• Benj96
    2.3k
    In English we use a lot of definitive phrases; perhaps more than any other language. What I mean by this is we use “Am” or the “being form” for an enormous repertoire of categorically different qualities about people, places and things. For example; I am tall. I am sad. I am thoughtful. I am here, I am with someone etc etc. So we use “am” for physical and mental traits plus location and relationship with other things. We even use it in conjunction with action verbs “I am + doing”.

    In other languages the addition of “to be” and “to do” is less exaggerated as maybe they believe to “do” is a form of “to be” and perhaps vice versa, therefore doesn’t have to be reiterated. Instead of “I am going” it’s more equivalent to “I going” or “I currently go”

    Also in other languages we express these same sentiments with the possessive verb “to have” or the action verb “To do”. In Spanish you’re are not sad but rather you possess sadness at this time. I believe this is more accurate than English because literal interpretation of English would be that “you are your mental state” “I am sadness” “my definition is sad” rather than “sadness is a temporary state that I - a being in its own right -have/are experiencing right now”.

    These subtle differences in the use of our most common verbs must have a profound effect on our perspective or understanding of the world between cultures. Again in English “the weather is hot” but in many other languages “the weather is acting/doing/making hot”.

    What I’m getting at here is the overlap between doing and being and the difference between transient or temporary states and permanent states. should a permanent state “be” and transient states “do”? Should the only thing that really “is” be the universe whilst all thing internal to it are possessive qualities “acts the universe has, does or makes?”

    For example we know that in English we say “you are pretty” or “you are blond”. We consider these as “am” traits being something relatively static and permanent throughout some period of time. But we know from biology that the state of being blond is a four stage cycle that constantly occurs in the hair follicle - and that being pretty requires bone formation and destruction production of elastin in the skin, Replication and división and repair, immune responses to invaders the list goes on. So these “states” are really the sum of thousands of actions or “doing states”

    But we would never say you are doing pretty or you are making blond when really that’s the most accurate biological description of the activity.

    I would like to see a language that tackles doing and being as one in the same thing and see how it discerns it’s world. Would this language simplify things or complicate them? Would it be a more effective language for science? How would we discriminate the act from the object? Would it be more convenient to consider all things as acts or all things as “being” and is “being” “doing”?
  • BitconnectCarlos
    2.2k
    When learning a new language I try not to judge how "correct" that language is (i.e. how it matches up to my understanding of the world) and instead I just try to immerse myself in the mindset of that language. In any case, I think part of the purpose of language is just to make functioning easier - it's not always to describe every phenomenon 100% in its entirety. English speakers should all be aware that being blonde or a child being tall are impermanent states this usually doesn't need to be outright stated. I speak Russian too and it's the same thing in Russian. It's cool that Spanish has its own take on that, but again, I try not to denigrate another language for being "wrong."
  • Gregory
    4.7k
    I don't think humans are completely bound by their languages. They can find some way to express or at least think of ideas that are difficult in their language
  • Jamal
    9.6k
    These subtle differences in the use of our most common verbs must have a profound effect on our perspective or understanding of the world between cultures.Benj96

    I think you need to argue for this or cite the research. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is very controversial.

    What I find a bit more plausible is that while these differences don't result in profoundly different ways of understanding the world in ordinary life, they do result in different ways of doing philosophy in the different languages, an example of philosophers being led astray by language in the way that Wittgenstein described. If he was right, we should in principle be able to discern differences in philosophy from different countries and map them to such linguistic differences as the ones you describe: being/having, being/doing, and so on. I don't know if there's any research into that.
  • Gregory
    4.7k
    Wasn't it Heirider or some name like that who at the time of the French Revolution said that the German language excluded concepts like Liberty, Equality, Fraternity? I use to think to myself "what would it matter if I learned German and read the original Hegel? After all, I would have the same concepts, right? I would simply now be gaining my ideas via a new arrangement of sounds and images in my head." I've been told I was wrong. Maybe I wasnt making proper linguistic leaps when I thought like that; and maybe Nietzsche was right when he wrote that Hegel was the most German of philosophers because from Hegel the German cadences rolled from the pen
  • Gregory
    4.7k
    What if I spoke in English "I'm willing to exercise restraint if it will hurt their cause". Does it mean you want this certain cause to feel the hurt or not? It's ambiguous because the sentence doesn't have a context. Yet even with a context of could be see how it could be unambiguous. So you need more than common sense to understand what someone meant if they said that. You need a cosmic context
  • Kermode
    1
    Most linguists will agree that no language is entirely accurate in conveying meaning. Case in point, many languages have words for things, both concrete and abstract, that others do not. This then means it may be necessary at times to struggle to express one's ideas. However, I agree with Gregory that it is still possible. I personally do research on humor, cross-linguistically. Now there's carrying water in a basket!
  • T Clark
    13.7k
    In English we use a lot of definitive phrases; perhaps more than any other language.Benj96

    In other languages the addition of “to be” and “to do” is less exaggerated as maybe they believe to “do” is a form of “to be” and perhaps vice versa, therefore doesn’t have to be reiterated. Instead of “I am going” it’s more equivalent to “I going” or “I currently go”Benj96

    Is there evidence for this? If so, can you reference it.

    These subtle differences in the use of our most common verbs must have a profound effect on our perspective or understanding of the world between cultures.Benj96

    I think you need to argue for this or cite the research. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is very controversial.jamalrob

    As @jamalrob noted, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is not accepted by linguists or psychologists for any language except Klingon. We had a discussion about this a few weeks ago. At that time I commented that the hypothesis had been controversial when I took Psychology of Language 50 years ago. Since then, it apparently was strongly out of favor, but has come back into some favor in the last 25 years or so. It has been criticized as inconsistent with Chomsky's theory of universal language. I am skeptical of it's use for drawing broad conclusions about cultural differences.
  • T Clark
    13.7k
    I personally do research on humor, cross-linguistically. Now there's carrying water in a basket!Kermode

    I took French in high school and one year of German in college decades and decades ago. When my brother and I went to Europe a few years ago, I studied up on my German. My brother is fluent in French. We traveled around in the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and Germany. I loved trying to make myself understood in my creaky French and Germany. Every time I tried to tell a joke, it went nowhere. I had a philosophical discussion with a friend of my brother's in French. It was difficult but lots of fun.
  • baker
    5.6k
    In other languages the addition of “to be” and “to do” is less exaggerated as maybe they believe to “do” is a form of “to be” and perhaps vice versa, therefore doesn’t have to be reiterated. Instead of “I am going” it’s more equivalent to “I going” or “I currently go”Benj96

    You seem to be talking about grammatical aspect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_aspect

    Also in other languages we express these same sentiments with the possessive verb “to have” or the action verb “To do”.

    You seem to be talking about auxiliary verbs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxiliary_verb
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