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looking for a linguistical/semiotic quote

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  looking for a linguistical/semiotic quote rusi <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2013-06-27 04:14 -0700
    Re: looking for a linguistical/semiotic quote Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2013-06-27 21:19 +1000
      Re: looking for a linguistical/semiotic quote rusi <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2013-06-27 04:34 -0700
    Re: looking for a linguistical/semiotic quote Vlastimil Brom <vlastimil.brom@gmail.com> - 2013-06-27 14:10 +0200
      Re: looking for a linguistical/semiotic quote rusi <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2013-06-27 05:25 -0700

#49307 — looking for a linguistical/semiotic quote

I am looking for a quote 
(from Whorf/Sapir/Wittgenstein/Humboldt dunno... that 'school')

It goes something like this:

What characterizes a language is not what we can say in it but what we must -- like it or not -- say.


A demo of this is D Hofstadter's 
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.html
which by inverting sexist/racist assumptions in English, makes for a hilarious read.

No I am not talking politics here, just want some references for a programming course in which I want to point out that

- C programmers need to talk memory-mgmt whether they want to or not
- Java programmers need to talk objects/classes likewise
etc

I believe I may have seen that quote here so asking...

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#49308

On Thu, Jun 27, 2013 at 9:14 PM, rusi <rustompmody@gmail.com> wrote:
> I am looking for a quote
> (from Whorf/Sapir/Wittgenstein/Humboldt dunno... that 'school')
>
> It goes something like this:
>
> What characterizes a language is not what we can say in it but what we must -- like it or not -- say.

I think you may be looking for Larry Wall's statement in his State of
the Onion talk:

http://www.perl.com/pub/2007/12/06/soto-11.html

He's comparing human and programming languages and says pretty much
what you're saying. Of couse, he's probably not the first person to
have made that remark in some form or another... so you may still be
looking for someone else.

ChrisA

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#49309

On Thursday, June 27, 2013 4:49:23 PM UTC+5:30, Chris Angelico wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 27, 2013 at 9:14 PM, rusi  wrote:
> 
> > I am looking for a quote
> > (from Whorf/Sapir/Wittgenstein/Humboldt dunno... that 'school')
> >
> > It goes something like this:
> >
> > What characterizes a language is not what we can say in it but what we must -- like it or not -- say.
> 
> I think you may be looking for Larry Wall's statement in his State of
> the Onion talk: 
> 
> http://www.perl.com/pub/2007/12/06/soto-11.html
> 
> He's comparing human and programming languages and says pretty much
> what you're saying. Of couse, he's probably not the first person to
> have made that remark in some form or another... so you may still be
> looking for someone else.

Thanks. Here's the quote:

> Human languages therefore differ not so much in what you can say but in what 
> you must say. In English, you are forced to differentiate singular from 
> plural. In Japanese, you don't have to distinguish singular from plural, but 
> you do have to pick a specific level of politeness, taking into account not 
> only your degree of respect for the person you're talking to, but also your 
> degree of respect for the person or thing you're talking about.

I am still not sure he is the originator of it
If yes then he has my (single-valenced English) respect

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#49310

2013/6/27 rusi <rustompmody@gmail.com>:
> I am looking for a quote
> (from Whorf/Sapir/Wittgenstein/Humboldt dunno... that 'school')
>
> It goes something like this:
>
> What characterizes a language is not what we can say in it but what we must -- like it or not -- say.
> [...]

Hi,
I belive, the author is Roman Jakobson, see the respective post about
this very question:
http://linguistlist.org/issues/9/9-32.html

There seem to be several variations,
Another remarkable linguist Eugenio Coseriu mentions this in his paper
(Sprache: Strukturen und Funktionen ... Tübingen 1979, p. 119).
The German text is besides mentioning Jakobson almost fully equivalent
to you original quote:
"R. Jakobson bemerkt mit Recht, daß sich die Sprachen nicht durch das,
was sie sagen können, unterscheiden, sondern durch das, was sie sagen
müssen."

http://books.google.cz/books?id=JkGCkC8RYcEC
p. 119

hth,
  vbr

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#49314

On Thursday, June 27, 2013 5:40:39 PM UTC+5:30, Vlastimil Brom wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I belive, the author is Roman Jakobson, see the respective post about
> this very question:
> http://linguistlist.org/issues/9/9-32.html

Thanks!

> 
> There seem to be several variations,
> Another remarkable linguist Eugenio Coseriu mentions this in his paper
> (Sprache: Strukturen und Funktionen ... Tübingen 1979, p. 119).
> 
> The German text is besides mentioning Jakobson almost fully equivalent
> 
> to you original quote:
> "R. Jakobson bemerkt mit Recht, daß sich die Sprachen nicht durch das,
> was sie sagen können, unterscheiden, sondern durch das, was sie sagen
> müssen."
> 
> http://books.google.cz/books?id=JkGCkC8RYcEC
> p. 119

My German does not go way beyond: Vielen Dank (for the first)!

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