That’s an interesting way to look at it. Shared understanding seems like a very important point there. In general, languages seem to be significantly tied into the shared cultural/societal context they develop in / out of. For example, a society that has the internet will have words that a society without the internet simply doesn’t have. Or how collectivist China will use a word like 大家 (literally meaning “big family”) to refer to “everyone”, but individualist English’s everyone emphasizes the singular one of differing individuals. And then there’s that whole thing where literally translating from one language to other won’t necessarily tell you the intended meaning, because the structure of it can be so different, which also ties into different sources of shared understanding.
Indeed, and you can look at each society as a kind of a metaorganism, each one evolving in its own way based on the common world model and societal rules it creates.
That’s an interesting way to look at it. Shared understanding seems like a very important point there. In general, languages seem to be significantly tied into the shared cultural/societal context they develop in / out of. For example, a society that has the internet will have words that a society without the internet simply doesn’t have. Or how collectivist China will use a word like 大家 (literally meaning “big family”) to refer to “everyone”, but individualist English’s everyone emphasizes the singular one of differing individuals. And then there’s that whole thing where literally translating from one language to other won’t necessarily tell you the intended meaning, because the structure of it can be so different, which also ties into different sources of shared understanding.
Indeed, and you can look at each society as a kind of a metaorganism, each one evolving in its own way based on the common world model and societal rules it creates.