Are you a product of the language you speak?

Danish children struggle to learn their vowel-filled language – and this changes how adult Danes interact

Denmark is a rich country with an extensive welfare system and strong education. Yet surprisingly, Danish children have trouble learning their mother tongue. Compared to Norwegian children, who are learning a very similar language, Danish kids on average know 30% fewer words at 15 months and take nearly two years longer to learn the past tense. In “Hamlet,” William Shakespeare famously wrote that “something is rotten in the state of Denmark,” but he might as well have been talking about the Danish language.

Here's the interesting bit:

We found that because Danish speech is so ambiguous, Danes rely much more on context – including what was said in the conversation before, what people know about each other and general background knowledge – to figure out what somebody is saying compared to adult Norwegians.

Read the full article on the link 

So this got me wondering, and it's something I've had on my mind for years. Is it possible  a person's language — the grammar, the words, the concepts, even the way it's written – can affect how a person thinks. Language after all is also a microcosm of the culture that evolved it.

Of course, these thoughts are mostly anecdotal and might just be bias, but here goes. For instance, the Chinese language is ideographic and I've found that people who speak primarily Chinese tend to have rigid, compartmentalised thinking. I've also seen that those educated in Chinese tend to be better at math (although it could just be the intense drilling they get). 

Concepts like guanxi, loosely translated as 'relationship' and mien (face) don't entirely exist in English. And Chinese behaviour is greatly affected by those words.

Of those who speak the Malay language, which by nature is rather poetic, you'll find many who get into the arts, as singers, songwriters, actors etc. Now it may be that it's just cultural.

If there were no word to describe 'piety', could a person growing up with that language be pious? I read someplace that the Spanish word manana doesn't exactly mean tomorrow, but is an indeterminate 'later'. And that affects how someone might look at time and deadlines.

So have you had differences in opinion or misunderstandings with people whose first language isn't English? Or if you speak more than one language, do you find those languages affect your worldview?

Posted by Jamie B Testudinidae.