Is one language better than another?

Question

In school many people struggle with language classes and excel at math classes, and vice versa. Some people excel at both, however these people are usually more intelligent.

Does the language a person speaks affect their mathematical ability? For example if a student struggling in math were born in Germany instead of the US would he/she have the same problems? What about another country? Or could someone make up a language specifically designed for people learning math?

Mathematics is very structured, so it seems to me that the structure of the language a person speaks would have some influence on his/her mathematical ability.

I've read one book on linguistics, but it didn't cover anything on this. Could someone recommend a book that does?

Answer 1

On a tangent, if you read "The Language Instinct," it suggests (based on Chomsky's theories) that all language have the same underlying structure. The only differences deal with superficial grammatical rules (do you agglutinate words, is it SVO or SOV, etc).
So for that reason, there's little reason to suspect the language you learn affects your mathematical ability.

Of course, the culture you grow in does have an effect through the priority it places on mathematics as you grow up. And obviously, because culture plays a huge part in determining what language you learn, there is probably a correlation between language and mathematics, but I doubt that there is any causation.

Answer 2

Hi!
Although I do know what you are saying, I think the clarity of mind is more a result of culture and upbringing ... and I am sure it affects more than mathematical ability ..... to give an example that might prove helpful to you in some way, I post questions on both the US Yahoo!Answers and the one for the UK .... both are in English, and yet consistently the answers I receive from the UK are much better, and the skill in handling the language are much higher from the UK .... I don't have a clue how both would score if given tests for math skills .....

I am sorry.... I do not have a book to recommend about linguistics ... I do know, however, that there has been work done on the link between brain function and language, because the husband of a friend of mine did his dissertation on that subject; I do not know how it all came out because I lost touch with her ..... I suggest you take a look at Rockefeller University in New York City on the subject ... they are rather adventurous and might have some information that you would find useful ...(they have a website)


Peace

Answer 3

from my experience speaking 5 or 6 different languages i believe that there is some truth in what you are saying. Each language makes you think in a different way, and kind of encourages a particular culture on the people who speak it.

Also as the culture changes the language tends to change too. People naturally speak in a way that fits with how they think.

So if you got a bunch of mathematicians to develop and speak a language together, you might find that it encourages mathematical type thinking.

But what i have noticed about mathematicians is that they love language, and they love playing games and making jokes with it, so i don't think they would invent a purely rational language - i think they would speak something far more humurous than most languages are.

I'd love to see research on this topic, but i don't know of any. I think it is a really important issue. Particularly when people talk of choosing international languages etc.

Answer 4

People are basically the same, regardless of race, language, culture, religion, etc. How smart they are or how good they are at a particular thing has more to do with that person's individual talents than his language. However, one culture or group might tend to hold high regard for certain subjects and lower regard for others, so this might tend to encourage people of that culture to excel in certain areas, while someone else in the culture might have a talent that is not highly regarded and might be regarded as wasting their time, or something like that. Also, someones opportunity to achieve in certain area might be limited by their social status within their own culture.

For example, an Asian kid in the USA might be really good at sports but he never has the chance to pursue it, because his parents might pressure him into studying something else in school. His parents might say "study math and science, I never heard of an Asian kid being a professional athlete." I don't mean to generalize about Asians or any other group in particular; I'm just making an example.

Answer 5

Yeah now that u mentioned it-its a really tricky question worth being mentioned here--yeah!i cant get over it--actually its not to boast but i know almost 7 languages out of which i speak 5 pretty fluently--but by Gods grace i always flunked in maths--not a once did i ever pass-and its becos of that awful subject i was given a cossessional pass or a just pass-i wud do wonders in english and french--both of which were not my mother tongue--even now i shudder when i need to teach my kids maths--the guy who invented it--shud have been burnt--no hard feelings cos i don want u to b the one who discovered the proof and zero and bla bla bla