Date: Wed, 6 Dec 1995 10:59:23 MST

From: Tom Uharriet UTOM[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ADMN.712.NEBO.EDU

Subject: Re: non-linguistic thinking



Thanks Vicki,

C, Basic, Paschal (sp?), etc. are all computer languages. Does he

think in them or are they also stricly translations of something else?

Tom





He reasons quite well with abstractions (and is a computer

programmer

by profession). As for "how," I'm really not sure--since he's not

thinking in English and I am, it's hard for him to explain this to me.

The most noticeable sign of how he's thinking is that if he says

something odd, and I ask him to repeat it, he will repeat it word for

word, because he's already done the translating. For example, he once

said he wanted a ham sandwich on roast beef (meaning he wanted a ham

on rye), and when I said something like "run that by again" he

cheerfully did so. The tricky thing for a lot of us, and maybe particularly

linguists, to remember is that English is a system of abstract reasoning,

Chinese is another, and so on--but that not all systems of abstract

reasoning are languages. (It's possible that someone could construct

a grammar of what my friend is using--but I don't think anyone yet has.)



Vicki Rosenzweig





Tom Uharriet

utom[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]admn.712.nebo.edu