Quote:
Originally Posted by
Marshmallow Marshall
that's called illiteracy
:calix:
Was the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis disproven? I wasn't aware. Any links?
For it to get disproven, it'd have to be proven first.
:thinking:
But, sure, here's one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopi_time_controversy
Though I guess it doesn't disprove his idea, only that his premise for his example was wrong.
The thing is, that the hypothesis has been very elusive to prove.
-The Russian language indicates future tense mostly via context and it's been argued that it's why they're often late (are they?). Yet the same can be said about the Japanese language and you'd hardly say the same about the Japanese.
-Every language has a lexical gap, but we'd hardly say about any of them that they are incapable of thinking that way. As a French speaker, how would you say "Your car is sticking out of the row" (Like when parked not fully in)? You have to talk around it because you have no noun for that - so are we to believe that the French can't perceive a badly parked car?
-Many languages in the world have, when speaking about the past, something that can be described as an evidential marker. So when they say something about the past, their words directly show whether or not they themselves seen it. If we go by the Whorfian hypothesis - we must conclude that English speakers are not curious about sources of information or even have no notion of it.
-Though maybe there's a point? Because here we have a French speaker asking me about the source, and, according to Journalist Mark Abley, it's because you have words savoir and connaître: "My language allows me, somewhat clumsily, to get the distinctions across: on the one hand, factual knowledge, on the other, acquaintanceship and understanding. But to a French speaker, that distinction is central to how the mind interacts with the world."
-Mark Abley has also argued that the Algonquian language are less self-centered because some of them always put "you" first in sentences. He was disproven, same as Whorf with the Hoki.
-The Mohawk has a word that means 3 things: beautiful, good, law - and it's been argued how it makes them different. Yet every language in the world has homonymies, and upon thinking about one's own language - people can realize that it's all bullocks. It's just disingenuous.
This kinda of double standard of these "scientists" who are driven to prove that more exotic/foreign languages have some form of a better way of looking at the world or thinking, just because of their language, became very apparent when they reacted to Alfred Bloom's experiment. Alfred Bloom looked at the fact that Chinese don't have words that directly indicate hypotheticality and made an experiment that showed that the Chinese might have a slightly less alertness to hypotheticality. Him being right or wrong is beside the point. The main point is that the other scholars completely dismissed the very notion of allowing the mere possibility of the idea being right. History indicates that they would have the opposite reaction if Bloom made the case that it's the English speakers who are slightly less alert of hypotheticality.
The thing is that this language and thought question is like the chicken and the egg question. People studying language history has shown that it's the culture that develops language, not the other way around. Other than the small differences shows by Neo-Whorfians, there has been no evidence of a difference in thinking between people of different languages that's directly linked the language difference instead of cultural.
My specific source of information:
https://www.amazon.com/Understanding.../dp/B07X9LBN9W
