Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: busy

Language Influences Thought

...in these 5 examples.

However, a crucial counterpoint is that English makes it easy to NOT lay blame, with the passive exonerative ("Mistakes were made.")  English is a popular business langauge, partly because of that passive exonerative: many other languages require  specifying who or what caused something (bad or good) to happen.
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  • 23 comments
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siege

Re: Thoughts

siege

May 28 2011, 19:46:13 UTC 10 years ago

In my understanding, it's because a lot of Saxon vocabulary was suppressed when Christian-influenced nations invaded and then converted the nations of Britain. So the words we could have had for spiritual concepts have had to be borrowed from the languages where English-speaking cultures found their teachers: Greek in a very few cases, but much more often dialects of Sanskrit and various Asian languages as we imported Hindu and Buddhist teachings and teachers.
ysabetwordsmith

Re: Thoughts

ysabetwordsmith

May 28 2011, 20:23:52 UTC 10 years ago

That would make sense.

I'm always bemused by the term Anglo-Saxon. The Angles and the Saxons hated each other, but after all the raiding and post-battle screwing, they wound up sort of stuck with each other. People should learn to watch where they put it.

  • Photographs

    I took some pictures of my yard today. Read about what makes a good wildlife yard and Fieldhaven as habitat. The larger brush pile is still…

  • Birdfeeding

    Today is partly sunny and delightfully mild. I fed the birds. I've seen a small flock of house finches and a few sparrows. I walked around the yard…

  • Fieldhaven as Habitat

    If you follow my posts on gardening, birdfeeding, and photos, then you know that I garden for wildlife. Looking at the YardMap parameters, here…