There are about 7,000 languages spoken around the world — and they all have different sounds, vocabularies and structures. But do they shape the way we think? Cognitive scientist Lera Boroditsky shares examples of language — from an Aboriginal community in Australia that uses cardinal directions instead of left and right to the multiple words for blue in Russian — that suggest the answer is a resounding yes. “The beauty of linguistic diversity is that it reveals to us just how ingenious and how flexible the human mind is,” Boroditsky says. “Human minds have invented not one cognitive universe, but 7,000.”
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Case system, terrible for native English speakers.
Very, very intresting.
I use Portuguese more than English now because of where i live and it feels less 'agressive'.
I find myself 'thinking' more in this language.
In Welsh i love the word 'Hiraeth'- it translates in English as nostalga but its more of a feeling of deep longing to return to something more than can be explained in one word. Like 'Pine cones' in Welsh means 'Tree pigs'. I like 'tree pigs'.
This really was a mind opener. 🤯
I'm Swedish, obviously speaking Swedish, and English as a second language. However, both languages are of the Germanic family, during the Viking era English picked up parts of the Old Norse language (now dividend into Icelandic, Faroese, Norwegian, Danish and Swedish, whereof the two first can understand each other pretty well, and the latter three can also understand each other, at least in writing). On the other side, Swedish has loads of both new and old loanwords from English. We also have loads of loanwords from German, particularly Low German (from the northern part of Germany).
A great part of English comes from the same as Dutch and German.
As everyone can see, all these languages have similarities in both vocabulary and to a great part in grammar. I'm not familiar to Dutch, but I think German differences in grammar, but if you, as a Swede, have only a little knowledge of German, and have a couple of minutes, you can understand some of the written German. Sometimes there are booty traps, in the actual meaning, but you can have the words right.
All Germanic languages have more or less from Latin and French mixed in too. English is in a clear lead in that race. It's a little funny, some of those words have reached Swedish, either through English or German, or via French, or directly from Latin, depending on what type of word, how, where and when it's used.
Some have become more or less synonymous, but others have drifted apart from the meaning of them, and the "same" word, changed a little from the original form, can appear nearly opposite, or in totally different areas of the language. And naturally shifted from the original meaning in the original language we imported it from.
UNFORTUNATELY my memory didn't lock any of the presented examples given on the TV program about this subject I saw some years ago 😮💨😤.
Anyway, these close similarities don't create another way of thinking. It's very easy to be stuck in a tunnel, only spotting a very small place. And to believe that this is the best way to look at life, basically.
In another program, not specifically about languages, more on different cultures, they met and spoke with some people living on a group of islands. They shared the basic parts of their languages, which varied between the islands, those parts that were about trading, hiring workers and deciding about weddings!
In this math and counting come in.
Neither had they, like the Aboriginals in the video, any specific words for numbers, they compared with things like a handful, how much you could fill up in a certain type of canoe, or, like we have done or still do, measure length by hands, fingers, feet, steps or the distance between two of the islands.
I remember thinking "Pretty clever, but useless if they need to communicate with the rest of the world."
What I didn't consider AT ALL is that there probably are several other people using similar systems, who they can communicate with, and they probably more likely will have a reason to do so, than to "us" in "the Western countries" (which, as the Aboriginals figured out much better, isn't always "west").
As I began this novel 🫣, this was indeed an mind-, and eye-, opener.
I really don't see that language ultimately shapes our way of thinking.
What does language have to do with it if I intuitively understand gravity when an object falls towards earth, of if I understand that radiation carries energy when it immediately heats or burns my skin when the sun comes out, or if I understand the nature of wind when a stream of cold air rushes down a valley in the evening, or if I understand some of the nature of waves when a water wave runs under a swimming object that hardly changes its place, or if I see the similarity of the shape of the moon and that of a spheric object both illuminated by a light from the side?
Many things can shape or limit the way we think, language is just one of them.
Nonsense. Oh, and by the way, I studied linguistics for years.
I use to be active I. This program we all made a bad decision and we are not friends. I am so
Very interesting talk. I am sure, this has opened a different line of thought to many !!!
somehow she failed to mention the problem of writing, of text, of other media than voice
language is an artfitial notion from different types of accumulated culture And it decide the way of how we perceive and think
жалко бородицкой язык не помог шейпануть её бошку 🙂
Лерка-то, Бородицкая, поднялась как, пасматри, Халь!
IMHO, it's the reality that shapes language, not vice-versa, or did I miss something?
Language creates physical structures in our brains before the age of 5….more evidence for Lera's argument. If language determines perception and judgment – then how can free will exist if one is not aware of and compensates for this warpage of the external world…?
It's the senses are changing dramatically
.@
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Just facts. Most Kenyans and most Africans can speak 3 languages.
Wow. Just wow. A minute in her brain.
Very Boring and stupid explanation of "How language creates Thinking".
Caramba, incrível o exemplo da descrição da cena do vaso quebrando e tbm a de como o gênero do substantivo muda a sua descrição! Realmente, ao falarmos uma segunda língua uma nova personalidade surge em nós, quase como uma nova alma.
Perhaps it's not so much about how language shapes how we think as it is how the way languages sound shapes the way we think. Maybe it's the melody (including time), not the words themselves.
This is very interesting. Speaking multiple languages can be useful for us to think in other ways. Conversely, a language we use might limit our thinking.
Excellent! As a multilinguist (French native), I completely agree. And think the Germans have a real problem!
Her dress is a Ted talk dress.
Fun fact:
Her name "Lera" means "scum" in Greek, as in "vile person". 😛
Thinking precisely leads to speaking precisely leads to thinking precisely leads to speaking precisely leads to … .
Excellent work.
That is why Spanish speakers often collide with English speakers.
por eso los hispanohablantes muchas veces nos estrellamos con los angloparlantes
Now I understand why there are different contexts in each of the languages
Ahora entiendo porqué hay diferentes contextos en cada uno de los idiomas
This is what I feel living several county's.
All native speaker are not eazy to realize
Then some time gets misunderstanding.
Words are very convenient.but not perfect way to understand for all that parsonality of someone.
As I am Kazakh and know 3 languages, I found that in English word "you" isn't differed by age, whereas in Russian there are 2 different words: "Вы" is mandatory written with big letter and is used towards elderly people and express respectful relation and "ты" which is used for coeval or younger people. In Kazakh language word "ол" is used for female and male, i.e. there is no gender differentiation, whereas English people are used words she or he. But in Kazakh language as well as in Russian it is used two words meaning "you": "Сіз" and "сен". May be it's impact of Russian language.
Not just verbal language
Narrow biological generalized intelligence hamser wheel hegemony Fractals knowledge stagnation
Speaking the same language most of the time helps in science,research or production. Different way of thinking often means problems ☺️.
She's fantastic!! And what a beauty.
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One of the most peaceful voices which explained the topic so simply.
Уважаемые ! Главное
знать мнене и волю того кто все создал и неоднократно обращался к людям. ПИСАНИЕ Иезеиль 33:11 Скажи им: „‚Клянусь собой, — говорит Всевышний Господь Иегова, — меня не радует смерть грешника. Я хочу, чтобы грешник перестал творить зло и жил. Перестаньте, перестаньте делать зло. Зачем вам умирать, израильтяне?‘##### Как по вашему что радует Бога и почему ?Что надо перестать делать?
very inspirational
We – people and nations – just need to learn more from each other, keeping and re-introducing the best of all worlds! So the final human language is just perfect and most flexible. (Or maybe we keep a dozen anyway…)
Silly, totally useless.
"I always tell lies". How can we process this assertion in order to give a meaningful response? In a legal context, how would this statement be judged?
I logically agree, but it was not enough to me, because the speech lack the references and studies that ensure what she is saying.