the correlation between language, thoughts and intelligence

[ChipWrecked]

This thread got deep quickly. I thought kurosh was just sniffing glue again.

[The Hag]

My g/f can spk 3 languages but thinks in mostly 2 of them, and now that I am solidly learning a second language, I find that I think in the 2nd language sometimes too.

In conversations with my g/f I will also switch between languages mostly because words in the 2nd language are easier to say or sound nicer than in English.

But regarding if it means you are more intelligent, I don't know.

I also think that bilingual people seem to always think more before they speak which can't be a bad thing.

[amplify]

Words seem to have absolute correlation to their referents, but we know that this is not actually the case. Even here, threads such as, "What color is a tennis ball?" have proven that there is not a shared experience even for a simple english word such as "yellow." How much farther afield are our individual appreciations of the words for a concept like freedom or a temporal designator such as "momentarily?"

But having a word for something is not what allows you to think about it. The existence of the word is proof that someone made it up to cover a concept they had. I wish I had a point here, but I'm going to make breakfast instead.

[MicroBob]

Chip - Kurosh might be. Who knows? But he sparked a few thoughts in me about it so I thought I'd contribute just for the hell of it.


The Haq - Yeah, that 'which language do you think in' is weird.

Weird stuff in my brain:
Take an 8-hour drive to a vacation somewhere with her and a relative or friend or whatever and they're yapping in spanish the whole way down.
After a day or two of that stuff I'm freaking DREAMING in Spanish. WTF?
I have absolutely no idea what I'm dreaming and I'm sure I'm making up some nonsense words in my subconcious too.
But I'm also picking up a lot of the words that get repeated over and over in regular conversation like "but" "exactly" "for sure" and I think I'm actually remembering slightly longer phrases for my dreams too.

I still can't speak the language. But when I'm around it enough I start to actually think in it in a very weird way and/or start to dream in it.

[MicroBob]

The other thing I find weird about language is how I can type a word that is completely different from what I intended to say in a post on here.
It's not a typo where I missed the letter by one key or something.

It's like saying "that's a good song" but instead I write "that's a good book" and then I re-read my post, catch my mistake, and wonder how the hell I screwed up that word and didn't even realize it.

I do this ALL the freaking time on here, especially pre-coffee, although I usually make the correction before posting it (or I go back an edit it).


It reminds me of my grandfather who passed away in his 60's after multiple strokes. He had played football and also boxed in the army so probably took his fair share of concussions.
He had the slurred-speech, etc that one expects but also would mess his words up.
My grandma would call him to dinner and he would try to say, "be there in a minute" but couldn't. He would say "be there in a week.....errrrr.....year.....errr......chair."
He knew after he said it that it wasn't right . But he still couldn't find the right word for 'minute' and would get really frustrated.

[The Hag]

Yes I do this a lot too, dreaming in Czech, and I'm pretty sure I am listening to real words in the dream but I still have no idea what people are saying to me. It's rather confusing. But one day I'm gonna reply to these [censored] in my dreams.

[Austiger]

OP, you should read this book.

Godel Escher Bach

[disjunction]

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


[/ QUOTE ]

Kurosh,

Google "Whorf Hypothesis", this is the exact hypothesis you are describing and a lot of research has been done. My understanding is that the answer is "no" to the strongest form of your statement.

One counterexample off the top of my head: Cultures without words for certain colors can perceive/discriminate those colors just as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir-Whorf_hypothesis

[Pyromaniac]

[ QUOTE ]
Anyway, they alternate between english and spanish from one sentence to the next a lot of the time.


[/ QUOTE ]

Probably an obscure reference, but Nabokov's Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle explores this quite a bit, as I recall, discussing siblings who grow up *tri*lingual and who are able to switch mid-stream from one language to another to another. And understand each other perfectly while anyone listening is probably lost.

Wiki also lists this book with the tag "Category: Incest in Fiction", but that's another story. So to speak.

***

In my experience with language, I've seen where the second language bleeds into any later language learning. So if you learn some French or Spanish in high school, then later learn something of another language, the French/Spanish will bleed into the third language.

But not the first language; you never start popping in English words--or at least without knowing it. So often struggling with limited vocab you throw in the English word and hope for the best...

It's as if there's an area in the brain that's first-language reserved, and then another area for all-other-languages. The two areas don't mix, but whatever's in them, does. And people who grow up with several languages have them all mixed together (but in the first area rather than the second).

[NutCrackerr]

Inuit eskimos have 18 different words for snow.