11/9 Reading Comments

I liked the quote by Roman Jakobson that stated, ”languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may convey.” At first I was confused about the meaning of this quote, but I realized that it meant that our minds are shaped in different ways by the languages that we speak. Our respective language does not encourages us to think, but rather because of what it generally causes us to think about. This statement resonated with me, as I often find myself thinking about things differently in both English and Japanese. Even when I am thinking about the same thing, I find myself approaching it differently depending on whether I am thinking about it in English or Japanese. I also thought that the example about the remote Australian aboriginal language Guugu Yimithirr was interesting. I couldn’t even imagine speaking a language that doesn’t use directional words such as left, right, forward, or behind. I thought this was very bizarre, as this language uses words such as “east” and “north,” using cardinal directions instead of the egocentric system. This was interesting to me because in order to speak this language, you have to know cardinal directions at the back of your hand, as we know left and right very easily. In the article, they state, “the convention of communicating with geographic coordinates compels speaking from the youngest age to pay attention to the clues from the physical environment every second of their lives, and to develop an accurate memory of their own changing orientations at any given moment.” When asked where north is, speakers of Guugu Yimithirr did not know how to describe it, just as I wouldn’t know how to describe where left or right is.