 enbar says: A study of bilingual women suggests that when you switch from speaking one language to another, your personality and your perceptions change as well. I've experienced this myself switching between German and English. I've long known of a saying (sometimes attributed in various forms to Charlemagne) that goes along the lines of, "to learn another language is to gain another soul". I wonder whether this can be said to be true of computer programmers as well, since we do have to think in terms of the computer language(s) in which we're coding. I've heard this before from a bilingual woman (Spanish/English). It seems to me like a more intense version of the personality change we go through with different people (family, friends [even different family and friends], business, etc.). Great to read this. Language filters what we think; different languages filter different things. Different cultures think different thoughts - and we really do need each other! Part of our problem with Iran is that we simply can't get that their language, translated into English, doesn't mean what we think it does. Enbar, I am curious, do you really switch personalities, or do you more or less conform to the culture that 'holds' that language? I have noticed that when I enter a richly Hispanic household, I act differently but I am more or less conforming to the culture that I have stepped into. patchwork - I'd guess so, because those languages, like every language, limit some thoughts and empower others. Do you think you see reality differently from having thought as a programmer? Seems to me that computer languages would express quantifiable, cognitive things well, but would be limited (and thus inhibitory) in affective capability. @ Ataxia13: very interesting question: it's true too! I speak three languages and understand one or two more. I feel the instinctive difference too while smoothly switching from one language to the other even within the same conversation... I speak three languages and understand one or two more. I feel thesame here mug  @ mugofcoffee, deepti - that makes three of us. also, i find that the language I use is very personally entrenched. for example i'll speak to certain people in a particular language only - and it is almost unfathomable to switch to another with that particular person, even though we may have more than one language to "chooose from" that we are both fluent in. Yeah, my experience is similar, though I'm far from bilingual. My "change in personality" is definitely connected to a switch to be more in tune with the culture I'm stepping into, and it also has to do with my own idiosyncratic competency in the other language. (In other words, I might be very talkative in English but not so much in German, because German is my second language.) So it's not all intrinsic to the language in some absolute sense, but it has to do with how I speak the language and how I experience the context in which that language is the norm. And yes, I totally have the experience that relationships with particular people are tied to particular languages. It makes me v... Quite true - I've noticed this as well in other instances. almost like dialects or when someone switches from a cultured or "proper" setting to slang or "street" talk. Their whole personality seems to change. Very interesting. Don't you think that part of ethnocentrism is ignorance of these things? We hear someone of another culture say something that we wouldn't say, and assume he or she must be a nut. We just don't realize that they say things - and even think things - differently than we do, and deserve a little slack. I don't think the language itself has anything to do with it... if one embraces another culture - of course the behavior (not really personality) will change. You don't change your beliefs just because you speak a different language. And if you do change them, due to being in a different culture - it has nothing to do with speaking another language. Perhaps for some it does, but certainly hasn't been anyone I interacted with who was bilingual. I've never thought of that, but now as you pointed it out I can actually remember I've witnessed such changes in people I know when they are in foreign company and speak other languages... |
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