Question Maze - 4
Long time since i wrote something in question maze.Although I'm constantly questioned by myself I couldn't put forth many of those questions in public on a blog( personal question issues!!).But this link sent by a friend put my thoughts back to action. (here's the link in case you wanna read the original) MANUSCRIPT.
The question raised in the article was "are languages merely tools for expressing our thoughts, or do they actually shape our thoughts?"
Language is central to our experience of being human.Each language is distinctive in its approach. Could this difference create a difference in the way the thoughts map in our mind? ?It's true,mind can be trained-is it the language we speak that's training our minds?? Does the way you describe an object or an experience depends on the language you speak? If yes, then doesn't language interfere in the way we see,understand and absorb the happenings around us(that's a little creepy isn't it?)
Language's could differ from one other vividly or they could share something in common and with so many known languages world wide how easy is it to differentiate behavior in thought? If it's sounding like insanity, don't think so cos there are people who would go to any levels of insanity for research purposes[;)].Today we live in a world that's shrunk by many folds, making research's such as these a reality.
(Here's one paragraph from the manuscript) Does treating chairs as masculine and beds as feminine in the grammar make Russian speakers think of chairs as being more like men and beds as more like women in some way? It turns out that it does. In one study, we asked German and Spanish speakers to describe objects having opposite gender assignment in those two languages. The descriptions they gave differed in a way predicted by grammatical gender. For example, when asked to describe a "key" — a word that is masculine in German and feminine in Spanish — the German speakers were more likely to use words like "hard," "heavy," "jagged," "metal," "serrated," and "useful," whereas Spanish speakers were more likely to say "golden," "intricate," "little," "lovely," "shiny," and "tiny." To describe a "bridge," which is feminine in German and masculine in Spanish, the German speakers said "beautiful," "elegant," "fragile," "peaceful," "pretty," and "slender," and the Spanish speakers said "big," "dangerous," "long," "strong," "sturdy," and "towering." This was true even though all testing was done in English, a language without grammatical gender. The same pattern of results also emerged in entirely nonlinguistic tasks (e.g., rating similarity between pictures). And we can also show that it is aspects of language per se that shape how people think: teaching English speakers new grammatical gender systems influences mental representations of objects in the same way it does with German and Spanish speakers. Apparently even small flukes of grammar, like the seemingly arbitrary assignment of gender to a noun, can have an effect on people's ideas of concrete objects in the world.
It means that when you're learning a new language, you're not simply learning a new way of talking, you are also inadvertently learning a new way of thinking.The more number of languages you learn, the more varied your thinking( that's how i like to presume.) Now that is something to think about!!!!!
Eternal sunshine of the Spotless Mind
This is inspired by the movie by the same name eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet. The genre is Romantic/Comedy, though i'm doubtful about the comedy part (seriously!!).
The branches swing to the wind
the flowers sing with the bees
in their divine self they find
an admirer with such ease.
The mountains and the heaven above
the sunlight clasping the earth
They are distinct yet in love
such sweet emotions forming a girth.
Time plays it's wicked games
slowly the love is it's slave
once beautiful is now in flames
sending all memories to the grave.
Erasing a smile wrecks the heart
reminding you of the very beginning
but the decision is made and you need to part
as the differences are winning.
It's a new day, a new start
you know not what's in your past
determined to find a thriving heart
you meet her again at last.
All that's gone is the thought
which could be considered only a part
as it's essence is present
sealed in the tenderness of the heart
holding your hands, turn the page
leading us to where we are meant to be
in true love we both engage
like the moonbeams kissing the sea.
~ Chetana.N
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