things that make you think
Nov. 9th, 2005 08:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
theladyroseIt is possible to determine how important a thing is to a society by the number of words that society has for it. The number of subtle distinctions show how much time they have spent thinking about it, how familiar they are with it, how important a part it plays in their lives. Thus, the Eskimo have twenty-two words for snow; the Bedouin, thirty-one words for sand.
From these kinds of examples the argument is also derived that to understand a culture, one must first understand its language.
And it is also these kinds of examples that make some cognitive scientists and linguists believe that language is the most useful tool we have for understanding the brain's higher functions. The brain receives information about the world through the senses and then organizes that information. And because language is entirely an abstract creation of the brain designed to help convey that organization, the idea is that if we can understand how language is designed, we can then understand how the brain functions by a kind of reverse engineering. The idea is that words expose us.
-Nic Kelman, Girls
From these kinds of examples the argument is also derived that to understand a culture, one must first understand its language.
And it is also these kinds of examples that make some cognitive scientists and linguists believe that language is the most useful tool we have for understanding the brain's higher functions. The brain receives information about the world through the senses and then organizes that information. And because language is entirely an abstract creation of the brain designed to help convey that organization, the idea is that if we can understand how language is designed, we can then understand how the brain functions by a kind of reverse engineering. The idea is that words expose us.
-Nic Kelman, Girls
