tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-520807396714463309.post1912688974107002900..comments2024-02-12T02:22:30.561-05:00Comments on The Lousy Linguist: Through the Language Glass (Part 2)Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09558846279006287148noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-520807396714463309.post-83286319653243256152017-05-22T11:18:20.688-04:002017-05-22T11:18:20.688-04:00Considering this book, can you comment on the fact...Considering this book, can you comment on the facts that make a language 'grow easier' ?Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01728983447274359133noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-520807396714463309.post-6516055330138360852017-05-22T11:15:39.164-04:002017-05-22T11:15:39.164-04:00considering this book, Can you comment on the fact...considering this book, Can you comment on the facts that make a language grow easier? This will be my exam question and I don't have enough time to read the book. I'll be appreciated If you answer my question.<br />Thank youAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01728983447274359133noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-520807396714463309.post-18083564024770265012010-10-09T17:04:42.025-04:002010-10-09T17:04:42.025-04:00All the points are well made and well taken. I'...All the points are well made and well taken. I'd still argue that this is an important book because of its popular appeal to counter the antirelativist nonsense peddled by the likes of Pinker. I wish it had been fairer to Whorf.<br /><br />BTW: The last paragraph really had me laughing out loud (for some seconds). LOLDominik Lukešhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03071876778771965740noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-520807396714463309.post-74704341341454938022010-10-03T16:33:14.799-04:002010-10-03T16:33:14.799-04:00Lameen, I respectfully disagree that "north&q...Lameen, I respectfully disagree that "north" and "south" are not fundamentally human concepts. They are concepts, hence they are filtered by our cognitive system, vulnerable to all the strange and wonderful biases and alterations that systems bears on all concepts.<br /><br />So what is so human about north? Well, what is north? It's a direction away from me, right? One can never be at north. There is always a north of north (except in the rare case of standing atop the exact north pole, but that doesn't seem relevant). <br /><br />But that alone doesn't make it human. Imagine a GY speaker were as big as the sun (this is a thought experiment, so reality means nothing, haha). Would saying that a tree is north of a river mean anything? the scale would be too small. Imagine a GY speaker said that an electron was north of a nucleus. Imagine a GY speaker said that the tree was to the Pacific Ocean of the river. Would any of those uses cardinal directions make sense?<br /><br />No, because the scale would make them incoherent. The direction concepts north and south are determined, at least in part, by our human scale, hence embodied. we conceptualize them as point, somewhere far off in the distance, and we can point to them. But this is an embodied conceptualization. <br /><br />I believe there's more than just human scale at work too, but I don't have enough time to get into it right now, but i think this is a worthwhile topic.Chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09558846279006287148noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-520807396714463309.post-73321344864595456242010-10-03T08:18:49.584-04:002010-10-03T08:18:49.584-04:00"North" and "south" have nothi..."North" and "south" have nothing to do with a human body's orientation; the only aspect of human-ness relevant to the cardinal directions is that of being located on a small enough part of a rotating sphere, which applies equally to, yes, amoebas, and every other organism on Earth. (Obviously, from the observer's perspective it's the sky that's rotating.) The difference in question is between a coordinate system based on the observer's body's orientation and one based on the orientation of his/her environment (his planet for cardinal directions, the slope of the ground for "uphill/downhill", etc.) The term "ego-centric" may or may not be the most apt way to describe this difference, but the difference is clear.Lameen Souag الأمين سواقhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00773164776222840428noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-520807396714463309.post-45084448267513272952010-09-23T13:42:09.320-04:002010-09-23T13:42:09.320-04:00Kaspars, good points. One of the problems with the...Kaspars, good points. One of the problems with these kinds of studies is that they are fraught with sloppy methodology and generous interpretation.Chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09558846279006287148noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-520807396714463309.post-33196039821494806272010-09-23T06:26:25.150-04:002010-09-23T06:26:25.150-04:00Errm... It appears I'm becoming the wacko who ...Errm... It appears I'm becoming the wacko who likes to link to papers on spatial cognition in the comments section - but if you're worried there aren't enough speakers of GY for Levinson to work with then they're always <a href="http://www.cogsci.ucsd.edu/~nunez/web/FINALpblshd.pdf" rel="nofollow">Aymara</a>, which takes things a step further by abstracting their spatial perceptions into temporal metaphors. <br /><br />Thanks for the review - you've saved me reading the book!Laurenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10993910978427884412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-520807396714463309.post-39704437414936786732010-09-22T17:04:57.692-04:002010-09-22T17:04:57.692-04:00Correction: ..while the English green covers more ...Correction: ..while the English green covers more spectrum.KasparsMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09329319639296189098noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-520807396714463309.post-39926462837573795792010-09-22T17:02:22.575-04:002010-09-22T17:02:22.575-04:00Or you could just show two colors that are actuall...Or you could just show two colors that are actually different but only so little that majority can't tell any difference. And see if Russians are better telling them apart. <br /><br />I just read the chapter about Russian blues and there were no indications that Russians were better in distinguishing different blue shades, only faster. It is practically the same as asking to compare pictures of different number of objects. Those who have learned to count will do it faster than those who haven't. Each learned word works as a specific (and often unconscious) habit of the mind, so no wonder that Broca area was involved.<br /><br />I would like to see the "gray banana" experiment performed with different language speakers. How far into blue spectrum each of them would go to see “neutral” gray color?<br /><br />I believe that the story about Japanese blue traffic lights is incorrect. Even in the modern Japanese aoi generally refers to the whole blue-green spectrum and the traffic light makers would have no reason to avoid making them completely green (in the English sense). Midori, as one native Japanese speaker explained me some time ago, is only a specific type of green, as of grass and leaves, while the English green spectrum. Loanwords buruu and guriin are also widely used when specificity is required. The middle part of traffic lights generally are not exactly yellow but more like orange.KasparsMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09329319639296189098noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-520807396714463309.post-87875098448596906362010-09-22T15:05:54.666-04:002010-09-22T15:05:54.666-04:00Kaspars, it's a fair question given how poorly...Kaspars, it's a fair question given how poorly I described the experiment I envision. In this experiment, there is no test of language at all. We only test perception of color categorization using color swatches. The linguistics is only factored in after the data has been collected when we ask "do speakers of English react to shades of blue differently than speakers of Tzetzal?"Chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09558846279006287148noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-520807396714463309.post-20441701852140731572010-09-22T14:38:58.080-04:002010-09-22T14:38:58.080-04:00I didn't really understand how you are going t...I didn't really understand how you are going to compare the perception of "blue" among speakers of 40 languages if there isn't exact equivalency of this word between languages?<br /><br />Possibly you could teach the subjects by showing them the range of colors that are blue (in English sense of the word) and shocking them when you tell that it is blue color. But it would only prove how good or bad learners they are and how different languages interfere with the learning process.KasparsMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09329319639296189098noreply@blogger.com