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Does Language Influence Culture? | ||
Tags: Cultural Identity | Press Article | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5345 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes  Speaks: Spanish* | Message 9 of 17 27 July 2010 at 11:51pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Works alright for me as of right now. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6943 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 10 of 17 28 July 2010 at 12:42am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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How about a normal link.
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| Tyr Senior Member Sweden Joined 5782 days ago 316 posts - 384 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Swedish | Message 11 of 17 28 July 2010 at 4:33pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Its an old theory but always interesting to hear about new research into it.
On a base level though this way of looking at things can tend to lead to iffy thinking; crap like Chinese are incapable of original thought because their language isn't built that way and that sort of thing. Its of course on a less obvious level than that...which makes it all the harder to wrap ones head around. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Asiafeverr Diglot Senior Member Hong Kong Joined 6342 days ago 346 posts - 431 votes 1 sounds Speaks: French*, English Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese, German | Message 12 of 17 30 July 2010 at 9:52am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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The book Outliers says Chinese people are better at math because numbers in Chinese are
much more logical (twenty-one is literally two ten one, etc.) and because they can be pronounced much faster than in western languages so Chinese people can put a lot more of them in their short term memory. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| johntm93 Senior Member United States Joined 5327 days ago 587 posts - 746 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 13 of 17 30 July 2010 at 7:39pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
My Taiwanese friend (who speaks Taiwanese, Mandarin, and Hakka natively, and speaks English very good for having been here for 3 years) is extremely good at math... Edited by johntm93 on 30 July 2010 at 7:40pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Tyr Senior Member Sweden Joined 5782 days ago 316 posts - 384 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Swedish | Message 14 of 17 30 July 2010 at 10:03pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Interesting, never heard that one. But then Finnish is the same IIRC and they've never really been regarded in that light. I think its more just down to the education metjhods over there. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6943 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 15 of 17 30 July 2010 at 10:42pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Claims of cultural superiority will never cease, but let's try to give this one the benefit of doubt. Mathematical reasoning is tied in part to spatial skills, so perhaps having a character-based writing system may confer some advantage. Except, some of the best math in history was done by the Greeks, who may have inherited some of it from the Egyptians and Babylonians, followed by the Islamic scholars in algebra. Hindus invented the decimal system that arrived in Europe through the Arab scholars. And the modern math that is done worldwide today, including in China, is of European origin: Fermat, Newton, Leibniz, Euler, Lagrange, Gauss, etc, etc, etc. Now I am having trouble with the original hypothesis, because one of its assumptions, that "Chinese people are better at math" seems not to be easily upheld by the historical facts. My guess is that they just have a more rigorous school program in math. What has been done to the school math curricula in some Western countries makes this plausible enough, and one also has to take into account possible differences in student motivation. Edited by frenkeld on 31 July 2010 at 3:31pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Aineko Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 5448 days ago 238 posts - 442 votes Speaks: Serbian*, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin | Message 16 of 17 31 July 2010 at 4:38am | IP Logged | ||||||||
what you are implying here is that there are genetic differences between nations and cultures, which is an even more radical statement (based on everything we know about human genetics) than 'languages shape our brain' (if the second one is radical at all? We know that human brain is shaped by the experience, that interpersonal contact is crucial for human brain development, so, I'm not surprised that it is becoming more and more clear that our brains are also shaped by our language/s.). 1 person has voted this message useful |
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