the correlation between language, thoughts and intelligence

[kurosh]

I'd like some people to chime in on this with their own experiences or good resources to look at. Some things to think about - Orwell's 1984, bilingual kids, the tendencies of different cultures (The Germans and Japanese come to mind). Does having words for things determine if you can think about them? Does being taught a larger vocabulary make you smarter?

I'll put some more of my thoughts later.

[chh]

huh? :P

[captZEEbo]

there's definitely a correlation b/w bilingual and intelligence.

[Popinjay]

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.

[MatthewRyan]

Kurosh, u seem like a smart guy, wtf are u SSing for?

[kurosh]

For my emotional and mental health

[Sciolist]

[ QUOTE ]
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.

[/ QUOTE ]
There're also English words that describe concepts that some other languages don't. They're generally technical concepts, but that doesn't really lessen the language.

I know a few bi/trilinguals, and they tell me that they think in the language they were most recently talking in. I once spent so long learning French that I was using random French words in my thinking.

What I find interesting is whether people act the same if they speak one language vs. another? You presumably use different pathways in your brain to access the different knowledge, does that affect anything else?

[MicroBob]

Bilingualness is weird.

I think my bilingual GF mostly acts the same whichever language she is speaking.
Maybe a little different with Spanish but that might be as much a cultural/family thing than anything.
People from Peru and Venezuela are a bit different than people from the U.S. afterall.
And people act differently with their parents or brother than they do with their BF or other friends.

It's funny listening to her and her brother chat on the phone. They both grew up in South America but both took a ton of english classes and have slightly accented but otherwise mostly perfect english.
His accent is stronger than hers.
Anyway, they alternate between english and spanish from one sentence to the next a lot of the time.
Usually has nothing to do with trying to keep part of the conversation private or anything like that. It's just comfortable for them.
If she's speaking in english, and then comes to a word that comes to her in spanish then she switches. And they'll yap in spanish until they get to a point where she first thinks of the english version of a word.

She does this with her best friend also.

Obviously her instincts prevent her from doing anything like that with me. She has VERY rarely said "si" instead of "yes" around me and that is about it.
Same thing mostly with her parents on the phone who speak no english but she does occasionally interject an english phrase with them like "exactly" or "I don't know" instead of the spanish phrase and probably doesn't realize it.

What's weird is that she can only do it instinctually.
If I ask her "how do you say such-and-such in spanish" she has to really stop and think and it's like she temporarily can't access that part of her brain.
Even for really simple phrases that I know she knows because, well, Spanish his her native language afterall.

So she can go back and forth when chatting with her brother just fine.
But when she's just talking with me then her brain shifts to english-only mode.
If the pressure is on and she has to think of spanish for "turkey" or "fish" or something insanely simple she occasionally draws a total blank.

And completely forget about confirming the correctness of a phrase with her.
If I say, "Is such-and-such how you say, 'The blue cars are on the road'?" she'll think about it and then say "Yes, that's right."
Then she'll stop and think, "Wait, that's not right at all. The word order is all messed up. It's like this."

Thus, even though her spanish and english are both close to perfect she is pretty much the worst Spanish teacher ever because of how her brain accesses each language or something.

[waffle]

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

[/ QUOTE ]

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

[MicroBob]

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

[/ QUOTE ]

Kurosh's Q somewhat reminds me of:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=co-c5gPWfiM


This is a clip from an old French film where the main character randomly starts chatting with an old philosopher in a cafe.

It does not have to do with bilingualness specifically but the discussion of language, communication, thought, etc is a somewhat interesting one.

Although around the 5:00 mark he does reference how a guy like Plato from 2,500 years ago writing in old Greek that nobody really knows anymore, at least, not exactly, can still be understood today because enough is able to get through.
Even if you are probably not getting the exact/precise intention of his words after translating you still can understand.

This specifically seems relevant to the Q I guess of whether you have to know the word/language for something in order to be able to think about it or comprehend it.

Apologies if the clip is too boring or too far away from the bilingualness discussion but hopefully someone enjoys it.