[JoeDaDude]

I'm sure language learners all over have felt this way. Once one starts learning another tongue, one realizes that languages do not exist in isolation, they are part of a larger culture and the language comes with customs, traditions, norms, and even beliefs from that culture. In learning a language, you internalize that culture and, even if just a tiny bit, develop an identity as a member of that culture.

Phoenix Ho said it better than I can is this video:

Learning Languages Ruined My Life

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ_4gzoDDAE

[rramadass]

Very True.

This is particularly true when one translates/studies philosophical texts where there are lots of abstract concepts to interpret and more often than not if one doesn't understand the culture and everything it entails, one will make a mess of it.

> In learning a language, you internalize that culture and, even if just a tiny bit, develop an identity as a member of that culture.

This actually explains how Indians practice "Unity in Diversity" via their shared culture. For example, i grew up learning 4 languages viz; Tamil (mother tongue and 1st language), Bengali (since i grew up in West Bengal), English (medium of instruction and 2nd language) and Hindi (3rd language in school). It has given me a certain breadth of mind to appreciate our differences and yet have a shared common identity. A lot of Indians have similar multiple language upbringing and hence it is one of the reasons we can adapt and be successful anywhere in the World.

[DiscourseFan]

Indian philosophy is not translingual though, its all written in one language, Sanskrit, and translated from that language. If anything, Indian philosophy demonstrates hierarchal dominance in its cultural context.

[rramadass]

That is not quite true.

It so happened that much of what has survived under the rubric "Hinduism" (itself an umbrella term for a whole gamut of philosophies, religious beliefs, rituals etc. and everything in between) has been through Sanskrit texts. It does not mean that all the concepts/ideas originated in that language domain. This is why you have the many schools of Hindu Philosophy categorized as orthodox (six recognized) vs. unorthodox (three recognized) and there are still more schools (notably many Tantric philosophies) not recognized under either of the above categories. Given the bewildering diversity of languages in the Indian Subcontinent it is almost certain that Sanskrit texts recast/reformulated philosophies/concepts/ideas from other languages (eg. Tamil and Sanskrit).

The situation is analogous to what happened after the Scientific Revolution where knowledge from German/French/Other European languages got disseminated via the English language through colonialism to the wider world.

[DiscourseFan]

Its possible, but still points towards, as I said, an overall hierarchy rather than a given multiplicity.

[rramadass]

There is no intrinsic "overall hierarchy" but merely a "a posteriori" appearance of one.

[DiscourseFan]

There is no thing in itself here either to which one might ascribe a particular quality. There is a history of violence expressed through the language itself; I am doing my analysis immanently. When I say hierarchy I don't mean hierarchy outside the text.

[fuzztester]

yes. so there should be, for human languages, some variation of that Alan Perlis quote, that goes something like: a (programming) language that doesn't change the way you think, isn't worth learning. if not, someone should make one up.

[laurent_du]

I speak three languages on top of my own native language and never felt that way at all. In my opinion it's just a weird idea coming from people who like to overthink things.

[anal_reactor]

My problem is that I love languages but I hate people, which makes me completely half-ass the learning process by detaching the language from the culture.

[DiscourseFan]

Its more likely that you hate what you see in people than the people themselves.

[anal_reactor]

How is that different?

[npteljes]

By the feeling, it's the same. But it's an important distinction. You cannot change "the people", but you can change yourself. And that is very different. In the first, you are subservient of something much larger than you, and the second is a world of possibilities. Turning your thinking around enables you to have your best possible experience of your own life - or so they say.

[anal_reactor]

> In the first, you are subservient of something much larger than you, and the second is a world of possibilities.

The latter is a much more grim perspective. What it means is that, if you've been putting all your effort, all your effort is still not enough, and you objectively suck and you will never stop being useless trash. But if you consider people as an unpredictable, unstoppable force, then it's much easier to accept, and just make your way around it. Like weather. It really sucks when I want to go out but then exactly at this moment a huge storm breaks out, but there's nothing I can do about it, so I'd better adjust my life to the fact that weather sometimes sucks and that's it. While I could've planned for bad weather, at its core the fact that weather sometimes sucks is not my fault and there's nothing I can do about it.

[npteljes]

Exactly like weather. Grimness has almost nothing to do with the subject here. What I want to communicate is specifically not about how the world is, but about what we do with our experience in it. And how we react to that experience, inside and outside. What I would like to put forward is that we cannot substantially change the world, or the people, but we can change ourselves, and with that, how we experience the world - and ourselves within it.

I would like to add that I'm not on a high horse here. I too suck at this. But I do think that it is a worthy effort, and something that is a Good Thing for the self, and to whom and whatever comes into contact with that person too.

[DiscourseFan]

If you lived in a place with huge storms all the time, to live joyously would mean to affirm that life. But people are not terrible.

[fuzztester]

>Phoenix Ho

Spelled Hou, per the video.