Language and the Future
Thanks to Hürriyet Daily News columnist Emre Deliveli, I discovered a paper by one M. Keith Chen titled The Effect of Language on Economic Behavior: Evidence from Savings Rates, Health Behaviors, and Retirement Assets:
Languages differ dramatically in how much they require their speakers to mark the timing of events when speaking. In this paper I test the hypothesis that being required to speak differently about future events (what linguists call strongly grammaticalized future-time reference) leads speakers to treat the future as more distant, and to take fewer future-oriented actions. Consistent with this hypothesis I find that in every major region of the world, speakers of strong-FTR languages save less per year, hold less retirement wealth, smoke more, are more likely to be obese, and suffer from worse long-run health. This holds true even after extensive controls that compare only demographically similar individuals born and living in the same country. While not dispositive, the evidence does not seem to support the most obvious forms of common causation. Implications of these findings for theories of intertemporal choice are discussed.
Now, as I'm sure everyone will immediately realize, such findings (if they're correct; I couldn't really say) might provide confirmation of some kind of weak Whorf-Sapir hypothesis.
I suppose I should tie this to "right-of-center politics" in some way, because this is Ricochet. In truth, I don't know that there's any connection at all--I just found the paper interesting. But perhaps Ricochet can find one. Have at it!
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Oct '11
Re: Language and the Future
English and Free Trade for a prosperous world ?
Edited on March 5, 2012 at 12:48pmRe: Language and the Future
Samuel Amaral
English and Free Trade for prosperous world ? · 1 minute ago
Well, no. English is a strong-FTR language. It seems proto-German is the way to go.
Sep '11
Re: Language and the Future
"... save less per year, hold less retirement wealth, smoke more, are more likely to be obese, and suffer from worse long-run health". Sounds like America to me, with us Brits not far behind.
Re: Language and the Future
I bet you I could appeal to this research to write a diet book advising the study of Mandarin as the secret to slenderness.
I bet you it would even sell.
Oct '10
Re: Language and the Future
Too arcane for my tastes. Got any buzz about cat owners and peculiar interests?
Feb '11
Re: Language and the Future
Really interesting. I guess the arrow of causality could point in either direction, or both; ie, cultures with different time organizations could evolve differing linguistic patterns over time.
Jan '11
Re: Language and the Future
Different languages mark different things. Most languages mark time. Many will incorporate social class distinctions. We address our social "betters" with more respectful words. English used to do this (you v. thou), but we mostly dropped it. German still has it (tu v. Sie), as do most Latin derivatives. I've heard tell that some languages change depending on whether you're addressing an ally or an enemy. All languages bake in their cultural interests.
Words trigger associations.The word controls the association.
Try a quick thought experiment. Suppose a grandfather decides to meet his grandson for lunch someplace in Washington DC. They decide to meet at the Watergate. To the grandfather, the name Watergate unleashes a torrent of associations (Nixon, Sam Ervin, etc.) To the grandson, especially these days, it may mean nothing. Watergate is the same word for both, but the associations are wildly different.
The word controls the thought.
Why would you connect that principle to political speech? Because politicians use words to control what the audience associates. Is it a war on religious liberty or a war on women?
Language is the instrument of politics.
Sep '11
Re: Language and the Future
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
I bet you I could appeal to this research to write a diet book advising the study of Mandarin as the secret to slenderness.
I bet you it would even sell. · 1 hour ago
"If you're so smart, how come you ain't rich?" :-) (Sorry, are smileys on the banned list?)
Feb '11
Re: Language and the Future
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
I bet you I could appeal to this research to write a diet book advising the study of Mandarin as the secret to slenderness.
I bet you it would even sell. · 1 hour ago
Maybe someday. But right now, the sun is out, so I think I’ll enjoy that rather than using up time to write a musty old book.
Feb '11
Re: Language and the Future
Hmm....so, how has the Anglosphere done as well as it has given our linguistic handicap?
Re: Language and the Future
Honestly, I'm not sure the idea of a strong-FTR language makes any sense. I don't see that English is a stronger FTR language than Finnish, from the examples given.
It seems to me that both structures accomodate the idea of "tomorrow" with equal force.
Aug '11
Re: Language and the Future
Interesting paper. My anecdotal experience (teaching accounting at both undergraduate/graduate levels in the US) suggests that understanding typically breaks down as soon as temporal effects are introduced.
Sep '10
Re: Language and the Future
I be wasting time on Ricochet when I could be working. I could be wrong about this but it seems to me that countries where people are not obese and the savings rates are high are countries where more people are poor and there is no or less "social safety net"
Dec '10
Re: Language and the Future
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
Honestly, I'm not sure the idea of a strong-FTR language makes any sense. I don't see that Englishisa stronger FTR language than Finnish, from the examples given.
It seems to me that both structures accomodate the idea of "tomorrow" with equal force. · 57 minutes ago
But one implies tomorrow is, almost, already cold. The other suggests that it will be cold, baking in the notion that, in fact, it might not be.
Dec '10
Re: Language and the Future
I only barely remember my Wittengstein, but I think he would have found this entirely intuitive and obvious.
Which is why people actually need to do the research! And, I feel compelled to note, one of the reasons why the study of philosophy can be fruitful.
Mar '12
Re: Language and the Future
My husband once told me that his dialect of Chinese has far more ways to mark family relationships than English does. English has cousin, but it doesn't have "My mother's eldest brother's daughter," or similarly detailed descriptors.
Mar '12
Re: Language and the Future
Someone (Mara Hvistedt in Unnatural Selection? Help me here...) hypothesized that part of why China has such a high savings rate is because of sex selective abortion. Because there are not enough women to go around, parents have to accumulate assets so they can one day buy a bride for their son, or to pay for an education to turn him into a top earner so he can attract a wife.
Sep '10
Re: Language and the Future
Madcap I had not seen that explanation but there is no doubt the one child policy has created all sorts of unintended economic consequences. I've always found it odd that many of the jeremiads in this country used our low savings in comparison to countries where a lack of trust didn't mean a little inflation but a knock on the door at midnight or trip to a labor camp within recent memory.
Feb '12
Re: Language and the Future
Quick note, KC, you have that backwards. Thee/thou/thine were the singular and informal second person pronouns.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thou
"As William Tyndale translated the Bible into English in the early 16th century, he sought to preserve the singular and plural distinctions that he found in his Hebrew and Greek originals. Therefore, he consistently used thou for the singular and ye for the plural regardless of the relative status of the speaker and the addressee. By doing so, he probably saved thou from utter obscurity and gave it an air of solemnity that sharply distinguished it from its original meaning.[2] Tyndale's usage was followed in the King James Bible, and remained familiar because of that translation.[14]"
Apr '11
Re: Language and the Future
Two semi-popular novels that (obscurely) address the issue: Brunner's The Shockwave Rider (1975), and Trevanian's Shibumi (1979).
It seems impossible to me that a language could exist without a verb of simple being, but there are many ways to progress from the simple "is," both grammatically and agglutinitively(?).