Cognitive Linguist: Can You Erase Thoughts by Erasing Words? Martin Hilpert

Описание: Can you literally remove a person's ability to think of a concept just by deleting the word for it? George Orwell thought so when he created "Newspeak" in 1984. But does modern linguistics agree?

In this episode, we dive deep into the philosophy and science of language with Martin Hilpert. We explore the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, the surprising way Russians perceive the color blue, and why human beings are biologically "lazy" speakers who treat language like a compression algorithm.

We also touch on the "engineering" of language, why children learn so much faster than adults, and the profound realization that grammar isn't just a set of arbitrary rules—it's a form of social courtesy.

Guest: Martin Hilpert:    / @martinhilpert  

Timestamps:
00:00 Orwell's 1984 & The Destruction of Words
02:07 A Linguist’s Critique of Orwell
02:50 The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Explained
04:13 Do Russians See Blue Differently? (Color Perception)
09:05 Does Grammar Affect Your Bank Account? (Future Tense Study)
15:56 Meaning Beyond Words: Pragmatics & Implication
18:08 How Words Change Meaning Over Time ("Since")
21:45 Why Do Idioms Exist?
25:56 Why Time is a Spatial Concept
30:29 How We Actually Learn Languages (Chunking)
34:35 The Idiom Principle: Why We Are "Lazy" Speakers
40:21 Compression: Why We Shorten Pronouns
43:40 Zipf's Law: Frequency vs. Length
48:10 The "Bootylicious" Problem: Word Classes & Slang
52:57 When Nouns Behave Like Adjectives
57:09 Grammar is Not Arbitrary (It's Courtesy)
01:02:22 Why Passive Voice Exists (Information Flow)
01:10:36 Do All Children Learn Languages at the Same Speed?
01:17:30 Memory is Cheap: How Kids Handle Complexity
01:30:00 Programming Languages vs. Natural Languages
01:35:27 Are Some Languages More "Primitive" Than Others?
01:42:25 How Grammar Forces You to Think (Number Systems)
01:47:10 "I Have Sleep": Spanish vs. English Concepts
01:54:10 Does Grammatical Gender Change How We See Objects?
01:58:22 The Universal Features Every Language Needs
02:04:59 Can We Engineer a Perfect Language?
02:09:50 How Language Evolves: From Villages to Cities
02:14:58 Why Languages Don't Just Disintegrate
02:18:07 Can We Change Society by Changing Language?
02:24:47 From Musician to Linguist: Martin's Journey
02:29:12 The Story of Bill Labov (Late Bloomers)
02:35:36 Advice to My Younger Self
02:43:47 Martin's Thoughts on Mortality