but of the ones I can read, only one of them comes close to addressing the strong Sapir-Whorf hypothesis that speakers of one language think differently from speakers of another language because their language forces them to: the second one. And all this study does is “partially confirm” the predictions that “brand recall should be differentially affected in Chinese and English when it is spoken compared with when it is written” and “recognition should be differentially affected in Chinese and English when brand names are learned auditorily compared with when they are learned visually”. I can only read the first page, but this doesn’t seem like a lot of evidence that language is forcing the speakers to think differently. It is possible evidence for “nudging in specific circumstances” (as I said in an earlier post), but “forcing”? There’s no evidence that speakers must think a certain way because their language forces them to.

Finding research that deals with a topic in an exact fashion will never happen; after all – when doing research, the rule of thumb is to go broad, and then narrow your search.

Each of those journals and books deals with individual and sometimes overlapping themes – and I never searched for anything related to the sapir-whorf hypothesis. My research was very broad – cognition, thought, linguistics, et al.

Use of the word “force” is something I also do not agree with. It may “allow”, or “lead”, but never “force”. So we are in agreement. But – and this is major – but people who speak Chinese for instance think completely differently in GENERAL than Westerners. This is what I said had mountains of evidence for. And this is what I provided.

Maybe people who speak Chinese do think differently in general than how English speakers think. But correlation is not causation. How do we know that it’s their language and not something else that’s allowing them to think that way? Maybe their thought patterns are leading the language. Part of the problem is that it’s hard to know whether you’re measuring linguistic effects and not, say, cultural effects.

@morphail & @squirbel Forgive the unscientific approach, but I think common sense would lead us to conclude that language could enable or limit thought about certain things. Primitive tribal languages probably are poor tools for describing and thinking about such concepts as how the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle affects exact description of events at the quantum level; or why highly leveraged Derivatives built on top of shaky mortgage debt would have contributed to a financial collapse when there was a real estate downturn.

@ETpro there’s no such thing as a primitive language. All non-creole languages are roughly equal in complexity and expressive power. There’s no evidence that language X spoken by 5 and half people in the Amazon cannot express anything that English can express.

Someone’s going to mention Pirahã, which apparently has no words for numbers. But that doesn’t mean it can’t express numbers, given the right vocabulary.

@morphail Let’s take the Pirahã, a tribe of hunter gathers living in the Central Amazon rain forest. Linguist Daniel L. Everett of Illinois State University spent years studying the Pirahã‘s language. He commented “As a culture, Pirahã speakers lack any sense of the past beyond what living individuals have personally experienced, and they have no creation myths or fiction, no sense of numbers or counting, and no art. Constraints of culture in turn impoverish the language, which has no tenses, no names for colors and other allegedly unique paucities.” How then would they discuss quantum physics in their language without numbers. How would you explain ancient history and the age of the universe to people whose language has no words for any history beyond their own lifetime? How would they consider these things, much less discussion them, when they have no words for the task?

All of those supposed constraints are very disputed.

@ETpro Yet, when scientists discover an event or try to describe new phenomena, they simply make up words such as quark, or re purpose words, like charm, strange, or strings.

@YARNLADY They can still explain them in our language just calling something the elementary particle and a fundamental constituent of matter would take a lot more time then creating and evolving our language to explain more advanced topics.

@squirbel Some of the American Indian languages were limited to describing hunter-gatherer things, family, war and such. When Europeans “bought” New York from them for a few trinkets, the Indians had no concept of what was taking place. The whole idea of ownership of land was alien to them. They had no words to describe or think about it.

The dispute over Everett’s work is not whether the language is as simplistic as he says it is, but about whether that rules out it being connected to the Universal Grammar which linguist Noam Chomsky of MIT proposed. Universal Grammar is thought to underlie and unite all human speech, having been used by our earliest ancestors in Africa.

Frankly, I find the detractors less than convincing. Denying 20 years of observation because the observed facts don’t fit your theory is not very solid science. And it would make perfect sense for early humans living as hunter gatherers in Africa to have employed a language just as limited as the one the Pirahã use today.

@YARNLADY I think @anothermember is spot on. It’s a far different thing to come up with a word to describe something we can easily write the definition for than to come up with words for things our language is incapable of defining. We named the Planck constant. Not a hard trick to do. But imagine the Pirahã trying to understand the Planck constant when they have no words for numbers and no counting system. They would be completely incapable of thinking about what the Planck constant is, or what it implies.

As I understand it, Everett is saying that Pirahã culture constrains the language, not the other way around. He says it in the quote that @ETpro cites. He is not saying that the Pirahã language is incapable of expressing quantum physics, if the Pirahã people wanted to talk about quantum physics.

100 years ago, English had no way of talking about highly leveraged derivatives built on top of shaky mortgage debt. Now it does. Does this mean that we couldn’t talk about it 100 years ago because our language wouldn’t let us? Or does it mean that if we need to talk about something, we’ll find a way to do it?

@ETpro You say “But imagine the Pirahã trying to understand the Planck constant when they have no words for numbers and no counting system. They would be completely incapable of thinking about what the Planck constant is, or what it implies.” You’re saying that your language forces you to think a certain way, which is what you denied believing earlier.

If the Pirahã found it necessary to talk about numbers, then I see no reason why they couldn’t use their language to do it. Over and over again we’ve seen new words being created in languages the world over, because the speakers needed to express something new. There’s no reason why it wouldn’t happen here too.

Sorry, I got @ETpro and @squirbel mixed up. It was @squirbel who didn’t agree with “force”, not @ETpro.

@ETpro said “Denying 20 years of observation because the observed facts don’t fit your theory is not very solid science.”

20 years of observation by one person. Everett’s claims should be corroborated by other linguists before they are generally accepted. This is also solid science.

And, Everett even stated that the language was difficult for him to learn, and that he was not proficient at it. After reading that, all of his conclusions were worthless to me.

@squirbel & @morphail Let’s forget Everett. I just brought him into this because the language of the Pirahã has, according to him, no words for numbers in it. You could not use a language that has no words for numbers to talk about, or think about very large or very small numbers.

The OP was whether our language controls our thought process. I say it has a distinct impact. Whether Everett was smoking the wild rope or not is immaterial to that discussion. If we imagine a language with no words for numbers, then talking about numbers would not be possible in that language. So discussions about the Planck constant or Derivatives would be impossible.

A 19th century American would not have known what a derivative was. But our language would have been perfectly sufficient to explain it. Same goes for the Planck constant, though he would have to take it on your word that there were such a thing as quanta or that humans would ever be able to measure anything so incredibly small.

Quick note: languages of non-literate societies are actually more complex than those from literate societies. I’ll get some sources for that when I get home and dig through piles of books.

@ETpro my problem is that you seem to equate “not being able to talk about numbers” with “not being able to think about numbers”. I don’t think this is true – just because we have trouble expressing something doesn’t mean we can’t conceive of it. And as I said earlier, expressing numbers in Pirahã isn’t impossible – all they need are words for numbers. Words are easy. Languages get new words all the time.

@incendiary_dan All languages are roughly equally complex. But some languages of non-literate societies are complex in ways that might surprise us. For instance, lots of languages of the Americas and New Guinea have switch reference. In switch reference languages, a dependent clause must be marked according to whether its subject is the same or different from the subject of the main clause.

But this doesn’t mean that English is less complex than these languages. English has around 15 vowels – that’s quite a high number of vowels compared to other languages. And English has a very strict word order, so that one word out of place can change the meaning: She turned on me. She turned me on. My point is that languages can be more complex than others in different areas, but the complexity generally balances out.

@ETpro Actually, Everett’s work is relevant. First he claimed that Pirahã had words for “one” and “two”. If this is true, then the Pirahã can talk about numbers – it might take them a long time, but they can do it. But now Everett claims that they have no words for numerals at all. Sure, we can imagine a language with no words for numbers, but that’s irrelevant if such a language doesn’t actually exist.

I believe that language has such a profound influence on how we think that the influence may rise to the level where it’s pretty much functionally indistinguishable from control. Without a desire to communicate complex ideas, we wouldn’t need language as we have it – and would more than likely communicate on the same level as other animals. What’s interesting is that many psychologists and other scientists studying the mind and brain have indicated that the phenomenon of infantile amnesia is intimately connected to the development of language. Many of us are unable to remember any experiences prior to a certain age, and generally that age is around the same time we started to speak. It also coincides with Lacan’s concept of the mirror stage, a theoretical point in a person’s psychological development when he or she recognizes him or herself as separate and apart from the world itself. Prior to that point, it is theorized that there is very little differentiation between the child as a subject and the world around it. Everything is “subject.” Communication through language comes about when the child (metaphorically or literally) sees itself in a mirror or somehow recognizes that it is also an object upon which other things can act upon. Once psychologically differentiated from its environment, the subconscious recognition that it can no longer will things to happen leads it to learn to speak to the other subjects around it to express its desires.

The idea of language as a controlling, even oppressive, structure is something that the feminist movement has historically struggled with. In short, because “history is written by the winners,” feminists often argue that it is difficult if not impossible to “use the master’s tools to deconstruct the master’s house.” Because the language itself is designed to express things in a way that deprivileges the femal voice, attempting to use that language to counter misogynistic perceptions is a losing battle.

Less theoretical and more practical are the examples of the successes of certain propaganda movements – if one can use rhetoric to convince people that they are fighting for something worthy, then they can convince themselves that what they are doing is good no matter what. Inevitably, this is accomplished through some form of description of “us” and “them.” And most often, when we want to ensure that a particular group remains oppressed, it is accomplished most successfully in the long term by denying them information, even the word itself in some way. The American slave trade was successful despite the fact that, eventually, African Americans outnumbered whites in slave areas because the slaves had no way to conceive of themselves as citizens. The were denied identities in the law and deemed property. They didn’t have the right to name themselves, and when they were originally brought to the U.S. their names were changed. It was illegal to teach them to read or write. Therefore, in order to communicate to each other over distances, you often had code built into spirituals.

When we think, therefore, of language controlling us, I think that what it does pretty much control are those processes that we consider our “higher thinking” ones. Not the gut emotions that we feel…but rather the way we conceive of the world in a concrete or abstract fashion when it’s not actually there. And also, how we think about ourselves as people – not whether we’re angry or sad, etc.

@iamthemob Exactly. There are so many people here on Fluther that are obsessed with so called PC. That shows they do recognize the power of words and language.

@YARNLADY – and at the same time, those who are obsessed with being PC end up making people feel like they can’t express themselves, and then those negative perceptions just stay stuck in their head. ;-)

@iamthemob So, in other words, your answer to the question here is a resounding yes, as is mine.

And mine is a resounding ‘no!’. Splendid!

@squirbel If language didn’t influence thought, propaganda would be useless, as would advertising.

@YARNLADY – I don’t think that @squirbel is objecting to the “influence” argument, as the “control” argument.

@iamthemob Ah, yes, I did give a fleeting thought to that possibility.

@squirbel We could agree to disagree. Perhaps one or the other of use just lacks the needed words to come to mutual agreement on this subject. :-)

@morphail I concede that someone with no words for numbers could think about things such as one, two, many.. They could begin to deal with numbers in a very fundamental way. Trey could build from there. That is, in fact, exactly how we got from counting 2 bushels of grain in a trade for 1 fatted calf, to figuring out the Planck constant is 0.0000000000000000000000000000000006626068 m^2 kg / s. But bear in mind that no shepherd who could not count past two ever went, in an entire lifetime of thought. to conceiving a complete numbering system, and building all of higher math upon it. The math developed as terms developed to deal with it, and it took many millennia to come to full fruit. It is beyond absurd to suggest that an Indian in the Amazon Basin would suddenly conceive independently of particle physics or any complex math needed to support it.

Please understand that is not a put down of the Indian’s intelligence. A particle physicist, suddenly dropped into the Amazon, would probably have no clue how to survive for more than a day or two, while the Indian is in his element there and knows exactly how to cope with the dangerous and harsh environment.

@ETpro “It is beyond absurd to suggest that an Indian in the Amazon Basin would suddenly conceive independently of particle physics or any complex math needed to support it.”

I never meant to suggest that. What I mean is that I don’t think it’s impossible to talk about particle physics in an Amazon language. And I don’t think it’s their language that’s preventing people in the Amazon basin from thinking about particle physics.

@morphail It would be impossible in any primitive language. There are hundreds of words needed that simply do not yet exist in such languages. They would have to be painstakingly taught, one by one, before we could begin to carry on such a conversation.

Once again, this has nothing to do with the intelligence of the primitive hunter/gatherer. A member of their tribe might be every bit as bright as Einstein, but you would still need to provide them with all the word meanings needed to discuss relativity before you could explain it fully to them.

@YARNLADY propaganda and advertising use just as much, if not more, pictures and sounds to force a product on us. Does a 2 year old really know what the toy advertisement is saying or are they just watching the other kids having fun with the product.

@ETpro I have to admit that particle physics and relativity are not in my vocabulary or my thought processes either, and I speak the same language as the scientists who developed them. Oh, wait, relativity was developed by a German wasn’t it?

@ETpro there’s no such thing as a primitive language.

What @YARNLADY said. I don’t have the language to talk about particle physics either. I would have to spend some time learning the jargon. I don’t disagree with you that a Pirahã speaker would have to learn a lot of jargon and theory in order to talk about particle physics. But so would I. This doesn’t mean it’s impossible.

@morphail Call it what you like. I would guess that whatever language the Neanderthals used was relatively limited in its expressive capabilities. Early paleolithic man some 500,000 years ago must have been in the devlopment phase of speech. Certainly, his language was primitive. If it makes you feel better to give it some other name, fine. But the fact remains that is we lack words with which to think about a thing, we don’;t think about it. Only as our vocabulary closes in on being able to describe a new concept are we able to discover it.

@ETpro “But the fact remains that is we lack words with which to think about a thing, we don’;t think about it.”

No, this is not a fact at all. There is very little evidence to suggest that this is true. There is evidence that language can nudge thought in specific circumstances, as in that Language Log article I linked to a few days ago. But there is no evidence that language forces us to think a certain way.

I don’t know what language was like 500 000 years ago. But all modern non-creole languages are roughly equal in expressive power.

@morphail Don’t put words in my mouth. I never suggested that language forces us to think a certain way. I said it may limit us from thinking about certain things. Can you point me to scientific evidence that all modern non-creole languages are roughly equal in expressive power? Certainly, they aren’t when it comes to the many areas of technology today which do require the mastery of a large foundation of jargon. Without the jargon of physics, discussion of its finer points becomes extremely difficult and painstaking.

By the way, what’s up with creole? Better or worse than other languages?

I know that I don’t think purely in words.
In fact, I remember distinctly that when I was little I forced myself to start to think in words, because it took too much time to translate everything to words whenever I wanted to communicate. I would think everything twice (or more) in different modes of thought. It was repetitive and tedious, but now I think more readily in a ready-to-share way.
I find words the most inconvenient way, mentally, to think, actually. They’re slow and linear compared to my other ways. But they’re more convenient in that they’re the most concise and clear method we have of communicating with each other.

I’m sure everyone thinks differently. And maybe some naturally think only in words. Me knowing that I don’t, knowing that I had to work to do so, I know that everyone doesn’t, because then that everyone wouldn’t include me.
The problem comes in that I can’t express my thoughts to you except through the methods of communication every man knows, and words are the forerunner. So you only really see my thoughts in word form.

Everything we’re presented with, pretty much, we’re expected to think about and then share our thoughts on. So that others can “discover” our thoughts.
If we can’t communicate it, no one knows that we’re thinking about it. Because of that, we learn to think in language. And it’s in that way that it controls us. In letting others know what we’re thinking. But not in what we’re capable of conceiving.

@DancingMind GA x a million.

@DancingMind Good point. I believe the human mind comes preset with a thought language all its own. Our spoken languages may have emerged from that. After all, we have to be able to think pre-language in order to invent language.I would guess we all are capable, to a greater or lesser degree, of using that inner thought language to build ideas. I do think language lets us carry those thoughts further than our built in mentalese is able to reach.

@ETpro I’m not sure exactly what the difference is between “force” and “limit”. In any case people have been hypothesizing that one’s language limits how one thinks every since Benjamin Whorf hypothesized that the Hopi conceive of time differently because their language doesn’t have a future tense. But there’s no evidence that even if a group of people think a certain way, it’s due to their language. One of the problems might be that it’s very hard to know when you’re measuring a linguistic cause as opposed to say a cultural cause.

There’s no evidence that all languages aren’t equal in expressive power. We don’t encounter languages that can express things that just can’t be expressed in other languages. In the absence of such evidence, it seems reasonable to conclude that something that can be expressed in one language can be expressed in all languages. All languages are spoken by humans, and any human can learn any language.

Sure, some things might be harder to express in one language and easier to express in another. But the point is “roughly equal”.

Sure, some languages don’t have the jargon of physics (including mine), but jargon is just words, and languages get new words all the time. It’s not impossible to learn new words so that you can talk about something specific. There is no reason to suppose that once you educate your Amazon tribe in math and physics, that they can’t talk about math and physics in their language. Anway I’m just repeating myself now.

Instead of “non-creole” I should have said “non-pidgin”. A pidgin is a simplified contact language without native speakers. It is very limited in terms of grammar compared with non-pidgins.

@morphail The difference between force and limit is profound. A speed limit means only that you can’t legally drive faster than the posted speed, say 65 MPH. To be forced to drive 65 MPH is a whole different thing. With a speed limit, I could legally drive slower, or even not drive at all. If I am forced to drive 65 MPH it implies I have no choice in the matter and had better keep my speed exactly at that mark.

I see words as tools available for use in thought. Knowing the word for fraud most certainly doesn’t force me to think about committing the act.

As to evidence, I was looking for some links to research. If these are your personal opinions, that’s fine. You certainly are entitled to have your own opinions. I would just like to know whether I am being asked to accept widely peer reviewed studies, or one person’s personal opinion of what all languages are able to express.

@ETpro These are my opinions based on the lack of evidence. And there’s positive evidence as well: the fact that one person can learn more than one language, the fact that any language can be translated into any other language – these facts suggest that something that can be expressed in one language can be expressed in all languages.

I think these opinions are generally accepted by linguists as well fwiw. You can find the claim that all languages are roughly equally expressive in intro linguistics textbooks.

You could search Language Log (don’t forget to search the old site) for “Whorf” to find a lot of articles concerning claims about how language limits or forces thought, and how there is no evidence for these claims. The article I posted above is a good place to start; it talks about how research in this area is sometimes overinterpreted.

Another piece of evidence suggesting to me that we are not limited by language: we can create new words. If we need to talk about something new, or if we need to talk about something in greater detail, we find the language to do it.

After participating in this conversation, I can’t help but feel a little superior to those persons who find language limiting to thought. It’s a way I never want to be – in this life or the next. I think like a river – not limited by language at all.

I suppose it’s my type who thinks up new things and creates the words to name the new concepts. Sounds haughty, but it’s the only way to conclude this back-and-forth argument.

In the end, we’re both right – both sides.

I apologize for my forthrightness.

@morphail Thanks for the forthright answer regarding the research, and for the link to Language Log. I will check it out. Bear in mind that there is a distinct difference between being able to think about things and being able to learn about things. But even the learning process requires laying a foundation and slowly erecting the growing structure on it, word by word and concept by concept. No course could teach an average hogh schooler how to be a successful hedge fund manager overnight. Much of what the hedge fund manager must know relies on a deep understanding of words and concepts that it takes years to learn.

@squirbel That comment tells me I have stayed at this party too long. I will bid you both good night and stop following.

Can a deaf/blind/mute person think?

After participating in this conversation, I can’t help but feel a little superior to those persons who find language limiting to thought. It’s a way I never want to be – in this life or the next. I think like a river – not limited by language at all.’

Here’s the thing: Prove to me that you think like a river, and it’s not limited by language at all.

If you can somehow get the idea across to me without resorting to language, or without a metaphor related to something else (the profound irony, of course, is that you conceptualize what your thoughts are like and tell us through the metaphor of the “river” – this is, in essence, constricting how you think about how you think) then I’ll tip my hat to you…

@iamthemob : “If you can somehow get the idea across to me without resorting to language,”

is expression, not thought.

” or without a metaphor related to something else (the profound irony, of course, is that you conceptualize what your thoughts are like and tell us through the metaphor of the “river” – this is, in essence, constricting how you think about how you think) then I’ll tip my hat to you…”

is expression of the way I think….

Expression is not thought – it is the production of language; which in turn is the very tool used to communicate expressed thoughts.

Then that’s the problem – you’re making an unfalsifiable claim. Of course, we think in many different ways that don’t use language directly – imagining a tree, the smell of your mother, how it feels to stub your toe….etc. However, it’s difficult to consider that we would know what these things are without knowing the word for them because we don’t know another significant way to categorize and identify and separate this from that.

The problem, of course, is that if you can’t use language to communicate what you mean to me, and that is the main way that the world is identified, through which it makes sense, then how do you communicate it to yourself.

If our thoughts aren’t controlled by language to some extent, then we should easily be able to ask someone “Think of a hat that’s not a hat,” and know that they can.

In the beginning, there was a cell without the ability to communicate or even propagate. At a later stage bacteria and single-celled organisms can communicate via chemicals (similar to NTs in CNS). By evolution alone, the self comes before the communication system. But both systems are thereafter closely connected. Human language is also a communication system, albeit generative (the need to describe things not in the present, when to find fruit – and where).

Back to your question. Language mediates thought, it does not necessarily control it – but it does affect it. Although thought arises without language and without the need to communicate it (even though we are social species, and language is a biological need), it can be limited by the containers (words) and the system (grammar) of the speaker’s language. Often, cognitive fallacies are primed by linguistic priming. Saying “the truth” for example makes one assume this is it. Now we may say “the truth” instead of “a truth” due to idiomatic reasons. It became popular, we kept it that way – but every so often we’re stumped by the priming effect it has on our cognition. There’s many other examples for fallacies that arise out of language alone.

Yes, there’s lots of research around this. And the jury’s definitely out on this one. But there’s some things we know to be generally true. As discussed above, the two are very closely linked. Language arises out of our biology itself. But thought can exist devoid of it. (I’d like to use TMS to turn off some of the language areas, and then show the subject a game or task under the magnet).

Yes, you can abuse fallacies in language to make people think a certain way – because of inherent weaknesses in one. Should you? I’d say no – it’s better to point them out and help each other toward clearer thinking.

I agree, @phoebusg. You’re a person worth following, judging from how deeply you think! ^.^