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⚒️Thor, the Norseman⚒️

A thread on Reddit made me realise that people who are monolingual don't know how being bilingual affects your inner monologue. The answer? It switches back and forth. Makes me a bit skeptical of the Saphir-Worf hypothesis to be frank, because I can think about something and instantly speak of it in either language. Also, I often have an abstract idea in my head before I can remember the word for it. That's symbolic thinking without language, isn't it?

· Amaroq · 0 · 6
@thor Maybe it's more of a memetic thing: that languages may be capable of spreading certain ideas more quickly than others depending on specialized vocabulary.

@infernalturtle Maybe it is, but then it is no longer the Saphir-Worf hypothesis.

@thor I think languages really do shape our thoughts, but not exactly literally. Because when one hears what others say, one judges the content of the thing said also by the way it was said. And languages themselves by their word shapes and everything can influence this greatly.
Basically, what I'm saying is that languages shape perceptions and, as a result, our thoughts.

@thor Somewhat. Some languages have words/phrases that label an idea that doesn't have a good, succinct label in another language. My favorite example: Danish "hygge" and "æde", both of which have overtones it's hard to express in English.

I sorta feel like, language is an imperfect projection of thought into a lower-dimensional space, and what projection you choose affects how you view the space at least a little.

@icefox Meaning that you also disagree with the Saphir-Worf hypothesis.

Hang on...

Okay, not having looked it up for a very long time, I looked it up. Got the spelling wrong. It's Sapir-Whorf. Apparenrly there is also a strong and a weak version of it. Apparently, we all disagree with the strong version (language determines thought) and agree with the weak one (language influences thought). The weak one is a less controversial claim, though, and thus a bit boring to discuss...