the correlation between language, thoughts and intelligence

[disjunction]

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it's called misattribution of arousal. i'm a big psych nerd =)
i love how social psychology underscores the fact that there is no absolute reality.


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How does men finding women more attractive on scary bridges underscore the 'fact' that there is no absolute reality. Also what do you mean by the claim that there is no absolute reality?

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Bork,

I can't believe you are still here trying to reason using the 30 YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC DEBATE ON THE SUBJECT as a reference. What we need is more OOT hand waving because I'm pretty sure that will provide more insight.

Get out of this thread while you still have your sanity.

[NutCrackerr]

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Inuit eskimos have 18 different words for snow.

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wiki

There are two principal fallacies in this myth. The first is that Eskimo languages have more words for snow than English does, when they may have a few more or a few less, depending on which Eskimo language. As in English, these words are related to each other: for example, blizzards and flurries are two different types of snow, but they are both recognized as 'snow' in the general sense. Speakers of Eskimo languages categorize different types of snow in a similar manner to English speakers.

The second fallacy comes from a misconception of what are to be considered "words". As in other polysynthetic languages, the use of derivational suffixes and noun-incorporation results in terms or language codes that may include various descriptive nuances, whether describing snow or any other concept. Because Eskimo languages are polysynthetic, they describe concepts in compound terms or 'words' of unlimited length.

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Hmmm, you don't say...thanks for the info!

[kidcolin]

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Having a larger vocabularly has strong correlation with financial success in life.

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I just skimmed the thread so maybe this has already been mentioned, but a large vocabulary is also one of the best indicators of a high IQ.

A friend of mine runs an education blog and he's got a couple great posts in which he grades a paper and explains why strong writing is important, because language, writing, and thinking are all so intertwined. There are exceptions, of course, but there's a lot of truth to it. Though he's no technophobe, he's pretty concerned about modern means of communication hurting in this regard (IM language, quickly sent sloppy emails, less actual physical writing, etc).

Cool thread.

[GuyOnTilt]

Nice. I like these topics.

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Does having words for things determine if you can think about them?

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Instinctively, my answer would be yes. When I think, I think in English words and can "hear" my thoughts. For someone without words for certain things or abstract thoughts, it it hard for me to imagine them being able to think about them, at least with the same depth that I'm able to. At the far end of the spectrum, there are the deaf. Those who have been mute and deaf since birth can't think the same way you or I can, since we use spoken language, but are they still capable of abstract thought? People born deaf have shown to have a really hard time getting to the same level of intelligence as the hearing; it's not even close, sadly. Something I remember reading on the deaf and language a long time ago... a researcher had visited an island where deafness had been rampant for several generations. He wrote about one old lady in particular who would sign in her sleep, presumably the equivalent of us talking in our sleep during a dream. The same way we use our native language to think, they use theirs. So while I can "hear" my thoughts in English, it seems like deaf people "see" their thoughts in sign. But because sign is a less complex language, they seem to be able to think in less abstract ways.

[GuyOnTilt]

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I just skimmed the thread so maybe this has already been mentioned, but a large vocabulary is also one of the best indicators of a high IQ.

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You hear that a bigger vocabulary is a sign of higher intelligence, but the truth is it may be the converse. The size of vocabulary may have a very large part in determining how intelligent you are.

[kidcolin]

GoT,

My language skills are awful. Could you explain that to a 10 year old for me? I'm missing something.

[GuyOnTilt]

Oh, just thought of this.

There's some tribe from the Amazon (don't remember the name) with one of the most primitive spoken languages ever known. It has something like 7 consonant and 3 vowel noises and can be spoken in whistle or humming or other musical noises. There are no words for specific numbers, just kind of the equivalent for "one", "two", and "many". Researchers have been unable to find any proof of them having any idea of any specific number above two. The hypothesis is that because they only have one word for any group of things larger than that, they literally cannot comprehend the difference. It doesn't matter whether there are 5 rocks or 35 rocks; their brains perceive them as the same.

There were other really interesting things about their language too, but I can't remember them very well. I think they only had one word for father and mother so they didn't distinguish between the two, and didn't have any way to express different colors, only what would roughly equate to light and dark.

[suzzer99]

Here they are: http://www.jcrows.com/withoutnumbers.html

Absolutely fascinating.

[GuyOnTilt]

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GoT,

My language skills are awful. Could you explain that to a 10 year old for me? I'm missing something.

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Just that there is a difference between the idea that seeing someone with a large vocabulary is a good indicator that they are intelligent, i.e. intelligence breeds vocabulary, and the idea that a large vocabulary breeds intelligence. On a simple level, it's pretty hard to argue against the idea that the more words you learn, the more abstract ideas or concepts you'll be exposed to. On a deeper level, think of something along the lines of the Amazon tribe example above.

[GuyOnTilt]

Yeah that's them. Here's another pretty good article:

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/langu...es/001364.html