I read a book today, called'through grassXX'(I forgot the english name).
It told us about the difference between languages. For example, in some languages, they dont distinguish the words"arm' and 'hand', therefore, they dont have the word 'arm', so 'hand' represents 'hand and arm'.(In chinese, we have both words)
The other example is the front of neck and the back of neck, some languages has 2 different words to distinguish them, but english will just call neck, dont divide that.(In chinese, we dont divide front and back,the word 頸means whole neck)
The most interesting thing is a language that doesnt have the concept left and right and front and behind. They substitutes them by east, south, west, north. For example, we usually say the car is on your right hand side; but for that language, they will say the car is on the north. It means the people they could recognise the 4 directions anytime even without compass. How do this effect thinking? They know directions, so they have the sense of directions. And even could notice something that we couldnt. I want to describe a test in the book, it proved our thinking are different, but it is with pictures, very difficult to explain. The result of the test told us our thinking is different from them.
It also said naturally people recognised the 4 directions first, almost 11years old could recognise the concept of left and right. For me, it is true, I remember it very deeply, as I always blame myself that I was too late to recognise the left and right, I was tested in primary school with it in maths, but I didnt understand, until in secondary school. I am sure that I couldnt learn the 4 directions people's language, it is really hard to know 4 directions correctly. Those people could recognise 4 directions by the hint of sun positon, the shadow of tree, the ant's movement,etc.
手工橡皮印章(消しゴムはんこ)(Rubber Stamp) (1)
