Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

I find it weird that no one even spoke of understanding linguistic determinism and how using one or the other language influences how you think. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_determinism

As someone who learned English as a second language, I very much experienced this.



That is because it is considered wrong. There is no solid evidence, despite whole labs trying for decades. There are only very weak effects, and given the state of research in psychology, I'd be surprised to find one that has been consistently reproduced.

The weak examples also do not prove Sapir-Whorf. They can usually be explained from extra-linguistic learning that occurs while learning a language.


I suspect this is overblown. Clearly a Spaniard and a Swedish don't automatically start thinking like an Australian just because they are communicating in English.

What is more likely to happen is that when a Spaniard and a Swedish learn English they will over time be exposed to the culture of other English speakers. This will for the time being be dominated by American culture, but as English continues to be the lingua franca of the world, the balance will slowly shift and include more cultural elements from places with large populations like India.

Language barriers prevent the sharing of culture and being able to communicate with a wide array of people is something to celebrate.


I agree the effect is probably minimal but it is not likely to be zero.

The jury is still out, but there is certainly evidence that a person’s spoken language influences at least memory.

I don’t remember the details but there have been studies of speakers of languages where there are more names for colours (e.g. Russian with blue, Hungarian with red) are more accurately able to recall a colour that they have seen previously than a speaker of a language without such a distinction (e.g. English).




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: