Messages: 6
Language: English
Alkanadi (User's profile) March 2, 2016, 8:06:27 AM
"One of Pagel's research areas charts the density of various languages. His data shows multiple languages exist side by side in areas that are heavily populated, perhaps as a means to control the flow of ideas. He hopes that one day language will evolve to minimize conflict, just as Zamenhof hoped harmony would flourish with the universal adoption of Esperanto."
http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20160229/entlif...
Ibraesil (User's profile) March 2, 2016, 12:49:22 PM
Alkanadi:Does language control the flow of ideas like George Orwell suggested?The way to test this would be by teaching someone Lojban/Loglan or Ithkuil or something as a first language, because they're so unlike any natural language. Until something like that does happen (which doesn't seem likely), it's pretty much impossible to say for sure either way.
sudanglo (User's profile) March 3, 2016, 1:32:16 PM
This is a somewhat different point of view to the Orwellian concept of preventing people from thinking in certain ways (and encouraging certain attitudes) by modifying the language.
Not 'bad' just 'ungood'.
However it is a debatable point as to whether the Esperantists are more approving and less condemnatory because they say malbona.
Luib (User's profile) March 3, 2016, 4:54:52 PM
Alkanadi:Does language control the flow of ideas like George Orwell suggested?I've recently read a book by Guy Deutscher on this topic (Through the language glass, Wilhelm Heinemann, London, 2010). His conclusion in short: speaking a certain language does not stop or enable you to think in a certain way, but it does encourage you to or make it easier. Poor colour naming, especially in so-called native languages, does not stop them perceiving colours, but they do take (a little) longer to see the difference between what we would call e.g. green and blue; on the other hand, speakers of the Australian language [url=en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guugu Yimithirr language]Guugu Yimithirr[/url] always knew where was which cardinal direction (because originally their language did not use the words right and left to indicate position - but this has changed now under the influence of English).
sudanglo (User's profile) March 5, 2016, 12:27:59 PM
If your language does not have a convenient way of labelling some idea, it does clearly become less easy to influence others.
The resources of a language influence the rhetorical power you have in that language.
A example might be that as Esperanto does not have a ready equivalent of 'evil' (malbonega is more like very bad) it becomes more difficult to condemn a certain act and persuade others to view the act in a certain light.
Miland (User's profile) March 7, 2016, 8:55:04 AM