|

Does Your Language Shape How You Think?

ByRichard Nissen Reading Time: 1 minute

This is a fascinating link that describes how in many languages you always refer to yourself and give instructions in a geographical manner: move your foot North for instance.  This means that all the speakers of these languages always know their orientation.

We know that  language controls what we think but this use of language gives you orientation all the time. Does this begin to describe how indigenous people navigated effortlessly without any aids?
<<<<

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/magazine/29language-t.html?pagewanted=3&_r=1&sq=Guy%20Deutscher&st=cse&scp=1

Similar Posts

  • The Common Toad: Bufo, bufo.bufo

    Observations from the “Observer’s book of British wild animals” first published in 1938. It was compiled by W.J.Stoke. “I found this piece fascinating as it describes the navigational skills of Toads.  There are also other works that suggests that Newts operate in a similar way, making long journeys out of the water but not getting…

  • Avian Navigation System

    The avian navigation system is rather complex, based on many factors, and it even used two aspects of the magnetic field. If, in a given situation, one can show that the receptors in the beak have no effect, that does not mean that they do not have one in another situation! Anaesthesia of the upper…

  • Hefted Sheep

    This is an English term for sheep that learn to live in a particular location who do not stray from their “land”.  For us this is another piece of the jigsaw of how animals operate in the wild and know where “home” is. DEFRA ( Britain’s government Agency for Rural Affairs)  asked ADAS to do…

  • Path integration

    Adelaide Sibeaux 1 , Cait Newport1, Jonathan P. Green1, Cecilia Karlsson 2, Jacob Engelmann 3 & Theresa Burt de Perera1 have recently published a paper showing that fishes as well as other animals use path integration to find their way home.   I believe this is very important and probably the main way we navigate. Path integration maybe the way…