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From: mathias@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Gerald B Mathias)
Subject: Re: Language for thinking
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Date: Sat, 24 Sep 1994 19:08:13 GMT
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Martin (martin%dacws2%dac.isei.jrc.it@cen.jrc.it) wrote:
: Hi all,

: sorry to the original poster that I cannot supply an answer to his
: question. Guess even Esperanto is not what he's looking for, it's
: just a language to be used for international communication (easy
: to learn and low cultural bias).

: The subject reminds me of Tom Meyer, the ex-host of a famous Dutch
: radio show. He attracted a lot of respect because he speaks a lot
: of different languages. Somebody asked him:

: "What language do you use for thinking?"

: His answer: "I don't think in a language, I think in thoughts"

: Is there anybody who could agree with such a statement. 
: I admit that I tend to disagree, at least I feel the bond between
: thoughts and my mother tongue.

I tend to agree.  I do a lot of "thinking" in English, but it is 
in the mode of explaining my thoughts to someone else, and I usually
have either a specific person, or a class, in mind as audience.

I recall, as early as age five or six, noting with surprise that a
lot of my thinking was starting to be in words.  Fortunately, it
still isn't all that way, or I'd never get any thinking done--I'm
slow with words.

On the other hand, I also remember that part of my motivation for
studying Spanish when I discovered there were other languages was
to see if I reached different conclusions when thinking about the
same thing in two languages, so I seem to contradict myself.

Bart Mathias
