Through the Language Glass

"Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages" and the "Unfolding of Language" by Guy Deutscher are among the very best books I've ever read. My interest in the linguistic originates in the the interest in history and in the attempts to understand the process of the evolution of the apparently so much different modern nations from the common ancestors speaking the same language (read "The New Penguin Atlas of Ancient History" by Colin McEvedy). But while finding history to be a vivid and fascinating subject I was thinking about linguistic as of a rather dry and boring thing. I am glad I was wrong. Guy Deutcher's books are a pleasure to read from the first to the last word and although they may not provide specific answers to all my original questions they open new dimensions that I wasn't even aware of before. And one more thing; these books make you think while reading, not force you to think but encourage in a very effective and enjoyable way. A pure brain stimulator. Highly recommended.

I guess it is considered somewhat of a cliche when people use differences in language to talk about differences in cognition. Not being a linguist by training I did not realize that the idea that language influences perception and cognition had been "refuted" within the field of linguistics. This book revisits the idea that language influences thought processes. It uses several specific examples of how differences in color gradients, gender description and handedness can impact peoples cognition in a very real sense. The book starts with a study of color. It takes arguments from 1.5 centuries ago about the lack of color in Homer's Illiad to construct a framework for analysing how differences in color recognition manifest themselves. This was news to me personally, I had no idea (naively) ancient peoples did not have the same descriptions of colors as we do today. The book then goes into Whorf and his theory of language and thought and the hyperbolic conclusions Whorf drew on scant evidence. The author is very keen to distance himself from Whorf's lines of reasoning. The author describes studies aboud differing cultures and their distinctions of colors and also the progression of color recognition (ie red is the first color to be recognized) and then about how differeng color boundaries exist from culture to culture. In particular it is argued that as long as color distinctions are logical in the context of speech there is no reason to have blue green boundary at some well defined points. The book also describes aboriginal cultures who use an orientation of fixed coordinate systems, ie N/S/E/W vs that of most of us, which is left right. Examples of differing cognition is demonstrated pictorally by including the reader in psychological games where the reader is told to spot the difference (which seems obvious) only to be told the aboriginal culture sees it differently (due to orientation). In addition the memories of such people reflect a different knowledge base than of the way many of us remember things. The author uses a final example of how the gender of objects in many languages can affect perception. The authors ideas are backed up by linguistic statistical studies of tests on whether the genderization of nouns affects their thoughts. Through the Language glass goes through the history of linguist's theory of language and is careful to point out flaws in historic reasoning about language and cognition. In particular the authors main point is that language does not impact capacity for thought and any average individual is capable of framing thoughts in the capacity of some other language but that does not change the fact that language can still impact perception. Not being a linguist by any means this doesnt seem contentious to me. I dont see how people shouldnt think that language, as a means of communication, doesnt impact the way a user thinks themselves... We all need a definitions and logic chains to come to conclusions and both definitions and logic chains can have uniqueness in languages. The book can be read by all, though I think those who are more of a blank slate to the subject will be less critical of the conclusions which seem pretty intuitive in the first place.

This seems to be worth 4.99 stars for content and I would round up to 6.0 (if possible) for Deutscher's style and humor, even if the content were not as good. This is an excellent introduction to the current state of investigation of the relationship between thought and language. While there are no in-line references, the Notes section in the back of the book provides references to the 19 page Bibliography ( 300 entries). I do have a few minor gripes that I want to get off my chest. 1) I feel that Deutscher presents Whorf's most extreme position -almost a caricature. Whorf was an M.I.T. graduate in Chemical Engineering whose entire career was as a safety engineer for The Hartford Fire Insurance Company. Linguistics was his avocation. Whorf died at the age of 44 and many of his papers were published by his friends and colleagues after his death. We cannot know what changes he might have made prior to publication had he lived. His defenders point out that his written statements include many more moderate statements of position; indeed it is difficult to discern the exact limits of his position. In fairness to Deutscher, personifying the extreme position seems to be an effective pedagogical technique, and Whorf did take extreme positions at times. I consider myself a moderate Whorfian; I find the most succinct expression of my position is an adaptation of the astrologer's formulation concerning the stars: "Languages impel, they do not compel." Perhaps one attribute of genius is the ability to overcome the impulses and promptings of language. This leads to an expansion of the language that permits non-geniuses to share in the genius' insight. And, this provides the mechanism by which we all augment our cognitive toolboxes and "stand on the shoulders of giants". 2) Deutscher gives an excellent explanation of "factive vs. non-factive verbs" (P-150). He uses this to support his claim that people can learn new concepts that were not previously present in their individual languages and to argue that therefore language does not constrain thought. HOWEVER, before Deutscher explained the concept I would not have realized verbs could be categorized in that manner. Now I do. Previously, I would never have thought of that characteristic when analyzing a verb; in the future I shall. Now that Deutscher has expanded my language by adding the concept of factive, my language is different and I think differently. Deutscher's argument has actually confirmed Whorf! -moderately! 3) Although Deutscher writes excellent English, it is not his native language and in a couple of cases he seems to lack a native speaker's feel for the Whorfian underpinnings and nuances of English. Deutscher asks "Or think about it another way, when you ask someone ...something like `are you coming tomorrow?' do you feel your grasp of futurity is slipping?" (PP. 145 -6) When I compare "Are you coming tomorrow?" with "Will you come tomorrow?" I feel, in the first case the query asks: "Is it your current intention to come tomorrow?" and in the second "Do you believe your plans and external circumstances will result in your coming tomorrow?" The first one is rooted in the present, the second in the future. I will accept that this has elements of connotation vs. denotation, but the language still impels me to address either the present state of affairs or the future. I will also grant that the answer to the first might be "I intend to come, but it looks like the creek's going to rise and I may not be able to get across the ford with my old car.", but that is a different matter -providing as much information as is necessary for the purposes of the exchange. (H.P. Grice's Maxim of Quantity). Language does not compel me to ignore the future, it merely nudges me. Perhaps being a native English-speaker leads me to see nuances second-language speakers do not. (And, by the way, I used futurity will twice, when I was really speaking about the present, to indicate a concession -"I will accept.") I just heard a Yale Economist speculating that the reason the Germans save for the future is that they habitually use the present tense for future events: Es regnet am Morgen (literally "It rains tomorrow" for English "It's going to rain tomorrow." Or "It will raan tomorrow." As Hebrew has gender (Masc. Fem. Neu.) for all nouns, Deutscher finds the use of he or she to be "poetic" and even "arch" for English nouns that are normally neuter. He has not met the farmer, miner or assembly line worker whose favorite rifle or tool is a she, or tried calling someone's household pet or favorite horse "it". I have heard computer programmers describe the operation of a piece of software as "he wants to ...". I have a 24-year old sports car that has acquired personhood over the years, as have some of the quirkier computers I've worked on. I also must wonder whether a native speaker of a language with two genders (e.g. Spanish) would find this natural or "arch"? -or a native speaker of two languages with contradictory genders? However, when everything is considered this book has my highest recommendation for style, content and humor -every star amazon will allow!

What a find! I don't know where I got the recommendation, but I was glad that I followed it. Even though the author covered only a few topics, he dud so in readable, often humorous, way. It was a delightful read. Highly recommended.

Un traité sur la linguistique qui est très interessant et qui permet d'en apprendre plus sur l'origine de la langue.

Nicht ganz seichtes, aber noch gut lesbares Buch darüber wie Kultur Sprache beeinflusst und umgekehrt. Generell fand ich es auch spannend Konzepte aus der Linguistik kennen zu lernen. Obendrein gibt der historische Abriss einen guten Einblick wie ignorant vor allem die westliche Welt gegenüber anderen Sprachkonzepten sein kann.

「言語は思考を支配するという」考え方がある。言語相対説、サピア・ウォーフの仮説と呼ばれるものである。言語学ではこの考え方は、大まかにいって、否定されているが、最近の研究では、サピア・ウォーフの仮説を見直す動きもある。著者のドイッチャ－（Guy Deutscher）は諸々の学説を踏まえた上で、「なぜ、言語が異なれば世界は違って見えるのか」具体例をあげて解説している。日本語の「青信号」英語のgreen light の比較も身近な問題でおもしろい。英語は少し手強いが得られるものは多い。一読をお勧めする。

This isn't the usual sort of book that I review - Language & Linguistics is a bit more upmarket than the usual romance or vampire novels that I tend to read. However, I was browsing in a bookshop in Berlin and among the `Englische Bücher' I saw this book featured. It had an endorsement on the front by Stephen Fry so I thought I'd give it a go. I'm really glad I did as reading this book opened up a whole new way of looking at things. Guy Deutscher looks in detail at how the language we speak may colour our view of the world - focusing on colour and how we name/see it (from the Greek Iliad and the wine-dark sea to how Russians react to different shades of blue) and how position of objects can be described in different ways depending on how your culture marks out place. There was so much packed into this book that I found myself hooked, reading it until late in the night and going back to read some sections again. The language examples are from a vast array of languages - modern European ones with which we may be familiar to some of the much less well-known tongues from the antipodes and further. Although the author is an academic this book was fun, engaging, warm and in no way dry and dusty. I also think it worth mentioning that the quality of the writing was absolutely excellent. Deutscher's English is lovely, with a great turn of phrase. All the more amazing when you discover that his mother tongue is Hebrew and so English is a second language to him. I was really impressed by the way that he could express himself in English whilst explaining how something may seem to him as someone who sees the world through a Hebrew mind. I heartily recommend this book to anyone with the faintest of interest in language, linguistics, colours and more.

Interessante para quem nunca leu sobre o assunto, mas para quem fez Letras e estudou linguística é bem lugar-comum. É uma boa experiência para leigos.