our view of the world is strongly affected by the languages we use.
When we think in a given language, that language acts as a filter. Concepts it can’t express are removed from our awareness. Our mode of expression constrains us to only those thoughts and concepts that can easily be expressed within it.
| jejune | puerile |
| bludgeon | randello clava |
| rapier | spada stocco fioretto |
| wrought | forgiato battuto operato lavorato compiuto modellato provocato |
con-sonante che suona assieme (alla vocale)
archive.org/Language-Thought-and-Reality.pdf
E' un libro postumo che raccoglie diversi scrittti.
It should be pointed out that, even in our kind of writing, i.e., the alphabetic kind, linear order of signs is not quite absolute in many systems, which contain vestiges of an older two·dimensional way of grouping. Thus, in the writing of pointed Arabic, pointed Hebrew, and Pitman shorthand, the vowel points are grouped two·dimensionally with the consonantal signs, not written consecutively with them in the order of actual utterance. In the Devanagari alphabet the vowel signs are fused two·dimensionally with the consonant signs, and the vowel to be uttered after a consonant is actually attached in front of that consonant. Our own 'wh' is similarly written backward, being actually 'hw' - a special cluster of signs that retains an unusual order of positions. Some monograms and modern advertising placards also use two·dimensional groupings of letters.
pag202pdf
minimally differing phonemes (e.g., the long and short vowels of Latin; le vocali chiuse o aperte in italiano) are often not distinguished in a writing system, because the native reader can always tell from the context which sound to supply. And this condition is no more than we meet, to varying degree, in all systems of writing other than those devised by linguistic scientists for the express purpose of an accuracy going beyond the needs of simple communication.
pag206.pdf
manca pagina che sembrerebbe interessante
pag218.pdf e' pag205libro, poi manca pag 206 e 207 del libro, riprende pag208libro a pag219.pdf
Whorf's illustration of the difference between the English and Shawnee gestalt construction of cleaning a gun with a ramrod.
pag219.pdf
credits: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Whorf_Shawnee_Example.png
What it might well suggest to us today is that, if a rule has absolutely no exceptions, it is not recognized as a rule or as anithing else; it is then part of the background of experience of which we tend to remain unconscious.
pag220
