this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2024
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[–] [email protected] -2 points 9 months ago (21 children)

Bearing in mind that this is a fraction of a percent of the cultural differences, "是“ means "it is" and "不是“ means "it isn't". Neither of them mean yes or no, and would be an incorrect answer to "do you like ice cream?"

" Do you like ice cream?"

" It is."

You can understand what they're going for, but you are not prompting the response you would expect to because that answer doesn't exist in those languages or in those cultures.

The framing and context of a single word seems small, but when you're asking a child "do you like ice cream" but you're not allowed to ask it in anway that they can say yes or no to you and employ the complexities and implications of those words, the situation is different.

" You like ice cream, correct or incorrect?"

They'll answer you, but you've taken away their independent facility to formulate an answer.

" Ice cream is good, is it or is it not?"

Again, they'll answer you, within the strict confines of your question. There's no gray area in your question, which is how you have to ask it in order to elicit any sort of response.

You give them two possible answers, they choose one.

That in turn shapes how you and they see questions in general. How questions and behavioral prompts like the types you're suggesting are perceived, are asked and responded to.

You can imagine how linguistic formation can determine thought processes pretty quickly, layer upon each other and result in a consciousness you don't quite recognize.

And that's from one word among a couple dozen thousand, and those are all only words and ignoring all other parts of the culture.

[–] grabyourmotherskeys 4 points 9 months ago (3 children)

All this to defend your position that billions of people don't have a way to say "yes".

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago (2 children)

As I've mentioned multiple times from the beginning, it's a salient example of how your paternal metaphor about the US prompting China to behave a certain way is entirely wrongheaded.

And it isn't a "position", it's a linguistic fact.

English not having gendered nouns is a fact, not a "position".

[–] grabyourmotherskeys 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Have a great day. You are an intellectual giant who has bested me.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago

I appreciate it, although our disagreements were largely practical definitive matters, not very intellectual.

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