First, I discovered that there if a word for what 'truthiness' and 'wikiality' are. They're neologisms. A neologism, according to dictionary.com, is 'a new word, usage, or phrase'. Which was just a somewhat interesting thing that I stumbled upon, but not what I'd been looking for.
A month or so, I'd gone to dictionary.com looking for something, and since I have the attention span of a much younger child, got sidetracked by one of their picutre headline things. This specific one was about the word which essentially defines made up languages that babies, normally twins, will use to talk to each other, that nobody else can understand. Turns out that the word for this, which I was able to, uh, rediscover, is idioglossia. Idioglossia is specifically, 'a private form of speech invented by one child or by children who are in close contact, as twins'. It comes from a Greek word meaning 'of distinct or perculiar tounge'. The Ancient Greeks were very funny. They at one point decided that the language of anyone who didn't speak Greek could be summarized as saying 'bar bar bar bar' really fast, with different tones. So if you didn't speak Greek, you were an uncivilized Bar-bar. Which is where the word barbarian comes from. But that's not really the point here, more of just to well, give background of dumb ways words can be made up. Along with my really random thought process, since I went through all of this while we were doing the group questions in class today.
The fact that a word has been made to define made up languages by babies leads to some intersting propositions. If langages made up by babies can be defined as idioglossia, then that means that babies have made up an intelligible language, with systems and definitions, however rudimentary, that is still a language. A language entirly based on their babyish whims, feelings, and what babies feel and want to get across. Which means that people can make up languages with systems and definitions on their own. Thus, theoretically, it's impossible to truly limit people thoughts by limiting language, as people will gradually make up their own term to refer to what it is that they feel, and communicate to other people gradually what their meaning is. Or that babies are a lot smarter than us.
Thus, the entire discourse which we had is sort of irrelevant. For what people think to be limited, they have to not only be hemmed in by the language they speak (as they can always create new tools within a language) but also by the culture surrounding them. If the culture surrounding them imposes certain ideals and values upon them, they'll repress, or decide not to share any ideas that they come up with which they've been taught could be described as subversive or illegal. Newspeak doesn't only limit what can be thought, but it tells you and others around you what is illegal to think, and in an atmosphere that if you hear your mom say something that you've been told is wrong or toes the boundries, you'll report it to the authorities. Your mom knowing this, and not wanting to be arrested, will keep any such ideas to herself, swallow them, or just not express them.
So let us establish that though humans can create language, once they turn off their creation stage and let everything be defined by others for them, then the language can limit what they perceive in certain areas to an extent. I'm not going to go through this whole thing and bore you, but the general gist is, if you have a lot of words to define similar things with slight differences, you'll notice the slight differences in things presented to you one by one. If you speak a language that doesn't, you'll only percieve them when all the things are presented to you at the same time.
In summary, I just presented a bunch of things, said one thing, then proceeded to present more things that seem to contradict me. End result or point of this exercise you ask.
Ask me in person, I communicate better that way.
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