Comment on Transliterated country names into Chinese Language use pre-existing characters that already has its own meaning, therefore native Chinese speakers have a subconcious impression based on country names.

umbrella@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

• shneancy@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  a language might be a tool we use, but it absolutely shapes the way we see the world itself to a significant degree, even to the point where speakers of different languages might disagree on basic physical facts

  eg: if you ask an english speaker how many fingers they have - they’ll answer 10. but if you answer a polish speaker - they’ll answer 20. polish makes little linguistic distinction between fingers, and how we call them, foot fingers

  this is one example of many. i find it deeply fascinating and quite scary. it feels weird to realise that my understanding of the world is broadened and structured better thanks to the fact i use a language to describe it, but there might be things i’ll never notice, or will always confuse, simply because the tool i use is not perfect, and yet, that is the basis through which i perceive the world

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