Se tiu ĉi paĝo estis skribita en Esperanto, de ĉirkaŭ du personoj en Usono devus esti kapabla kompreni la enhavon. Bonŝance, ĝi ne estas skribita en Esperanto.
If this website was to be written in Esperanto (like the above), about two people in the United States would be able to comprehend its contents. Luckily, it's not written in Esperanto. That is the same situation that the accessibility of cognition through language finds itself in. To be able to "think" through a language and understand the idiosyncrasies and thought which come along with the respective tongue, one must be able to speak it. This problem also gives rise to another question: Can a person who learns a language other than his or her mother language "think" through the second language? As in, can his or her mind adapt the "schema" the language entails, or must they be born into the language from the beginning? As evident, the issues of accessibility remain a mystery in regards to cognition through language.
TAKE A LOOK AT A SITUATION WHICH AROSE AFTER THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE VIADUCT DE MILLAU:
If this website was to be written in Esperanto (like the above), about two people in the United States would be able to comprehend its contents. Luckily, it's not written in Esperanto. That is the same situation that the accessibility of cognition through language finds itself in. To be able to "think" through a language and understand the idiosyncrasies and thought which come along with the respective tongue, one must be able to speak it. This problem also gives rise to another question: Can a person who learns a language other than his or her mother language "think" through the second language? As in, can his or her mind adapt the "schema" the language entails, or must they be born into the language from the beginning? As evident, the issues of accessibility remain a mystery in regards to cognition through language.
TAKE A LOOK AT A SITUATION WHICH AROSE AFTER THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE VIADUCT DE MILLAU:
When the Viaduct de Millau opened in the south of France in 2004, this tallest bridge in the world won worldwide accolades. German newspapers described how it "floated above the clouds" with "elegance and lightness" and "breathtaking" beauty. In France, papers praised the "immense" "concrete giant."
....
As in that bridge. In German, the noun for bridge, Brücke, is feminine. In French, pontis masculine. German speakers saw prototypically female features; French speakers, masculine ones. Similarly, Germans describe keys (Schlüssel) with words such as hard, heavy, jagged, and metal, while to Spaniards keys (llaves) are golden, intricate, little, and lovely. Guess which language construes key as masculine and which as feminine? Grammatical gender also shapes how we construe abstractions. In 85 percent of artistic depictions of death and victory, for instance, the idea is represented by a man if the noun is masculine and a woman if it is feminine, says Boroditsky. Germans tend to paint death as male, and Russians tend to paint it as female.
This portion of an article from Newsweek (4) demonstrates the issues of accessibility when it comes to language. Two fundamentally different languages use different modifiers to describe the exact same bridge. In other words, the two different cultures are perceiving a different reality of the bridge. One, the Germans, see the bridge for its aesthetic value. The French, on the other hand, saw the bridge as a sign of structural integrity.
References
4. Begley, Sharon. "Why Language May Shape Our Thoughts." Newsweek. N.p., 8 July 2009. Web. 24 Nov. 2013.
4. Begley, Sharon. "Why Language May Shape Our Thoughts." Newsweek. N.p., 8 July 2009. Web. 24 Nov. 2013.