What language should I study?
August 21, 2011 8:25 PM Subscribe
I'm looking for a new language to study. Inspired by this post about how language alters perception and lists such as this of "most untranslatable words", I'm hoping to find one that puts me in a mindset astonishingly different from English's.
Foreign languages are neat for being able to communicate with different people, but I realized that I'm personally far more interested in the idea that I'd be able to think about the world in new ways ineffable in English. I love the idea of being able to "toggle" back and forth between different mindsets. So, what should I study?
Bonus points if it's a major language (let's arbitrarily say top 20) or for another compelling reason (importance in the world growing quickly, handy for tourism, etc). Obviously practicality is not of paramount importance, but it'd definitely be nice!
In case it matters, I'm a college freshman. I speak but can't read/write Mandarin, and I studied Spanish a little in high school.
Foreign languages are neat for being able to communicate with different people, but I realized that I'm personally far more interested in the idea that I'd be able to think about the world in new ways ineffable in English. I love the idea of being able to "toggle" back and forth between different mindsets. So, what should I study?
Bonus points if it's a major language (let's arbitrarily say top 20) or for another compelling reason (importance in the world growing quickly, handy for tourism, etc). Obviously practicality is not of paramount importance, but it'd definitely be nice!
In case it matters, I'm a college freshman. I speak but can't read/write Mandarin, and I studied Spanish a little in high school.
For you're purposes, I'd go with either Russian or Arabic. These both have different alphabets and structures than you're used to, and in fact are two of the few languages that have more phonetic sounds than English. They're pretty common in colleges now, so you should be able to get decent instruction in either of them.
posted by DoubleLune at 8:29 PM on August 21, 2011
posted by DoubleLune at 8:29 PM on August 21, 2011
I'm hoping to find one that puts me in a mindset astonishingly different from English's.
I think you're going to be disappointed. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is in disrepute these day.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 8:39 PM on August 21, 2011 [1 favorite]
I think you're going to be disappointed. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is in disrepute these day.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 8:39 PM on August 21, 2011 [1 favorite]
Arabic seems like a great option. It's spoken widely in the world, of course, but might also give you some general insight into Islam.
Another way of asking this: where do you want to travel? Learn that language.
posted by bluedaisy at 8:42 PM on August 21, 2011
Another way of asking this: where do you want to travel? Learn that language.
posted by bluedaisy at 8:42 PM on August 21, 2011
If I were going to do this (and for the record, I wouldn't, because I'm deeply skeptical of all but the weakest claims of linguistic relativity), I would pick Hopi, because it was one of the main inspirations for Benjamin Lee Whorf's work on linguistic relativity. For instance, he claimed that Hopi had no way of encoding time grammatically. Now, a quick glance at the Wikipedia page on the Hopi language suggests that this claim is debatable, but if you studied Hopi you could find out for yourself! In any case, it sounds like you're pretty into the concept of linguistic relativity, so I think it would be kind of cool to learn Hopi as a tribute to the idea's origins.
posted by ootandaboot at 8:49 PM on August 21, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by ootandaboot at 8:49 PM on August 21, 2011 [1 favorite]
I was listening to a really interesting discussion on Radio National the other day, about studying Latin. It made me want to study Latin because it sounded so exhilarating, so versatile, and so to the point. Of course I'll never study it, because I am a very lazy and stupid man, but if there was ever going to be a language I studied, it would be Latin. French and German are both quite beautiful of course, though I couldn't say whether they are significantly structurally different to English.
posted by tumid dahlia at 9:01 PM on August 21, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by tumid dahlia at 9:01 PM on August 21, 2011 [1 favorite]
I speak but can't read/write Mandarin
Someone learning how to read and write Mandarin told me how that experience changed their perception of the world since the letters were so visual and pattern based. This person's background was in the arts. Perhaps since you're already familiar with the language, taking a step further into understanding the written script might be a way to start exploring differences vis a vis English?
posted by infini at 9:01 PM on August 21, 2011 [1 favorite]
Someone learning how to read and write Mandarin told me how that experience changed their perception of the world since the letters were so visual and pattern based. This person's background was in the arts. Perhaps since you're already familiar with the language, taking a step further into understanding the written script might be a way to start exploring differences vis a vis English?
posted by infini at 9:01 PM on August 21, 2011 [1 favorite]
Yeah, screw the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis - it's been refuted. Well.
I practive French everyday - you can't get too too much closer to English when it comes to languages, but it's different enough to keep me actively and critically thinking about all sorts of things, (not just the language).
posted by alex_skazat at 9:01 PM on August 21, 2011
I practive French everyday - you can't get too too much closer to English when it comes to languages, but it's different enough to keep me actively and critically thinking about all sorts of things, (not just the language).
posted by alex_skazat at 9:01 PM on August 21, 2011
Honestly, whatever the merits of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, the study of any language changes your perspective on things. For me, as someone who could pick up languages relatively easily, I found Latin to be the biggest gut check because it was almost mathematical in the way you had to be able to break down a sentence and explain why every word looked the way it did. Since you already know Mandarin, I'd say learn Hindi/Urdu or Persian, they're incredibly fun, they give you access to a billion native speakers, amazing literatures (slightly more so in the case of Persian), and they're nowhere near as hard as Arabic.
posted by villanelles at dawn at 9:04 PM on August 21, 2011
posted by villanelles at dawn at 9:04 PM on August 21, 2011
Hopi would be an interesting choice, and you could start with Whorf's outline grammar in which he describes Hopi temporal expressions and adverbs of time and degree, leading you (correctly) to reinterpret Whorf's essays as saying something altogether different from what people usually suppose.
But really, the ideal language to study is one you'll maintain out of some personal passion that's hard for us to guess at. Going outside language families you've studied before is fun and academically useful, but they all do interesting things.
posted by Monsieur Caution at 9:06 PM on August 21, 2011 [1 favorite]
But really, the ideal language to study is one you'll maintain out of some personal passion that's hard for us to guess at. Going outside language families you've studied before is fun and academically useful, but they all do interesting things.
posted by Monsieur Caution at 9:06 PM on August 21, 2011 [1 favorite]
I would say Russian, but then I'm bi-assed.
Consider a Semitic language like Arabic or Hebrew, both widely available at most universities.
You can occasionally find Swahili, that would be interesting.
A few places offer Old Norse, which isn't far from English, but has a beautiful literary tradition.
posted by Nomyte at 9:12 PM on August 21, 2011
Consider a Semitic language like Arabic or Hebrew, both widely available at most universities.
You can occasionally find Swahili, that would be interesting.
A few places offer Old Norse, which isn't far from English, but has a beautiful literary tradition.
posted by Nomyte at 9:12 PM on August 21, 2011
The TLDR versioni of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is "The language we speak controls how we think". (Yes, that's not precise.) And from that the obvious deduction is that if you learn a new language which is radically different, your though processes can change radically as well.
That seems to be what you're assuming. It isn't true. Language follows our thoughts, not the other way around. It's true that there are terms in some languages which are not easy to translate to others. I've been dabbling with Japanese, and one example of that is their word sasuga. It isn't easy to explain it in English without using a pretty long phrase -- more or less "living up to our high expectations".
But there's a long stretch between that (true) observation and some kind of idea that learning a new language will cause you to begin to think in entirely different ways. It doesn't work like that.
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is wrong. That's all.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 9:13 PM on August 21, 2011 [1 favorite]
That seems to be what you're assuming. It isn't true. Language follows our thoughts, not the other way around. It's true that there are terms in some languages which are not easy to translate to others. I've been dabbling with Japanese, and one example of that is their word sasuga. It isn't easy to explain it in English without using a pretty long phrase -- more or less "living up to our high expectations".
But there's a long stretch between that (true) observation and some kind of idea that learning a new language will cause you to begin to think in entirely different ways. It doesn't work like that.
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is wrong. That's all.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 9:13 PM on August 21, 2011 [1 favorite]
I just now got done reading this article that makes a great case for studying Arabic.
(I don't speak Arabic—I too can get around Spanish and Mandarin somewhat—but this made me want to study it next.)
posted by treblemaker at 9:26 PM on August 21, 2011
(I don't speak Arabic—I too can get around Spanish and Mandarin somewhat—but this made me want to study it next.)
posted by treblemaker at 9:26 PM on August 21, 2011
Not to derail much, but the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is really about the evolution of languages in first language communities. In other words, while it is almost certainly the case that a given language reflects the thinking processes and patterns of its speakers, not the other way around, as a language LEARNER, you do not influence the grammar of the language (except by transference errors). Instead you find yourself forced into the ways of speaking (and yes, therefore, to some extent the patterns of thought) of the community that has spoken that language most throughout its evolution.
This means that learning an Australian Aboriginal language, or a Native American Indian language, or an Eastern language if you are a speaker of a Western language, etc, WILL open your mind to new ways of thinking. Even just in terms of the categories marked in the language. For example, if you learn some Australian Aboriginal languages, you have to use grammatical markers indicating the compass direction from you of the nouns you refer to. Don't tell me that doesn't change your perceptions of the world! (Although of course, in the case of native speakers, it is more that they grew up in a region where knowing compass directions of everything is essential, and so that ended up being coded in their language).
Anyway, for sheer difference, I'd go for an indigenous American (North or South) or Australian language, or an African language of any variety. But if you want a major language that you will be easily able to find courses in and then use in some context in your daily life, pick a major African language like Swahili, or a local-to-you Indigenous language, or a non-Indo-European language like Finnish or Hungarian (although through contact they are not as different from IE languages as the other suggestions), or Arabic, or one of the other Semitic languages (Hebrew, Amharic, Tigrinya). Or Thai, or Vietnamese, or Japanese...
(IAAL: I am a linguist).
posted by lollusc at 9:42 PM on August 21, 2011 [5 favorites]
This means that learning an Australian Aboriginal language, or a Native American Indian language, or an Eastern language if you are a speaker of a Western language, etc, WILL open your mind to new ways of thinking. Even just in terms of the categories marked in the language. For example, if you learn some Australian Aboriginal languages, you have to use grammatical markers indicating the compass direction from you of the nouns you refer to. Don't tell me that doesn't change your perceptions of the world! (Although of course, in the case of native speakers, it is more that they grew up in a region where knowing compass directions of everything is essential, and so that ended up being coded in their language).
Anyway, for sheer difference, I'd go for an indigenous American (North or South) or Australian language, or an African language of any variety. But if you want a major language that you will be easily able to find courses in and then use in some context in your daily life, pick a major African language like Swahili, or a local-to-you Indigenous language, or a non-Indo-European language like Finnish or Hungarian (although through contact they are not as different from IE languages as the other suggestions), or Arabic, or one of the other Semitic languages (Hebrew, Amharic, Tigrinya). Or Thai, or Vietnamese, or Japanese...
(IAAL: I am a linguist).
posted by lollusc at 9:42 PM on August 21, 2011 [5 favorites]
As an addendum, languages that vividly and provably achieve your goal may be obscure. For example, there is no way to indicate the directions "left" or "right" in Guugu Yimidhirr or Tzeltal Maya--languages that do not use anthropocentric reference frames, only absolute reference frames. The impact on cognition is such that if you ask a Tzeltal Maya speaker to look at an arrangement of objects, spin the person 180 degrees, and ask the person to recreate the scene, they'll recreate it "backwards" but correct from the absolute point of view, where English speakers would generally recreate it in a way that recreates the perspective they had on it. And if you show them what you mean by left vs. right, they'll make the mistakes you probably made as a child. It turns out not to be an obvious or universal idea, although Whorf explicitly guessed that "up" would be.
You're not going to get much like that by sticking to the top 20 languages by number of speakers, but for any language, you can go deep and find things that illuminate distinctions (grammatical, lexical, or cultural/philosophical) that you might not have thought to make otherwise.
posted by Monsieur Caution at 9:45 PM on August 21, 2011
You're not going to get much like that by sticking to the top 20 languages by number of speakers, but for any language, you can go deep and find things that illuminate distinctions (grammatical, lexical, or cultural/philosophical) that you might not have thought to make otherwise.
posted by Monsieur Caution at 9:45 PM on August 21, 2011
The impact on cognition is such that if you ask a Tzeltal Maya speaker to look at an arrangement of objects, spin the person 180 degrees, and ask the person to recreate the scene, they'll recreate it "backwards" but correct from the absolute point of view, where English speakers would generally recreate it in a way that recreates the perspective they had on it. And if you show them what you mean by left vs. right, they'll make the mistakes you probably made as a child. It turns out not to be an obvious or universal idea, although Whorf explicitly guessed that "up" would be.
"In a series of experiments, we explored this hypothesis by asking whether the absence of an egocentric frame of reference in Tseltal affects Tseltal speakers’ ability to reason in terms of left and right. In tasks comparing Tseltal speakers’ ability to solve spatial problems requiring an egocentric frame of reference to ones requiring a geocentric frame of reference, we found that Tseltal speakers could easily solve the egocentric problems, and that performance on these tasks was generally more robust than performance on geocentric tasks. These results offer evidence against current versions of linguistic relativity." Li, Papafragou, & Gleitman (2011) (PDF)
Lila Gleitman and her students have been looking for evidence of linguistic relativity for decades, and there's just not much of anything there. Barbara Landau has been going around with a talk on a very, very weak form of Sapir-Whorf that her student found support for: basically, verb frames seem to affect memory representations ever so slightly, in young children.
There was an overview of the current state of linguistic relativity published several years ago:
posted by Nomyte at 10:14 PM on August 21, 2011 [5 favorites]
"In a series of experiments, we explored this hypothesis by asking whether the absence of an egocentric frame of reference in Tseltal affects Tseltal speakers’ ability to reason in terms of left and right. In tasks comparing Tseltal speakers’ ability to solve spatial problems requiring an egocentric frame of reference to ones requiring a geocentric frame of reference, we found that Tseltal speakers could easily solve the egocentric problems, and that performance on these tasks was generally more robust than performance on geocentric tasks. These results offer evidence against current versions of linguistic relativity." Li, Papafragou, & Gleitman (2011) (PDF)
Lila Gleitman and her students have been looking for evidence of linguistic relativity for decades, and there's just not much of anything there. Barbara Landau has been going around with a talk on a very, very weak form of Sapir-Whorf that her student found support for: basically, verb frames seem to affect memory representations ever so slightly, in young children.
There was an overview of the current state of linguistic relativity published several years ago:
Gentner, D., & Goldin‐Meadow, S. (Eds.) (2003). Language in mind: Advances in the study of language and thought. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.It's an interesting read, albeit probably impenetrable for a layperson.
posted by Nomyte at 10:14 PM on August 21, 2011 [5 favorites]
Well, I'll be tempering my use of that example in the future. :D
posted by Monsieur Caution at 10:21 PM on August 21, 2011
posted by Monsieur Caution at 10:21 PM on August 21, 2011
Sorry, I hate to deflate people. I think it's conceptually a fascinating area, but no one seems to have asked the right question yet, and all the questions we've asked so far haven't led anywhere definite.
A foreign language is worth learning in depth just for the sake of that weird feeling of "I know a more perfect word for this in language X." Just today I was watching a torrential downpour and thinking of the Russian "стихия" (from the Greek στοιχεῖον) and how inadequate the English word "element" seemed in that situation.
posted by Nomyte at 11:06 PM on August 21, 2011 [2 favorites]
A foreign language is worth learning in depth just for the sake of that weird feeling of "I know a more perfect word for this in language X." Just today I was watching a torrential downpour and thinking of the Russian "стихия" (from the Greek στοιχεῖον) and how inadequate the English word "element" seemed in that situation.
posted by Nomyte at 11:06 PM on August 21, 2011 [2 favorites]
What really broadens and changes one's thought processes, in my experience, is learning a language and then taking as long a trip as you can manage to a place where that language is spoken. With that it mind - it's probably best to take a Mandarin course for those with exposure, or use something like Rosetta Stone to concentrate on reading/writing to get yourself to the point of being able to travel in China and use it comfortably.
If you are dead-set against continuing with Mandarin, go for Russian, which has declined nouns as well as verbal aspect and complex verbs of motion (each one has 4 forms - uni and multi-directional forms of each of the two aspects). That should provide the grammatical interest and challenge, along with interesting vocab, as Nomyte points out. Russian is easily accessible in the US, and Russia (like China) is huge, and full of interesting people who speak the language.
I would strongly advise against taking Latin, as someone suggested above, for two reasons. First of all, its 'directness', 'clarity of thought' and utility for contemporary speakers of English is wildly exaggerated - English grammar has often been shoehorned into Latin models to justify an emphasis on Latin, and the British Empire's reverence for ancient Rome lead to over-regard for Roman orators and Latin prose. The best writers in just about any major tradition can compete with the best Latin has to offer, unless you have a strong interest in the history of the Roman Empire itself. Secondly, and more importantly, the native speakers of Latin are long dead - there's no cultural immersion experience to be had, and without the experience of cultural difference, language learning won't give you the kind of mind-expanding experience you are looking for.
(I took Latin for 5+ years as a young sprog, and got to the point of translating and analyzing Roman texts, doing competitions, etc. When I finally switched over to modern languages, I couldn't believe I'd wasted so much time, despite still being interested in Roman history. )
posted by Wylla at 12:13 AM on August 22, 2011 [2 favorites]
If you are dead-set against continuing with Mandarin, go for Russian, which has declined nouns as well as verbal aspect and complex verbs of motion (each one has 4 forms - uni and multi-directional forms of each of the two aspects). That should provide the grammatical interest and challenge, along with interesting vocab, as Nomyte points out. Russian is easily accessible in the US, and Russia (like China) is huge, and full of interesting people who speak the language.
I would strongly advise against taking Latin, as someone suggested above, for two reasons. First of all, its 'directness', 'clarity of thought' and utility for contemporary speakers of English is wildly exaggerated - English grammar has often been shoehorned into Latin models to justify an emphasis on Latin, and the British Empire's reverence for ancient Rome lead to over-regard for Roman orators and Latin prose. The best writers in just about any major tradition can compete with the best Latin has to offer, unless you have a strong interest in the history of the Roman Empire itself. Secondly, and more importantly, the native speakers of Latin are long dead - there's no cultural immersion experience to be had, and without the experience of cultural difference, language learning won't give you the kind of mind-expanding experience you are looking for.
(I took Latin for 5+ years as a young sprog, and got to the point of translating and analyzing Roman texts, doing competitions, etc. When I finally switched over to modern languages, I couldn't believe I'd wasted so much time, despite still being interested in Roman history. )
posted by Wylla at 12:13 AM on August 22, 2011 [2 favorites]
I think immersion, trips etc. have been stressed plenty in this thread, but I'll just add that if you really want that "switching mindsets" thing from knowing different languages, then hardcore immersion and constant interaction is crucial. Otherwise, you run the risk of simply "knowing" the language in the sense that you mentally translate what you see into English.
As for languages itself, I'd suggest Central/South Asian languages. Persian and Hindi/Urdu both have terrific literary and poetic traditions that are difficult to translate into English while retaining their magic. Much the same can be said of other Indian languages, like Punjabi, Gujarati, Bengali, Marathi, Tamil and so on.
Another option you could look into is Sanskrit, which has some of the most hardcore grammar and pronunciation in the world, and serves a key to modern Indian languages.
posted by Senza Volto at 12:24 AM on August 22, 2011
As for languages itself, I'd suggest Central/South Asian languages. Persian and Hindi/Urdu both have terrific literary and poetic traditions that are difficult to translate into English while retaining their magic. Much the same can be said of other Indian languages, like Punjabi, Gujarati, Bengali, Marathi, Tamil and so on.
Another option you could look into is Sanskrit, which has some of the most hardcore grammar and pronunciation in the world, and serves a key to modern Indian languages.
posted by Senza Volto at 12:24 AM on August 22, 2011
I strongly agree with Wylla. I don't think you're going to really understand, say, "toska" until you've spent a long time hanging out with Russians; it's the experience of hanging out and talking with people from another culture that gives your new language its real mind-altering qualities.
So I would not study a dead language. I would study a widely-used language that's based in a region you find fascinating, and after acquiring basic understanding of the language I would go spend a year or two where it's spoken.
I promise that will alter your mindset.
posted by hungrytiger at 1:42 AM on August 22, 2011
So I would not study a dead language. I would study a widely-used language that's based in a region you find fascinating, and after acquiring basic understanding of the language I would go spend a year or two where it's spoken.
I promise that will alter your mindset.
posted by hungrytiger at 1:42 AM on August 22, 2011
nthing the "spend some time totally immersed in another culture" cohort.
While learning the language can give you an interesting take on "Oh, wow, look what's important to the X, Y Z, they say it THIS way" actually changing your personal frame of reference is a different matter.
If it's purely intellectual curiosity then I would also recommend Farsi, it's a lot easier than Arabic, and the poetry is incredible. If what your after is more experiential then I recommend Andalucia. Read La tesis de Nancy by Ramón José Sender for a bit of cross cultural giggles.
posted by Wilder at 2:27 AM on August 22, 2011
While learning the language can give you an interesting take on "Oh, wow, look what's important to the X, Y Z, they say it THIS way" actually changing your personal frame of reference is a different matter.
If it's purely intellectual curiosity then I would also recommend Farsi, it's a lot easier than Arabic, and the poetry is incredible. If what your after is more experiential then I recommend Andalucia. Read La tesis de Nancy by Ramón José Sender for a bit of cross cultural giggles.
posted by Wilder at 2:27 AM on August 22, 2011
Yeah, screw the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis - it's been refuted. Well.
As a linguist, I must respond that this is not true. First, there is no such "hypothesis" in the work of either Sapir or Whorf. Second, it is without a doubt true that different languages impose different perceptual grids on reality, minimally at the level of phonemic recognition (the reason native speakers of different languages struggle with the phonemic systems of languages they learn as adults). More complex cognitive effects at the levels of semantic and syntactic structure are more controversial, but by no means "refuted" in any way. I recommend the work of John Lucy on linguistic relativity if you're curious about the state of the art.
So just pronouncing a century's worth of linguistic science to be "refuted" is nonsense.
You want to really mess with your linguistically mediated understanding of the world? Learn an agglutinative language like one of the Inuit or Athabaskan languages. Then get back to me about how "refuted" Sapir's (and Whorf's different) claims really are.
posted by spitbull at 5:09 AM on August 22, 2011 [1 favorite]
As a linguist, I must respond that this is not true. First, there is no such "hypothesis" in the work of either Sapir or Whorf. Second, it is without a doubt true that different languages impose different perceptual grids on reality, minimally at the level of phonemic recognition (the reason native speakers of different languages struggle with the phonemic systems of languages they learn as adults). More complex cognitive effects at the levels of semantic and syntactic structure are more controversial, but by no means "refuted" in any way. I recommend the work of John Lucy on linguistic relativity if you're curious about the state of the art.
So just pronouncing a century's worth of linguistic science to be "refuted" is nonsense.
You want to really mess with your linguistically mediated understanding of the world? Learn an agglutinative language like one of the Inuit or Athabaskan languages. Then get back to me about how "refuted" Sapir's (and Whorf's different) claims really are.
posted by spitbull at 5:09 AM on August 22, 2011 [1 favorite]
The TLDR versioni of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is "The language we speak controls how we think". (Yes, that's not precise.)
A complete mischaracterization. Sometimes TLDR is not sufficient.
posted by spitbull at 5:11 AM on August 22, 2011
A complete mischaracterization. Sometimes TLDR is not sufficient.
posted by spitbull at 5:11 AM on August 22, 2011
I can prove to you that the language you speak controls "how you perceive" the world. Irrefutably.
Study a language with a radically different phonological inventory from your own. You will struggle for a long time just to hear sound distinctions (such as the aspirational distinction in Hindi, if you speak English, where aspiration is not a phonemic difference; or the difference between the liquids /l/ and /r/ if you speak Japanese and try to learn English).
There it is. The language you speak natively imposes a grid on your perception so strong that you simply cannot hear distinctions native speakers of other languages depend on for sense until you study that language, and even then you will struggle to produce the distinction for some time and may never master it if you are an adult learner, because the language(s) we learn as a child do in fact shape the structure of our brains. This is hard cold proven science. Sorry, armchair linguists.
posted by spitbull at 5:14 AM on August 22, 2011 [3 favorites]
Study a language with a radically different phonological inventory from your own. You will struggle for a long time just to hear sound distinctions (such as the aspirational distinction in Hindi, if you speak English, where aspiration is not a phonemic difference; or the difference between the liquids /l/ and /r/ if you speak Japanese and try to learn English).
There it is. The language you speak natively imposes a grid on your perception so strong that you simply cannot hear distinctions native speakers of other languages depend on for sense until you study that language, and even then you will struggle to produce the distinction for some time and may never master it if you are an adult learner, because the language(s) we learn as a child do in fact shape the structure of our brains. This is hard cold proven science. Sorry, armchair linguists.
posted by spitbull at 5:14 AM on August 22, 2011 [3 favorites]
Arabic fits your criteria, but I like the idea of Finnish. Tolkien said that his introduction to Finnish "was like discovering a complete wine-filled cellar filled with bottles of an amazing wine of a kind and flavor never tasted before".
posted by Segundus at 5:47 AM on August 22, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by Segundus at 5:47 AM on August 22, 2011 [1 favorite]
I would personally vote for Ancient Greek. Your question made me think of this quote from The Secret History by Donna Tartt, which expresses why much more beautifully than I can myself:
"The value of Greek prose composition, he said, was not that it gave one any particular facility in the language that could not be gained as easily by other methods but that if done properly, off the top of one's head, it taught one to think in Greek. One's thought patterns become different, he said, when forced into the confines of a rigid and unfamiliar tongue. Certain common ideas become inexpressible; other, previously undreamt-of ones spring to life, finding miraculous new articulation. By necessity, I suppose, it is difficult for me to explain in English exactly what I mean. I can only say that an incendium is in its nature entirely different from the feu with which a Frenchman lights his cigarette, and both are very different from the stark, inhuman pur that the Greeks knew, the pur that roared from the towers of Ilion or leapt and screamed on that desolate, windy beach, from the funeral pyre of Patroklos."
posted by guessthis at 6:05 AM on August 22, 2011 [1 favorite]
"The value of Greek prose composition, he said, was not that it gave one any particular facility in the language that could not be gained as easily by other methods but that if done properly, off the top of one's head, it taught one to think in Greek. One's thought patterns become different, he said, when forced into the confines of a rigid and unfamiliar tongue. Certain common ideas become inexpressible; other, previously undreamt-of ones spring to life, finding miraculous new articulation. By necessity, I suppose, it is difficult for me to explain in English exactly what I mean. I can only say that an incendium is in its nature entirely different from the feu with which a Frenchman lights his cigarette, and both are very different from the stark, inhuman pur that the Greeks knew, the pur that roared from the towers of Ilion or leapt and screamed on that desolate, windy beach, from the funeral pyre of Patroklos."
posted by guessthis at 6:05 AM on August 22, 2011 [1 favorite]
Seconding ASL. As far as widely-taught but totally-different-from-English languages go, you can't do much better than a visual language with topic-comment grammar!
posted by Gordafarin at 6:54 AM on August 22, 2011
posted by Gordafarin at 6:54 AM on August 22, 2011
Wow. I mean wow.
I don't have the time at present to devote to language study, but if I did, this would be a kid in a candy store kind of choice.
You've studying Mandarin. Maybe you want to learn Japanese? I found it interesting from a language structure point of view as it is nearly a postfix language, which appeals to me as a software engineer.
I will second ASL - I speak like a kid (which makes sense, because I learned PSE in order to teach my daughter with speech delays how to communicate), but I've found it to be a beautiful language on so many levels. Be aware that once you know ASL, you'll never be able to play Charades again.
Want weird? consider learning Pirahã. It's like pretty much nothing else. Good luck finding a decent way to learn it that doesn't involve living in the Amazon.
posted by plinth at 7:02 AM on August 22, 2011
I don't have the time at present to devote to language study, but if I did, this would be a kid in a candy store kind of choice.
You've studying Mandarin. Maybe you want to learn Japanese? I found it interesting from a language structure point of view as it is nearly a postfix language, which appeals to me as a software engineer.
I will second ASL - I speak like a kid (which makes sense, because I learned PSE in order to teach my daughter with speech delays how to communicate), but I've found it to be a beautiful language on so many levels. Be aware that once you know ASL, you'll never be able to play Charades again.
Want weird? consider learning Pirahã. It's like pretty much nothing else. Good luck finding a decent way to learn it that doesn't involve living in the Amazon.
posted by plinth at 7:02 AM on August 22, 2011
I don't understand why people are even debating this when the answer is obviously to start with Hawaiian and then work your way back west across the entire Pacific ocean until you end up in Taiwan reconstructing Proto-Austronesian. GO!
posted by No-sword at 7:06 AM on August 22, 2011
posted by No-sword at 7:06 AM on August 22, 2011
I'd wager that Gaelic may put you in "a mindset very different from English" -- but only when it comes to "how to spell words."
(Irish orthography only uses 18 of the 26 letters in the English alphabet, and uses accents over a couple as extra "letters" -- so you've got all sorts of funky spellings, where "bhf" stands in for some "f" sounds and "bh" stands in for some "v" sounds.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:21 AM on August 22, 2011
(Irish orthography only uses 18 of the 26 letters in the English alphabet, and uses accents over a couple as extra "letters" -- so you've got all sorts of funky spellings, where "bhf" stands in for some "f" sounds and "bh" stands in for some "v" sounds.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:21 AM on August 22, 2011
Oh EmpressCallipygos has reminded me, although not my native tongue, Gaelic is indeed beautiful (and there are rad summer courses of total immersion, the best of which for adults is Ros A Mhil near Galway)
if you speak enough Irish to really get the incredible passion and eroticism implicit in the 18th century love poem Caoinadh Art Ui Laoighre, or The Lament for Art O Leary, you will literally have put yourself in a different and very much more physical mindset. Reading it in English feels like watching black & white TV, this is the culture where it's a joy and an honour to have your dead relative on the kitchen table for a few nights while people sing, dance and make merry and where the poem's heroine can speak of her lover's body like fresh baked bread in a way that would give you a hard-on reading it in Irish but is quite blah in English.
deffo, Irish FTW!
posted by Wilder at 11:33 AM on August 25, 2011
if you speak enough Irish to really get the incredible passion and eroticism implicit in the 18th century love poem Caoinadh Art Ui Laoighre, or The Lament for Art O Leary, you will literally have put yourself in a different and very much more physical mindset. Reading it in English feels like watching black & white TV, this is the culture where it's a joy and an honour to have your dead relative on the kitchen table for a few nights while people sing, dance and make merry and where the poem's heroine can speak of her lover's body like fresh baked bread in a way that would give you a hard-on reading it in Irish but is quite blah in English.
deffo, Irish FTW!
posted by Wilder at 11:33 AM on August 25, 2011
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posted by brainmouse at 8:29 PM on August 21, 2011 [7 favorites]