Languages and psychology

[Virtual ghost]

For sometime I am thinking about opening this thread.
I don't want this to be a rant it is just that it could sound like it to some people. I would not be suprised that only people who know more languages will post here, but I am also interested in opinions of people who speak only English.



I am interested in how language effects our picture of the world and thinking process and what people think about the idea that some languges are better in saying certain things.



Here I am writting on English but my thinking process is quite different then the process of most people on this forum since many are from English speaking countries. I what I am interested in is how much difference there is and how nuch we are not aware of it.


My native language is Croatian which is quite different from English in many aspects. The real translation is actually impossible so all the time I am actually gambling when I type posts since order of words must change.
Many words have more meanings in both languages so I am not always sure that I am hiting the point. People understand it but it looks to me that they are not getting it 100% (and this is not their fault).
Also I think that when I post in English I am actually hidding large piece of me and I am not showing myself for what I really am.


Here are some examlpes of the differences.

On English ocean is rated as it, but on Croatian it is rated as he.
On English apple is rated as it, but on Croatian it is rated as she.

And there are countless examples of this. This works for almost all nouns.


I have said that some languages are better for saying something. Here is what I mean by this.

On this forum many times it happened that people are not aware of other peoples gender. Like in the case of Nolla.

But in Croatian this can't happen since words are modified for genders so you are always aware of the gender of a person about who you are hearing about. (if the person is posting/saying correct information)


More theoretical example of this would be the word "friend" since in Croatian there are different words one for a female friend and one for a male friend.
Same is with word "uncle" since there are two words for it one for a fathers side of a family one for mothers side of a family.


Even the alphabet is not the same. In Croatian there is no X,Y,W or Q but there are other letters, like Č,Ć,Š,Đ,Ž . There are even letters made of two symbols like Lj, Nj or Dž .


The main thing about Croatian is that words are not so "static" as in Englsh.
English is more like playing with pieces of a puzzle while in Croatian words morph on many different ways. This is the main reason why translation is such a gamble. In a way this is only a tip of the iceberg but it enough that people understand actual topic.


For people who don't know Croatian is similar to Russian.


So my question for all people whose native language is English:
Do you sometime notice that English is somewhat too simple to state your thoughts in a right way without saying large number of words,
or do you not know for anything else and use what you have/know?
(if you don't know any other language)

What would point in a direction that our thinking process is quite different.
If you think that there is a difference in this how would you deffine it?

On the other hand English is much easier to learn then Croatian.


This was when you compare English and Croatian in short and it would be interesting to compare other languages as well.

 

[Gauche]

Well, you know, I'm from central Europe as well, so I know what are you talking about. Slavic language here too.

But actually to the topic - I don't think so much in language, instead I think more on a conceptual basis (one could name it "visually" - so not so related to language). You know, I have some basic idea in my mind, and if I want to express it, I must somehow translate it to language. What I find to be a possible difficulty is to convey exact meaning of what I have in my mind through words. In that point I find english somehow appealing. Maybe even more than my native language. You know, our slavic languages are more complex, and what I have to say - more literal. Like you said, a friend is not like a friend in our languages. We can very accurately define if it is male or female (actually there are 2 expressions). English is more vague. But actually it is what I like about english. There is bigger tolerancy to match your thoughts. In my case, you know, my thoughts are pretty vague; or to say it differently - it's somehow more easy for me to translate thoughts into english than into my slavic language. Maybe because english is simpler and somehow more intuitive, and hence easier to asseble into sentences.
Like I said, my basic understanding of things is not given by language, but it's conceptual, so language is not so important in my thinking processes, and thus it won't influence the way I think so much. I would say then, that english fits better my conceptually based thinking, maybe because it's more vague and intuitive, the same as conceptual thinking is.

To sum it up simply - For me, languages are only tools to encode my thougths into expressable form. Though english is not my first language, It is more comfortable for me to encode my thoughts into english, than into my primary - slavic - language. (Though some thoughts are more easily expressable in my slavic language for me of course. It's not only black and white)

 

[aufs klo]

The two thing I've always wondered are how a language's vocabulary, and grammatical structure effect creative thought. English has a huge variety of words to choose from in every situation, each conveying a slightly different meaning or feel to the sign it's modifying; some languages only have small reserve of words. Would a larger vocabulary lead to a more creative thought process? more specific? more emotional?

 

[Leysing]

Hey, this is an interesting topic! I have studied some grammatical things as I am very interested in languages.

My first language is Finnish.

Regarding genders, Finnish seems to be something like the opposite of Croatian, because we don't have grammatical genders (neither has English, but German, French, Swedish etc have) and we have only one people-referring 3rd singular personal pronoun that is used for both genders ("hän"). (It has been argued that this would have contributed to the equality of genders here.) This sometimes causes problems in translation when the gender is unknown in Finnish, as most languages have different pronouns for the two genders. I've seen that it is also confusing to Finnish people to start studying these languages, because some of us see this kind of "separation" unnecessary and sometimes even annoying. (No, I'm not talking about myself - this doesn't really bug me. However, genders of personal pronouns have caused many fiery debates during my foreign language classes.)

Another thing that makes translation difficult is that Finnish uses word order to imply different things in sentences. When translating from Finnish to English we have to add new words and use different expressions to convey the original message.
From Wikipedia:
"'minulla on rahaa' = 'I have money' (a bald statement of fact)
'rahaa minulla on' = 'money is something I do have' (although I may not have something else)
'rahaa on minulla' = 'The money is with me' (I am telling you where the money is)
'minulla rahaa on' = 'I've definitely got (the) money' (I am confirming that I do have (the) money)
'on minulla rahaa' = 'Yes, I do have (the) money' (if having money has been questioned)"

Finnish words also morph a lot. Finnish uses suffixes (-a, -en, -iin etc) instead of grammatical particles (some, of, to...) and in order to change the actual word meaning. There is this stupid word (that is cut in the middle because the forum has problems with long words) that could be used as an example of the phenomenon:
"epäjärjestelmällistyttämä ttömyydellänsäkäänköhän" = not even with his/her ability to not to make a thing unsystematic + the talker is doubting

Regarding words, Finnish is even more vague than English, because it has a quite limited vocabulary compared to several other languages. This, I think, is somehow compensated by the complexity of grammar. (When I speak English, I talk with words. When I speak Finnish, I talk with structures.)

 

[Virtual ghost]

The two thing I've always wondered are how a language's vocabulary, and grammatical structure effect creative thought. English has a huge variety of words to choose from in every situation, each conveying a slightly different meaning or feel to the sign it's modifying; some languages only have small reserve of words. Would a larger vocabulary lead to a more creative thought process? more specific? more emotional?

In the Croatian, there is also a lot of words to chose from. Many word that exist in English exists in Croatian also.

Because words on english do not morph so much. so the english is the one that need less creativity. (if you ask me)

For example when you are debating on Croatian you can have much sharper argument and there is much more options to use because language is more complex.

 

[GargoylesLegacy]

The two thing I've always wondered are how a language's vocabulary, and grammatical structure effect creative thought. English has a huge variety of words to choose from in every situation, each conveying a slightly different meaning or feel to the sign it's modifying; some languages only have small reserve of words. Would a larger vocabulary lead to a more creative thought process? more specific? more emotional?

Hm, actually I always kinda feel like German for example has less words than English. I always find I can express myself MUCH better in English than German. that's why I often use English words in the middle of my German sentences.
Also I think Swissgerman has more variety than German. Or Italian has more than French. Those are some of the languages I can speak. Hm, but English might beat them all. Another reason why I like to write blogs and stuff better in English, actually. So I would definitely say it leads to more creativity etc. =)


Oh and those facts about Finnish where really interesting, Leysing. I was always pretty interested in that language. ^^

 

[aufs klo]

I've heard exactly the same thing from many German's I've known! I think German has something like 350,000 words, and English is 600,000 (but growing by thousands of words every year)--I could be waaay off, but I believe I've seen those numbers somewhere.

 

[Athenian200]

My take on English is that it's mostly geared for presenting facts and opinions, and piecing them together to make a picture.

I've never really spoken other languages, but I have a few guesses.

I think Latin is geared towards giving you a picture first, and then using the word's connections and relationships to one another to indicate facts and opinions (backwards from how English works).

Japanese seems to be built on concepts and metaphors rather than facts and opinions. There's the sense that most of the words indicate the result of juxtaposing two concepts in a particular way, or are simply a basic concept in themselves.

German... mostly seems to be focused on connections between facts and opinions presented like English, though not as much on the picture made out of them.

This is a purely subjective impression, mind you, and could be totally wrong. I'm also aware that each language can be used for all these things, I'm just describing what they seem to be geared towards in a broad way.

 

[aufs klo]

Interesting way to think about it... I've alwas thought English was such a free language though. There's no International Governing Body, so it is a little more fluid. You can pretty much say anything however you want it (i.e. You can say what you want any way you want). Manipulating even the smallest little part of a sentence, or presenting one idea in a different place, can give you a totally different effect.

 

[Cameigons]

Interesting thread.

For sometime I am thinking about opening this thread.
I don't want this to be a rant it is just that it could sound like it to some people. I would not be suprised that only people who know more languages will post here, but I am also interested in opinions of people who speak only English.



I am interested in how language effects our picture of the world and thinking process and what people think about the idea that some languges are better in saying certain things.



Here I am writting on English but my thinking process is quite different then the process of most people on this forum since many are from English speaking countries. I what I am interested in is how much difference there is and how nuch we are not aware of it.


My native language is Croatian which is quite different from English in many aspects. The real translation is actually impossible so all the time I am actually gambling when I type posts since order of words must change.
Many words have more meanings in both languages so I am not always sure that I am hiting the point. People understand it but it looks to me that they are not getting it 100% (and this is not their fault).
Also I think that when I post in English I am actually hidding large piece of me and I am not showing myself for what I really am.

An uncomfortable feeling that I have all the time while expressing myself in written english, is that I'm unable to 'fine-tune' with the language. I tiptoe all the time trying to "tame" the subtleties so I can better express, but sometimes I just don't know how to pass the message. I don't know enough slangs, idiomatic expressions, subtle ironies, and other things which are hard to put in words themselves. I'm sure that if I lived in an english speaking country for a while I would learn that...

Here are some examlpes of the differences.

On English ocean is rated as it, but on Croatian it is rated as he.
On English apple is rated as it, but on Croatian it is rated as she.

And there are countless examples of this. This works for almost all nouns.


I have said that some languages are better for saying something. Here is what I mean by this.

On this forum many times it happened that people are not aware of other peoples gender. Like in the case of Nolla.

But in Croatian this can't happen since words are modified for genders so you are always aware of the gender of a person about who you are hearing about. (if the person is posting/saying correct information)

My native language is portuguese, and I speak french much better than english. Both languages have gender for words, like your native tongue.
Interesting you citing Nolla, I haven't thought about it I guess, but now that you pointed it out, I can totally see why many people could be confused. maybe that's because I have a little knowledge of finnish/estonian and their names, so as soon I as saw "Location: Finland" as a reflex I contextualized his nick.

More theoretical example of this would be the word "friend" since in Croatian there are different words one for a female friend and one for a male friend.
Same is with word "uncle" since there are two words for it one for a fathers side of a family one for mothers side of a family.


Even the alphabet is not the same. In Croatian there is no X,Y,W or Q but there are other letters, like Č,Ć,Š,Đ,Ž . There are even letters made of two symbols like Lj, Nj or Dž .


The main thing about Croatian is that words are not so "static" as in Englsh.
English is more like playing with pieces of a puzzle while in Croatian words morph on many different ways. This is the main reason why translation is such a gamble. In a way this is only a tip of the iceberg but it enough that people understand actual topic.


For people who don't know Croatian is similar to Russian.


So my question for all people whose native language is English:
Do you sometime notice that English is somewhat too simple to state your thoughts in a right way without saying large number of words,
or do you not know for anything else and use what you have/know?
(if you don't know any other language)

What would point in a direction that our thinking process is quite different.
If you think that there is a difference in this how would you deffine it?

On the other hand English is much easier to learn then Croatian.


This was when you compare English and Croatian in short and it would be interesting to compare other languages as well.

Well, I'm not native a english speaker.
I think English has somewhat simpler grammar rules. And for some ideas you need more words, for others less. Definitely our thinking process is affected by the language we use... I'm gonna organize my specific thoughts about that, and I'll post something later.

 

[nolla]

I've never spend time on Finnish forums, so, I can't really compare the English forum language and Finnish forum language. The only problem I have with English is that I know there are lots of subtleties I don't recognize. I am pretty good, but I guess I'll never be good enough. If I want to say something, I usually am able to say it, it just might lack the tone I was going for.

I've thought about this question a lot when I was exchange student. The words are especially interesting. In Spanish they have different "grades" of love (te quiero, te amo), for example, which is unlike Finnish or English. And I see this as a reflection of their more easygoing relationship culture.

 

[Anja]

I think your English is very good, nolla. I haven't noticed that I'm not speaking to a native-born speaker when I speak to you.

 

[nolla]

I haven't noticed that I'm not speaking to a native-born speaker when I speak to you.

Really?! That's surprising. I feel like my active vocabulary is really limited. I could speak with a lot more variety, but I never remember to and then I just end up using the same words I always use.

 

[nightning]

I'm not sure where I fit on this language scale. I'm not a native English speaker, BUT in some ways my English is better than my mother tongue. What do I mean by this... I'm a Cantonese speaker... which is a chinese "dialect" that is very commonly used, especially from Hong Kong which was were I originated. Cantonese is more of a spoken language, when we write, it is in "Chinese" aka Mandarin. The sentence structure for the two are slightly different. There are also more/different word and phrases used in Cantonese than in Mandarin. Now that I'm in Canada... I don't write in Chinese anymore... I forget. Written English is much easier to handle. I think and write in English for myself, and reserve Cantonese pretty much only when I need to converse with my family.

That said, in terms of psychology... I find myself doing this. When I speak in English, my thoughts are stated within the constrain of the English language... rarely do Chinese phrases/structure come to me unless I was reminded of idioms which succinctly describe some concept I was trying to express in English. When I speak in Cantonese... I switch over... but English words occasionally slips in... however (here's the funny thing) I only use English word if the listener understands what it means. Much of this occurs unconsciously, the selection of words...

It's as if I have my "thought ideas" then they're automatically translated to either a stream of consciousness in English or in Cantonese. The nuisances behind particular words in the language stays within that language. Which makes me a horrible translator because I understand exactly what the speaker means, but I cannot convey the depth of meaning in the translation for somebody else. My parents once told me they have a difference experience... since Cantonese has always been their first and foremost language, when speaking in English, they translate. Thoughts in Cantonese translated into words in English... And what they hear in English translated back into Cantonese. Their basis for thoughts is in Cantonese... therefore their thought patterns would be defined by such.

There are definitely major differences between the two language. Cantonese has many many more words than English... It has even more than Mandarin. Word phrases and idioms in Chinese is far superior to that of English. We call them "four word idioms"... literally an idea encapsulated within 4 words (characters... we don't use alphabets. We cannot sound out words... you can guess at the meaning of words based on its structure, but you wouldn't know what they sound like unless you've learnt the word.). Most of those are associated with a story (because the many tribes in China originally did not have written language... to pass on ideas and history is by the word of mouth. And stories are much easier for that purpose... these stories stayed.) Perhaps that's the reason why those phrases slips into mind when I'm on English mode at times.

The reverse can be said for English... some words contains subtle meaning that isn't reflected in the normally used form of the word in Chinese. Sometimes I wreck my mind trying to translate something for my parents. I'm trying to think of examples here but they're not coming.

So my question for all people whose native language is English:
Do you sometime notice that English is somewhat too simple to state your thoughts in a right way without saying large number of words,
or do you not know for anything else and use what you have/know?
(if you don't know any other language)

I don't think this is true at all... your thoughts are channeled by the language you've learned. If you only know English, then your thoughts will rarely deviate from its set form. You wouldn't think you're lacking in words because ideas and emotions outside of that language set never occurs to you.

A social psych professor told us some tribal people in Indonesian has a word to describe the moment of awkwardness when a boy and a girl sit down on their first date when they have some much they wanted to say but are completely tongue tied. Would you have thought such a term is necessary until you know of another language that has that word? I doubt it...

 

[nolla]

It's as if I have my "thought ideas" then they're automatically translated to either a stream of consciousness in English or in Cantonese. The nuisances behind particular words in the language stays within that language. Which makes me a horrible translator because I understand exactly what the speaker means, but I cannot convey the depth of meaning in the translation for somebody else. My parents once told me they have a difference experience... since Cantonese has always been their first and foremost language, when speaking in English, they translate. Thoughts in Cantonese translated into words in English... And what they hear in English translated back into Cantonese. Their basis for thoughts is in Cantonese... therefore their thought patterns would be defined by such.

Hah... This is funny, I'm also a really bad translator for the same reason. When I talk English I also need to think English. If someone asks me what does this word mean, I might explain it with five different ways just to make sure they catch the meaning as well as possible. Probably it is only confusing them. It is like I haven't even thought about what do the words mean in Finnish.

BTW, could this thinking vs translating be a N vs S thing?

 

[Cimarron]

Because this is your prime example, I'll fix it so that it makes sense in English:

Here are some examples of the differences.

In English, "ocean" is considered* an "it" (meaning the pronoun to use in place of "ocean" is "it"), but in Croatian it is considered a "he".
In English, "apple" is considered an "it", but in Croatian it is considered a "she".

And there are countless examples of this. This works for almost all nouns.

Notice that I chose "consider", since that's how I would usually talk about the translations of words. But we could also use "called", "labeled", or even "categorized". Each one indicates something different that we're doing with the translation, so it depends on how we understand our process and goal.

"consider" = Thinking closely and carefully about the ocean for a while
"called" = An automatic reaction; we see an ocean, and the word pops into our mind
"labeled" = A fast reference system, focusing on the one item (ocean)
"categorized" = Put into a system, this time focusing more on the whole system than on the item itself

"Categorized" and "labeled" are probably more appropriate for what you're trying to say, as you said "rated"--though "rated" can't be used in this sense, not in proper English. It could pass if you meant it in a dramatic or poetic sense.


This is definitely an interesting topic, and something I've been wondering for a while (as I've been taking Latin) about how words mold thought.

 

[FDG]

I think interchangeably in english or italian - even when I am speaking in Italian, sometimes I think in english - so I don't have that type of trouble. I think the two languages are quite different.

In Spanish they have different "grades" of love (te quiero, te amo), for example, which is unlike Finnish or English. And I see this as a reflection of their more easygoing relationship culture.

Well, Italian possesses the same distinction. However, I do not think that it is a reflection of a more easygoing attitude; "ti amo", that is "I am romantically in love with you", is used exclusively inbetween couples - whereas "ti voglio bene", "i love you", can be used for friends-family.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Because this is your prime example, I'll fix it so that it makes sense in English:

Notice that I chose "consider", since that's how I would usually talk about the translations of words. But we could also use "called", "labeled", or even "categorized". Each one indicates something different that we're doing with the translation, so it depends on how we understand our process and goal.

"consider" = Thinking closely and carefully about the ocean for a while
"called" = An automatic reaction; we see an ocean, and the word pops into our mind
"labeled" = A fast reference system, focusing on the one item (ocean)
"categorized" = Put into a system, this time focusing more on the whole system than on the item itself

"Categorized" and "labeled" are probably more appropriate for what you're trying to say, as you said "rated"--though "rated" can't be used in this sense, not in proper English. It could pass if you meant it in a dramatic or poetic sense.


This is definitely an interesting topic, and something I've been wondering for a while (as I've been taking Latin) about how words mold thought.

I am glad that you understand exactly about what this thread is about. I guess that example was more demonstrative then I planned.

If I want to post anything I must start to think on english and if it is something more simple I can do it.


But there is a problem since I don't exactly think on Croatian either.
I usuall think on some quite abstract ways and I have problems with saying things on any lanaguage. But Croatian is the one I am used to.

The thing is that first I have form idea, then I have check is next to others things in "database" to make sure that entire thing makes sense and to make sure that this is actually what I want to say.

Then I can form it onto a normal sentence that has Croatian logic in it and then I can start to turn it into a sentence on English.

So what you get in the end is not exactly the same as things that are going around my head.


From what I know Ni-dom people have problems in placing words into thoughts and I am curious about waht INFJs and INTJs think about this.
Do we have our own Ni language?
(I know that I am exaggerating to some degree)

 

[Colors]

Of course languages are different. They represent the cultural contexts they came from. (That whole many-words-for-snow example comes to mind.) You could argue it goes the other way too- that language shapes the culture. I lean more towards the first way though.

Living in the US, I am much more versed in English than Vietnamese, but I speak both well enough to note important distinctions. (Another example of language reflecting culture is all the the familial relationship words in Vietnamese. Your mom's younger brother's wife has a special name/title.)

The emphasis is English, I feel, is on the preciseness of each word. And then you needs lots of filler transition words to connect each word to its neighbor. To tweak the meaning of an English word, you'd probably choose a completely different word, rather than one with a similar root. English's strength is in coining new words.

Vietnamese is much more flexible. The emphasis is on the context of word- it's function in the whole of the sentence, paragraph, etc- and the flow of the meanings together. Vietnamese doesn't have verb tenses. And it's written so that each syllable is separate, so it can often take two or three "words" to make up a meaningful noun, etc. But it doesn't have as mixed origins like English does- competing roots from Latin, Greek, French, Germanic, etc. I better understand the roots in Vietnamese because they even sometimes stand alone. All this contributes to paying more attention to the connotations and the context of the surrounding material than to the word-order and parts-of-speech like in English.

I do sometimes confuse English and Vietnamese- especially when it comes to metaphors. I'm always mixing metaphors (even when thinking of a single language), a problem exasperated by differing symbolic interpretations of the same objects. When I'm thinking of "plenty of fish in the sea", I'm also thinking of the expression "catch fish [in each] hand" (which means "is a player"). This leads to some interesting sentences.

Maybe that's why I never understood Spanish I took in high school. I never "got" the voice of it, I suppose. the *how* to speak. (Instead of the "what" to speak- words and verb tenses.)

I think most people don't directly speak in words most of the time. I have concepts (and often images) in concpetions, but I don't formulate words unless I am composing a response to something.

 

[Darjur]

I'll give my input on Lithuanian.

Lithuanian is a language that presents one with the complete detailed picture of something in a fast and extremely detailed way, but it only really works for the material, it's absolutely perfect for that, but what concerns the "immaterial" Lithuanian becomes "edgy".

From a grammatical point of view, Lithuanian is not a language that you "put together" like English, someone could theoretically decipher basic rudimentary English with a dictionary alone. In Lithuanian on the other hand, a dictionary is basically useless, Lithuanian is a language that "molds" words, a word to us comes from what we call a "root" from this root we mold everything we need. I can make the root become a noun or anything else of the 11 categories we use and then give the words an implication of time, ownership, position, "level", number and the like, after which we specialize all of that based on the gender which we have to give it and based on the gender of the "subject" of a sentence we have to mold the whole sentence to comply with the rules of the subject. We don't have transitional words either, the words are "molded" to themselves become "transitional words" in a sense.

As an example in a word like "apsišikalioti" the root is only "šik", everything else is there for the purpose of displaying it's relationship with "the whole picture", naturally, if you let this go out of hands, you sometimes get words like "darnebesikiškiakopūsteliaudėdami", which when spoken in casual conversation would only make us lol.


But on the other hand, Lithuanian is an extremely impersonal language. It's hard to express the emotional side of things. Hell, I doubt I have used the Lithuanian counterparts of the words "Me", "I", "You" or "They" in the last 24 hours or most likely, longer. If I wanted to say "I love you" to someone, I'd probably have to speak out a good 10 words+ sentence. It's practically impossible to say anything in an ambiguous manner without making the sentence into a metaphor. In a sense, it's a language of the "whole", but it's not a language of the "unit".

Hell, we don't even have real curse words. Even cursing in Lithuanian becomes situational pictures and the like. We can't even go and say "Fuck you" if we wanted to. Hell a curse phrase i use. "Kad tave, pamestinuke, dievai tamsioje jūroje pamestu." Which would translate to, if I would remove all of the gender implications and other grammatical addatives, "You cursed little lost man, may all of the many gods sink you to the endless depths of the unforgiving sea of darkness, and forget you there for all of eternity." This is pretty much why around half of all of the Lithuanians when being pissed off, start speaking in Russian. Because it's far easier to curse in a foreign language, than use your own.




From a psychological sense, I guess that this could be one of the aspects that makes our society to look at the "collective", not the "individual", the "staircase", not the "steps". Or it very well may be something that was developed into the language based on our culture. In either way, that's a fact about us that is going to stay for a bit.