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Mark's Soap Box, Part III
MANDARIN AND TURKISH WARP TIME AND SPACE.
First, if you haven’t read the first two message of this series, this will make a little more sense if you find messages 44976 and 45051, which are parts 1, and 2, respectively.
In Western Culture, we often we think of ourselves as flowing forward in time, so we’ll imagine that the past is behind us and the future ahead. I was shocked to learn that this wasn’t universal. When I took Chinese, I learned that the past is up and the future is down. This is connecting to the Chinese writing system which, classically, was top to bottom.
Mandarin Chinese and Turkish have a very interesting thing in common (I have a theory that since Mongolia and China are neighbors, and since Mongolian and Turkish are both Altaic languages, that that, strangely, makes Mandarin and Turkish distant cousins as languages). Rather than moving words around, as we do in most European languages, to indicate that a question is being formed, Turkish and Chinese leave the word order exactly as it is, and simply pop a particle in at the end of a sentence that simply says, “this is a question” Oddly, the question particle is the same, both in Turkish and Mandarin: “Ma”
Imagine if we started asking questions like that:
“You are fourteen years old ma?”
“I left my black shoes where?” (No particle required when a question word is used).
Again, it’s a different way of thinking about language, and it will affect how I conceptualize thoughts.
Concepts of “this” and “that” also vary quite a bit from language to language. In the USA, we only care if something is near me or not near me. In many European countries, there are also gender issues, and very often a third option that distinguishes “that” over “there” out of my reach from that down the road beyond my range of vision. Turkish does this also.
But what I love most about Turkish: There is no gender. This blew my mind. The U.S.A.’s National Organization of Women might want to consider this. Turkish has no words for “him” and “her”, “he” and “she.” There is no difference between an actor and an actress, a waiter and a waitress, a director and a directrix. Here’s this wonderful “backward” (in our arrogant USA viewpoint) middle-eastern country (and of course we love to put Middle Eastern countries down here in the U.S. because we claim Muslim people have no respect for women.) But we must face the fact that our language is still very sexist and theirs has never been. What do you think of that?
So clearly, there are many ways in which language molds our thinking, and my most important reason for speaking many languages is to develop a broader variety of thinking skills.
Next time, What’s OUR problem in the U.S.A?
Mark Springer
Sacramento, CA, USA
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Language pair: English; All
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Mark S.
February 16, 2005
# Msgs: 28
Latest: February 27, 2005
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Re:Mark's Soap Box, Part II
By the way: For those of you who are puzzling about where Part I was at, I neglected to put it in the right place. If you go and read message 44976, then this one might make a little more sense.
Sorry about the confusion!
Mark Springer
Sacramento, CA
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Language pair: English; All
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Mark S.
February 16, 2005
# Msgs: 28
Latest: February 27, 2005
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Mark's Soap Box, Part II
Expanding the Mind through cultural mobility
Last time, I promised to talk about how differences in language can shape the way we think. Consider this:
In Mandarin Chinese, there are no articles, a, an, or the. There are no plurals/singular distinctions in words. On the other hand, they have special measure words that have to be used. They work very much like measuring units work in English: Imagine we all spoke like this:
There are three each man standing outside…
Hey, can I borrow couple sheet paper from you?
I need to buy tube pants.
The difference may seem subtle, but when, over time, you have to memorize up to a hundred and twenty measure words and keep track of which nouns use which measure word (and sometimes the same noun may mean different things depending on which measure word is used), it gives you a linguistic perspective that is very different from, well, different from what I grew up with speaking English.
A great many of you, of course, are familiar with this issue of gendered nouns. Those of us who grew up speaking English (or, I would guess, Mandarin Chinese, and a good many other languages) have a terrible time keeping track of what’s feminine and what’s masculine. And then, in German, we have to deal with neuter nouns too! If we are trying to learn many languages, like French, the gender (and associated articles, adjectives, etc) may end up following the word used, even if the word is referring to a person of the other gender.
“My father was tha victimess (a female word for my father) of a horrible crime.”
This sentence will just blow an American’s mind.
Next time, Mandarin and Turkish warp time and space
Mark Springer
Sacramento, CA, USA
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Language pair: English; All
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Mark S.
February 15, 2005
# Msgs: 28
Latest: February 27, 2005
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Wow! Or, Mark goes off on a Loooong journey
Wow, what a thought provoking topic. Thank you to Dawn, Cameron, and Puti for your thoughts on this huge subject. It has had me ruminating and thinking all evening. I can’t put everything in a 3000 word message, so, just in case anyone’s interested, I’m going to start a serial here, and post a section every evening for as long as it takes (so far, something like I week, I’m guessing, unless someone tells me to shut up). I hope people will correct me, question me, reply, or whatever. I hope I come up with something that gets other people thinking too. This topic has really grabbed me.
I have always been and will always be a fervent advocate of multilingualism (not bi-lingual, multi-lingual.) I have taken two years each of formal Spanish and Mandarin courses. I’ve also taken shorter “crash courses” through the military in German and Turkish. On top of that, I’ve dabbled in at least six other languages. I remember being in Israel the year I graduated from High School, on a study program including students from thirteen countries all over the world. Students from non-English-Speaking countries spoke a minimum of five languages, and a friend of mine from Mexico spoke eight languages fluently. I never had a more vivid awareness of what I was missing by having grown up in a linguistically isolated country like the U.S.
Of course, there are all of the great advantages of broadening your horizons, of extending the range of your flexibility to move in different social environments. But something that becomes more and more clear to me now, with four languages under my belt, is something Puti alludes to in his comments:
In the post modern world, we are becoming more and more aware of how much language shapes the way we see the world, how we think, how we analyze, how we solve problems. The more I learn, the more I see how this can be so. I’ll show you some examples in my next installment.
Mark Springer
Sacramento, CA, USA
Normal member
Speaking: English, Spanish
Studying: Spanish, Portuguese
Studied: German, Turkish, Mandarin Chinese
Played with: Russian, Hebrew, Latin, Tagalog, French, Sign language
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Language pair: English; All
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Mark S.
February 15, 2005
# Msgs: 1
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Re:a second language?
I think it is very hard to make a truly universal language, as there are so many different concepts and thinking patterns in the world. An universal language would be very large and hard to learn, unless somebody finds a really clever way to design it. It is a good idea that there are many different languages, as each of them is adapted to different way of thinking, and is small enough to be mastered. Together the languages cover a large spectrum of cultures.
There has been attempts to make an universal language; Esperanto and Novial are good examples. However, these languages are "universal" only in the Western world. A better universal language would consider at least African and Asian speakers, too.
Puti
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Language pair: English; German
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Juha-Petri T.
February 14, 2005
# Msgs: 28
Latest: February 27, 2005
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Re:Do you want to share ideas about nationalism?( not propaganda!)
> do you agree Einstein's statement:
> "Nationalism is a childhood disease of
> humanity"?
>
I agree that nationalism, in its negative
sense, is a disease of humanity, and I
wonder, if mere passing of time would
cure it.
I believe that if people love their
cultural heritage, they will survive as
a culture without any nationalistic
ideologies or campaigns.
Puti
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Language pair: French; English
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Juha-Petri T.
January 20, 2005
# Msgs: 1
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Re:GOD
> I do believe in God and you? Why?
>
I do. Even if there were no God
manifesting Himself to us, I still think
we would desperately need God.
We think many things are important and
valuable, but what is left of them after
a million years? Are there any sustained
values without God?
People need to be loved, and true love
should not have a date of expiry. Only
God can make our love to last.
People are skilful in creating hellish
things, but it takes God to make Heaven.
We need God, whether we are able to
believe in Him or not.
Puti
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Language pair: English; All
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Juha-Petri T.
January 20, 2005
# Msgs: 1
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To Alana Brown.
Hello, I'm interested to improve my english too, and I speak fluenty French. I'd like speak to you about everything, because I want, i need to leave Europe.
If you are still interested, send me an answer. See you.
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Language pair: English; French
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Marga R.
June 1, 2004
# Msgs: 1
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Re:Well, hell o, HUMANS
Actually there are plenty of people who work with and help pennyless people all over the world. So don't exaggerate.
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Language pair: English; Italian
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Franco
April 30, 2004
# Msgs: 1
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Jambo ( Hi - In Swahili)
Hi everybody,
I have been a regular member for a while and i recently upgraded to Gold. I like the whole idea of clossing the gap of race , gender,age by making comminication thru languaege exchange the purpose of this site. I have met lots of nice pple and
i am learning French and spanish slowly.
Interested in Swahili ??
Let me know.
Ken
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Language pair: Swahili; English
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Ken T.
December 31, 2003
# Msgs: 2
Latest: March 5, 2005
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