jfl@munnari.oz.au (John Lenarcic) (08/21/90)
Does anyone know of any research that has been undertaken on the
application of the Sapir/Whorf hypothesis to computer programming
languages ?
( Briefly stated, the hypothesis is :
" Language shapes the way we think,
and determines what we can think about. " )
If anyone can direct me to any papers/technical-reports/books that
deal with the above topic I would be most grateful. ( Pointers to
good literature dealing with the hypothesis from a general linguistics
perspective are also welcome.)
Please reply to me via e-mail. I'll post a summary of responses.
Many thanks,
John Lenarcic
Department of Computer Science,
University of Melbourne,
Victoria, AUSTRALIA
E-mail : jfl@munmurra.cs.mu.oz.audmark@acsu.buffalo.edu (David Mark) (08/21/90)
In article <5137@munnari.oz.au> jfl@munnari.oz.au (John Lenarcic) writes: > >Does anyone know of any research that has been undertaken on the >application of the Sapir/Whorf hypothesis to computer programming >languages ? > >( Briefly stated, the hypothesis is : > " Language shapes the way we think, > and determines what we can think about. " ) > Anecdotally, I have known several FORTRAN/BASIC programmers who seem to have a great deal of difficulty grasping the concept of recursion, or at least with seeing how to apply it. If that could be documented, it would be a computer-language version of Sapir-Whorf David Mark dmark@acsu.buffalo.edu
pautler@ils.nwu.edu (David Pautler) (08/22/90)
In article <5137@munnari.oz.au>, jfl@munnari.oz.au (John Lenarcic) writes: > > ( Briefly stated, the hypothesis is : > " Language shapes the way we think, Okay. > and determines what we can think about. " ) A professor in pragmatics told me this spring that the theory only claims that a given language forces its users to mentally keep track of certain information like time-of-occurence, etc. that is needed to make correct decisions about tense, etc. that are *required* to form sentences. I believe the comparison S/W used to illustrate this was the bookkeeping required by a Southwest Native American language (Hopi?) regarding the source or validation of information - evidently there are markers performing the function of "FOAF", etc. that are as necessary to well-formedness in that language (which does not mark tense) as tense is to English (which does not mark validation). Of course, the Native American language can express time-of-occurence if need be, just as English can express source-of-information, but neither is explicitly required by the language itself. I believe the traditional example: (~11 Inuit language words for snow) and (~1 English word for snow) ==> (Inuit language and English users think about snow differently) might not be due to S/W and probably misrepresents their idea. But I am not a linguist, nor have I read their work. I just wanted to suggest that applications of S/W may not be what you actually want to look for.
dtate@unix.cis.pitt.edu (David M Tate) (08/22/90)
In article <1445@anaxagoras.ils.nwu.edu> pautler@ils.nwu.edu writes: >In article <5137@munnari.oz.au>, jfl@munnari.oz.au (John Lenarcic) writes: >> >> ( Briefly stated, the hypothesis is : >> " Language shapes the way we think, > > Okay. > >> and determines what we can think about. " ) > > A professor in pragmatics told me this spring that the theory >only claims that a given language forces its users to mentally keep >track of certain information like time-of-occurence, etc. I think this understates the hypothesis, at least in Whorf's version. Whorf claimed that, since we think in language, the language in which we think will have enormous impact on the ways in which we think, tending to reinforce certain patterns and undermine others. It could be something as blatant as having the word for "good" being etymologically related to that for "strong", tending to reinformce "might makes right" thinking, or as subtle as the lack of a socially acceptable passive voice encouraging thinking of one'sself as an agent and not as an object (or, of course, the converse). There is, to be sure, a "chicken and egg" question here: is it the language that shapes the culture, or the culture that shapes the language? The answer (IMHO) is "both": the language evolves because of and in accordance with cultural forces, but after a certain point the language develops a momentum of its own, tending to carry the culture in directions already inherent in the language. -- David M. Tate | "May your fondest wish be granted." dtate@unix.cis.pitt.edu | "A Man for all Seasonings" | --Traditional Chinese Curse.
rjohnson@vela.acs.oakland.edu (R o d Johnson) (08/22/90)
In article <1445@anaxagoras.ils.nwu.edu> pautler@ils.nwu.edu writes: >In article <5137@munnari.oz.au>, jfl@munnari.oz.au (John Lenarcic) writes: >> >> ( Briefly stated, the hypothesis is : >> " Language shapes the way we think, > > Okay. > >> and determines what we can think about. " ) There are various versions of the idea around, which can be attributed to von Humboldt, Sapir, Whorf, and their commentators. The idea that language "determines what we can think about" is a very strong version of the hypothesis, probably stronger than Sapir would have liked, maybe stronger than Whorf. These things were not always stated with perfect clarity and consistency, though, so it's difficult to say. > A professor in pragmatics told me this spring that the theory >only claims that a given language forces its users to mentally keep >track of certain information like time-of-occurence, etc. that is >needed to make correct decisions about tense, etc. that are *required* >to form sentences. This is a slightly odd-sounding version of Whorf's thesis. It's hard to say if it's a good rendering of Whorf into modern terms, but it feels rather reductive to me. At any rate, it's too narrow: Whorf was concerned with Hopi versus English way of thinking about time in that particular article, but the thesis in general isn't strictly limited to that. Hopi merely provided (or seemed to provide) a striking illustration of two different ways of thinking. Note that "ways of thinking" is in fact rather sloppy here: Whorf didn't actually investigate the ways Hopis think about time in any detail at all--he merely projected his feeling about the language onto their thinking. In essence, he *assumed* the truth of what later commentators saw as a "hypothesis". To Whorf, it was almost self-evident. >I believe the comparison S/W used to illustrate >this was the bookkeeping required by a Southwest Native American language >(Hopi?) Yes. Whorf, though, not Sapir/Whorf. Whorf, though he had had some training, was basically a gifted amateur; Sapir was less inclined to make sweeping claims--he knew how language has a way of stabbing such claims in the back. >I believe the traditional >example: > >(~11 Inuit language words for snow) and (~1 English word for snow) > ==> (Inuit language and English users think about snow differently) > >might not be due to S/W and probably misrepresents their idea. Boas, in fact, in the Introduction to the "Handbook of American Indian Languages" (1911). (At least this is the point at which it was introduced into linguistics.) Geoff Pullum has recently done a fairly comprehensive study of where this idea comes from and how it has mutated into "50 words for snow", "*100* words for snow," etc. We've had some discussion of it in sci.lang as well. >But >I am not a linguist, nor have I read their work. I just wanted to suggest >that applications of S/W may not be what you actually want to look for. I think that this is true. I, and I think many other linguists (though not all), have a gut feeling that somewhere, somehow, deep down, there's a kernel of truth in the idea, but no attempt to frame it as an empirical hypothesis has, to my knowledge, really led anywhere. -- Rod Johnson * rjohnson@vela.acs.oakland.edu * (313) 650 2315
hullp@cogsci.berkeley.edu (08/22/90)
In article <2674@vela.acs.oakland.edu> rjohnson@vela.acs.oakland.edu (R o d Johnson) writes: >I, and I think many other linguists (though >not all), have a gut feeling that somewhere, somehow, deep down, >there's a kernel of truth in the idea, but no attempt to frame it as >an empirical hypothesis has, to my knowledge, really led anywhere. Actually, several studies have indeed led somewhere. Casagrande's 1950's studies demonstrated a so-called Whorfian effect on children's perception of shape. The comparison was between Navaho speakers (whose language mandates the marking of shape with inflections) and English speakers. There have been a few others (not many, admittedly) that have demonstrated similar effects. The problem is that most of the tests of the hypothesis have been tests of color perception and categorization. Color perception is strongly rooted in physiology and is thus uniform across cultures to a large degree. Any language effects would have to be in a domain for which there is less evidence for a physical basis. I've just finished a literature review of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (part of my dissertation on personality in bilinguals). I'd be happy to e-mail a copy of this chapter to anybody who's interested. Philip V. Hull. > > >-- >Rod Johnson * rjohnson@vela.acs.oakland.edu * (313) 650 2315 INTERNET: hullp@cogsci.berkeley.edu BITNET: hullp@cogsci.berkeley.bitnet UUCP: ucbvax!cogsci!hullp OR: ucbvax!cogsci.berkeley.edu!hullp
minakami@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Michael K. Minakami) (08/22/90)
In article <1445@anaxagoras.ils.nwu.edu> pautler@ils.nwu.edu writes: > A professor in pragmatics told me this spring that the theory >only claims that a given language forces its users to mentally keep >track of certain information like time-of-occurence, etc. that is >needed to make correct decisions about tense, etc. that are *required* >to form sentences. I think this is only the weak form of the Whorfian hypothesis. The strong version does assert that the structure and lexicon of a language shapes thought. According to J. R. Anderson..."Whorf felt that such a rich variety of terms would cause the speaker of the language to perceive the world differently from a person who had only a single word for a particular category." This stronger version of the hypothesis is generally considered disproven by Rosch's studies of color vision and similar experiments. --Michael -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The child can explain the man better than | Michael K. Minakami the man can explain the child. | minakami@neon.stanford.edu
colin@cstr.ed.ac.uk (Colin Matheson) (08/22/90)
In article <2674@vela.acs.oakland.edu> rjohnson@vela.acs.oakland.edu (R o d Johnson) writes: > I think many other linguists (though >not all), have a gut feeling that somewhere, somehow, deep down, >there's a kernel of truth in the idea [S/W], but no attempt to frame it as >an empirical hypothesis has, to my knowledge, really led anywhere. I agree with your gut feeling. I suppose the trouble is, as with many Linguistic issues, that the "truth" of the matter lies at such a level of abstraction that it's difficult just to talk about it. However, here's one suggestion of one version of the thesis (count the hedges!). Perhaps it's true that the act of "compressing" abstractions into concepts represented by single lexical items or phrases has a qualitative effect on the kinds of things it is possible to talk about. Thus although it's probably the case that one can express any particular concept in any language periphrastically, it might just be that the ability to encapsulate things in immediately transeferrable units affects the sorts of transfer that are possible. (Where the transfer is of information between humans.) Is this version of the Sapir/Whorf stuff part of the original, btw? Colin =========== Colin Matheson | Centre for Speech Technology UUCP: ..!uunet!mcsun!ukc!its63b!eusip!colin | University of Edinburgh ARPA: colin%uk.ac.ed.eusip@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk | 80 South Bridge JANET: colin@uk.ac.ed.eusip | Edinburgh EH1 1HN Scotland
dmark@acsu.buffalo.edu (David Mark) (08/22/90)
In article <38324@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> hullp@cogsci.berkeley.edu.UUCP () writes: > ... some lines deleted ... > > The problem is that most of >the tests of the hypothesis have been tests of color perception and >categorization. Color perception is strongly rooted in physiology >and is thus uniform across cultures to a large degree. Any language >effects would have to be in a domain for which there is less evidence >for a physical basis. In fact, Lakoff (in "Women, Fire, ...") discusses a study by Kay and Kempton that seemed to clearly demonstrate linguistic relativity in color perception. Phillip Hull is correct in pointing out the strong physiological basis of color perception. Thus different color perception due to language seems pretty powerful evidence. (I could describe the experiment, from Lakoff's account, and/or give the full reference, if people want me to.) David Mark dmark@acsu.buffalo.edu
rjohnson@vela.acs.oakland.edu (R o d Johnson) (08/22/90)
In article <38324@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> hullp@cogsci.berkeley.edu.UUCP () writes: >In article <2674@vela.acs.oakland.edu> rjohnson@vela.acs.oakland.edu (R o d Johnson) writes: >>I, and I think many other linguists (though >>not all), have a gut feeling that somewhere, somehow, deep down, >>there's a kernel of truth in the idea, but no attempt to frame it as >>an empirical hypothesis has, to my knowledge, really led anywhere. >Actually, several studies have indeed led somewhere. Casagrande's >1950's studies demonstrated a so-called Whorfian effect on children's >perception of shape. The comparison was between Navaho speakers >(whose language mandates the marking of shape with inflections) and >English speakers. Thanks for this information. I guess I was using "led anywhere" in a somewhat more global sense. That is, I know there have been a smattering of studies that purport to be consistent with ("confirm" is too strong, I think) the S/W hypothesis--but it doesn't seem that any real coherent picture emerges of "thought" as a whole being strongly affected by "language" as a whole; that is, we have little evidence that "Whorfian" effects are of fundamental importance to cognition. Instead we get hints that there may be something there, but the results are mixed and often rather tentative. Does this fit with your perspective on things? (Admittedly, notions like "of fundamental importance" are pretty difficult to assess.) On the other hand, as you say, the best-known disconfirming studies suffer from being in the relatively few areas where there probably are reliable hardwired universals, as in Berlin and Kay's studies of color terms. In the huge gray area, evidence seems hard to come by. I was briefly involved with a cognitive science team a few years back that was grappling with some of these questions, and it seemed to me that the task of designing experiments was extraordinarily hard--every approach had serious pitfalls. I don't know how their work turned out, though. >I've just finished a literature review of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis >(part of my dissertation on personality in bilinguals). I'd be happy >to e-mail a copy of this chapter to anybody who's interested. I'd love to see it. I've been wrestling with how to present this in one quick blast to an audience of underclassmen. Any help appreciated. :) -- Rod Johnson * rjohnson@vela.acs.oakland.edu * (313) 650 2315
EGNILGES@pucc.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) (08/23/90)
In article <5137@munnari.oz.au>, jfl@munnari.oz.au (John Lenarcic) writes: > >Does anyone know of any research that has been undertaken on the >application of the Sapir/Whorf hypothesis to computer programming >languages ? > >( Briefly stated, the hypothesis is : > " Language shapes the way we think, > and determines what we can think about. " ) John, my mailer refused to send mail to the Antipodes, so I am replying by post. Discussion here is followed by a bibliography. I hope this helps. One of the earliest applications of this hypothesis in computer programming is Gerald Weinberg's THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COMPUTER PROGRAMMMING (WEIN72). Weinberg applies Whorfian notions to come up with the idea that the programming language in some way influences the programmer. Although this notion was radical at the time it was also in the air beginning in 1968 with Dijkstra's letter (DIJK68) and subsequently Whorfian ideas forgetful of their origin have had a lot of influence in programming. Edsger Dijkstra never to my knowledge read Whorf, but Whorfian notions are evident in such ill-tempered remarks of Dijkstra's as the following (DIJK82): "The use of Cobol cripples the mind: its teaching, therefore, should be regarded as a criminal offense." and: "It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration." The Sapir/Whorf hypothesis seems to have a strong and a weak form. Its strong form renders thought outside a specific language impossible. Its weak form admits that language shapes thought but also allows other factors to shape thought as well as indeterminancy/free play. Phillip Kraft (KRAF77) shows how the use of an unstated yet strong Sapir/Whorf hypothesis (that programmers and their thoughts are fully determined by their language background) was used in the 70s to deskill business applications programming. I don't claim that Kraft, or the managers he describes, read Whorf. However, typical managerial statements like "X is a Good Technician but he can't see the Big Picture" or "Y is an excellent Cobol pro- grammer but cannot learn C because of her Cobol background" reveal a strong Whorfian assumption that the people in question are determined, rather than just shaped, by the language they have used to write programs. It is not mentioned that this may be a form of blaming the victim. In many cases, the languages assumed to distort programmer perception were imposed from On High. Of course, I am prepared to admit that the managers in question may just be making a practical assessment of the relative costs of retraining programmers versus hiring fresh warm bodies out of school, rather than clinging to a strong Whorfian hypothesis. But the large amount of age discrimination in the programming field would indicate otherwise: some managers will hire untrained grads in preference to experienced programmers because they believe that the old hand will never unlearn her old habits. My own experience in adult education in general and retraining Cobol and Assembler programmers in C in particular indicates that the older people are hungry and willing to learn. This deliberate evasion of a reality by hiring managers indicates an unstated philosophical bias. It's also problematic to transfer a notion developed in the study of real human languages to artificial languages. While the universe of discourse of a Hopi speaker studied by Whorf may coincide with his language, every programmer on earth has some form of non- computer language in addition to his computer language in which to express programming thoughts. The lesson of pseudocode (the use of a structured form of natural language in system specification) is that skill at expressing algorithms may not be tied to knowledge of ANY programming language whatsoever. This is a theme harped on by Dijkstra: in a recent note (DIJK89) he laments the failure of schools to teach the noncomputer language of mathematics, which would provide an excellent pseudocode, he feels, even for business problems. Another person who I am currently reading and who appears to at least be in this tradition, but outside programming, is Michael Heim. His ELECTRIC LANGUAGE: A Philosophical Study of Word Processing (HEIM87) BIBLIOGRAPHY DIJK68 "GOTO Considered Harmful", letter to the editor, COMMUNICA- TIONS of the ACM, March 1968. DIJK82 SELECTED WRITINGS ON COMPUTING: A PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE. Springer-Verlag, 1982. DIJK89 "A Debate on Teaching Computing Science", Edsger Dijkstra et al., COMMUNICATIONS of the ACM, December 1989. HEIM87 ELECTRIC LANGUAGE: A PHILOSOPHICAL STUDY OF WORD PROCESSING. Yale University Press, 1987. KRAF77 PROGRAMMERS AND MANAGERS: THE ROUTINIZATION OF COMPUTER PROGRAMMING IN THE UNITED STATES. Springer-Verlag, 1977. WEIN72 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COMPUTER PROGRAMMING. Addison-Wesley, 1972.
spam@hobbes.cc.iastate.edu (Begley Michael L) (08/23/90)
ACK!!!!!!!!! >(~11 Inuit language words for snow) and (~1 English word for snow) > ==> (Inuit language and English users think about snow differently) This is one of those _completely_ false myths. The eskimo language has only two words for snow---one that means 'snow that is falling' and 'snow that has fallen'. This myth was created by a linguist who published a paper that stated (in an attempt to demonstrate the same concept you stated) that the eskimo language has ~25 different words for snow _without_researching_ _the_eskimo_languages_at_all_! This myth has snowballed (pun intended) into guess-timations that there are 10,25,40,100+ different words for snow, depending on your source, when in fact only two words have been documented. Having two words for snow is no big deal, either.. how many words do we have for the stuff, after all? snow, flakes, slush, sleet, etc... I can get further information about this (perhaps even post my source if I can find it) including the 'actual words' for anyone who requests it. thanks mike begley spam@hobbes.cc.iastate.edu
eugene@wilbur.nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya) (08/23/90)
While I am in this group.
Lakoff was mentioned. I also found an interesting, but a little dense
reference in J. Fodor's The Language of Thought. This suggestions came
from Steve Stevenson at Clemson who moderates comp.parallel (now there
is difficult concept). Weinberg and all the other CS writers are okay,
but they are not cognitive-types (nor am I, I am a behaviorist by orientation
[Premack]). Another book I am just starting to read are some ideas by
Piaget. More after I finish. I've decided I must get some of Whorf's
writings because second hand net accounts lose everything.
There are a couple of ACM SIGPLAN Notices papers which cited Whorf.
They were okay.
But, I relate and interesting story discussing this type of topic with
Bill Burke, UCSC Physics Dept., July 4, 1990. Bill brought up Chinese,
and how in the past there was no concept of the kidney as a separate
organ, it was a combination of functions and that the concept of a
kidney transplant was inconceivable because it had all this
functionality tied together.
I think the English language cripples our ability to write parallel
programming languages. Even my use of the word biases you. I note that
comp.lang.* isn't even on the list. P.S. Piaget has a few words to
say about parallelism and simultaneity.
Regarding snow: there's Firn, Neve, Sastugi, etc. Ask Ed LaChapelle
(U. WA, Geology) how many words the Eskimo have. He will know.
--e. nobuo miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@orville.nas.nasa.gov
{uunet,mailrus,other gateways}!ames!eugenepacker@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov (Charles Packer) (08/23/90)
In article <1990Aug22.194652.7421@fs-1.iastate.edu>, spam@hobbes.cc.iastate.edu (Begley Michael L) writes... >This is one of those _completely_ false myths. The eskimo language has >only two words for snow---one that means 'snow that is falling' and 'snow >that has fallen'. This myth was created by a linguist who published a Somebody posted a list of about 10-20 Eskimo words for snow on this very net in the last couple of months. I think it may have been in sci.skeptic. So I'd like to see your reference.
pepke@gw.scri.fsu.edu (Eric Pepke) (08/23/90)
In article <11606@pucc.Princeton.EDU> EGNILGES@pucc.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes: > The lesson of pseudocode (the use > of a structured form of natural language in system specification) > is that skill at expressing algorithms may not be tied to knowledge > of ANY programming language whatsoever. Most of the examples of pseudocode I have seen omit the details of programming languages but comprise many assumptions about the structure of code. My own informal opinion, based on a great deal of learning and some teaching, is that programming languages can serve as conduits for learning various programming techniques which can then be readily transferred to other languages. I wrote my first recursive descent top-down parser as part of a freshman programming exercise in Pascal. Up until then, I had not really grokked the power of recursion. After then, it was trivial to do the same thing in BASIC using a push-down stack. Pascal is a good way of teaching recursion, and BASIC is not, but once taught, the technique is widely applicable. Similarly, learning SNOBOL teaches one about pattern matching, the idea of success or failure as an additional piece of information apart from the value of an expression, and associative programming through table lookup and the ability to create new variables on the fly. APL teaches one about certain kinds of data abstraction and operator overloading. LISP teaches one about treating programs as data and vice versa. Even FORTRAN and COBOL have lessons. FORTRAN teaches about numerical data types such as COMPLEX and a primitive kind of operator overloading, and even COBOL enforces some sort of organizational discipline. Learning as many languages as possible, even the "bad" ones, teaches an intuitive understanding of Turing completeness. It also teaches the mistakes of language designers, which are as important to learn as their successes. The process of learning involves extracting from a wealth of information that which is most useful. I have no evidence that humans are generally incapable of doing this, so I view Dijkstra's pedantic runs as counterproductive. People who can easily jump from one programming language to another and who can learn a new one in a week's time are stronger programmers than those who waste their time in immature squabbles about whether C or Pascal is "better" or "more structured." Such an overview, however, only comes after a person has learned several programming languages. Perhaps a similar thing occurs in human languages, but most people just don't learn enough of them to have the effect. I don't know what is typical, but I only know a mere three human languages, all of them European, compared to about 30 programming languages, including different Assemblers but excluding other dialects. In summary, while various programming language can expand one's ability to use programming techniques, the idea that they can constrain one's ability is very shaky. Eric Pepke INTERNET:pepke@gw.scri.fsu.edu Supercomputer Computations Research Institute MFENET: pepke@fsu Florida State University SPAN: scri::pepke Tallahassee, FL 32306-4052 BITNET: pepke@fsu Disclaimer: My employers seldom even LISTEN to my opinions. Meta-disclaimer: Any society that needs disclaimers has too many lawyers.
jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) (08/24/90)
In article <1990Aug22.194652.7421@fs-1.iastate.edu> spam@iastate.edu (Begley Michael L) writes: > >This is one of those _completely_ false myths. The eskimo language has >only two words for snow---one that means 'snow that is falling' and 'snow >that has fallen'. This myth was created by a linguist who published a >paper that stated (in an attempt to demonstrate the same concept you stated) >that the eskimo language has ~25 different words for snow _without_ >researching__the_eskimo_languages_at_all_! There was a big fight about such issues on Eunet.politics a while ago, with many people claiming such things as "language is culture". (Some people clearly regrad something along the lines of the Sapir/ Whorf hypothesis as making a very important point about culture and why one should learn other languages.) The Eskimo words for snow came up, of course, and eventually (after most of it had died down), the following was posted: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >From: cedelle@yin.irisa.fr (Alain Cedelle) Newsgroups: eunet.politics Subject: 31 Eskimo words about snow. Message-ID: <1990May30.124940.22664@irisa.fr> Date: 30 May 90 12:36:20 GMT Sender: news@irisa.fr Distribution: eunet Organization: IRISA, Rennes/Roazhon Lines: 41 Here is an answer to the old question about the number of words describing snow in Eskimo languages: These are 31 words about snow, from the Inuit, Aivilik and Igloolik languages. from J. MacDonald from igloolik research center. (this list is probably not exhaustive) Aluiqqaniq : Snowdrift on a steep hill, overhanging on top. Aniuk : Snow for drinking water. Aniuvak : Snow remaining in holes. Aput : Snow on the ground (close to the generic Snow) Aqilluqqaaq : Fresh and soggy snow Auviq : snow brick, to build igloo Ijaruvak : Melted snow, turned in ice cristals. Isiriartaq : Falling snow, yellow or red. Kanangniut : Snowdrift made by North-East wind. Katakartanaq : Crusty snow, broken by steps. Kavisilaq : snow hardened by rain or frost Kinirtaq : wet and compact snow. Masak : wet snow, saturated. Matsaaq : snow in water Maujaq : deep and soft snow, where it's dificult to walk. Mingullaut : thin powder snow, enters by cracks and covers objects. Mituk : small snow layer on the water of a fishing hole. Munnguqtuq : compressed snow which began to soften in spring. Natiruviaqtuq: snow blasts on the ground. Niggiut : snowdrift with South-east wind Niummak : hard waving snow staying on ice fields Pingangnuit : snowdrift made by south-west wind Piqsiq : snow lift by wind. Blizzard. Pukak : dry snow cristals, like sugar powder Qannialaaq : light falling snow Qanniq : falling snow Quiasuqaq : re-frozen snow surface, making crust. Qiqiqralijarnatuq: crissing snow when walked on. Uangniut : snowdrift made by north-west wind. Uluarnaq : round snowdrift Uqaluraq : taper snowdrift A.C.
gevins@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov (Jody Gevins) (08/24/90)
You gave three Eskimo words for snow. Can you give the English explanations for them? They don't mean anything to me, so I don't know the *class* of words that they are. They could mean flurries, snow flake, late spring wet snow, or some other class that I couldn't possibly think of. As someone pointed out, *we* have many words for some of the classes of snow, so this explanation may be enlightening (or not! :-)). -Jody
pollack@dendrite.cis.ohio-state.edu (Jordan B Pollack) (08/24/90)
I once considered more fully researching this exact topic, but it
seems more like it could only be targeted for the Journal of
Irreproducible Results. Since nobody knows what "thought" is anyhow, a
good approach is to study the effect of (native) programming language
on natural language. It is clear that there is an extremely robust
transfer effect, from these few examples:
Charles Moore invented Forth. Forth functions are tiny.
Moore writes like this:
I invented Forth. It worked. I like it.
Ken Iverson, the inventor of APL, sometimes criticized as a write-only
language, creates fifty word sentences rife with grammatical
complexity, so intricate and beautiful that I cant remember them.
Guy Steele (a lisp maven) offers the following final sentence to his
book COMMON LISP (first edition):
This function is occasionally useful as an argument to other functions
that require functions as arguments (Got that?)
Finally, lets jump to sentence 2 of John Backus's 1978 Turing Award Lecture,
also known as the "Apologia Fortrana", where he executes both a goto
and a double reference:
Readers [...] should turn to Section 16, the last section.
Good luck in your research.
--
Jordan Pollack Assistant Professor
CIS Dept/OSU Laboratory for AI Research
2036 Neil Ave Email: pollack@cis.ohio-state.edu
Columbus, OH 43210 Fax/Phone: (614) 292-4890wdr@wang.com (William Ricker) (08/24/90)
[Context: question of whether the language of users constrains
thought, and whether the levels of abstraction involved in
discussing said hypothsis make it difficult to discuss]
colin@cstr.ed.ac.uk (Colin Matheson) writes:
]Perhaps it's true that the act of "compressing" abstractions into concepts
]represented by single lexical items or phrases has a qualitative effect on
]the kinds of things it is possible to talk about. Thus although it's
]probably the case that one can express any particular concept in any
]language periphrastically, it might just be that the ability to encapsulate
]things in immediately transeferrable units affects the sorts of transfer
]that are possible. (Where the transfer is of information between humans.)
If I understood that periphrastic version of the hypothesis, I think
it has as a corollary that English is not highly suited to it's own
transfer. Which, given the context, I suspect may have been Colin's
point, but if it wasn't, I'll suggest it more openly.
Is a natural language the right language in which to discuss the
deficiencies of natural languages?
That it was not was one of the original motivations of the
Loglan/Lojban successor of Esperanto. Can one of you sci.lang
folken translate the S/W hypotheses various statements in this
newsgroup lately into Lojban and give us an un-biases account of how
manipulable they are in a non-formal yet un-natural language?
--
/bill ricker/
wdr@wang.com a/k/a wricker@northeastern.edu
*** Warning: This account not authorized to express opinions ***robboy@bend.ucsd.edu (William Robboy) (08/24/90)
In article <3279@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.UUCP (Jeff Dalton) writes: >[Repost of Alain Cedelle's posting from last May] >>From: cedelle@yin.irisa.fr (Alain Cedelle) >>Newsgroups: eunet.politics >>Subject: 31 Eskimo words about snow. >>Message-ID: <1990May30.124940.22664@irisa.fr> >> Here is an answer to the old question about the number of words describing >> snow in Eskimo languages: >> >> These are 31 words about snow, from the Inuit, Aivilik and Igloolik languages. >> from J. MacDonald from igloolik research center. >> (this list is probably not exhaustive) Indeed. Probably they are not exhaustively listable. >>[list follows] I don't know any Eskimo languages, but I've seen enough work on them to bet my bottom dollar that few if any of the words in this list are unanalyzable wholes, and that they are probably concatenations of multiple morphemes. Eskimo languages are polysynthetic. Words can be formed by recursively concatenating pieces of word to produce things that would be whole complex phrases or sentences in languages more like English. There is potentially an infinite number of words about anything. The fact that there are so many words about snow reflects Eskimo word-formation in general rather than Eskimo cognition about snow. If a very large number of such words were recorded from spontaneous utterances (rather than intentionally elicited in linguistic fieldwork), it indicates merely that the topic of snow comes up a lot. Which I imagine it does up there no matter what language you're speaking. Geoff Pullum wrote an entertainingly scathing article on this topic. Here is the citation from Current Contents: 1. PULLUM GK. THE GREAT ESKIMO VOCABULARY HOAX. NATURAL LANGUAGE & LINGUISTIC THEORY, 1989 MAY, V7 N2:275-281. Bill Robboy robboy@bend.ucsd.edu
jcurtis@bbn.com (Jack Curtis) (08/24/90)
If I may insert a casual comment, it appears to me that the relative paucity of expressions for snow in English, as opposed to Innuit is a function, principally, of the limited experience of lexicographers. As a skier, who has skied varying types of snow surface - I have heard snow described as granular, frozen granular, crusty, rotten, sun-rotten, layered, frozen crumbular, champagne powder, Eastern powder, hard-crust, breakable crust, ball bearing, ice, blue ice, black ice, wet-suction, machine-wet, heavy powder, sugar, corn snow, confectioner's snow, undercut (by water), boiler-plate (ice w/nobules), etc. This list does not include statements about terrain/snow combinations, or any impromptu slang (which may spontaneously communicate the quality of the snow quite quickly.) Accuracy in describing snow adds to my pleasure. I'm sure that if my *survival* were as dependent upon making fine distinctions in snow cover and condition as it is for the Eskimo's, then I would *easily* have one hundred words (or phrases) for snow. Now, admittedly, this is quite different from computer languages, in that what one is able to reason about is limited to a purely synthetic terrain of constructs. However, I doubt that anyone trained in mathematics, for example, would find any great difficulty in overcoming the handicap of being tied to a chair and forced to write COBOL. (Which generally is regarded as as in a dead heat with flipping burgers in job satisfaction surveys.) Apologies to all who are gainfully employed flipping burgers.
thom@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu (Thom Gillespie) (08/24/90)
In article <1990Aug22.194652.7421@fs-1.iastate.edu> spam@iastate.edu (Begley Michael L) writes: > >>(~11 Inuit language words for snow) and (~1 English word for snow) >> ==> (Inuit language and English users think about snow differently) > >This is one of those _completely_ false myths. The eskimo language has >only two words for snow---one that means 'snow that is falling' and 'snow >that has fallen'. >... >depending on your source, when in fact only two words have been documented. > >Having two words for snow is no big deal, either.. how many words do we >have for the stuff, after all? > >snow, flakes, slush, sleet, etc... > >I can get further information about this (perhaps even post my source >if I can find it) including the 'actual words' for anyone who requests it. > >mike begley >spam@hobbes.cc.iastate.edu My guess is that you can't find the source to prove that there are only 2 words any more than anyone can find the source to prove that there are only 25, etc. Inuit language was not written before 1970 -- it was all spoken and it varied from village to village, even villages which were relatively next to each other e.g. Noatak and Kivalina in the North West Arctic. And since you've already stated that we have many words for snow, why would you think they have less since snow kills far more often in the Arctic than in Philadelphia -- naming states of snow are very important. I remember a winter in Kivalina when the ice began to sing which is when the moon gets fixed up right and starts to drag hundreds of square miles of frozen sea around. It makes a strange hum which you can not get away from and it lasts for hours. When it happened the elder Inuits people of the village were running all over the place saying, "We never told them the word for it!" -- they were talking about their kids. If you spent a winter above the arctic circle you'd be surpirzed at the number of words you'd dream up for different states of snow. There are hundreds of verbal nuances for snow, almost as many as we have for cars down here. Their experience with their environment definitely changed the way they talk about snow; our involvement with hardware and software has added to our language and changed the way we talk and think about computers et al. What came first grep, awk and yacc or our talking about grep, awk and yacc. Could any of us have scrolled through our mental desktops and double clicked an idea before we used the Mac? If you want to know about snow in the Arctic then go there and experience it, if you can't afford to go then send a letter to Oscar Swan, Kivalina, Alaska and ask him how many words he uses for snow -- maybe he'll tell you, maybe he won't! --Thom Gillespie
dgil@pa.reuter.COM (Dave Gillett) (08/24/90)
In <11606@pucc.Princeton.EDU> EGNILGES@pucc.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes: >The lesson of pseudocode (the use >of a structured form of natural language in system specification) >is that skill at expressing algorithms may not be tied to knowledge >of ANY programming language whatsoever. This is a theme harped on >by Dijkstra: in a recent note (DIJK89) he laments the failure of >schools to teach the noncomputer language of mathematics, which >would provide an excellent pseudocode, he feels, even for business >problems. In the current issue of Computer Language magazine, there is a letter from Robert Bernecky in which he laments the use of pseudocode as completely inadequate for the task. He writes from a perspective of close familiarity with APL, which was in fact developed to express and teach mathematical concepts (it solves several serious deficiencies of "standard" mathematical notation), and only secondarily to be executable. But in recent years, Ken Iverson has been exploring the use of microcomputer implementations of APL as a tool for teaching mathematics at a high-school/freshman level, and finds that the opportunity to provide each student with a tireless native speaker of the language -- who will respond to any well-formed statement and diagnose any statement that is not well-formed -- achieves excellent results. I believe that he may have described some of his recent work at APL 89: Language as a Tool of Thought.... By the way... Dijkstra described APL as "a mistake, carried through to perfection." Dave
colin@cstr.ed.ac.uk (Colin Matheson) (08/24/90)
In article <arupnc.fcg@wang.com> wdr@wang.com (William Ricker) writes: >colin@cstr.ed.ac.uk (Colin Matheson) writes: >] Thus although it's >]probably the case that one can express any particular concept in any >]language periphrastically, it might just be that the ability to encapsulate >]things in immediately transeferrable units affects the sorts of transfer >]that are possible. (Where the transfer is of information between humans.) > >If I understood that periphrastic version of the hypothesis, I think >it has as a corollary that English is not highly suited to it's own >transfer. Which, given the context, I suspect may have been Colin's >point, but if it wasn't, I'll suggest it more openly. > >Is a natural language the right language in which to discuss the >deficiencies of natural languages? I just meant to distinguish the ability to express a "concept" in a "word" from the need to "compose" the same notion periphrastically using a number of words (to put the thing in crude terms). I'm still hedging like crazy, notice - I don't know if I believe any of this. I suppose my feeling goes back to my sudden immersion in a cognitive science course some years ago. Most sentences which were spoken by most of the teachers were incomprehensible, partly because the specialist vocabulary from Linguistics, Psychology, Formal Semantics, AI, and programming is so large. I could usually get the meaning of any word which was explained, and hence the meaning of the concept denoted, for example, by "algorithm" wasn't something I couldn't understand. However, given the complicated definitions required by such words, most sentences containing them were very difficult to process - and sentences containing more than one were impossible. Eventually the notions sunk in, though, and the result was a qualitative change in my understanding of such sentences - from zero to something.* If one translates this scenario into different languages, one with the specialist vocabulary and one without, then it would be possible to believe that a particular language restricts the speakers' abilities to express certain concepts. While this might be true, it would not prove the thesis that the language itself does the restricting. I don't think I've explained myself very well here, but I certainly don't want to suggest that it's not possible to describe NL using NL. Colin * Another explanation, of course, is that I'm thick. =============== Colin Matheson | Centre for Speech Technology UUCP: ..!uunet!mcsun!ukc!its63b!eusip!colin | University of Edinburgh ARPA: colin%uk.ac.ed.eusip@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk | 80 South Bridge JANET: colin@uk.ac.ed.eusip | Edinburgh EH1 1HN Scotland
roger@zuken.co.jp (Roger Meunier) (08/25/90)
In article <5137@munnari.oz.au> jfl@munnari.oz.au (John Lenarcic) writes: >( Briefly stated, the hypothesis is : > " Language shapes the way we think, > and determines what we can think about. " ) I can't direct you to any studies on the subject, but from the content of some of the other posts, I don't think this is *too* out of line... When I was studying ancient Greek, I was reading in the text about how Greek evolved from Sanskrit, in particular about the evolution of cases and prepositions/adverbs. The discussion revolved around how the language evolved based on common usage. In other words, the language changed and became more *streamlined* to express thoughts in a more "manageable" fashion. If this is the case, then the thought process dictated the grammar, not the other way around. Ways were *developed* to express new thoughts, or to express thoughts more concisely. With programming languages it's the same. If you have a *clear* idea of what you want a computer system to do, you can find a language construct to perform it, or use existing constructs to derive a new one. I'll admit that only knowing a language which does not easily allow such derivation can limit the horizons of a programmer. I remember when I had to do bit manipulation in COBOL; COBOL was not designed to do such gymnastics, but it is logically possible to implement bit shifting. I wouldn't want to try to express EVERY construct in COBOL; there's only so much my feeble mind can handle. But even COBOL can be used as a base to express constructs which take only one statement of C code... I don't think that language inherently limits the thought process; thinking can be so abstract that *no* language can capture the fulness of it. But language certainly inhibits the *transmission* of these ideas; just thinking about all the ways my post is going to be interpretted makes my hair stand on end! -- Roger Meunier @ Zuken, Inc. Yokohama, Japan (roger@zuken.co.jp)
connie@yunexus.YorkU.CA (James Connor) (08/25/90)
An interesting perspective on Sapir-Whorfesque ideas with regards to programming can be found in August 1990 edition of Byte magazine. Check out Stop Bit by Richard Hans Peterson, entitled 'The Tongues of Men and Machines'.
jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) (08/29/90)
In article <38382@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> thom@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu.UUCP (Thom Gillespie) writes: >Could any of us have scrolled through our mental desktops and double >clicked an idea before we used the Mac? Yes. Could and did.
thom@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu (Thom Gillespie) (08/30/90)
In article <3296@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.UUCP (Jeff Dalton) writes: >In article <38382@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> thom@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu.UUCP (Thom Gillespie) writes: > >>Could any of us have scrolled through our mental desktops and double >>clicked an idea before we used the Mac? > >Yes. Could and did. I used to grep for things before the Mac. Usually they fell from my greps before I could cat them --Thom Grepespie
rapaport@acsu.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) (08/30/90)
In article <1990Aug22.194652.7421@fs-1.iastate.edu> spam@iastate.edu (Begley Michael L) writes: > >>(~11 Inuit language words for snow) and (~1 English word for snow) >> ==> (Inuit language and English users think about snow differently) > >This is one of those _completely_ false myths. Here's a reference: Pullum, Geoffrey K. (1989), "The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax," Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 7: 275-281.