Language and thought
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- Great Grand Panjandrum
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Language and thought
From time to time I've heard it said that language influences thought, and that people raised in or accustomed to that language are constricted by its grammar and syntax to think in particular ways. Over many years, I have found only one book that is specific. Thorlief Boman's work Hebrew Thought Compared to Greek focuses on Biblical thought and usage. The biggest concept that stuck with me was that Hebrew words primarily arise from verb roots, so the focus is on action. For example, Exodus twice records God's directions to build the tabernacle, repeatedly using imperative verbs, but nowhere does it say what the tabernacle looked like. A Greek would most likely have described it visually. I can see that. Further, Old Testament Hebrew is terse: check out some of the middle proverbs in several translations to see how differently they can be translated. Does anyone know other works that focus on similar comparisons of two or more languages as related to thought?
pl
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- Great Grand Panjandrum
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- Slava
- Great Grand Panjandrum
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While it's not about world languages, you might be interested in checking out Lakoff's Metaphors We Live By. It's an interesting dive into how we use words and what the underlying meaning might be.
Life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own.
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- Great Grand Panjandrum
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