the correlation between language, thoughts and intelligence

[amplify]

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Skiiers have at least 5 words for snow.

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If by snow you mean marijuana, yeah.

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Bork (other linguists) - be interested in hearing more about this. GoT's article references Whorfian "linguistic determinism" also. Is it really a joke in academic circles?

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It is a joke among philosophers of language. From studying philosophy of language I got the impression that some sociologists and psychologists still ascribe to and lecture on a Whorfian view. This is despite the fact that is based on poor science and is philosophically confused. So I think in some academic circles it may be standard..


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As for psychology, I was taught in cog psych classes that the evidence was against it, such as in the color-naming one. The "joke" part is something I think I've heard people kind of say but not textbook. I have never heard of a known strong proponent. It seems that Steven Pinker devotes a whole chapter to tearing it apart in The Language Instinct (this is second hand from a web search, I have been forbidden from reading it), and as we all know Steven Pinker speaks for everybody when he says stuff.

So much of it depends on what you're trying to claim. For instance it is well known that cultures with short words for numbers have greater numerical memory than cultures with longer words. This is never presented as Whorfian, I guess because it's a memory thing and not cognition?

[jii]

I once read an article about a tribe that lived in jungle and had almost no contact with to world. They didn't have word for irony and they also didn't understand that kind of humor.

[fozzy71]

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

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If you're interested in reading about this, this is called the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis.

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Waffle????? Your PM box is full m8................ I want to ask if I can clone your "Waffle" cards, for the newest FT client. I have gotten multiple requests from people that want to use your cards, but there are no working mods.

[Gugel]

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There are many artful words of other languages that I have heard that mean something you cannot really express that well in english. This means to me that english is sort of a simple language. As well, different structures of languages really make a difference I believe in how people think. I mean, I can only have cognitive thoughts in my own language. It's like, my brain speaks English, and not other languages. So other people who think in a language with different structures are thinking in a different way at the base of thought than me.

I'm tired and watching the Simpons movie on bootleg so I'll stop now. Something that's really funny that is sort of related to this topic is that I'm watching a german copy so at the beginning it said in the intro sequences, DIE SIMPSONS, not THE SIMPSONS, and I thought that was put in there for some funny reason. Turns out it was because it was the German version, but if they did that for the real one it would be funny imo.

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Although this is impossible to confirm, English is considered to have the most words of any language.

On a side note, language definitely plays a role in the way you think. For example, people that speak English interrupt each other more frequently than people that speak Japanese. Culture obviously comes into play, but so does sentence structure. In Japanese, the verb usually comes in the end of the sentence so you have no idea what the other person is talking about until they finish. In English, it's easier to predict what the person will say because the verb comes earlier.

[burningyen]

There's a nice little metaphor for the word-idea linkage in an article in today's NYTimes (subscription required):

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Retreating to a bar at the Imperial Palace, we talked about a different mystery he had been pondering: the role words play inside the brain. Learn a bit of wine speak — “ripe black plums with an accent of earthy leather” — and you are suddenly equipped with anchors to pin down your fleeting gustatory impressions. Words, he suggested, are “like sheepdogs herding ideas.”

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[Popinjay]

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The various languages placed side by side show that with words it is never a question of truth, never a question of adequate expression; otherwise, there would not be so many languages. The "thing in itself" (which is precisely what the pure truth, apart from any of its consequences, would be) is likewise something quite incomprehensible to the creator of language and something not in the least worth striving for. This creator only designates the relations of things to men, and for expressing these relations he lays hold of the boldest metaphors.' To begin with, a nerve stimulus is transferred into an image: first metaphor. The image, in turn, is imitated in a sound: second metaphor. And each time there is a complete overleaping of one sphere, right into the middle of an entirely new and different one.

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-Friedrich Nietzsche

^somehow the truth right there

[wtfsvi]

This is a really interesting thread.

If I stay in an English speaking country for a couple of days, I start thinking mostly in English. And I feel like I'm a different person when I switch to English mode. I'm much more extrovert, for example. This does of course not necessarily have anything to do with the languages (Norwegian and English) in themselves, but but I find it to be an interesting phenomenon.

[Xibalba]

Language only inhibits/influences thoughts in as much as you forget the difference between word and that which you speak of. I imagine, though this is certainly a rabbit out of my hat, that growing up billingual helps you because your ability to express yourself internally is "doubled" (not exactly accurate word, but whatever).
Also, the flexibility of being able to swith from one language to another allows you to formulate your own internal language. I do not mean a completely new alien thing inside, but that you can sort of formulate codewords, expressions that simply free what it is you are thinking, and so, nearly literally, let you think "outside the box".

However, I'd be wary of using "intelligence" as a key-word here. Though I agree intelligence is enhanced (and may be a pre-requisite for the succesful internalization of other languages), I think the word carries connotations that make this discussion about something else entirely.
I'd use something like "brilliance", but not in any judgemental way, more like how artists think internally, or great scientists. They have a way of expressing themselves internally that more often than not make them sound completely wacko, but anyone can realize that the problem is that they can't translate what they think inside to the people outside. I think that's what growing up billingual helps you with, the ability to start thinking less restrained, with the added bonus of giving you more "linguistic" tools as to how to explain yourself with other people.