Re: OT: Helen Keller & Whorf-Sapir

J?rg Rhiemeier scripsit:

> I wouldn't call Sapir a dumbass; Whorf is another matter.
> (But even about Whorf I better stay silent because I am not
> a professional linguist, only a bloody amateur.)
So was Whorf, if it comes to that.   Anyhow, the SWH was not
a hypothesis for S or W in the sense that they were trying to
prove it; rather, it was simply a background assumption current
at the time.

> I also wouldn't say that language has *no* influence on thought;
The Lojban community uses a "negative" form of the SWH that says
"Grammar constrains thought".  This gets away from the "how many
words for snow" red herring (how many words do printers have for
fonts?) and into what W thought of as the core of the matter,
what is and what is not grammaticalized.

> I think it does indeed influence thought, but only to some degree.
Nobody except a fanatic thinks otherwise.

--
John Cowan <cowan@...>     http://www.reutershealth.com
I amar prestar aen, han mathon ne nen,    http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
han mathon ne chae, a han noston ne 'wilith.  --Galadriel, LOTR:FOTR