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Welcome to the Italian podcast. This is an advanced plot. I remind you on podcastitaliano.com that you will find a complete transcript of the episode, which contains translations of the most difficult words and structures. listen well!
In this high-level episode, I want to solve a problem that has always been popular in the field of languages and linguistics, namely: Does our mother tongue really affect our worldview?
After reading the book “Language Pranks” by John McWhorther, I decided to write this episode. He is my favorite linguist, a special podcast called Lexicon Valley The host is also the author of several equally interesting books.As you can guess from the title, McWhorther’s position is very clear: the idea is real scam (scam), that and (In addition, in addition) Has been around for a long time and regularly return (appearing again) In the form of an article Click catcher (Click bait) On the internet and newspaper (News media, newspapers) online.
This theory is called the “Sapir-Wolf Hypothesis”, named after two scholars, Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Wolfe, who first talked about it in the 1920s, but it is also called It is the “Language Relativity Hypothesis”. According to Wolf (I quote): “
We cut nature into pieces, organize it into concepts, and give meaning to it in doing so, mainly because we agree to organize it in this way; agreements still exist in our language community and are coded in our In language mode”
From this quote display (We can infer, infer) Wolff’s central idea is that our view of reality varies according to the language we speak.
For example, Wolfe talked about the Hopi, a Native American, their language, According to him (=According to him, according to him), He cannot express the past and future time. Whorf’s conclusion is that it’s different from language Matrix European (European nature), The Hopi’s perception of time is not linear, but cyclical. This is caused by this particularity of their language, in fact, it affects their view of the world. As it happens, Wolfe doesn’t know much about Hopi. In fact, Hopi can fully express the concept of the past and the future.but also if not (If not so): Is it correct that the grammatical characteristics of a language cause its speakers to perceive the world in a completely different way? As you might have guessed, McWhorther’s answer is, no. This is of course an attractive idea, very “hippie” in a sense, but… alas, this is a hoax.
For example, Russian has an extremely complex system to express a single verb or “to” in many European languages, which does not mean that Russians perceive the concept of movement in one way. A more precise way.Their language leaves nothing to the context at all, on the contrary, it forces the speaker Make them clear (Make them clear). “Walk” and “to go by transport” are two different verbs in Russian, but this does not mean that native Italian or French speakers who hear the phrase “I went to Australia” are suspicious of the nature… …Obviously, the people who said this sentence in Australia did not get there, and the context helps us understand this.
To give another example: Amazon has a language called Tuyuka, which has a grammatical feature called “evidence marker”. Evidence markers are an indicator that can help us understand the nature of a given information.In Tuyuka language, it works like this: At the end of each sentence, a suffix must be added to indicate how We were told (How did we realize it) This information and whether we are sure it is true. There is a suffix for “I have heard of”, one for “I have seen”, one for “obviously, but I’m not sure” and one for “it is said.”If we accept the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, we can conclude that the Tuyuca must be naturally skeptical, even less childish (Naive: Attention! Not “smart”! It’s a fake friend) other’s. In fact, their language forces them to specify the source of any information they decide to communicate.However, this conclusion may be Tempting (Tempting), McWhorther explained, let us consider European languages. Except for Bulgarian, no European languages contain evidence marks. Are Bulgarians more skeptical than other Europeans? More skeptical than the Greeks, are the Greeks the inventor of the philosophy that skepticism is a basic quality?This statement is obviously crazy (Weird, ridiculous). Bulgarians are by no means more skeptical than Greeks or other Europeans.
In MacWasser’s book bring a lot of example (Many examples are provided) In my opinion, this clearly shows Authenticity (True, true) Its location.
All of us perceive the world in basically the same way. Yes it is real that (Although it is true…-followed by “ma”) Due to language differences, some experiments show some subtle differences, but they are very artificial experiments, such as showing the millisecond difference of pressing a certain button. A small difference of this nature certainly does not represent a “world view”, nor will it have an impact outside the laboratory.
Yes Undeniable (Undeniable) Culture influences language in terms of terminology. According to the social class of our interlocutors (for example, Korean), there are multiple pronoun languages to choose from, which proves this point. The Eskimos have more words to describe snow (though according to famous urban legends, there may not be hundreds), because…well, they live in snow. Nothing is so strange and unexpected. But speaking the characteristics of a language can affect our way of thinking and our view of the world is a very dangerous topic.Also because it is often out of a feeling comply with (My disadvantage-I was influenced by “condescending” in English, which is “paternalistico” in Italian. “accondiscendenza” means “compliance”): We want to show that people or tribes in remote parts of the world are not inferior to us Europeans or North Americans. In fact, they view the world in a completely different way. We must do this Guarantee (save). Regardless of the intention, the result is our promotion Yes it is When the languages of these nations have interesting features that do not exist in the languages we are most familiar with, we do not think of the logically dangerous consequences of this hypothesis. Let us take Chinese as an example. It has no future or past tense, no gender, and no assumptions. The following sentences are different in Italian (and English):
“If you see my sister, you know she is pregnant”
“If you see my sister, you will know that she is pregnant”
“If you met my sister, you would know that she is pregnant”
However, the translation methods of these three sentences in Chinese are exactly the same, namely:
“If you see my sister, you know she is pregnant”
No conditions, no past.
According to the logic of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, we may think that the Chinese cannot perceive the hypothesis on a theoretical level, or that it is more difficult for them to perceive it.This is obviously a ridiculous and wrong idea, even most people would not do it hot air supporter (Enthusiastic/enthusiastic supporter) Sapir-Wolf hypothesis Will improve (Will promote, propose). In other words: when a language has something that we don’t have (especially if it is a language used by a few element tribes), we will be surprised, but when a language lacks the characteristics that we have, we will Surprised. Watching (cautious) in get conclusion (get conclusion) “Chinese people are not very aware of all aspects of reality”, even “Chinese people are not very smart”. Two weights, two measures (Double standard), In summary.
Language neither affects our way of thinking, nor is it affected by our needs as a nation, so to speak.Tuyucas have a mark of evidence, not because they need it in their daily lives, just like we Italians don’t have a subjunctive tone, because we can’t No (Don’t do it) Because we are very… hypothetical lifestyle? Our French neighbors have much less subjunctive than ours, and they seem to be able to perceive the hypothetical nature of the situation without any problem. Language just evolves randomly and unpredictably.As McWhorther explained, the tongue is like soup, it will inevitably form Bor (bubble). We don’t know where, we don’t know how many, we don’t know how big, but we know there is a bubble somewhere Will pop up (They will pop up)These bubbles are the complexity, singularity and particularity of the language: they are the subjunctive mood in Italian, they are the many tenses in English, they are movement verbs in Russian, they are tones in Chinese, and so on.
This theory is also called chaos theory.
In short, the grammar of the language does not affect our way of thinking or worldview.Of course, our culture affects the vocabulary of our language, but frankly, this is Found hot water (Reinvent the wheel). Obviously, if you greet each other in Arabic, with a phrase that can be translated as “God’s peace and mercy”, it explains their religious beliefs, but It’s no surprise (This is not surprising). Languages are more interesting than anything else, because they all express the same concepts, and they do use More strategies Different (using various strategies), Sometimes clever (Clever—this time!), Sometimes it’s really amazing. Maybe there are no words to express a concept in a language, we need more words, but there is nothing that cannot be translated. I left you a quote from McWhorther, which in my opinion sums up his book very well:
“If you want to study the differences between humans, then study culture. But if you want to better understand what makes humans all over the world the same, there is no better starting point than language other than genetics.”
That’s it for today’s content. Thank you for listening to this advanced episode. I suggest you listen to it several times to internalize the complex structures and words I used in this article.If you like this episode, I will ask you to leave one Apple Podcast Review, Which will help others find Italian podcasts. Thanks again for listening, and see you next time! Hello there.
