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The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (SWH) is a hypothesis in linguistics, stating that there are notable differences in thought patterns of speakers of different languages, and that the way people's brains function is strongly affected by their native languages. It's a very controversial theory, championed by linguist Edward Sapir and his student Benjamin Whorf.


First discussed by Sapir in 1929, the hypothesis became popular in the 1950s following posthumous publication of Whorf's writings on the subject. In 1955, Dr. James Cooke Brown created the Loglan language (which led to the offshoot Lojban) in order to test the hypothesis. After vigorous attack from followers of Noam Chomsky in the following decades, the hypothesis is now only believed by linguists with a grain of salt; that thought processes are somewhat affected by language, but that differences aren't that notable.
== Features ==


Central to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is the idea of linguistic relativity: distinctions of meaning between related terms in a language are often arbitrary and particular to that language. Sapir and Whorf took this one step further by arguing that a person's whole world view is determined by the vocabulary and syntax available in his or her language.
* A system that integrates a wiki, a web forum system, surveys, quizzes, FAQs, and on and on and on.
* E-mail-to-forum gatewaying!  You can now receive all changes to [http://lojban.org/tiki/tiki-view_forum.php?forumId=1 he WikiDiscuss forum] as e-mails, and replying to them will cause a forum post to occur!  Just [http://www.lojban.org/lsg2/ ubscribe to the WikiDiscuss list]. If your mail program asks, you definately want to reply to the "Reply-To" address, not any others.


The extreme ("Weltanschauung") version of this idea, that all mental function is constrained by language, can be disproved through personal experience: people in every language occasionally struggle to express their exact thoughts, feeling constrained by the language. It's common to say or write something, only to correct one's self or further clarify meaning, especially to someone being explained to. These show that ideas are not merely words, because one can imagine something without being able to express it in words.
**You can now reply to a Monitor This Page notice directly to the discussion forum for that page.
** You can now receive e-mail notification on any wiki page change by [http://www.lojban.org/lsg2/ ubscribing to the WikiChanges list]. If you want to recieve even minor changes, subscribe to the WikiNeurotic list.


The opposite extreme - that language does not influence thought at all - is also widely considered to be false. For example, it has been shown in studies that people's discrimination of similar colors can be influenced by their vocabulary for distinguishing said colors. Another study showed that deaf children of hearing parents are more likely to fail on some cognitive tasks unrelated to hearing, while deaf children of deaf parents succeed, due to parents being able to more extensively communicate. Computer programmers who know different programming languages often see the same problem in completely different ways.
* User-selectable "modules". Those are the things in the right and left sidebars with a big red X in their corners. You can use the arrows to move them up and down, or the red X to remove them altogether if you don't like them.  You can configure them more carefully in the [http://lojban.org/tiki/tiki-user_assigned_modules.php odules page].
* User-selectable themes, some of which are very pretty. Either use the "Style" dropdown box, which should be in the left sidebar at the bottom, or the [http://lojban.org/tiki/tiki-user_preferences.php references page].


The Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) analysis of the problem is direct: most people do notable thinking by talking to themselves and by imagining images and other sensory phantasms. To the extent that people think by talking to themselves, they are limited by their vocabulary and the structure of their language and linguistic habits. (However it should also be noted that everyone have idiolects, mental language patterns individual to them.)
* The shoutbox!  Just type something in it, and everyone who comes to the site will see what you have to say, for a while at least.


John Grinder, a founder of NLP, was a linguistics professor who perhaps unconsciously combined the ideas of Chomsky with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. A seminal NLP insight came from a challenge he gave to his students: coin a neologism to describe an idea for which you have no words. Student Robert Dilts gave an example by coining a word for the way people stare into space when they are thinking, and for the different directions they stare. These new words enabled users to describe patterns in the ways people stare into space, which led directly to NLP results — as notable a validation of the weak hypothesis as one could ask.
== Non-Features ==


Lojban is thus designed to test the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, by attempting to expand the speakers' minds and express thoughts as conveniently as possible to see if there's any notable effects in the speakers' thought patterns/worldview. The only complication with this is that the third factor - the speakers all wanting to learn Lojban, an obscure language - could skew the results somewhat, but the only way to fix that is to get more Lojban speakers.
There are a couple of things that I know people want that haven't been implemented yet. I may get around to them myself, or someone else on the dev team might.


==External links==
You are more than welcome to add stuff here.  If you do so, however, you should probably [[jbocre: rlpowell rop me an e-mail|rlpowell rop me an e-mail]].  You are also more than welcome to [[jbocre: rlpowell -mail me|rlpowell -mail me]] if something on here has been sitting around for a while and you'd like to re-iterate your desire for it.
*[[Wikipedia:Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis|Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis]]


----
If you're not going to send an e-mail, at the very least say who you are!  Yeesh.
''This article was originally taken from [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia|Wikipedia]] and is licensed under the [[Wikipedia:GNU FDL|GNU FDL]]. Update as needed.''


=Information=
* Discuss link and pages
on The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis and, more generally, how language effects thought can be found in:
** Visual indication of there being discussion WRT the current page, a la "2 Comments". --[[jbocre: rlpowell|rlpowell]]


'''Web articles:'''
**It would be nice to have the page under discussion accessible for reading while editing a message with the ''discuss'' feature. --[[User:xorxes|xorxes]]
** It would be nice if people monitoring a page were sent copies when someone was discussing it.  --[[jbocre: rlpowell|rlpowell]]


* http://www.angelfire.com/journal/worldtour99/sapirwhorf.html
* Last Changes page
* http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/cultural/language/whorf.html
** See last n pages that changed instead of last n days


* http://www.scu.edu.tw/philos/Mark%20Brasher.doc
** See only the last change for each page, rather than every recent change
* http://edge.org/3rd_culture/boroditsky09/boroditsky09_index.html
** A link to a diff in the Last Changes module (note that this is Very Hard).


'''Books:'''
* Let's make it easier:  
** Automatically report broken links


* Language in Culture, Comparative Study of Cultures & Civilizations (Publisher: University of Chicago Press, December 1954)
** Some sort of automatic translation from Lojban, for example button 'link all words to dictionary entries' 
* Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf by Benjamin Lee Whorf and John B. Carroll (Publisher: The MIT Press, March 15, 1964)
** One should have possibility to change name of UserPageXXX. Then, clicking on username could lead directly to his user page, where standard information (email/country) can be inserted with some module


'''Also:'''
** Maybe search should get you right to the page if there is only one found  -- [[jbocre: ilya nikokoshev lya|ilya nikokoshev lya]]
* Other


* [http://www.loglan.org/Loglan1/chap7.html#sec7.2 The Loglan website]
** Orphaned pages should have a 'delete' link as well as an 'edit' link.  --[[jbocre: rlpowell|rlpowell]]
* [http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Sapir-Whorf_hypothesis Wikipedia]
** I think, most of field should be hidden when editing (Footnotes, Comment, ..., Upload), especially Categories and Template
 
** Can I start a new page without referring to it? -- [[jbocre: ilya nikokoshev lya|ilya nikokoshev lya]] -- Yes; see [[Basic Tiki Editing|Basic Tiki Editing]]

Revision as of 17:16, 4 November 2013

Features

  • A system that integrates a wiki, a web forum system, surveys, quizzes, FAQs, and on and on and on.
  • E-mail-to-forum gatewaying! You can now receive all changes to he WikiDiscuss forum as e-mails, and replying to them will cause a forum post to occur! Just ubscribe to the WikiDiscuss list. If your mail program asks, you definately want to reply to the "Reply-To" address, not any others.
    • You can now reply to a Monitor This Page notice directly to the discussion forum for that page.
    • You can now receive e-mail notification on any wiki page change by ubscribing to the WikiChanges list. If you want to recieve even minor changes, subscribe to the WikiNeurotic list.
  • User-selectable "modules". Those are the things in the right and left sidebars with a big red X in their corners. You can use the arrows to move them up and down, or the red X to remove them altogether if you don't like them. You can configure them more carefully in the odules page.
  • User-selectable themes, some of which are very pretty. Either use the "Style" dropdown box, which should be in the left sidebar at the bottom, or the references page.
  • The shoutbox! Just type something in it, and everyone who comes to the site will see what you have to say, for a while at least.

Non-Features

There are a couple of things that I know people want that haven't been implemented yet. I may get around to them myself, or someone else on the dev team might.

You are more than welcome to add stuff here. If you do so, however, you should probably rlpowell rop me an e-mail. You are also more than welcome to rlpowell -mail me if something on here has been sitting around for a while and you'd like to re-iterate your desire for it.

If you're not going to send an e-mail, at the very least say who you are! Yeesh.

  • Discuss link and pages
    • Visual indication of there being discussion WRT the current page, a la "2 Comments". --rlpowell
    • It would be nice to have the page under discussion accessible for reading while editing a message with the discuss feature. --xorxes
    • It would be nice if people monitoring a page were sent copies when someone was discussing it. --rlpowell
  • Last Changes page
    • See last n pages that changed instead of last n days
    • See only the last change for each page, rather than every recent change
    • A link to a diff in the Last Changes module (note that this is Very Hard).
  • Let's make it easier:
    • Automatically report broken links
    • Some sort of automatic translation from Lojban, for example button 'link all words to dictionary entries'
    • One should have possibility to change name of UserPageXXX. Then, clicking on username could lead directly to his user page, where standard information (email/country) can be inserted with some module
    • Maybe search should get you right to the page if there is only one found -- ilya nikokoshev lya
  • Other
    • Orphaned pages should have a 'delete' link as well as an 'edit' link. --rlpowell
    • I think, most of field should be hidden when editing (Footnotes, Comment, ..., Upload), especially Categories and Template