Via comments on a post at Crooked Timber, an article in the Globe and Mail about a tribe in the Amazon that not only doesn't have a numbering system, they also don't have clearly defined words for colors. Adding weirdness to weirdness, they also change their names on a regular basis. The thrust of the article is that the lack of number names interferes with their ability to count. There's a whole literature in linguistics about this and the larger issue of how language influences thinking, though the subject has fallen into disfavor. I suspect that the truth of the matter is that language severely constrains thought, in that it's easier to conceptualize things for which you have a word, but does not completely limit it (or where would new words come from? - the concept has to precede the word).

Incidentally, if you're interested in this question, check out the logical langauge group. They are developing and promoting a language based on formal logic with the explicit intention of exploring the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.

This gets into the "forbidden experiment" issue: Isolated children (sometimes growing up in the "wild") who never develop useful speech and many other skills. We know a little about the “formative years” but can’t perform the obvious experiments. The question is how much of what we think of as intelligence is about physiological limits, and how much is about getting the software right?

Speculation: The brain is fairly flexible, and some are better than others, but we write "programs" to deal with the world. If you don't write the proper foundation programs (including speech structure, but not limited to it) when young, you can't build usefully on that basic set of tools later.

Given that assumption, it suggests some things - some learning problems may be because a person just didn't write an efficient "program" for the task initially, and can only build on it with difficulty.

This would also explain why it took so long to go from hunter-gatherer to modern: It wasn't just learning, concepts had to be improved from generation by slow generation so children could start with better "programs." Our distant ancestors may really HAVE been "dumb" in a sense - not in physical limits, but they simply wouldn't "get" much of what we take for granted.

You may see a limited version of that today - aside from language, this may be why "obvious" concepts sometimes just don't translate between cultures.

Some of that flexibility may also apply to animals - a dog or cat may only go so far, but ones living with people often learn and do many things wild ones never will.

It's an interesting issue. The one thing clear to me is that the standard concept of "intelligence" is badly flawed.

Hmm. I saw this a few days ago.

I think Feynman did the number on this best.

IRC the exchange went like this:

"Do you know what shape a car's differential is?"

"Yes"

"Have you got it in your mind?"

"Yes."

"Tell me, what language were you speaking when you did that?"

"Ummm. More of a picture really."

The brain is multiparadigmatic- mainly verbal, visual, kinetic, smell, hearing. Only part of the brain is concerned with language. The visual centers are very powerful, and not language based, and hence cannot be expected to be limited by Whorfian hypothesis in any direct way.

I do not know the veracity of this story, but I read that when Magellan's expedition set anchor at Terra del Fuego, the sailors were surprised and more than a little insulted by the natives' lack of interest. For two days the native Patagonians completely ignored the Portuguese ships and went about their business as if Magellan was not there. Then suddenly there was a big commotion, and the locals approached to investigate. Apparently* the concept of "floating houses" - and more importantly, the concept of anything new, - was so much outside their experience, the natives literally could not see the Portuguese ships - their brains simply would not process the input. Only when the tribal shaman, his imagination probably stimulated by the use of magic mushrooms, looked out at the sea, he said "Hey! What's that?" Then suddenly everyone else saw it too.

* Apparent to whom? That's why I do not really trust this story. I can believe the idea that people who never saw anything NEW in their lives would have such non-reaction, but how would 15th Century Portuguese figure it out? I doubt they had a concept of information block. Then again, maybe "dumb indians had their brains stuck for two days!" is exactly what Magellan's crew would say.

They had a researcher from this project on NPR Science Friday. There was an incredulous caller who grilled the researcher and he described a number of experiments. It sounded legit. He said the researchers were surprised - they didn't really expect things to turn out this way.

I agree the brain's ability goes far beyond language. For that matter, we don't usually realize how much hidden meaning is in most words. For example, just try to unambigously define the word "chair" without making cultural and biological assumptions (if you can, you could be the inventor of true AI).

But it is also clear that there are examples of "wild children" who can never learn concepts we would think are obvious, because they weren't exposed to the foundations when young. That may be what is happening here.

Regarding the notion of language constraining thought, I'm convinced that this is true to some degree, but that it simultaneously makes possible thoughts that couldn't happen without it.

There is an old (50's era) book that I inherited from my father that dealt with this topic called "The Tyranny of Words." Deals more with the issue of semantics in debate, but the title is ideal. (It's still in print too: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0156923947/qid=1093451907/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/103-0130443-4100664?v=glance&s=books&n=507846).

More recently, Steven Pinker has published some excellent work on the coevolution of brain function and language that is relevant. See "The Language Instinct" for one.

There was also a passage in Dan Simmons brilliant novel "Hyperion" wherein his poet character, Martin Silenus, discusses language from the standpoint of one who suffered a stroke which damaged the language centers of his brain. Fictional account of course, but what he says about the nature of language and human thought is beautiful and moving.

poker Have a nice day! :)

You guys are the 25267 best, thanks so much for the help.