Posted on 06/26/2008 2:40:54 PM PDT by forkinsocket
I've always believed the language you speak profoundly molds, or frames, the way you think.
I once took an Arabic language class. Wish I’d had the money to continue it because I was picking it up really fast and I was enjoying it. Anyway, I quickly noticed that the way a language is constructed can have an *enormous* effect on how you think about things.
wonder what that says about made-up languages like klingon and ebonics?
How so?
Did it make you want to blow yourself up?
Arabic and Farsi must make you a bit crazy.
Here's a well-known song, as translated from the original Klingon:
Accept the game!
To all things we are compelled to say "Well done!"
The neighbours seem to behave in a friendly fashion,
and there is where we enter!
Describe to me immediately
how to go to Sesame Street!
Farsi is for softies ;)
I can’t express any real anger in any other language but Arabic. Hebrew is strong & simple. Arabic is complicated & emotional. I don’t know what I think of English yet.
It’s true what you said about structure forcing a person to organize thoughts into a specific format. Mandarin and Cantonese have no verb ‘to be’. So the concept of time is difficult to pin down.
When will it be ready?
- Tomorrow.
Great, thank you. I’ll call before I come by.
- OK.
Hi, I’m here to pick this up. (present ticket)
- It’s not ready.
OK, when can I get it?
- Tomorrow.
Great, thank you. I’ll call before I come by.
- OK.
(repeat ad infinitum)
It is also because of that structure that people choose the language in which they would prefer to write. Arab Christians *never* write to their parents in Arabic and never speak to their children in Arabic. It’s a language they pick up in schools. At home and in church, they speak French. It’s the language of emotional intimacy.
Czech author Milan Kundera writes in French. Nabokov writes in English and then translates his own work into Russian.
I only know English; but, from observation I’d guess English is “brash”!
How so?
I was learning Chinese for a while and I really enjoyed it, but my wife made me stop after I ate Pokey, our dog.
>>cymbal crash<<
It is more satisfying to express anger in Arabic. It is, by it’s very nature, bombastic. The word for jackass, for instance, is jhahash. Nobody ever says it, though. What you say in an instance where you want to say jhahash is hamar illi khalafuk, which means, ‘a donkey had to have been the cause of your conception’. It implies much more than it says. You are infertile, your father is a donkey, your mother is a promiscuous horse with bad taste - much more satisfying than simply saying, “Jackass!”
Plus, in Arabic, you keep going: Yila’an abu rabbuk, hamar illi khalafuk, til has teezi, allah yakhuduk insha’allah. It’s what I do when I’m driving.
Hm, maybe. Now that you got me thinking about it, I think English sounds relaxed & informal.
English is clean and linear. It’s very precise. And it’s the only language I know of that offers gender parity.
Oh, very interesting. Thanks.
Totally agree - I have a lifelong struggle to acquire some competency in French. I’d have to say English is more direct, more practical while French is a bit more roundabout, more indirect.
It’s said it’s the language of diplomacy - probably because diplomats are trained to say “nice doggie” while searching for a big stick. The French language is well suited for that.
Finally just as in computer languages - it’s not all about the language per se - it’s about the libraries that come with it. If you speak French you inherit the culture that goes with it - Flaubert, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Zola, Dumas etc. English, you get the whole English literary, cultural and scientific tradition.
And the two differ by quite a lot. So some of this is about the words, the grammar, the expressions, but some of this is also the 100s of years of civilization that goes along with it.
I have always thought that children raised with two ormore languages have certain advantages in all their school subjects because of being able to approach problems from slightly different directions.
did you feel like jihad?
no, seriously.
if you like a language, buy rosetta stone at borders books. good price.
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