Yes. Telling from personal experience of living in different cultures. Language you speak and think in not only contributes a lot to the way you think, but also to your personality itself, to character. People who spent few years+ living in different language often even sound differently, having different voice.

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theGeatZhopa 5 days ago | parent [-]

may be it's the personal evolvement, that leads to that? One who have or is living abroad for a few years also develops himself in certain ways. Just like with the students who did study abroad. They show, they gain the competence of self-care-taking-in-a-foreign-environment and problem-solving-skills, more than the ones who studied and lived comfortable (often at parent's home).

I speak five languages myself. Being born and grown up in one country, went to highschool in second country, studied in a third country. But it's not the languages, but rather what i've learned and the discussions I had, that shaped the today's me. If I didn't study or argue with others, I would less utilize my thinking-as-an-engineer -> clear & aim-oriented, logically structured problem solving.

I notice the use of logical thinking in my daily life (if -> then -> but why? -> conclusion) even more after I started programming in spare time. Yes, it's a new language: strict, well defined, clear expression and problem-modeling. The new language did not change my thinking, but rather the way it solved my problems, and the new knowledge of e.g. data structures, did. So, for me, language is a tool for unlocking the knowledge and the knowledge shapes me.

another examples that supports my thinking "its the knowledge that shapes us": - when the war in Ukraine started, a lot of people said "We have. Give them long-range missles. Give them now.". But after learning that for some long-range missles it's neccessary to continiously monitor & control the missle with propriatary technology. This technology is secure and difficult to operate and rather shouldn't fall into the hands of enemies - the thinking about "give them" changed. But not the language.

- Trump's imposed tariffs: Quite a lot of US thinks the tariffs are paid by the producers. After learning, its paid by the importer, they change their thinking too. Language didn't change. But their thinking.

so, I'm opposed to the theory that language alone shapes our thinking. It's the knowledge we gain and the links and conclusions we make. Language is static, while knowledge is dynamic.

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aristofun 4 days ago | parent [-]

in cases like that you can't really untangle and isolate all factors. Maybe it's not language, but culture, but then can you say culture is not influenced by language? Or language by culture?

Yes, boolean logic and math are language invariant. But "thinking" is much broader context and I definitely see strong signs of how people change their thinking with changing the language.

	▲	theGeatZhopa 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		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 :)