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tchrist
tchrist
1:30 AM
@RegDwigнt No no no, Amazon are the Red Cross, and Google is the Shadow Stasi in Waiting.
 
 
7 hours later…
Færd
Færd
8:55 AM
@Robusto Sure, the perception comes first, 'cause that's the direct sensory experience. We basically share that with other animals. But the question that linguistic relativity probes is whether and to what extent one's language (loosely, the nomenclature, as you put it) affects what one makes of one's perceptions, and how we think about them and about abstractions based on them etc.
Your example (different categorizations of colors in different languages) shows that this effect is very real. It can lead to different abilities to discriminate between colors: if you have two names for two colors or shades in yuor language but I call them by the same name in mine, then you're probably better trained in telling them apart.
We have the same input but we notice different things, due to the differences between our languages. And that can translate into somewhat different capacities for forming related concepts and playing with them in our heads.
But does that mean your language can fundamentally determine the structure and limitations of your thought? Or does it merely tweak around the edges of the vast range of our cognitive capacities? Or somewhere in between?
The theory of Universal Grammar posits that "a certain set of structural rules are innate to humans, independent of sensory experience", and that those rules are determined by our genetic endowment, which we largely share as members of the same species. But it also provides for principles that are not specific to the faculty of human language, and that opens the door for the innumerable differences between all the languages in the world.
Universal grammar
Universal grammar (UG), in modern linguistics, is the theory of the genetic component of the language faculty, usually credited to Noam Chomsky. The basic postulate of UG is that a certain set of structural rules are innate to humans, independent of sensory experience. With more linguistic stimuli received in the course of psychological development, children then adopt specific syntactic rules that conform to UG. It is sometimes known as "mental grammar", and stands contrasted with other "grammars", e.g. prescriptive, descriptive and pedagogical. The advocates of this theory emphasize and partially...
Based on that, we must share basically identical structures of thought, determined by our genetic endowment, no matter the language we speak. So the deterministic theory of language relativity (that one's language fundamentally determines one's thought) appears to be false.
On the other hand, and on the next level, we can have a vast range of varieties of cognitive processes based on this same structure. This variety comes from acquired external data and principles not specific to the faculty of language. And modern language relativity explores this variety (in color discrimination, spatial imagination, etc etc).
Sorry for the ramble. It was partly me thinking out loud trying to wrap my mind around it as a layperson.
 
 
4 hours later…
IkWeetHetOokNiet
IkWeetHetOokNiet
1:20 PM
@Robusto People didn't stop dying from causes other than Covid-19 just because that virus went around. In order to make sense of that number of burial urns, we need first the normal mortality + the mortality caused by Covid-19, and then see whether these figures add up. (To be honest, I don't think they would.)
 
Robusto
Robusto
2:18 PM
@Færd Don't be sorry. You have some interesting thoughts there.
@IkWeetHetOokNiet Yes, of course. But the amount of urns supplied apparently exceeded the normal mortality requirements by a large multiple.
 
IkWeetHetOokNiet
IkWeetHetOokNiet
2:31 PM
@Robusto But that article in Straits Times also says it's unclear how many were filled. At this point, I think that the real death toll is higher than what the CPC has said, but how much higher is an open question. Based on that same article, an undefined number people with other diseases probably did not get proper treatment due to the Covid-19 outbreak, but those were not counted as Coved-19 deaths.
 
Robusto
Robusto
All right. But given the circumstances, perhaps those should be counted as well, since the virus was the proximate cause of those people not getting treated for other morbidities.
The real question being asked is whether a totalitarian country that doesn't allow a free press can be trusted to dispense important information like this.
 
IkWeetHetOokNiet
IkWeetHetOokNiet
Counting them as Covid-19 deaths would skew figures about the SARS-CoV-2 mortality rate, which is important information for epidemiologists. They should be counted, but not as actual Covid-19 deaths.
@Robusto We all know the answer to that question.
 
Robusto
Robusto
Indeed.
@IkWeetHetOokNiet Perhaps as "total morbidity footprint" or something like that.
 
IkWeetHetOokNiet
IkWeetHetOokNiet
A measure like that definitely would make sense.
However, counting the total number of victims of the pandemic will turn out to be difficult: the longer it lasts, the higher its impact on the economy. And long economic recessions also have an impact on mortality.
 
Robusto
Robusto
Yes. And I have zero confidence in the current governments' ability to deal competently with all of the ramifications.
 
IkWeetHetOokNiet
IkWeetHetOokNiet
2:44 PM
Which makes it more attractive for governments to evolve towards an authoritarian state: that makes it harder to hold them accountable...
 
Robusto
Robusto
A depressing thought.
 
Færd
Færd
3:32 PM
@Robusto BTW what you told me about Japanese blue reminds me of old Farsi poems (from 6-7 centuries ago) where not only the sky is called green, but it's also likened to green fields/meadows.
I don't know when we started to differentiate. I need to look into it. But it's interesting.
I realize I'm interrupting depressing thoughts with inconsequential frivolities.
Blue–green distinction in language
In many languages, the colors described in English as "blue" and "green" are colexified, i.e. expressed using a single cover term. To describe this English lexical gap, linguists use the portmanteau word grue, from green and blue, which the philosopher Nelson Goodman coined—with a different meaning—in his 1955 Fact, Fiction, and Forecast to illustrate his "new riddle of induction". The exact definition of "blue" and "green" may be complicated by the speakers not primarily distinguishing the hue, but using terms that describe other color components such as saturation and luminosity, or other...
Look it's commonplace!
 
Robusto
Robusto
4:01 PM
@Færd And it gives new life to the putdown "What color is the sky in your world?" ^_^
No, really, I begin to wonder if there is a real difference in what exactly each person sees in terms of the color spectrum. Does the sky to you look what I would call green or what I would call blue—or even what I would call red? It's an interesting question.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
The sky is pitch black now, are you nuts!
And there's lots of lightning
 
Robusto
Robusto
You're in hell.
That doesn't count.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@Robusto close enough [Use your precise location] [more]
 
Robusto
Robusto
I don't think GPS works in hell.
 
tchrist
tchrist
4:38 PM
Verdigris.
Piedra turca
κάλαϊς
Callais.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
-3
Q: What happens if a rotating magnetic field is applied against viruses and bacteria?

sciencetoolbarWhat happens if a rotating magnetic field is applied against viruses and bacteria ? Applications of rotating magnetic fields https://publiclab.org/wiki/applications-of-rotating-magnetic-fields-biotechnology-rotating-magnetic-fields-rmf-generator-x-device

biochemistry molecular-biology neuroscience molecular-genetics
While you're busy making words, people are busy going after them viruses
Shotgun cocking sound
 
tchrist
tchrist
Spacey.
Verditer is not a Latin comparative.
 
Robusto
Robusto
@tchrist And there was the "wine-dark sea"—which referred to shade, not color, I suppose.
 
tchrist
tchrist
@Robusto blanches
No white wine for Homer.
 
Robusto
Robusto
Also, whatever Stephen Fry thinks, wine is not really what I would call "red" anyway.
 
tchrist
tchrist
4:49 PM
Of course vino is never rojo. It's only ever tinto.
Or blanco. Sometimes there's vinho verde.
 
Robusto
Robusto
@tchrist Por supuesto.
 
tchrist
tchrist
"rosado" is not wine.
 
Robusto
Robusto
"Red" wine is more the color of unoxygenated blood. Kind of shading toward purple.
But with reddish undertones.
 
tchrist
tchrist
> El vino tinto es uno de los más populares, su proceso de producción varía desde el mosto (jugo exprimido de la uva) que es tinto (de color rojizo hasta purpura)...
 
Robusto
Robusto
Sí.
 
tchrist
tchrist
4:52 PM
Fíjate en que también lo caracteriza de un color "hasta purpura" como acabas de decir tú.
 
Robusto
Robusto
Mis suposiciones sin educación parecen estar de acuerdo con este artículo.
 
tchrist
tchrist
The Spanish don't have vino verde; when they speak of vinho verde they mean the Portuguese wine by that name.
"nh" is "ñ" in Portuguese spelling.
Vinho verde
El vinho verde es una variedad de vino de Portugal elaborado en la región de Entre Douro e Minho (noroeste de Portugal).[1]​ La región se caracteriza por poseer muchos pequeños productores. Se trata de un vino con tintes ácidos y a menudo ligeramente espumoso (posee ligera aguja). La denominación se traduce en castellano como "vino verde", indicando la extremada juventud de la uva que produce el vino, que apenas ha madurado. Se produce a lo largo de toda la Costa Verde portuguesa. Cerca del 11% de la producción es exportada. Los destinos principales son Francia, Estados Unidos y Alemania, seguidos…
 
Robusto
Robusto
So ñ in Portuguese isn´t the same as ñ in Spanish?
 
tchrist
tchrist
The voiced (dento-(alveolo-))palatal nasal phoneme /ɲ/ is spelled ‹nh› in Portuguese or Occitan or Gascon or Provençal, <ñ› in Spanish or Galician or Asturian or Basque or Quechua, <ny› in Catalan, <gn› in French or Italian.
 
Robusto
Robusto
So your statement "nh" is "ñ" in Portuguese spelling should be understood as "nh" is the Portuguese spelling of "ñ"?
 
tchrist
tchrist
5:08 PM
And in English thanks to loanwords, all of those things nearly: bologna and gnocchi and beignets, piñatas filled with piñon nuts, canyons with piranhas.
@Robusto yes
oignon, ognon, onion
 
Robusto
Robusto
@tchrist I initially interpreted as exactly the other way around.
 
tchrist
tchrist
I was careless.
 
Robusto
Robusto
So piranha would be pronounced piraña.
 
tchrist
tchrist
@Robusto Only if you want them to know what you're talking about. :)
 
Robusto
Robusto
Haha.
 
tchrist
tchrist
5:13 PM
All the palatalized resonants in Romance and English (Spanish eñe and elle) derive from the "yod-ification" of Vulgar Latin > Proto-Romance, although there are a variety of sound changes that led to both of those.
After all, there is no /l/ sound in guillotine.
 
Robusto
Robusto
Interesting. I always wondered about that.
 
tchrist
tchrist
Since we see it in all Modern Romance, it originated in their shared ancestor.
Phonologically. The spelling however clearly was settled after that.
Plosive clusters with /l/ like /pl/ became various things: think of rain from plovere, where you have "ll" in Spanish but "pi" in Italian and "ch" (pronounced like English "sh") in Portuguese. But Spanish still has the re-borrowed plano competing with llano, and they have plazas where the Italians have piazze and the French just places.
pluvious versus lluvoso
/kl/ also arrived in the same place: clamare > llamar in Spanish.
Compare "io mi chiamo" in Italian with "yo me llamo" in Spanish.
oculum and oleum led to a homophone, which is why Spanish and Portuguese bounced the collision and use an Arabic word for oil but a Latin one for eye.
French is so transformed nobody confuses eyes and oil there.
Well, not really.
They can be hard for foreigners to say.
Cf aglio e olio and ajo y aceite, where the phonologic semi-parallelism is lost.
It's not as noticeable in ail et huile perhaps.
 
Færd
Færd
5:33 PM
From a former teacher of mine. I found it worth sharing.
 
 
2 hours later…
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
7:51 PM
@tchrist if Amazon are the Red Cross, how come my copy of Animal Crossing took two weeks to arrive.
They said "next day".
I was starving.
For two weeks.
 
SmokeDetector
SmokeDetector
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Offensive body detected, potentially bad keyword in body (44): dick and jerking by lorii on english.SE
 
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
8:19 PM
1
Q: What are those who await something called?

tommy I was wondering what are those who await an incident or a person called. For example, if this is the original text: "I am one of those who await the return of Jesus Christ" and I want to turn it into this format: "I am an ... of Jesus Christ." what word can I use to complete the ab...

single-word-requests nouns
Jesus Christ.
Meanwhile, a more pressing question has been answered at last:
The 64.910 positive tests for Corona in Germany are the result of 918.460 tests in total.
In other words, 93% of the tests were negative.
And out of the 64k, 25k have recovered.
So that leaves us with 39k people sick out of 1 million.
That is something we can actually work with.
I never liked it how the Johns Hopkins number always went up because it can always only go up by definition. 1187798 it is showing right now. In big red letters. As if the 300000+ people had never recovered.
 
 
3 hours later…
tchrist
tchrist
11:20 PM
@RegDwigнt Those people who have recovered should get a blazing two-year tattoo on their foreheads proclaiming their antibody status. I recommend stopping after A.
 

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