In the New York Times, Guy Deutscher has a lengthy article about the speculations of some linguists that the language that we first learn strongly shapes and limits how we think. One interesting example that he cites is an Australian aboriginal language that has no personal spatial descriptors, such as the English phrases "to my right" or "behind me". Instead, it uses cardinal directions in everyday conversation:
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But then a remote Australian aboriginal tongue, Guugu Yimithirr, from north Queensland, turned up, and with it came the astounding realization that not all languages conform to what we have always taken as simply “natural.” In fact, Guugu Yimithirr doesn’t make any use of egocentric coordinates at all. The anthropologist John Haviland and later the linguist Stephen Levinson have shown that Guugu Yimithirr does not use words like “left” or “right,” “in front of” or “behind,” to describe the position of objects. Whenever we would use the egocentric system, the Guugu Yimithirr rely on cardinal directions. If they want you to move over on the car seat to make room, they’ll say “move a bit to the east.” To tell you where exactly they left something in your house, they’ll say, “I left it on the southern edge of the western table.” Or they would warn you to “look out for that big ant just north of your foot.” Even when shown a film on television, they gave descriptions of it based on the orientation of the screen. If the television was facing north, and a man on the screen was approaching, they said that he was “coming northward.”
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The reason that it is important for children to learn a non-native language, math, categorical sciences, music and other such subjects is to not only teach them the subject, but to allow them to figure out that there are many ways to examine the world without and within.
I guess I can blame my German language upbringing for not understanding how observations of a limited isolated non-modern tribe of pygmies can be applied to current modern evolved global languages of today.
In China, it seems that when people first meet and start talking, there is a lot of verbal "handshaking" (like what modems used to do) before simple communication can take place. Picture a waitress having to discuss an order with a customer for a while before even being able to understand the first item to be ordered.
Much of the language seems to be more descriptive and poetic than specific like English. I often think this affects the way some people here attack problems - and the idea of "common sense" doesn't hold up when peoples' backgrounds and ways of thinking are not "common"
[1] - The Stuff of Thought, Steven Pinker
[2] - ibid, paraphrasing Lila Gleitman
Topic can be closed.
On the reverse of this spectrum, an aboriginal group (i forget which) did not use a clear numerical naming system. They only had equivilants for "one" "two" "some" "several" etc.
I would imagine it shapes a lot of how you think.
A great documentary called "The Story of 1" describes those aboriginal people.
English say Fifty One (fif = 5 ty = ten) - meaning Fifty plus One.
Germans say Ein und Fünfzig meaning One and Fifty just like is done in English from 13 to nineteen.
Now try to remember telephonenumbers in both languages, like say
0117 - 4513259
Lots of people would somehow split up the number to remember it- like say 0117 45 132 59
In English you would just say like
zero one one seven forty five hundred thirty two fifty nine
However you say it- The numerical order will never change
Yet in German or like in this example in Dutch (same as in German) it coul0d become:
zero hundred seven teen five and forty hundred two and thirty nine and fifty.
That is why we see far more number-dyslectia in Germanic-lingual countries than in Anglish-lingual countries.