Thought connection

Complex thought and language

Complex thought about a certain topic requires suitable vocabulary; complex ideas become simple in science when the right theory/ notation/ framework is in place.

Examples/ evidence

The first generation of deaf-mutes in a central American country were unable to put themselves in others’ place: they failed the test where they are asked to guess where a person would look for a thing whose position has been changed in their absence. This is seem among children below a certain age.

A certain Hispanic deaf-mute man did not know that objects had names or symbols. So, to communicate or comprehend simple ideas: such as reliving the memory of a bull-fight, took a long time: 45 minutes of miming.

World-view and language

“Languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may convey.” Your language changes the way you think and feel about many things - by making them more or less important in your world-view.

Examples

In saMskRRita, you are forced to convey the sex of the person you interact with, in English, you are often forced to specify the time of a meal; and inanimate objects have gender: this changes the way you feel about them.

In some languages, you specify geographic direction ‘N/S/E/W’, whereas in others you specify front/ back etc..: memories (even gestures) in such languages are tagged with geographic direction: the sense of direction in speakers of such languages is extremely keen. They have perhaps trained their brains to maintain an accurate bird’s eye view of their location.

Our brains are trained to exaggerate the distance between shades of color if these have different names in our language.

Some languages, like Matses in Peru, oblige their speakers, like the finickiest of lawyers, to specify exactly how they came to know about the facts they are reporting.

Social interactions

Vagueness and indirectness in language is used in communicating an idea while leaving a slight window of deniability. Eg: Idioms such as ‘will you come up to see my etchings?’.