Fluency foreign language helps you see the world in a new light.
There is no need to repeat how strikingly different languages differ from each other: they can tell you about the 25 cases of the Hungarian language, or give an example of more than one and a half hundred words related to snow and ice in the Sami languages, but everyone knows about the famous times of the English language, who had to teach them at school. On the other hand, we know that the worldview of different peoples is also quite different, which is why we have a great variety of cultures on Earth. But usually we believe that language only reflects the characteristics of our vision, our thoughts and feelings. However, can't language itself influence how a person thinks and feels?
Cognitive psychologists have been discussing this issue for quite some time, but Lately interest in it increased many times due to the appearance of a series of works claiming that, yes, language affects consciousness. So, in 1991 in the magazine Cognition an article was published that said that Koreans, compared to the British, pay more attention to how objects connect to each other, how well they fit together. In 1997 in the same Cognition A similar work appeared, but this time about the Japanese - they, as it turned out, prefer to group objects in accordance with the material from which they are made, while English puts the form first. Finally, in 2007 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences An article was published that stated that Russian-speaking people distinguish shades of blue faster than English-speaking people. However, such work has invariably encountered objections of the kind that here we are dealing either with laboratory artifacts or with general cultural differences.
But, if consciousness really depends on the linguistic structure, then bilingual people should have a mixed worldview, and many readers have probably already wondered whether similar studies have been conducted with those who speak several languages at once. This is exactly what Panos Athanasopoulos did ( Panos Athanasopoulos) from Lancaster University and his colleagues, who published their results in Psychological Science. Their experiment involved people who spoke English and German, either one or both. German and English emphasize what is happening differently. If in English you can very well explain at what time an event happened and how its different episodes relate to each other on a timeline, then in German more attention is paid to the circumstances of the action: where, how and why it happened.
If language really influences consciousness, then German-speaking and English-speaking individuals should see things differently. Both were shown a series of videos of people walking, running, diving or riding bicycles, but the meaning of their actions was not entirely obvious. For example, a video of a woman walking was filmed in such a way that one could assume that she had a goal and was walking towards a specific building - or that she was walking aimlessly down the street. And in such scenes, the experiment participants were asked to decide whether the person in the video had a goal or not.
It turned out that German speakers were looking for a specific goal in what was happening on the screen in 40% of cases, while English speakers were looking for a specific goal in only 25%. (We emphasize that we are not talking about a right or wrong answer; both interpretations, goal-oriented and goalless, had the right to exist.) We can say that the Germans were focused on possible consequences action, whereas the British were more concerned with action itself.
Well, what about bilingual people? They occupied an intermediate position, partly obeying the language they learned. If a German who speaks English fluently was in his home country during the experiment and was spoken to in German, then he was still oriented toward the goal of the action. If the experiment was staged in Great Britain and in English, then the bilingual Germans switched to the action itself. Of course, here too we can talk about the influence of the general cultural environment. However, the next version of the experiment showed that it was still a matter of language. While watching a video, people were asked to pronounce a set of numbers out loud, in German or in English - so, according to the authors of the work, it was possible to temporarily activate one language and “put to sleep” the other. It turned out that the perception of the video changed depending on which language was active: if a person was counting out loud in German, then he was looking for the purpose of what was happening (“the woman is going to come”), if the count was in English, then the accent was narrower on the action itself (“the woman is just walking”). If the language of counting changed during the experiment, then the perception of what was seen also changed.
We can say that another language in literally expands our consciousness and makes us look at the world differently. And here, of course, a lot of questions arise. For example, do all languages influence perception to the same extent, does the relationship between them play a role, what other conditions does their influence depend on, and does it also extend to abstract inferences? So far, psychologists have been able to see the “trace of language” at the moment when the language was active, but maybe it somehow affects consciousness even at the moment when we are not speaking it? However, you should not attribute all the features of worldview to native – or non-native – speech. After all, there are indeed a great many cultural factors, and in real life they can either contribute to linguistic influence on consciousness, or, on the contrary, reduce such influence to nothing.
Lera Boroditsky
Lera Boroditsky is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Symbolic Systems at Stanford University. She explores how the language we speak affects the way we think.
My translation, don't blame me.
People interact with each other in a dizzying number of languages that differ from each other in an unimaginable number of nuances. Does the language in which we communicate shape our image of the world, our thinking, our way of life? Do people think differently just because they speak different languages? The thinking of polyglots - does it remain the same when they move from language to language?
These questions relate to almost all the main subjects of controversy in the science of consciousness. They are discussed by philosophers, anthropologists, linguists and psychologists, and have a significant influence on politics, religion and law. But apart from the constant debate, we have to admit that until recently there was very little empirical work on this topic. For a long time, the hypothesis that language shapes consciousness was considered at best unverifiable, and at worst - and much more often - simply wrong. Research from my laboratory at Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has helped us look at this question differently. We collected data all over the world: in China and Greece, in Chile and Indonesia, in Russia and Australia. And this is what we managed to understand: indeed, people speaking different languages think differently. Even minor details of grammar can have a profound impact on our worldview, little by little. Speech is a unique human gift, fundamental to the very experience of human existence. Assessing its role in the formation of our consciousness raises us one step higher in our understanding of human nature itself.
I often start a course of lectures by asking the audience: what cognitive ability are you most afraid of losing? Most people answer: vision. Some choose hearing. Sometimes a witty student will say that she would be afraid of losing her sense of humor or her sense of fashion. Almost no one answers spontaneously: “I would be afraid to lose my speech, my language.” But even if someone loses their sight or hearing, or even is born without it, this loss will not prevent them from gaining quite a wide social experience. Can the blind and hearing-impaired people make friends, get an education, work, and start a family? But those who cannot speak - what is their existence? Will they make friends? Will they be able to study and find a job? Will they start a family? Language is such a fundamental part of our experience, such a deep component of human existence, that it is difficult to imagine life without language. But what is language: a tool for expressing thoughts or something that forms these thoughts?
The vast majority of questions about the quantity and quality of the influence of language on the way of thinking begin with the banal observation that languages differ from one another. And how different they are! Let's look at a hypothetical (very hypothetical) example. Let's say you want to say: "Bush read Chomsky"s latest book." Let's focus first on the verb "read." Since we are speaking English, the pronunciation of "read" depends on the tense of the verb - we must pronounce not "read", but "ed". And for example, in the Indonesian language it is not necessary, and even impossible, to change the verb tense. If we take Russian, then we will have to change our the verb “read" not only by tense, but also by gender. If the sentence is about Laura Bush, then we must say “Bush read,” and if Chomsky’s work was mastered by George W. Bush himself, then we will have to say “Bush read.” Moreover, the Russian language changes the verb by aspect, that is, it gives them the opportunity to indicate the completeness or, on the contrary, incompleteness of the action! It is necessary to use different forms of the verb “read”. In Turkish, you are required to include in the verb how exactly you obtained the information. One form applies if you saw with your own eyes how George Bush read Chomsky, and a completely different one if you read about it, heard about it somewhere, and even if George Bush himself told you about it.
Obviously, languages require different things from their speakers. But does this mean that speakers of different languages perceive the world and think about it differently? Do speakers of English, Indonesian, Russian and Turkish differ in the way they pay attention, categorize and remember their experiences simply because they speak different languages? For some scientists, the answer to this question is obvious. They exclaim: just look at the way people speak! There is no doubt that those who speak different languages cannot help but pay attention to different things and encode the same messages differently. Only because the languages are different.
The other side of the barricades, however, does not consider the differences in the manner of speaking to be any convincing. All our linguistic evidence is insufficient and provides only a small part of the information available. The fact that English speakers do not put the same information into a verb as Russian or Turkish speakers does not mean that English speakers do not pay attention to what is relevant for Russian and Turkish speakers. It just means that English speakers don't talk about it. It is quite possible that all the inhabitants of the Earth think the same, notice the same nuances, but talk about them differently.
And those who believe in cross-linguistic differences believe that everyone is unable to respond to the same things in the same way. If this were the case, learning other languages would be easy and enjoyable. Unfortunately, learning a new language (especially one that is far from the ones we know) is never easy. We have to pay attention to a new set that differs from the usual distinctive features. Whether it's the nuances of being in Spanish, evidence in Turkish, or the form of a verb in Russian, learning these languages requires more than cramming a dictionary - close attention to very specific things that allow you to get necessary information and include it in your speech.
These a priori arguments in the debate over whether language shapes thinking have been going around for centuries. Some argued: language cannot help but shape thinking, while others argued: on the contrary, language cannot shape consciousness. Recently, my research group and several others found ways to empirically test key hypotheses in this age-old debate, with astonishing results. Instead of arguing about what should be the truth or cannot be the truth, I propose to establish the truth experimentally.
So, I invite you to Pormpuraau, a small Australian Aboriginal settlement in the north of the continent, off the west coast of Cape York. Let's listen together to how the people speaking the Kuuk Taayorre language determine their location in space. Instead of words common to European languages - left, right, back, forward - defining space relative to the observer, they, like many other indigenous people of Australia, use the terminology of the cardinal directions: north, south, east, west. . Moreover, the names of the cardinal directions are used in all situations, even when “there is an ant sitting on your southeastern leg” or “you need to move the mug a little north-northwest.” This feature has a very obvious consequence: either you constantly navigate the cardinal directions, or you cannot communicate. The usual greeting in the Kuuk Thaayorre language is: “Where are you going?”, and the answer is something like “To the south-southeast, not far.” And if you can’t decide on the cardinal direction, you still won’t get off with a simple “Hello.”
The result is a striking difference in the ability to orientate and conceptualize space between speakers of languages that rely on absolute position in space (for example, Kuuk Thaayorre) and speakers of languages that rely on position of things relative to the speaker (for example, English). Simply put, those who communicates in languages like Kuuk Thaayorre, they navigate space much better than English speakers and track their location, even in unfamiliar places and unknown rooms. And helping them - in fact, forcing them - is nothing more than language. Having trained their attention in a certain way, native speakers of Kuuk Taayorre show results in orientation that seem to be beyond human capabilities. And since space is a fundamental area of thinking, the differences in the way of thinking do not end there. Based on ideas about space, a person builds more complex, more abstract images. Representations of time, number, scale, kinship, morality, and emotions depend on how we imagine space. So if the Kuuk Thaayorre think differently about space, do they think differently about, say, time? To test this hypothesis, my colleague Alice Gaby and I went to Pormpuraau.
So, we conducted an experiment: we gave the subjects sets of pictures that depicted a certain time sequence: for example, a person growing up, a crocodile growing, eating a banana. The subjects’ task was to arrange the pictures in time order. We tested each of them twice, and the purpose of testing was to establish the direction of laying out. If you ask English speakers to lay out a time sequence, they will arrange the cards from past to future, from left to right. Hebrew speakers are more likely to lay out the cards from right to left, indicating that the direction of writing plays an important role here. What about peoples like Thaayorre, who don’t use the words “left” and “right”? What will they do?
Thaayorre was laid out cards from left to right no more often than from right to left, and away from himself no more often than towards himself. But their layout was not random; there was a certain pattern, quite different from the pattern of English speakers. Instead of laying out the images from right to left, they laid them out... from east to west. Thus, if they were sitting facing south, the cards were laid out from left to right, if facing north - from right to left, if facing east - towards themselves, and so on. And this despite the fact that we never told the subjects which way they were sitting. The Thaayorre already knew this (much better than I did), but they also spontaneously used spatial orientation to demonstrate their ideas about time.
A person's ideas about time differ depending on the language in which a person speaks and thinks. English speakers often talk about time using horizontal spatial metaphors (such as “the best is ahead” or “the worst is behind”). But Chinese speakers use vertical metaphors for time (the next month is called the lower month, and the past month is called the upper month). It has been confirmed that Chinese speakers talk about time “vertically” significantly more often than English speakers. But does this mean that Chinese speakers are significantly more likely to think about time “vertically” than English speakers? Let's conduct a simple thought experiment. I stand opposite you, point to a certain point in space and say: “This point is today. Where would you locate tomorrow?” When answering this question, English speakers almost always place “tomorrow” on a horizontal line with “today.” However, Chinese speakers often point vertically: seven to eight times more often than English speakers.
Even basic aspects of perception can be influenced by language. For example, English speakers prefer to talk about time in terms of length (“short conversation”, “our meeting took a long time”), while Spanish and Greek speakers use terms of quantity: “a lot of time”, “a lot of time”, “a little time”, not long or short. Our study of such a basic cognitive ability as estimating the duration of an event demonstrates that subjects speaking different languages also differ in parameters related to the metaphors of their native language. (For example, when asked to judge duration, English-speaking subjects are more easily confused by information that is related to distance: for example, if a longer line lingers on the screen longer than a shorter one. However, Greek-speaking subjects are more easily confused by the magnitude criterion when The fuller container stays longer on the screen.
An important question then arises: are these differences caused precisely by the language of communication or by some other aspect of culture? Of course, the fates of people who speak English, Chinese, Greek, Spanish and Kuuk Taayorre differ in myriad aspects and nuances. How do we know that it is language that creates differences in their thinking, and not some other cultural aspect?
There is only one way to answer this question: teach an experimental group a new language and explore how the new knowledge affected their thinking. In our laboratory, native English speakers are taught techniques for describing time that are characteristic of other languages. In one such study, English-speaking subjects were trained to use size metaphors (as in Greek), or "vertical" metaphors to describe duration (as in Greek, where jokes like "the film is as long as snot" are common) to describe the passage of time, as in Chinese. Since English speakers learned to talk about time in these metaphors, their cognitive system has become similar to that of Chinese speakers or Greek speakers. This suggests that language patterns may play a causal role in the creation of mental constructs. In practice, this means that by learning a new language, we gain not only new way express ourselves, but we are gradually mastering a new way of thinking. Aside from abstract concepts like space and time, languages differ profoundly even in basic aspects of visual perception, such as color descriptions. The palette differs markedly among different languages. Some languages have significantly more color names than others, and the classification of colors often does not coincide, and the boundaries of color designations in different languages do not intersect.
To test how differences in color terminology lead to differences in color perception, we compared the ability of Russian and English speakers to distinguish shades of the color blue. In Russian there is no one word that would designate that set of shades that English speakers call "blue." Any Russian clearly distinguishes blue and cyan colors, while for the British these are lighter and darker shades of the same blue. Does this distinction mean that “blue” shades of blue are easier for Russian speakers to separate from “blue” shades than for speakers of other languages? Yes, experience shows that this is exactly the case. Russian speakers quickly distinguish between their blue and goluy, which are called different words in Russian, than English speakers, who call all these shades in one word: “blue”. The British do not demonstrate any difference in reaction time.
Subsequently, the advantage of the Russian language disappeared because the subjects were asked to perform a verbal interference task (in parallel with color discrimination, read aloud a string of numbers). But when the intervention was not verbal, but spatial (memorizing a certain visual pattern), Russian-speaking subjects retained their advantage. The loss of advantage when performing verbal interference indicates that it is speech, verbal behavior, that is involved in the most basic judgments of perception - and language itself creates a difference in perception between native speakers of Russian and English.
When Russian-speaking subjects do not have normal access to speech while performing a verbal interference task, significant differences between Russian and English speakers disappear.
Even linguistic nuances that seem insignificant at first glance have far-reaching effects on our perception of the world. Let's take grammatical gender. In Spanish and other Romance languages, nouns are either feminine or masculine. Many other languages divide nouns into several different genders (grammatical gender in this context would mean something like class or type). For example, some Australian languages have sixteen genders, including the classes of hunting weapons, canines, luminous things, or - remember the famous book by cognitive linguist George Lakoff - "women, fire and dangerous things."
What does it mean for a language to have a gender category? First of all, this implies that words related to different kinds, are grammatically inflected differently, but words belonging to the same gender are grammatically inflected in the same way. Language requirements can change the genders of pronouns, endings of adverbs and verbs, participles, numerals, and so on. Let me give you this example: to say in Russian “my chair was old,” that is, “my chair was old,” you must bring the pronoun, the verb, and the adjective into agreement with the masculine gender of the noun “chair.” That is, use the words “my”, “was”, “old” - words of the masculine gender. In the masculine gender one should also speak about a living male creature, for example: my grandfather was old. And if, instead of talking about a chair, we mention a bed, which is feminine in Russian, or about your grandmother, then we will have to use the feminine gender: mine, was, old.
Is it possible that the masculine gender of the word “chair” and the feminine gender of the word “bed” make Russian speakers perceive chairs as somewhat similar to men, and beds as somewhat similar to women? It turns out yes. In one of our studies, we asked German-speaking and Spanish-speaking subjects to describe objects that were classified as different genders in German and Spanish. And what? The resulting descriptions varied according to grammatical gender. For example, when describing a key—a word that is masculine in German and feminine in Spanish—German speakers chose epithets like “hard,” “heavy,” “jagged,” “iron,” “bearded,” and “useful.” At the same time, Spanish speakers preferred adjectives like “golden,” “artsy,” “small,” “cute,” “shiny,” and “tiny.” To describe the bridge, feminine in German and masculine in Spanish, German speakers used the words “beautiful”, “elegant”, “fragile”, “peaceful”, “graceful”, “slender”, and Spanish speakers: “big” , “dangerous”, “long”, “mighty”, “heavy”, “towering”. Even if the survey was conducted in English, a language without a gender category, the overall picture remained the same. The results were also confirmed on non-linguistic tasks, in particular, on the search for similarities between two drawings. Thus, it should be recognized that aspects of language themselves influence the way native speakers think. Teaching English-speaking subjects new grammatical gender systems affects the representation of certain objects to the same extent as this training affects German-speaking and Spanish-speaking subjects. Obviously, even the slightest grammatical accidents, such as the arbitrary assignment of one gender or another to a noun, can affect ideas about completely specific objects
There is no need to confirm this effect in the laboratory; just look with your own eyes at, say, a fine art gallery. Look at personifications, that is, the ways in which abstract concepts: death, sin, victory, time - were given a human image. How does an artist determine what gender death or time should be? As it turned out, in 85% of cases he does not have to choose; the gender of an abstract concept is predetermined by its grammatical gender in the artist’s language. For example, German artists more often depict death in a male form, in contrast to Russians, who are more inclined to paint death as a woman.
The very fact that grammatical features such as gender can influence our thought processes is mind-boggling. And how persistent are these quirks: for example, grammatical gender affects all nouns, and therefore influences the way native speakers think about everything that can be denoted by nouns. That is, about all objects of the visible and invisible world!
I gave several examples of how language shapes our ideas about space, time, colors and objects. Other studies focus on how language affects the interpretation of events, the perception of cause-and-effect relationships, concentration, awareness of physical reality, the feeling and experience of emotions, expectations of others, risk-taking behavior, and even the choice of profession or spouse. . Taken together, these results demonstrate that linguistic processes invade fundamental areas of consciousness, unconsciously leading us from basic concepts of perception and cognition to the most sublime abstract constructs and life-changing decisions. Speech occupies a central position in our experience of human existence, and the language we speak creates the ways of our thinking, worldview, and being.
“Man has always thought about the word, his own speech, his native language. Already in ancient times, they studied the arrangement of words, their meanings, and the secrets of their connections. Today, a very simplified view of the role of language in the life of society prevails - language is considered only a means of communication, an instrument for transmitting information. In accordance with this understanding, it does not matter at all what language to use, what language to speak, as long as it is sufficiently widespread and information-rich. This approach to understanding the role of language is very narrow and stems from ignorance of the nature of language. Yes, language arose from the needs of communication and serves the exchange of information” - F.N. Fatklist.
Quite a serious and good idea by the Tatar scientist F.N. Fatklistova relies on the stereotypical template of the “Big Bang Theory” and the teachings of Darwin. Language like the Sun, Moon, Earth, Man, the animal and plant world did not arise on their own. They are born. The Mari language specifically says - yilme shochyn” (the language was born), mlande shochyn (the earth was born), keche shochyn (the sun was born). There is no such phrase in the Mari language that it arose, the language was born, it has ancestors - the demigods Surt Yumo.
In ancient mythology, Apollo is considered the Olympian god of prophecy and oracles, healing, plague and disease, music, song, poetry, archery and protection of the young. He was born on the island of Delos, where his mother Leto ended up by accident, driven by the jealous goddess Hera, who forbade her to set foot on solid ground.
Aten in the ancient Egyptian story “The Tale of Sinuhe” describes the deceased king as a god rising to heaven. He was depicted as a solar disk with rays extending from it, which ended in the hands.
In Mari cosmogony and cosmology significant place occupies Shnui On - Kuryk Kugyza, Ir Keche, Porlemdruk - these are his names. This was customary in ancient times - a person elevated to the rank of gods received many names. Note. People who lived in different countries, in different periods, and the words end in “he” - Aten, Apollo, Shnui On. Greek language, according to Wikipedia, does not allow us to reveal the etymology of the name Apollo. The Mari language very easily reveals the meaning and essence of names:
Apollo - "He"- this is a warrior, a leader, "apal" (apol)- stray, stranger. And how can they avoid being a stranger, a stray on a foreign island, this is how the aborigines always perceive a new arrival on their territory.
Aten - his full name sounds like Ra-Horus. His name was the light of the solar disk and people, praying and rejoicing, raised their hands to the Sun and perceived and were filled with the energy of the Sun. Aten - "He"- warrior, leader, "and those"- this is a vessel, volume, capacity. The word is associated with storage utensils. This is confirmed by the word “Athlete”, which sounds like “Athlon” in Greek - "he" + "ate". Literally, an Athlete is a voluminous, healthy warrior.
People raised their hands to the Sun, meditated, perceived energy - yumylten smile- practiced transcendental meditation.
In the 1930s in America, a fire department employee published his discovery, which indicates that the structure of language determines the structure of thinking and the way of knowing the outside world. Having studied the Navaja language well, he saw that there are no adjectives as a special part of speech. Instead, a verb is used and they are very complex, carrying rich lexical and grammatical information, i.e. there is a description of the world through action. In reality, these people are on the move, in continuous movement and currently lead a nomadic lifestyle. It is concluded that language influences thinking and acts as a co-organizer of the lifestyle and behavior of society.
Opening the Russian-Chechen dictionary in the library, I felt trembling and excitement in my hands, knowing the mentality of the Chechens, I wanted to see in this ancient language an alphabet that covered the huge sound-background spectrum of the Universe (15 vowels and 32 consonants). At the end of the verb form the yu-segment sound "ar" meaning "decency, conscience and decency."
Reading the verbal forms of words in the Chechen language
Hukhar - cutting down (action)
Aradalar - exit (action)
Khyehar - training
Dogar - embroidery
Kechdar - preparation,
I felt that feeling of excitement and creative satisfaction that probably all researchers experienced. The Chechen language completely assured me of the correctness of my thoughts and confirmed the Sapir-Whorfe hypothesis that the structure of language determines the structure of thinking.
After this, one should not be surprised at the heroism, resilience, and courage of the Chechen people; they are coded by the demigods for military valor and courage. This is a warrior people, they are defenders of honor, conscience, dignity, shame - the foundations of Divine Love. On their side is Truth - Ash, the basic basis of cosmofundamentalism. If the Navaja language dictates the movement of the people, then the verbal form of the Chechen language ending in "ar" directs the people to achieve and establish honor, conscience and dignity. It would be incomplete to ignore the Farsi language - an ancient language that is represented in modern times by the Tajik language.
Tajik words-verbs
go - raftan
sleep - shobratan
stand - tall
give - dodan
ends with yu-sound information segment "an" (eng), meaning something narrow: a neck in a container, a hole in things, a passage, an entrance. After this, is it any wonder that the Fergana Valley is the most densely populated place in the world, about “rubber apartments” in Moscow, where many Tajiks live comfortably in one room.
The structure of the Tajik language is coded for the mindset of having many friends, relatives, children and living as one friendly family, even in a limited “eng” space. Having revealed the meaning of the words of the verbal form of the Chechen and Tajik languages and the significance of the names of the ancient gods from the perspective of the Mari language, the question involuntarily arises: where does the Mari language lead the Mari and the people as a whole and where does their thinking direct?
The verb form of the Mari language all ends with "ash" (puash, nalash, malash), meaning “truth”, i.e. to God the Truth (Ash Yumo). The Mari language is the most ancient language of Europe - a divine gift to humanity. The language itself encodes and encrypts the Knowledge of the Universe and about the Universe, about God, about the meaning of life and about life itself, incarnation, the evolution of the Soul and about essence. The Mari words are collected very simply and are easy to understand, just as in school chemistry we understand that matter consists of several dozen chemical elements from which all the diversity of the material phenomenal manifested world is collected.
All words of the Mari language are collected in agglutinative form from “yu” - sound information segments:
Ash - memory, truth
Al - goodness
Il - divine light
Ir - natural, wild
Ar - conscience
Shu - health
Kut - presence of the soul
ӧрт - self-control, the totality of Reason and Consciousness
sham - consciousness
or - fortress, center
ak - value
and others, which are collected no more than chemical elements in nature.
See what it looks like in real life:
- ilash(live) is assembled from two segments: "silt"(divine light) and "ash"(true). Please note that this word gives a specific answer about the meaning of life, why man appeared on earth - to cognize the “divine light - the truth.”
A restless person, all in motion, in search, and again the Mari word “oshkylash” (movement) reveals and indicates why a person was born and where to move in life.
- oshkylash: “osho”(enlightened), "kyl"(connection), "ash"(true). The Word instructs that all our thoughts, all our movements should be directed towards the enlightened truth, towards God - Ash Yumo.
Mari word "she R" means "warrior of heroic strength." You notice that the u-segment is used for the warrior "ar" which is inherent in the Chechen language of the verbal form. But in the Mari the word is used in a noun form to denote a warrior-hero. Unfortunately, I don’t know the Chechen language, but I noticed that Chechen nouns end in “ash”, which means truth in the Mari language:
Donkey - var-r-ash
Mountain - lamnash
Window - korash
All foreign words: dumbbells (gantelash), dumplings (galnash), cutlets (kotletash) - are edged with a block "ash"(true), which I probably assume means “kotletash” (truly cutlet), “nardash” (truly backgammon). This thought already takes us to the theory of metalanguage, discovered by the Polish mathematician Alfred Tarski, that “evaluating the truth of statements about objects is the privilege of metalanguage.” In this connection, I remind you that the entire verbal form of Mari words, and the Chechen noun form ends in the yu-segment of the sound information block "ash"(truth) and fit well into Al. Tarski’s theory of metalanguage. Translation of the very meaning of the word "shomak" (shamak) means that the words themselves are valuable consciousness ( sham- consciousness, ak- value) and they carry an energetic divine charge.
The morphology and phonetics of the Mari hieratic form of the language are inscribed and immanent in the Universal vortex yu-flow, in which the runo-philological information structure is implied, which consists, judging by the Mari metalanguage, of deterministic dominant divine quantities “shu”, “sher”, “al”, “ash”, “ir”, “sham” etc.
Language develops while it functions, i.e. as long as it is used by native speakers. It follows from this that each linguistic personality constantly, at every moment of communication unconsciously participates in the development of the language of which she is a native speaker.
Thinking for yourself
Let’s say that some native speaker of the Russian language decided, “in the English manner,” not to deafen the final voiced consonants in his Russian speech. Will this enterprise of “linguistic fiction” succeed? Obviously not: this will require the speaker not only the impossible - constant monitoring of pronunciation, but also breaking his articulatory base.
Surely you have noticed that the word term is pronounced differently: [t"e]rmin or [te]rmin. Undoubtedly, you will evaluate the first pronunciation as normative, corresponding to the modern orthoepic norm, and the second as non-normative, incorrect. Meanwhile, the firm pronunciation [ t]ermin, according to our observations, in last years spread in the speech of the young Russian-speaking generation.
With your personal pronunciation of a particular word, you contribute to the development of the language, determining either the preservation of the norm, or its weakening, and possibly its future change. It is important that the speaker himself does not think at all not only about such “global” consequences of his pronunciation error, but even about How he pronounces this word.
You have the right to object: all these examples are from the field of phonetics, and our phonetic skills are as automated and subconscious as possible.
The results of observations of the phonetic side of language allow scientists to talk about spontaneity, spontaneity or unconsciousness of the laws of language development. This is confirmed by turning to other aspects of language, even to such a “conscious” level as vocabulary. There are known, for example, the failed attempts of V. I. Dahl or, in our days, A. I. Solzhenitsyn to rid the Russian language of borrowings => [Ch. 14, p. 577-578]. In this regard, it is appropriate to recall the words of Wilhelm Humboldt, who talked a lot and interestingly about the development of language and the role of man in this process: “How insignificant is the power of an individual before the mighty power of language.”
So, an individual person, constantly unconsciously participating in the change and development of language, is not able to consciously influence the direction of language development. But society, represented by some of the most creative and authoritative representatives, writers and linguists, and relying on such public institutions as school, scientific institutions, the media, has great potential.
Excursion into history
An interesting example of such a conscious and successful intervention is the history of the Czech language in the 19th century, associated with the activities of the so-called “awakeners” - scientists and public figures who saw their goal not only in awakening national consciousness and liberation from centuries-old Germanization of culture and language, but and in specific actions for language improvement. They actually managed to replace Czech language many German (and not only German) borrowings are actually Slavic words, for example: bayonet - bodak, storm - utok, storm - Boure, calm - bezvetn, plug - zasuvka and so on.
All linguists, however, agree that the intervention of society is still limited to normalizing activities => [Ch. 15, p. 618] and the implementation of a certain language policy in a difficult language situation => [Ch. 16, p. 664-666]. In addition, it can only be successful if the general trends and laws of language development are correctly taken into account.
Well aware of the impossibility of completely controlling the development of language as a natural sign system, linguists
Russian scientists will choose so-called “culture-specific linguistic expressions” such as the Russian word avos. Using the example of such “untranslatable” words and expressions, they will trace how speakers of different languages and representatives of different cultures convey their experience of understanding reality. Since not only individual words have cultural characteristics, but also facial expressions, gestures, and eye movements, studies of this kind fit into a broad semiotic context.
Scientists of the Moscow Pedagogical state university and some other educational organizations won a grant from the Russian Science Foundation to conduct a comparative study of cultures through language analysis, jointly with Taiwanese scientists. The grant is designed for 2016-18. and involves funding in the amount of 6 million rubles per year from the Russian side, Taiwanese scientists will work at the expense of the Ministry of Science and Technology of Taiwan. On the Taiwanese side, the Center for Brain, Mind and Learning is taking part in the project. National University Zhengzhi (Research Center for Mind, Brain and Learning, National Chengchi University RCMBL, NCCU).
Are language and consciousness connected?
“In line with the scientific discussion initiated by the German philosopher Wilhelm von Humboldt, we start from the idea of a certain connection between language and the picture of the world recorded in a given language. This idea, which still causes controversy and needs experimental verification, was in the era of romanticism commonplace“says Dmitry Dobrovolsky, head of a team of linguist-researchers at Moscow State Pedagogical University within the framework of this project, “According to Humboldt’s ideas, the speaker constructs his statement not so much by putting a ready-made thought into a linguistic form, but by constructing a thought with the help of language. Perceiving this message, the listener does not “unpack” other people’s thoughts, but, speaking modern language, activates the corresponding conceptual structures in his consciousness. From the position about the connection between language and thinking, the position about the active role of specific languages in the formation of a model of the world or “linguistic worldview,” as Humboldt called it, naturally follows. If language initially takes part in the generation of thought, thought cannot be free from the corresponding linguistic expression. Since every language conceptualizes the world in its own way, in a unique way, thoughts formulated in different languages cannot be completely identical.”
The literature describes cases in which people who are fluent in two languages (bilinguals) feel that they need to “translate themselves.” For example, Russian emigrants in the USA have difficulty with the expression I miss you, which does not fully correspond to the English I miss you. In the same way, when a mother says to her teenage son, who has had various troubles, I feel sorry for you, poor thing, she expresses a meaning that she could not express in English. Everything that can be said in English in such a situation (I’m sorry for you or You poor thing) differs in meaning and feeling from what the Russian word pity expresses.
Particularly interesting is the difference between the Russian phrases Don't be angry!, Don't be offended! and English Don’t be angry. For the English-speaking public, the sentences Don’t be mad/angry and Don’t be upset/offended sound like accusations of inappropriate behavior; they do not have the goal of making amends for some unpleasant incident and returning positive feelings. In Russia the phrases Don't be angry!, Don't be offended! - these are traditional means for maintaining close relationships, they interpret the behavior of the one to whom they are addressed as resentment and excessive reaction (pouting and overreacting) and imply that the person is too sensitive and even unreasonable (unreasonable).
It is difficult for people who do not live in the English-speaking world to imagine what a huge role the Don’t be unreasonable script plays in the lives of people living in the English-speaking world. It is based on an attempt to positively influence the emotional state of the partner. In Russian, a similar effect is produced by the phrases Don’t be angry!, Don’t sulk! They work in a similar way impersonal constructions with the words sorry, sorry, offensive, annoying, sad or unclear (why), which seem to express not only the thoughts and feelings of the speaker, but are also intended to positively influence the emotional state of the listener.
“Now the debate has resumed whether language influences thinking and, if so, to what extent,” comments MPGU professor linguist Alexey Shmelev, “But it can be considered established that some ideas about the world are suggested to us by the language we speak. Thus, for Russian speakers it seems almost obvious that people think with their heads and feel with their hearts. Lost in thought, we may scratch our heads, but when we become worried, we clutch at our hearts. And only by getting acquainted with other languages that paint a different picture of the participation of bodily organs in mental life, we can realize that these ideas are suggested to us by the peculiarities of the behavior of the words head and heart in the Russian language. It is interesting that for carriers Chinese language thoughts and good feelings are concentrated in the heart, and bad feelings are concentrated in the stomach.”
Professor Shmelev believes that the problem of “national character” is generally difficult to consider, because if in the case of the thinking of one person the subject is understandable, and it is possible to change his reactions to certain words (for example, eye movements while reading or pronouncing them), then speak It’s difficult to talk about the “psychology of the people”: who is the subject, the bearer of this phenomenon? Where is it represented materially?
At the same time, our language records a generally accepted practice: for example, the expression “snack” suggests that a Russian person is inclined to have an intimate conversation after drinking alcohol and does not want to immediately plunge into a state of intoxication. While an American, for example, is inclined to drink quickly and start dancing. And there is practically no analogue to the word “snack” in English. Thus, the language fixes certain approaches, ways of understanding the situation and attitude towards the process of drinking together, which should turn into a conversation about life.
After Russian scientists select and analyze difficult-to-translate Russian expressions, their Taiwanese colleagues will track how native Chinese speakers learning Russian master these expressions. There will also be comparative analysis eye movements of Russian and Chinese readers of Russian text with culturally specific expressions (we are talking about Taiwanese studying Russian).
In this project, translation analysis is aimed at solving linguistic, semiotic and cultural problems. Numerous scientific experiments have demonstrated that thinking is to some extent determined by language. Usage modern instruments analysis will allow us to understand which aspects of meaning indicate the cultural specificity displayed by the languages being compared. In addition, the functioning of translation as a type of intercultural communication, the influence of the native Chinese language on learning Russian, and students’ understanding of culturally specific linguistic expressions of the target language will be studied.
As a result, scientists will identify culturally significant information that remains unexplicit in the original text and is discovered only when it is compared with the translation, as well as implicit information that appears in the translated text and turns out to be relevant for comparing the corresponding cultures.
Based on the results of the study, Russians will be able to better understand their culture and language, and residents of Taiwan will be able to assess the extent to which they have mastered the most difficult to translate expressions of the Russian language. Thus, representatives of our countries will be able to better understand each other and their culturally specific characteristics.
“The comparative study of cultures should use objective data as widely as possible and, first of all, the results of independent linguistic analysis. As a rule, studies of this kind focus on a limited number of “untranslatable” or difficult-to-translate linguistic units, which are considered as “keys” to some features of the culture served by the corresponding language,” says the head of the department of theory of language and English studies at the Institute of Linguistics and Intercultural Communication of Moscow State University, Dr. Philological Sciences, Professor Georgy Teymurazovich Khukhuni, “At the same time, the very concept of “untranslatability,” being generally intuitive, does not receive a definition that would allow it to be quantified; Thus, the assessment of the “degree of untranslatability” remains subjective.
“This project is close to the topic of our current research within the framework of the RFBR grant. Using EEG, we study the perception of bilinguals of pairs of Russian and English words that are similar in sound or meaning,” comments Nikolai Novitsky, senior researcher at the Center for Cognitive Research at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, “Bilingualism is a very relevant topic in modern psycholinguistics. To be convinced of this, just look at the materials of the most important scientific conferences in this area, such as AMLAP (Architectures and mechanism for language processing) and the annual meeting of the Society for the neurobiology of language. However, I do not completely agree with the authors’ position on the relationship between language and thought, which is formulated by the categorical statement that “numerous scientific experiments have demonstrated that thinking is largely determined by language.” This concept, also known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, is far from universally accepted in science and, in its extreme form of linguistic determinism, has been empirically refuted (the famous Inuit snow names debate). In popular form, the arguments against the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, including experimental evidence, are summarized in Steven Pinker's book The Stuff of Thought. Of course, the connection between language and culture is undeniable, but we should rather talk about the influence of language on culture, and not vice versa. Ultimately, the very possibility of translation - with the rare exception of “untranslatable” expressions that interested the authors - speaks of the universality of the language as a whole.”
