HOW DOES OUR LANGUAGE SHAPE THE WAY WE THINK?

By Lera Boroditsky

"For a long time, the idea that language might shape thought was considered at best untestable and more often simply wrong. Research in my labs at Stanford University and at MIT has helped reopen this question. We have collected data around the world: from China, Greece, Chile, Indonesia, Russia, and Aboriginal Australia. What we have learned is that people who speak different languages do indeed think differently and that even flukes of grammar can profoundly affect how we see the world. Language is a uniquely human gift, central to our experience of being human. Appreciating its role in constructing our mental lives brings us one step closer to understanding the very nature of humanity."

Being married to a someone from Hong Kong and a woman, I can attest to the conclusion above. :-)

Read the rest of this fascinating study by clicking on the title above.

Computer program helps decode ancient texts

By Eric Bland
updated 4:14 p.m. ET, Thurs., Aug 27, 2009

"An ancient, indecipherable text from the Indus Valley region is slowly being decoded with the help of a computer program, according to recent research.



Though it has yet to decrypt this mysterious language, the program may help to decipher other ancient texts whose meanings have been long since forgotten.

...Roughly 5,000 seals, tablets and amulets, filled with about 500 different symbols, were created somewhere between 2600 and 1900 B.C. by a people living in the Indus River Valley. "

Dolphin Speak Relies on Brevity

"Among the words we use most often, short ones like "I," "a" and "the" top the list. It turns out we're not the only ones who strive for this type of efficiency in the way we communicate. Dolphins, found a new study, do it, too.



It's the first evidence that another species follows one of the basic rules that defines all human languages: the law of brevity."

World’s Languages Dying Off Rapidly

"Of the estimated 7,000 languages spoken in the world today, linguists say, nearly half are in danger of extinction and are likely to disappear in this century. In fact, they are now falling out of use at a rate of about one every two weeks."

Read the entire article in the NY Times here.