by theGeatZhopa | 2025-05-21 12:35:23+00:00
I'm with you on this. The best sign for language shaping us is right in front of our eyes: out kids going to school and peu au peu learning new words, while gaining new insights and knowledge. The higher the language they use, the more grown up they seem. But, in the meantime they also learned concepts and how to use that. So, language is just a vehicle to transport knowledge, while knowledge is possibly cultural tangled, in my thoughts.

Once I experienced such thing while teaching students: there was a group of 6 + 1 Ninjagirls (headscarfed, traditional clothing without skin visible). The one of seven was not wearing headscarf, but rather non-body-pronounced, ordinary clothes, but still covering skin. So, being a man myself, the 7 girls always kept distance to me, while I explained the technical subject. So, when it was about hands-on practice, a possibility to examine the partly finished product has been loudly used by 6 of 7: They warmed up and where happy smiling discussing the topic furiously among each other and me. Except that one girl. She was standing there and thinking and just looking at what we've produced. I noticed that and of course approached her with "why don't you participate in the discussion. It's important for gathering understanding. Do you have questions?" She was like: "I don't understand this. ... How does it exercise an influence on vibration inducement in the finished product?"

I was blown away by the question. Not because it's a difficult question, but rather because in 14y of teaching, no one - no student, no professors, no workers - literally, no one, has thoughts on vibration inducement at this half-finished state. It doesn't make sense to ask it. It's "too late to" and "too early to" at the same time..

So I, lost my words, said "Why do you ask this? I mean, I will be very happy to explain it to you, but please, let your conmilitones first finish their discussion." .. so, I explained it to her in the way she built up the understanding to answer her own question by herself.

I was so blown away by this, that I approached her after and asked her again "why did you ask it.. I'm very happy about it. In my 14y of doing this..." and closed it with "Keep up what ever you've were thinking. Don't let anyone tell you what to do or what to think or learn. I know, you're really special given the situation today.."

And you guess, that gave her a push in her self esteem. Such a big one, that she changed her style to short skirts, open wonderful hair and a lot of makeup and other girly-things over the next few months. She went literally from Zero to Bomb in 3 months. Also did her engagement in studying change. She enjoyed being smart then.

Nice story, I like to tell. Thinking changed. No other language involved. But here, it's more of the "culture thing" than knowledge, as you said.

Culture, by itself, influences the language and words used. In a patriarchal society the word "emancipation" is not used often. Agreed. Learning emancipation in a third language doesn't change the thinking towards emancipation. But knowledge of other women living a self-determined life does provoke thinking over the own situation.

Culture shapes behavior, behavior shapes language, language expresses accumulated social knowledge and back-fluences culture :)