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A language with no concept of time | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| HMS Senior Member England Joined 5107 days ago 143 posts - 256 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 24 20 May 2011 at 4:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I thought this article might interest some of you. An Amazonian tribe has been discovered to have a language that has no words describing aspects of time. The tribe members don't even have ages - they change their names according to what part of their lives they are at. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1389070/Amazo n-Amondawa-tribe-age-words-like-month-year-dont-exist.html 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6582 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 2 of 24 20 May 2011 at 6:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I love how they "discovered" a tribe with telephone lines and printed T-shirts. "It's not discovered until white people
have written about it!" 13 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| HMS Senior Member England Joined 5107 days ago 143 posts - 256 votes Speaks: English* | Message 3 of 24 20 May 2011 at 9:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
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You have chosen to totally miss the point of the article. either you have a "chip on your shoulder" or you are seeking to appear apologetic for the percieved sins of 'white man'. You have also drawn a pretty feeble conclusion based on semantics. Based on that, I'd say you wanted to say it and scraped the barrel in finding a reason to say so.
If nobody is interested in the article as it presented then could an admin please delete this? Edited by HMS on 20 May 2011 at 9:12pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Woodpecker Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5811 days ago 351 posts - 590 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Arabic (Egyptian) Studies: Arabic (classical) | Message 4 of 24 20 May 2011 at 9:24pm | IP Logged | |||||
The tribe was discovered, to the extent that is possible, in 1986, which is clearly stated in your article. Hence I think claiming that the tribe has just been discovered, as you did, is a rather strange way of putting things.
Seriously? Anyway, the article is interesting, but linguistics researchers are always making all sorts of bold claims about things that don't exist in Amazonian languages, which other researchers then dispute, and so an and so forth ad infinitum because there are only five people in the world who have actually studied the language in question. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| HMS Senior Member England Joined 5107 days ago 143 posts - 256 votes Speaks: English* | Message 5 of 24 20 May 2011 at 9:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I actually said: "A tribe has been discovered to have a language that..." There is a difference from what you are inferring.
You are referring to a line in the article. Please don't attribute the article to me, I merely posted it. As to my other comment - yes, seriously. It appears to be a bandwagon some wish to be seen to jump on - as you have now also demonstrated. Shame you never noticed the difference between my wording and that of the article. Even so, it is still a feeble attempt at grasping semantics. I should have known better - derailing threads is quite common on here. The strawman fallacy rules. Edited by HMS on 20 May 2011 at 9:35pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| GRagazzo Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4961 days ago 115 posts - 168 votes Speaks: Italian, English* Studies: Spanish, Swedish, French | Message 6 of 24 20 May 2011 at 10:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
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To get onto the topic of the article, I think it's very interesting and makes you think
about what their ancestors were thinking when they began speaking it. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| HMS Senior Member England Joined 5107 days ago 143 posts - 256 votes Speaks: English* | Message 7 of 24 20 May 2011 at 10:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think it's interesting in how language can be linked to how the mind actually works and if it can even affect cognitive reasoning.
Are these "primitive" languages or are they actually quite advanced in comparison to "ours"? They say lots of technology and knowledge has been lost in the sands of time, when compared to our material values. Could these "primitive" languages actually be a last key? Philosophical question and probably very badly worded, If anyone can get the jist of what I mean and word it better I'd be grateful. Thanks. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5956 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French | Message 8 of 24 20 May 2011 at 11:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
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"a tribe has been discovered to have a language, etc. ..." does not mean, in this context that the tribe itself has just been discovered, but rather it has been discovered that this tribe has a language, etc.
It is like the note we got a couple of days ago from my daughter's school, which read in part: "A student was discovered with a hand grenade, and parents are asked to ensure that live munitions are not brought to the school." Hopefully, this did not mean that out of the blue a brand new student was discovered, but rather one of the students was discovered to be better armed than the teacher (who only had a knuckle-duster, hardly a fair fight). I think the article is really interesting, thanks for posting. 6 persons have voted this message useful |
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