The power of language

Jack Straw · 05-09-2007, 08:10 PM

after reading about 1984's newspeak I got to thinkin how powerful language is. In the book the language's dictionaries actually got smaller as time went along to limit expression and thought. For example instead of a plethora of words to describe bad like, horrible, awful, dreadful, atrocious, etc. they simply had one word: ungood.

This technique is an ok method of controlling the population... one method combined with many many and fictional measures... but I'm not writing this thread to talk about a government actually implementing this sort of thing.

this just got me wondering what other languages are like. Now, I'm fairly satisfied with the form of English we speak.. I can usually say essentially the same thing with a few different twists on it..

but I was just wondering if anyone has had any experience with other languages and what are your opinions of them compared to English.

what about you? do you acknowledge the power of language?

I hope this was written well(somewhat of a pun :P)

Jack Straw · 05-09-2007, 08:37 PM

word.

through your language you were able to pinpoint some thoughts I had but couldnt articulate myself.

thanks.

Mercury · 05-09-2007, 10:27 PM

There is no doubt that more intelligent people have broader vocabularies. Words like aweful and horrible which essentially mean "ungood" as you put it were invented to portray very specific meanings. And without those slight variations it would be that much more difficult to portray specific thoughts and feelings.

Human impalement is more than ungood, it's horrific (horrifying). Running into an ex doesn't just suck it's dreadful (i dread it).

Flipper · 05-09-2007, 10:57 PM

I wish I still had the article but there was one we read in class about this old tribe in I think south america who didn't have numbers Like they had an expression for two fish is more than one, but not by how much. Also there was no past tense of language so they couldn't express the past. Really interesting read.

Mescalito · 05-10-2007, 12:29 AM

Thai is formed in a better way than English I think. No articles.. e.g. the and a etc. No different forms of the verbs... e.g. I am, she is, they are... the verb 'to be'. In Thai its I am, he am, they am. They also dont have past or future changes of the verb... e.g. I went and I go would be I go before and I go. Im not necessarily saying one is easier to learn than the other.. just that English is formed in a very non-sensical and complicated way.

I like the fact that many different languages have single words for a certain event or series of events. There is a single word in Thai which means sitting on a cliff eating some food and watching the sun go down.

Many of the words of different languages cannot be translated directly as well.. which i find interesting. So the next best thing is found.. which can often be quite far from what the orginal meaning in the primary language was all about.

Language I agree.. is a powerful tool if used in the proper way. It is a good thig and a bad thing at the same time because of numerous things.. but basically every part of it is built upon another part.. analogous to the way beliefs are. This means that a slighlty different interpretation for a single word could have a positive feedback effect to the way one percieves and communicates. The irony or paradox is that im using language to discuss language.

M

Waves · 05-10-2007, 02:38 PM

Language is set up to explain experience...beliefs are set up to create experience...so language is a way to explain belief! What else is language besides a way of explaining things?

SmokeSomeDoja · 05-10-2007, 02:50 PM

check out the appendix in 1984 about newspeak. pretty cool that orwell created a language to illustrate how institutions manipulate people with language. also, i think noam chomsky is big on language. linguistic doode.

Ego Tripping · 05-10-2007, 05:06 PM

Biting off Waking Life but it says what I'd want to:

Quote:

Creation seems to come out of imperfection. It seems to come out of a striving and a frustration, and this is where I think language came from. It came from our desire to transcend our isolation and have some sort of connection with one another. And it had to be easy when it was just simple survival. Like the word water, we came up with a sound for that, or saber tooth tiger right behind you, we came up with a sound for that. But when it gets really interesting is when we use that same system of symbols to communicate all the abstract and intangible things that we're experiencing. What is frustration? Or what is anger? Or love? When I say love, the sound comes out of my mouth and it hits the other person's ear, travels through this byzantine conduit in their brain, through their memories of love, or lack of love, and they register what I'm saying and they say yes, they understand. But how do I know they understand, because words are inert, they're just symbols, they're dead, you know? And so much of our experience is intangible. So much of what we perceive cannot be expressed. It's unspeakable. And yet, you know when we communicate with one another, and we feel that we've connected, and we think that we're understood, I think we have a feeling of almost spiritual communion. And that feeling might be internal linktransient, but I think it's what we live for.

edit - but I would like to add...she says words are Dead which gives them little power I think...since words can initiate actions which initiate creation/life, then I think words are very much alive.

Ego Tripping · 05-10-2007, 05:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mescalito

I like the fact that many different languages have single words for a certain event or series of events. There is a single word in Thai which means sitting on a cliff eating some food and watching the sun go down.

M

Just curious, what is it?

Waves · 05-10-2007, 05:16 PM

noam is the man. im going to start reading some of his stuff soon, hope i can understand it

The Rev · 05-10-2007, 05:53 PM

This thread is double plus good.

The Rev

Jack Straw · 05-10-2007, 08:50 PM

great blurb from Waking Life (which I've seen but didn't completely follow)

Definitions for words vary from person to person. For example when I started going out with my girlfriend we had a long conversation about what the definition of love is.

Those intangible thoughts are so hard to express with certainty and clarity because of the private, uncontrollable and reflexive definitions one carries with him or her that will cause him/her to associate their feelings/experiences with different words.. with different symbols.

There are some people in this world that I can become intimate with and I believe that as I communicate my interpretation of my feelings/experiences/emotions with that person we start to alter each other's private definitions of certain words. We alter these as we find that one person's definition of a word like love or soul may ring a truer bell with our innate experiences than our own definition. Until we're so intertwined that words are less necessary, until there is a transientlink there that bonds us with mutual emotion and feeling.

to forego words but not communication is a beautiful thing.. to transcend language.

on a side note: I believe this mutual emotion/feeling is achieved through intimacy.. intensive communication.. and perhaps a long period of time.

this thread's replies are double-plus good as well.

SmokeSomeDoja · 05-11-2007, 01:04 PM

check out politics and the english language by orwell as well.

He writes:

Quote:

“…political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging, and sheer cloudy vagueness” (p. 136).

good read

Jimmy Coonan · 05-11-2007, 01:33 PM

There are plenty of words that can't readily be translated from language to language. I always thought it was interesting how some words that have such a strong meaning in one language need a couple paragraphs of explanation in another. Like the German "fleissig"--it means hard-working, but there's a lot more to it than that. It has connotations of studious, serious, painstaking, well-planned out. A fleissig person does what they have to do, when they have to do it, always puts in their best effort, goes above and beyond to get things perfect. It's a very German word, it's how a lot of them like to think of themselves.

The Dutch and Austrians are a bit more relaxed. Their big untranslatables are gezelligheid and gemuetlichkeit respectively. It's when your relaxed, with good people, in a cozy place, having a good time without any pressures on your time or cares in the world. A wee bit like craic in Irish, but craic can get kind of crazy, as anyone's who ever drank with Irish people knows. Gemuetlichkeit's when you spend two hours to finish one cup of coffee in a quaint little cafe on the Danube, lazily leafing through a four-day-old newspaper and discussing the meaning of life with a few of your best friends.

I've got a question for those of you who don't speak English as a native language--are there any words in English that don't really translate into your native tongues? Any words that ever give you trouble with their subtle shades of meaning?

Flipper · 05-14-2007, 01:02 AM

I foundsome info on that language thing I was talking about. Go here. PirahÃ£ language - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This nomadic group cannot comprehend quantity or the future. The craziest thing is that after eight months of teaching, not one tribe member could learn how to deal with quantities. The reasoning for this lack of learning was culturally imprinted biases against thinking abstractly into the future. Crazy.

Štulic · 05-14-2007, 04:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mescalito

Thai is formed in a better way than English I think. No articles.. e.g. the and a etc. No different forms of the verbs... e.g. I am, she is, they are... the verb 'to be'. In Thai its I am, he am, they am. They also dont have past or future changes of the verb... e.g. I went and I go would be I go before and I go. Im not necessarily saying one is easier to learn than the other.. just that English is formed in a very non-sensical and complicated way.

This is true for all germanic languages, they also have fairly complex vowel systems and spelling rules that sometimes really make no sense at all.
Not to mention the grammar with all the tenses and irregular verbs etc...
Also English is estimated to have more than 1 million words with around 25,000 added every year, that makes it the richest language on Earth, although I don't think there are many things you could express in English that couldn't get exactly translated into German, French or Italian for that matter.

Slavic languages don't have any articles either, on the other hand some of them have up to 3 more cases then English, with vocative, instrumental and locative.
But former Serbo-Croatian is actually the only language in the world where you write like you pronounce and other way around, due to a perfectly simple sound-letter correspondence.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lillarry518

I've got a question for those of you who don't speak English as a native language--are there any words in English that don't really translate into your native tongues? Any words that ever give you trouble with their subtle shades of meaning?

I didn't come across any of such words yet that couldn't at least be translated into a phrase of two or more words.

One example that I can think of now is 'unrepayable', even German doesn't have an adequate term for it, you'd have to say 'kann nicht zurückgezahlt werden', while in Bosnian you could simply say 'neisplativo'.
Even if you try to translate some simple English verbs like 'to get' or "to put' as a single verb to any language you want, you'll see it's almost impossible unless it's a part of a sentence with meaning.

I always found it amazing how the Germans knew the difference between identically sounding 'sie' (she) 'sie' (they) and 'Sie' (you formal), without any difficulties until I one day noticed, you just know it, same like for 'you' singular and plural in English.

In Bosnian there's an even worse example, 'gore' means 'up', 'worse', 'mountains', but it also means 'they burn", people will only know which one of these four you mean if you apply the correct intonation (stress accent) on the word 'gore'.
If you would write down the sentence 'The mountains burn up there worse...' it'd look like 'Gore gore gore gore...' lol

Yeah... Deutsche Sprache schwere Sprache

Beyonder · 05-21-2007, 06:40 PM

The power of language? Do I get it? Well, yeah, I'm a rhetorician. It's very easy to manipulate people with language if one knows how to do it; not that I'm that kind of person though, but I am pretty aware of how it works. From a neurological perspective, it actually can be an attack of a temporary neural network (short term memory) on the other already established ones (in the longer term memory). Neat, huh?

Here's a link to one of the best books on rhetorics, Quintilians Institutio Oratoria. Quin really shows what language is capable of, even some pretty nasty shit.

And in Cicero's "Rhetorician", he recounts an actual event where, through some very harsh arguments and reasonings, someone was actually driven to the point of suicide.

Jack Straw · 11-11-2010, 09:29 AM

bump:

A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts too. by: George Orwell (“Politics and the English Language”)

Roach · 11-11-2010, 10:01 AM

I'll go with the power of knowledge.

governments fear knowledge being leaked to the general population.

SmokeaJoint · 11-11-2010, 11:04 AM

Read Shakespeare in the original language and then come back and say

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jack Straw

I'm fairly satisfied with the form of English we speak.. I can usually say essentially the same thing with a few different twists on it..

05-09-2007, 08:10 PM	#1 (permalink)
Jack Straw wishful thinker Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Utopia Posts: 981 Thanks: 10 Thanked 18 Times in 15 Posts	The power of language after reading about 1984's newspeak I got to thinkin how powerful language is. In the book the language's dictionaries actually got smaller as time went along to limit expression and thought. For example instead of a plethora of words to describe bad like, horrible, awful, dreadful, atrocious, etc. they simply had one word: ungood. This technique is an ok method of controlling the population... one method combined with many many and fictional measures... but I'm not writing this thread to talk about a government actually implementing this sort of thing. this just got me wondering what other languages are like. Now, I'm fairly satisfied with the form of English we speak.. I can usually say essentially the same thing with a few different twists on it.. but I was just wondering if anyone has had any experience with other languages and what are your opinions of them compared to English. what about you? do you acknowledge the power of language? I hope this was written well(somewhat of a pun :P) __________________ The time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted -John Lennon In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks. -John Muir One man gathers what another man spills...

05-09-2007, 08:37 PM	#2 (permalink)
Jack Straw wishful thinker Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Utopia Posts: 981 Thanks: 10 Thanked 18 Times in 15 Posts	word. through your language you were able to pinpoint some thoughts I had but couldnt articulate myself. thanks. __________________ The time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted -John Lennon In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks. -John Muir One man gathers what another man spills...

05-09-2007, 10:57 PM	#4 (permalink)
Flipper Old School Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Chicago Posts: 882 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	I wish I still had the article but there was one we read in class about this old tribe in I think south america who didn't have numbers Like they had an expression for two fish is more than one, but not by how much. Also there was no past tense of language so they couldn't express the past. Really interesting read. __________________ jealousy can come faster than a premature ejaculator- GH

05-10-2007, 02:50 PM	#7 (permalink)
SmokeSomeDoja Lushous Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Erogenous Zones Posts: 17,386 Thanks: 240 Thanked 446 Times in 280 Posts	check out the appendix in 1984 about newspeak. pretty cool that orwell created a language to illustrate how institutions manipulate people with language. also, i think noam chomsky is big on language. linguistic doode. __________________ fotoz fo yo azz "I've run over black cats that were luckier than me."

05-10-2007, 05:53 PM	#11 (permalink)
The Rev Clear Light Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: In my head, somewhere. Posts: 17,863 Thanks: 5,015 Thanked 5,418 Times in 2,864 Posts	This thread is double plus good. The Rev __________________ Budforce - My Friend August 29, 1973- May 25, 2012

05-10-2007, 12:29 AM	#5 (permalink)
Mescalito Oneironaut Join Date: Aug 2001 Posts: 6,295 Thanks: 866 Thanked 907 Times in 444 Posts	Thai is formed in a better way than English I think. No articles.. e.g. the and a etc. No different forms of the verbs... e.g. I am, she is, they are... the verb 'to be'. In Thai its I am, he am, they am. They also dont have past or future changes of the verb... e.g. I went and I go would be I go before and I go. Im not necessarily saying one is easier to learn than the other.. just that English is formed in a very non-sensical and complicated way. I like the fact that many different languages have single words for a certain event or series of events. There is a single word in Thai which means sitting on a cliff eating some food and watching the sun go down. Many of the words of different languages cannot be translated directly as well.. which i find interesting. So the next best thing is found.. which can often be quite far from what the orginal meaning in the primary language was all about. Language I agree.. is a powerful tool if used in the proper way. It is a good thig and a bad thing at the same time because of numerous things.. but basically every part of it is built upon another part.. analogous to the way beliefs are. This means that a slighlty different interpretation for a single word could have a positive feedback effect to the way one percieves and communicates. The irony or paradox is that im using language to discuss language. M

05-10-2007, 02:38 PM	#6 (permalink)
Waves Duderino Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: chiburbs Posts: 15,405 Thanks: 991 Thanked 4,036 Times in 2,224 Posts	Language is set up to explain experience...beliefs are set up to create experience...so language is a way to explain belief! What else is language besides a way of explaining things?

05-10-2007, 05:16 PM	#10 (permalink)
Waves Duderino Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: chiburbs Posts: 15,405 Thanks: 991 Thanked 4,036 Times in 2,224 Posts	noam is the man. im going to start reading some of his stuff soon, hope i can understand it

05-10-2007, 08:50 PM	#12 (permalink)
Jack Straw wishful thinker Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Utopia Posts: 981 Thanks: 10 Thanked 18 Times in 15 Posts	great blurb from Waking Life (which I've seen but didn't completely follow) Definitions for words vary from person to person. For example when I started going out with my girlfriend we had a long conversation about what the definition of love is. Those intangible thoughts are so hard to express with certainty and clarity because of the private, uncontrollable and reflexive definitions one carries with him or her that will cause him/her to associate their feelings/experiences with different words.. with different symbols. There are some people in this world that I can become intimate with and I believe that as I communicate my interpretation of my feelings/experiences/emotions with that person we start to alter each other's private definitions of certain words. We alter these as we find that one person's definition of a word like love or soul may ring a truer bell with our innate experiences than our own definition. Until we're so intertwined that words are less necessary, until there is a transientlink there that bonds us with mutual emotion and feeling. to forego words but not communication is a beautiful thing.. to transcend language. on a side note: I believe this mutual emotion/feeling is achieved through intimacy.. intensive communication.. and perhaps a long period of time. this thread's replies are double-plus good as well. __________________ The time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted -John Lennon In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks. -John Muir One man gathers what another man spills... Last edited by Jack Straw; 05-10-2007 at 09:18 PM.

05-14-2007, 01:02 AM	#15 (permalink)
Flipper Old School Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Chicago Posts: 882 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	I foundsome info on that language thing I was talking about. Go here. PirahÃ£ language - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This nomadic group cannot comprehend quantity or the future. The craziest thing is that after eight months of teaching, not one tribe member could learn how to deal with quantities. The reasoning for this lack of learning was culturally imprinted biases against thinking abstractly into the future. Crazy. __________________ jealousy can come faster than a premature ejaculator- GH

05-21-2007, 06:40 PM	#17 (permalink)
Beyonder That Man Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: the Netherlands Posts: 1,051 Thanks: 3 Thanked 11 Times in 6 Posts	The power of language? Do I get it? Well, yeah, I'm a rhetorician. It's very easy to manipulate people with language if one knows how to do it; not that I'm that kind of person though, but I am pretty aware of how it works. From a neurological perspective, it actually can be an attack of a temporary neural network (short term memory) on the other already established ones (in the longer term memory). Neat, huh? Here's a link to one of the best books on rhetorics, Quintilians Institutio Oratoria. Quin really shows what language is capable of, even some pretty nasty shit. And in Cicero's "Rhetorician", he recounts an actual event where, through some very harsh arguments and reasonings, someone was actually driven to the point of suicide. __________________ He who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him, has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation. He who chooses his plan for himself, employs all his faculties. -John Stuart Mill, On Liberty I must create a system or be enslaved by another mans; I will not reason and compare: my business is to create. -William Blake Last edited by Beyonder; 05-21-2007 at 06:42 PM.

11-11-2010, 09:29 AM	#18 (permalink)
Jack Straw wishful thinker Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Utopia Posts: 981 Thanks: 10 Thanked 18 Times in 15 Posts	bump: A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts too. by: George Orwell (“Politics and the English Language”) __________________ The time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted -John Lennon In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks. -John Muir One man gathers what another man spills...

11-11-2010, 10:01 AM	#19 (permalink)
Roach Victoria Aut Mors Join Date: Dec 1999 Posts: 7,182 Thanks: 2,372 Thanked 1,984 Times in 1,507 Posts	I'll go with the power of knowledge. governments fear knowledge being leaked to the general population. __________________ לזיין את הקופים

Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)

Thread Tools
Show Printable Version Email this Page
Display Modes	Rate This Thread
Linear Mode Switch to Hybrid Mode Switch to Threaded Mode	Rate This Thread: