The Power of Language: we translate our thoughts into words, but words also affect the way we think

This article talks about how some words and compound words don't have a direct translation in different languages. It also talks about how some languages have certain words, but other languages don’t have that word with the same definition at all. For example, the article talks about the word Hiraeth which means the feeling associated with the bittersweet memory of missing something or someone, while being grateful for their existence. It's essentially untranslatable because no other languages seem to have a word with that definition. This information led to linguistic relativity which is the theory that having words for things in a language can make you think about things differently if the language you speak doesn’t have that word. 

I thought it was interesting how there were languages with words that don’t translate to anything in any other languages. I knew that words were different in different languages but I never really thought about the fact that some languages have words for things that other languages don’t. Another interesting thing was the compound words. When each word is translated directly the meaning of those words is so different. Like for wallet, in french it is called porte-feuille which directly translates to carry-sheets. That seems so different from the word wallet but it's still the same thing. 

When I was reading this it made me think that the language I speak might have somewhat dictated how I think about things. In the article, it says that Panos Athanasopoulos did research and found that native speakers of Greek consider light blue and dark blue to be more dissimilar than English speakers. Greek has two different words for light blue and dark blue so this could be what causes them to be more dissimilar. This information made me think that languages could have more influence on the way we think and see things than we thought. That doesn’t mean that it totally dictates everything that we think about but it could have a greater influence on people’s minds than we thought.  

Comments

  1. AnonymousSeptember 12, 2019 at 6:36 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cultural Anthropology

Gabriel Han Sep 16 IHSS Cultural Anthropology Blog I read an article about the Dead Sea Scrolls, and a study around them conducted by MIT. The Dead Sea Scrolls are a series of ancient Hebrew texts that were discovered in 1947. The study was focused on one scroll known as the Temple scroll, out of the 900 or so scrolls. The scrolls were hidden in jars on hillsides north of the Dead Sea, often under debris. The reason the Temple scroll was chosen was because it is the largest and most well preserved of the scrolls, despite the fact that the material is incredibly thin, at only 1/250 of an inch thick. The study was to investigate how the parchment was made, and what it was made of. Results showed it was processed in a strange way, and made of odd ingredients like evaporates that differed from the normal ones. This raises questions such as how did they make it, or come up with the idea for it? Scientists believe that understanding this parchment could provide insights into the cultur...
Read more

Further Investigation of Immigration

Andreas Cantu Mr. Roddy IHSS 12 April 2020 Chinese Immigration  Between the years 1845 and 1855 the US saw a massive influx of chinese immigrants. This was due to the gold rush in California. Chinese immigrants would leave the friends and family in search of a better life with more opportunities in America, and gold rush gave them their best shot at making it big in America. Although they had hopes to join the gold mining most of them took jobs with coal mining companies for little to no commision. This was huge problem for the immigrants, because it made life in America very difficult. As time went on they had begun opening up small business wherever they could, this helped them integrate their culture into the American culture and help them feel more at home. The American Robber Barons saw Chinese immigrants as noting but cheap labor. In 1863 The transcontinental railroad began its six year long construction, stretching from Sacramento California to Omaha, as more Chinese...
Read more

Thoughts on Engagement

After doing the research for my challenge project on kill and no kill animal shelters, I have decided that I want to find a way to educate people on the internet without stating any form of opinion in order to be informative without being offensive. What I want to do is make a website that will have information both good and bad on kill and no kill animal shelters in an effort to educate the public on the matter. many people will for blind opinions on specifically kill shelters as they don't do the research and end up attacking people without any information on the matter. This is something that people need to know about because it is important that people who are thinking about adopting an animal know what they are getting in to before they do so impulsively. I will also include information on why sterilizing animals is so important to the issue of strays and why people should consider sterilizing their household pets as well as it only puts their animal in danger and makes them w...
Read more