--- Miles Jackson <cqmv at pdx.edu> wrote: >
>
> On Mon, 4 Dec 2000, kelley wrote:
>
> > At 02:08 PM 12/4/00 -0500, Gregory Geboski wrote:
> >
> > --No. The old Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Right up
> there with the ether theory
> > in physics, just more hardy.
> >
> > for debunking sapir-whorf and the great eskimo
> language hoax:
> >
> http://cpsr.org/cpsr/lists/rre/Eskimo_words_for_snow
> >
>
http://www.urbanlegends.com/language/eskimo_words_for_snow_derby.html
> >
> >
>
> [massive snippage]
>
> Yes, the whole Eskimo-words-for-snow-thing is lame.
> But does one
> disconfirming example mean the the sapir-whorf
> hypothesis is
> incorrect?
Strikes me that Eskimo snow isn't a disconfirming example at all except in the Hempel's Paradox sense. To disprove Sapir-Whorf, you need counterexamples to the hypothesis that linguistic facts influence non-linguistic ones. The Eskimo snow gig is all about non-linguistic facts influencing linguistic ones. Its truth or falsity has to be irrelevant to the truth or falsity of Sapir-Whorf.
dd
===== “It is necessarily part of the business of a banker to maintain appearances and to profess a conventional respectability which is more than human. Life-long practices of this kind make them the most romantic and the least realistic of men” -- JM Keynes
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