History UsefulNotes / Linguistics

Language does not ''dictate'' thought- their eyes can see a difference, and those among them used to working with color, such as artisans and weavers, can divide the spectrum in more precise ways when asked. For the most part, however, the difference between the subdivisions "green" and "blue" is ignored even by those aware that there ''is'' a difference, ''because there is no word-trope defining that difference as important''. For those struggling to relate, a modern example: Russian artists have a slight advantage, having been taught from an early age that ''sinii'' (dark blue) and ''goluboi'' (light blue) are obviously different. Meanwhile, many native speakers of other Latin-based languages have to slowly retrain their brains to acknowledge the radical difference between blue and cyan before they can mix paints properly. Kind of like English using "pink" instead of [[Machinima/RedVsBlue "light-ish red"]].

* '''Eskimo words for snow''': A perennial favorite, and very, very wrong. Partly, this comes from the definition of what a word is-- the languages in question can form long compound words, which are the equivalent of whole phrases in other languages. So in this sense, they don't only have 2 or 20 or 200 words for snow, but an infinite variety-- but this applies to ''each and every word''. Hence, some linguists would look at the different ''roots'' (the 'words' upon which these compounds are built) related to snow. Turns out, most 'Eskimo' languages have two or three roots. (Generally one for falling snow and one for snow on the ground... and remember, English distinguishes between rain, a puddle, a river, a lake-- all of which are just forms of water, after all. Those crazy Earthlings, they have dozens of words for water!) But even if they do have a lot of words for snow, doesn't that mean that typesetters must see the world very differently because they have more words for fonts? When you apply the "Eskimo words for snow" logic to less exotic things, it doesn't seem quite such a racy concept.

* After birth, the baby almost always starts babbling ("the goo-goo-gaa-gaa phase" ''6-12 months''), where he or she runs through almost every sound, tone, pitch, and timbre that a human can produce. But after a few months, the inventory of sounds shrinks to only those syllables that are found in the language of the parents.

* Next we have the Combining Stage, where the child figures out word-order, affixes, and those auxiliary words like the possessive 's, negatives, where to use "the", and so on. At this point, kids start to understand more language-specific grammatical rules, and we see kids turning into little grammar nazis. Once the child learns a rule of grammar, he or she will insist in applying it to everything, exceptions be damned (a experiment to parents of 1.5-year-olds: teach your child that adding "-ed" turns a verb into the past tense, wait a few days for him to practice, then ask him what is the past tense for "go", and your child will of course say "goed"; you will correct him with the correct answer, and he will not believe you, and you two will so bicker for the next hour. And it will be a long while before he learns the exceptions. Fun fact: this will happen even if the child has used "went" before. After all, children first learn every word they can make out, and only then learn the rules.)
* Finally, we hit the Recursive Stage (2-3.5 years), the children learns to make complex sentences, and Language acquisition can now be considered a success. Of course, the child will go on to learn the finer points of language and human interaction over the course of his entire life.