Quote:
Originally Posted by kool maudit
language gives us our vocabulary and idiomatic structure, as well as the symbols available to express our worldview. it is not a mere "plug-in" that can be applied or removed, with no effect, from the legal and cultural outline (20th century liberal/capitalist individualism) that you have outlined above.
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The classic apocryphal example being the claim that Inuktitut and other extreme northern indigenous languages have multiple words for different kinds of snow.
But more seriously, once you become fluent in more than one language, you are more sensitized to how each one really has its own world-view.
Just thinking of the various words for woman: from the utilitarian
frau in German to the soft powder-puff
femme in French to the elegant
dona in Italian to the macho-infused borderline rough word
mujer in Spanish.
Consider that the word in Spanish for pregnant is
embarazada.
In Italian the word for left is
sinistra.
Gives you a little bit of insight into the ethos of the people who speak those languages, and of those who speak ours.
Language is not a neutral binary code.