Sapir–Whorf
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Sapir–Whorf
Linguistic relativity asserts that language influences worldview or cognition. One form of linguistic relativity, linguistic determinism, regards peoples' languages as determining and influencing the scope of cultural perceptions of their surrounding world. Various colloquialisms refer to linguistic relativism: the Whorf hypothesis; the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis ( ); the Whorf-Sapir hypothesis; and Whorfianism. The hypothesis is in dispute, with many different variations throughout its history. The ''strong hypothesis'' of linguistic relativity, now referred to as linguistic determinism, is that language ''determines'' thought and that linguistic categories limit and restrict cognitive categories. This was a claim by some earlier linguists pre-World War II; (a debate between university professors) since then it has fallen out of acceptance by contemporary linguists. Nevertheless, research has produced positive empirical evidence supporting a ''weaker'' version of linguistic rel ...
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Benjamin Lee Whorf
Benjamin Atwood Lee Whorf (; April 24, 1897 – July 26, 1941) was an American linguist and fire prevention engineer best known for proposing the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis. He believed that the structures of different languages shape how their speakers perceive and conceptualize the world. Whorf saw this idea, named after him and his mentor Edward Sapir, as having implications similar to those of Einstein's principle of physical relativity. However, the concept originated from 19th-century philosophy and thinkers like Wilhelm von Humboldt and Wilhelm Wundt. Whorf initially pursued chemical engineering but developed an interest in linguistics, particularly Biblical Hebrew and indigenous Mesoamerican languages. His groundbreaking work on the Nahuatl language earned him recognition, and he received a grant to study it further in Mexico. He presented influential papers on Nahuatl upon his return. Whorf later studied linguistics with Edward Sapir at Yale University while w ...
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Harry Hoijer
Harry Hoijer (September 6, 1904 – March 11, 1976) was a linguist and anthropologist who worked on primarily Athabaskan languages and culture. He additionally documented the Tonkawa language, which is now extinct language, extinct. Hoijer's few works make up the bulk of material on this language. Hoijer was a student of Edward Sapir. Hoijer contributed greatly to the documentation of the Southern Athabaskan languages, Southern and Pacific Coast Athabaskan languages and to the reconstruction of proto-Athabaskan. Harry Hoijer collected a large number of valuable fieldnotes on many Athabaskan languages, which are unpublished. Some of his notes on Lipan Apache people, Lipan Apache and the Tonkawa language are lost. Hoijer coined the term "Sapir–Whorf hypothesis"."The Sapir–Whorf hypothesis", in Hoijer (1954), pp. 92–105 Notes Bibliography * * * Earle, Timothy (ed.) (1984): ''On the Evolution of Complex Societies: Essays in Honor of Harry Hoijer 1982,'' Undena (for the U ...
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Linguistic Determinism
Linguistic determinism is the concept that language and its structures limit and determine human knowledge or thought, as well as thought processes such as categorization, memory, and perception. The term implies that people's native languages will affect their thought process and therefore people will have different thought processes based on their mother tongues. Linguistic determinism is the ''strong'' form of linguistic relativism (popularly known as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis), which argues that individuals experience the world based on the structure of the language they habitually use. Since the 20th century, linguistic determinism has largely been discredited by studies and abandoned within linguistics, cognitive science, and related fields. Overview The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis branches out into two theories: linguistic determinism and linguistic relativity. Linguistic determinism is viewed as the stronger form – because language is viewed as a complete barrier, a perso ...
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Worldview
A worldview (also world-view) or is said to be the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing the whole of the individual's or society's knowledge, culture, and Perspective (cognitive), point of view. However, when two parties view the same real world phenomenon, their world views may differ, one including elements that the other does not. A worldview can include natural philosophy; fundamental, existential, and normative postulates; or themes, values, emotions, and ethics. Etymology The term ''worldview'' is a calque of the German word , composed of ('world') and ('perception' or 'view'). The German word is also used in English. It is a concept fundamental to German philosophy, especially epistemology and refers to a ''wide world perception''. Additionally, it refers to the framework of ideas and beliefs forming a global description through which an individual, group or culture watches and interprets the world (philosophy), world and interac ...
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Johann Gottfried Herder
Johann Gottfried von Herder ( ; ; 25 August 174418 December 1803) was a Prussian philosopher, theologian, pastor, poet, and literary critic. Herder is associated with the Age of Enlightenment, ''Sturm und Drang'', and Weimar Classicism. He was a Romantic philosopher and poet who argued that true German culture was to be discovered among the common people (''das Volk''). He also stated that it was through folk songs, folk poetry, and folk dances that the true spirit of the nation (''der Volksgeist'') was popularized. He is credited with establishing or advancing a number of important disciplines: hermeneutics, linguistics, anthropology, and "a secular philosophy of history." Biography Born in Mohrungen (now Morąg, Poland) in the Kingdom of Prussia, his parents were teacher Gottfried Herder (1706–1763) and his second wife Anna Elizabeth Herder, nee Peltz (1717–1772) grew up in a poor household, educating himself from his father's Bible and songbook. In 1762, as a yout ...
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Wilhelm Von Humboldt
Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt (22 June 1767 – 8 April 1835) was a German philosopher, linguist, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the Humboldt University of Berlin. In 1949, the university was named after him and his younger brother, Alexander von Humboldt, a Natural history, naturalist. He was a linguist who made contributions to the philosophy of language, ethnolinguistics, and to the Learning theory (education), theory and practice of education. He made a major contribution to the development of liberalism by envisioning education as a means of potential, realizing individual possibility rather than a way of indoctrination, drilling traditional ideas into youth to suit them for an already established occupation or social role. In particular, he was the architect of the Humboldtian education ideal, which was used from the beginning in Prussian education system, Prussia as a model for its system of public education, as well as in the Un ...
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Constructed Language
A constructed language (shortened to conlang) is a language whose phonology, grammar, orthography, and vocabulary, instead of having developed natural language, naturally, are consciously devised for some purpose, which may include being devised for a fiction, work of fiction. A constructed language may also be referred to as an artificial, planned or invented language, or (in some cases) a fictional language. ''Planned languages'' (or engineered languages / engelangs) are languages that have been purposefully designed; they are the result of deliberate, controlling intervention and are thus of a form of ''language planning''. There are many possible reasons to create a constructed language, such as to ease human communication (see international auxiliary language and code); to give fiction or an associated constructed setting an added layer of realism; for experimentation in the fields of linguistics, cognitive science, and machine learning; for artistic language, artistic crea ...
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Edward Sapir
Edward Sapir (; January 26, 1884 – February 4, 1939) was an American anthropologist-linguistics, linguist, who is widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the development of the discipline of linguistics in the United States. Sapir was born in German Empire, German Pomerania, in what is now northern Poland. His family emigrated to the United States of America when he was a child. He studied Germanic linguistics at Columbia University, Columbia, where he came under the influence of Franz Boas, who inspired him to work on Indigenous languages of the Americas, Native American languages. While finishing his Ph.D. he went to University of California, Berkeley, California to work with Alfred Kroeber documenting the indigenous languages there. He was employed by the Geological Survey of Canada for fifteen years, where he came into his own as one of the most significant linguists in North America, the other being Leonard Bloomfield. He was offered a professorship at ...
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Plato
Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born  BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the written dialogue and dialectic forms. He influenced all the major areas of theoretical philosophy and practical philosophy, and was the founder of the Platonic Academy, a philosophical school in History of Athens, Athens where Plato taught the doctrines that would later become known as Platonism. Plato's most famous contribution is the theory of forms, theory of forms (or ideas), which aims to solve what is now known as the problem of universals. He was influenced by the pre-Socratic thinkers Pythagoras, Heraclitus, and Parmenides, although much of what is known about them is derived from Plato himself. Along with his teacher Socrates, and his student Aristotle, Plato is a central figure in the history of Western philosophy. Plato's complete ...
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Cratylus (dialogue)
''Cratylus'' ( ; , ) is the name of a dialogue by Plato. Most modern scholars agree that it was written mostly during Plato's so-called middle period. In the dialogue, Socrates is asked by two men, Cratylus and Hermogenes (philosopher), Hermogenes, to tell them whether names are "conventional" or "natural", that is, whether language is a system of arbitrary signs or whether words have an intrinsic relation to the things they signify. The individual Cratylus was the first intellectual influence on Plato. Aristotle states that Cratylus influenced Plato by introducing to him the teachings of Heraclitus, according to M. W. Riley. Summary The subject of Cratylus is ''on'' ''the correctness of names'' (), in other words, it is a critique on the subject of naming (Baxter). When discussing an (''Wikt:ὄνομα, onoma'') and how it would relate to its subject, Socrates compares the original creation of a word to the work of an artist. An artist uses color to express the essence of hi ...
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Language
Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing system, writing. Human language is characterized by its cultural and historical diversity, with significant variations observed between cultures and across time. Human languages possess the properties of Productivity (linguistics), productivity and Displacement (linguistics), displacement, which enable the creation of an infinite number of sentences, and the ability to refer to objects, events, and ideas that are not immediately present in the discourse. The use of human language relies on social convention and is acquired through learning. Estimates of the number of human languages in the world vary between and . Precise estimates depend on an arbitrary distinction (dichotomy) established between languages and dialects. Natural languages are ...
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Heraclitus
Heraclitus (; ; ) was an Ancient Greece, ancient Greek Pre-Socratic philosophy, pre-Socratic philosopher from the city of Ephesus, which was then part of the Achaemenid Empire, Persian Empire. He exerts a wide influence on Western philosophy, both Ancient philosophy, ancient and Modern philosophy, modern, through the works of such authors as Plato, Aristotle, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Hegel, Friedrich Nietzsche, Nietzsche, and Martin Heidegger, Heidegger. Little is known of Heraclitus's life. He wrote a single work, only Literary fragment, fragments of which have survived. Even in ancient times, his Paradox#In philosophy, paradoxical philosophy, appreciation for Word play, wordplay, and cryptic, oracular epigrams earned him the epithets "the dark" and "the obscure". He was considered arrogant and depressed, a Misanthropy, misanthrope who was subject to melancholia. Consequently, he became known as "the weeping philosopher" in contrast to the ancient ancient atomism, atom ...
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