I am a member of the Bilingual Professionals (English and French) group on LinkedIn. While i don't post much, I do enjoy some of theirs. Someone posted this article, which goes back to our discussion here on Wordcraft about language affecting our culture.
We have already, successfully I think, provided evidence here on WC to debunk the Whorfian hypothesis. However, this article had one intriguing fact; in the Scientific American they talk about an Amazonian Community (Pirahã) that has no numbers and only talks about quantity in terms of "hói to describe a small number of objects, hoí to describe a slightly larger number, and baágiso for an even larger number." Have you heard of this before?
As usual, Goofy, some great links. Thanks! I always get stuck in Language Log because I click all their links, and then all their links, etc.!
I liked the beginning of the Language Log post when he points out that is really is the Sapir-Whorfian hypothesis and that the actual hypothesis is not that language determines thought (linking to the Keywords Blog). Those kind of mistakes happen all the time in academia. Someone misunderstands a research study, but writes about it (poor peer reviews), and then it's published. Others read paper B, cite from it, and on and on so that the original paper A is totally misrepresented. You must read the original article, as the Keywords Blog says.
