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Fwiw, I have a number of bilingual friends who can think in both languages and report that they feel like there's a slight shift in mood / energy / something when they change language. Maybe they are experiencing a mild form of culture shock.
I'm sure that language and culture have not developed in isolation; that there may be some objective way of measuring a language, from which you could determine characteristics of the society in which is it used. I also think that this must apply on an indivual level; that the *words you have at your disposal are not completely distinct from they way you think / feel / etc.
Of course, I have no evidence to support any of that.
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I don't know if anyone else has this experience, but I know that I can think in two languages because I can be confused in two languages! If I begin listening to someone speaking, and my expectation of what language will be spoken is wrong, there is a delay whilst my ear/brain switches gears. For example, when listening to the radio, there may be an interview with someone. Often if the person is speaking a LOTE, the editors will run a few seconds of the person speaking in his or her native language before beginning a translation. If, instead, the person being interviewed speaks English, but with a heavy accent, I may be momentarily confused as my ear hears something that sounds like a LOTE, but it's actually English. This is worst when the LOTE is Spanish, the other language in which I am fluent. It can happen either way, when I expect Spanish and hear English or expect English and hear Spanish.
My love of words has to have been inherited/pounded in to me by my dad, who worked as a editor, at one point in his career. I can't remember, after learning to read, being given the meaning of any word orally. And I still love dictionaries! :0)
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Yes, there is something to it. When you think in a different language the memory
"luggage" of that language turns up . All the experiences of any possible nature you have had in that language back up your thinking .They may color your thoughts a bit.
The thinking in that language imo means you master the language to the point of automatics, but it does no extra for understanding that culture.
I thought about this because I noticed that after having been on this board for quite a while I became aware of the fact that the American culture is far more different from the European than I ever suspected. I've visited often enough, but I think I would only understand the culture if, like my sister, I would have lived out there most part of my life. Also in France, there are those little, yet very important cultural, social differences you only really will get at when you live there for a long time. ( and still up to a point)
I often find myself thinking in English, or French, depending to what
influence I am exposed, but I it's like in my native tongue.
And I tell myself: "Hey! Use your mother's language!"
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I thought about this because I noticed that after having been on this board for quite a while I became aware of the fact that the American culture is far more different from the European than I ever suspected. I've visited often enough, but I think I would only understand the culture if, like my sister, I would have lived out there most part of my life. Also in France, there are those little, yet very important cultural, social differences you only really will get at when you live there for a long time. ( and still up to a point) Quite right! This is why I don't read for pleasure in Spanish. I know I will never really "get" a lot of what is assumed readers know, or have experienced, and I know I will miss out on truly understanding the work, because of my lack in cultural knowledge. Now having said that, I would attempt a work set in Chile, as having lived there a full year, I have at least a smattering of cultural understanding that might stand by me well enough. Do I avoid works written about Australia or South Africa because I haven't experienced those cultures, even though they may be written in English? Maybe I do, except non-fiction. I have had enough parlance with UK culture to feel comfortable. :0)
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Oi, you are taking elephant steps. Reading is something else. The basic motivation for reading is not to get more understanding of different cultures, that may be a pleasant side side effect. Reading is for the pleasure of reading, in whatever language you're can handle. Fiction, autobiografies, history, poetry. Try Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo. Translations are never as good as the original.
Something I remember now. I had read Kafka's America before I first came to New York and visited a friend in Hoboken. The streets there reminded me strongly of Kafka's descriptions; this was precisely the America from his book. Yet Kafka has never been to America. This sort of contradicts what I've said. Sorry. Bit weird.
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Perhaps life imitates art. America is Kafka-esque.
The interplay between culture and language is complex and certainly not a one way street.
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Thanks, The Pook, nice to see you back. I got somewhat lost in this part of my 'ideas'. You're right.
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About thinking in a different language
I am not always sure that people think in a language. For me, there's the suspicion that people reason in a language (or talk to themselves in one). How is thought different from imagination or dreaming? Dreams for me, are more about images (sometimes in B&W and others times in 'Scope, Technicolor, and stereophonic sound). Is thought capable without language? Are some thoughts inexpressible in a language or one's language. I do not (or cannot) deny that language and thought (ideas) are somehow involved with one another.
As for the meanings (or maybe the connotations) of words being variable amongst different speakers (and at different times), I am also interested how the context of a word oftentimes determines or narrows its meaning. Words in isolation tend towards a pale ambiguity or bleached polysemy.
Just musing.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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pale ambiguity or bleached polysemy You finish in poetry anyway...  It seems to me that large parts of the time we are not aware of the fact that we are thinking. Some passive underground mechanism going on. Pops up to conscious levels regularly. When we have to solve problems we are sharply aware of our brain activity. Only Descartes (here he is again) loved to be aware of his thoughts while just being. (idle) Just musing too.
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I think we will find (eventually) that thinking and feeling are resonances in the brain (and body) of energy; areas sympathetically vibrate on some level based around experience. these "vibrations" or "tones" are not necessarily identifiable by our current technologies, but that may be because we're just looking at things the wrong way.
formerly known as etaoin...
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