@bonifartius I still think language changes the way someone thinks.

Math/physics are languages. As you learn it, formulae; sinusoids; distributions, it definitely changes the way you think about the world. Until you have a word for e.g. "sine wave", it takes much more effort to discriminate it.

>forced changing of language doesn't change anything

Consider someone whose vocabularly has no alternative to "illegal alien", and another who doesn't have an alternative to "economic migrant". The former will have a much more difficult time formulating ideas regarding the humanitarian aspects of the issue.
Someone who wants to argue that "asian-americans don't belong in america" has to overcome the hurdle baked into the language that grants them citizenship.

>tried that and failed

I gave two successful examples, and there's many many more. Most words and phrases considered bigoted have been changed to facilitate a change in thinking.

@Maltheus

> Math/physics are languages. As you learn it, formulae; sinusoids; distributions, it definitely changes the way you think about the world. Until you have a word for e.g. "sine wave", it takes much more effort to discriminate it.

i like to think of it in reverse, that the language is a tight corset for expression of ideas to transfer them to others. i don't think about such things only in words. after all "sine waves" exist and can be observed without having a word for it.

> Consider someone whose vocabularly has no alternative to "illegal alien", and another who doesn't have an alternative to "economic migrant". The former will have a much more difficult time formulating ideas regarding the humanitarian aspects of the issue.

you said it yourself: "formulating". the ideas are not coupled to the expression in language imho.

"illegal alien" is already a combination of words as "economic migrant" is. "alien in search of a better living", "migrant not permitted in the country", are longer but kind of express the same things as the former.

> Someone who wants to argue that "asian-americans don't belong in america" has to overcome the hurdle baked into the language that grants them citizenship.

again it's two words, i can just remove the "american". even if it would work this way, it doesn't change anything about the idea or the fact that someone believes it.

> I gave two successful examples, and there's many many more. Most words and phrases considered bigoted have been changed to facilitate a change in thinking.

a change in the possibilities of expression to others, not of thoughts. you may dislike something even if you don't have the words to express it.

i don't think there is an english translation of it, but i have a book about jokes in communism. people are very clever in expressing their ideas even if language is explicitly constructed to make it hard.

@bonifartius
I think I have a better sense of where you're coming from now.

If I already hated foreigners and came across them in the street, thinking every time "damn refugees" instead of "damn illegals". I still think it would affect consequent internal monologue, which could change my thoughts and opinions later still.

@Maltheus that _might_ indeed happen! i just think that the "speech forms thought" is a very reductionary view of how thinking works _and_ has the problem of being kind of dystopian.