Language

Also: words, quotes, knowledge.

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Language is the normal way humans communicate.
Languages act as a system for encoding and decoding information for the purpose of communication.
Human language has syntax, a set of rules for connecting words together to make statements or questions.
Language can be changed, by adding new words, for example, to describe new things.

We don’t think in language/ words, we think in concepts, that’s why we have memory lapses (“It’s on the tip of my tongue”).
We know the concept exists as a word, but we don’t remember the word in the language that we want to use right now. We may remember the word in another language.
We generally don’t think about concepts that we don’t have words for. It’s important to learn new languages, to be able to think about things in different ways, specifically important for feelings. There are words for feelings in some languages and we don’t even think that those feelings exist until we learn the word to express them.

Quotes

Language is the dress of thought.
– Samuel Johnson

If we spoke a different language, we would perceive a somewhat different world.
– Ludwig Wittgenstein

Learning another language is not only learning different words for the same things, but learning another way to think about things.
– Flora Lewis

The sum of human wisdom is not contained in any one language.
– Ezra Pound

A man who is ignorant of foreign languages is also ignorant of his own language.
– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about.
– Benjamin Lee Whorf

But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.
– George Orwell, 1984

Every individual is at once the beneficiary and the victim of the linguistic tradition into which he has been born.
– Aldous Huxley

Language is the source of misunderstandings.
– Antoine de Saint-Exupery

All language is but a poor translation.
– Franz Kafka

Language is a poor enough means of communication as it is. So we should use all the words we have.
– Caitlín R. Kiernan, The Drowning Girl

We always translate the other person’s language into our own language.
– Milton H. Erickson

After all, when you come right down to it, how many people speak the same language even when they speak the same language?
– Russell Hoban

You may translate books of science exactly… The beauties of poetry cannot be preserved in any language except that in which it was originally written
– Samuel Johnson

Articles

The world’s most efficient languages

By John McWhorter, posted June 29 2016
https://theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/06/complex-languages/489389
How much do you really need to say to put a sentence together?
Just as fish presumably don’t know they’re wet, many English speakers don’t know that the way their language works is just one of endless ways it could have come out. It’s easy to think that what one’s native language puts words to, and how, reflects the fundamentals of reality.

The ‘untranslatable’ emotions you never knew you had

Many of the terms referred to highly specific positive feelings, which often depend on very particular circumstances:

Desbundar (Portuguese) – to shed one’s inhibitions in having fun
Tarab (Arabic) – a musically induced state of ecstasy or enchantment
Shinrin-yoku (Japanese) – the relaxation gained from bathing in the forest, figuratively or literally
Gigil (Tagalog) – the irresistible urge to pinch or squeeze someone because they are loved or cherished
Yuan bei (Chinese) – a sense of complete and perfect accomplishment
Iktsuarpok (Inuit) – the anticipation one feels when waiting for someone, whereby one keeps going outside to check if they have arrived

But others represented more complex and bittersweet experiences, which could be crucial to our growth and overall flourishing.

Natsukashii (Japanese) – a nostalgic longing for the past, with happiness for the fond memory, yet sadness that it is no longer
Wabi-sabi (Japanese) – a “dark, desolate sublimity” centred on transience and imperfection in beauty
Saudade (Portuguese) – a melancholic longing or nostalgia for a person, place or thing that is far away either spatially or in time – a vague, dreaming wistfulness for phenomena that may not even exist
Sehnsucht (German) – “life-longings”, an intense desire for alternative states and realisations of life, even if they are unattainable

In addition to these emotions, Lomas’s lexicography also charted the personal characteristics and behaviours that might determine our long-term well-being and the ways we interact with other people.

Dadirri (Australian aboriginal) term – a deep, spiritual act of reflective and respectful listening
Pihentagyú (Hungarian) – literally meaning “with a relaxed brain”, it describes quick-witted people who can come up with sophisticated jokes or solutions
Desenrascanço (Portuguese) – to artfully disentangle oneself from a troublesome situation
Sukha (Sanskrit) – genuine lasting happiness independent of circumstances
Orenda (Huron) – the power of the human will to change the world in the face of powerful forces such as fate

Marc Brackett at Yale University has found that teaching 10 and 11-year-old children a richer emotional vocabulary improved their end-of-year grades, and promoted better behaviour in the classroom.
“The more granular our experience of emotion is, the more capable we are to make sense of our inner lives”, he says!

Why people hate or love the sound of certain words

Published: february 22 2022, by Jo Adetunji
https://theconversation.com/why-people-hate-or-love-the-sound-of-certain-words-177096
The relation between sound and meaning, why we also need arbitrariness

What did ancient languages sound like?

Posted on 3rd July 2021 by Antigone in Greek language, Latin language, The classical tradition:
https://antigonejournal.com/2021/07/what-did-ancient-languages-sound-like