Day 2: And the Cow says boo

The beautiful and quirky thing about learning about new languages and culture is you learn to reassess your own preconceptions and ways of thinking. Today for me, it was learning what sound cows make. When we make a cow sound in Australia, usually, it goes "moo". In the Netherlands, not so much. Instead their cows goes "boo".

Making friends

Hopefully as I travel, I will be able to add to my list of cow noises, and maybe other animals too. What other sounds does a cow make, I wonder?

What is even more curious for me, is fields of thought in both linguistics and psychology that looks at how language acquisition and the structure of language shapes how people think and see the world.
Some researchers, such as Lera Boroditsky, have suggested that it can have a significant impact on how we structure our thoughts and therefore how we think and interact with the world. In one interview I read, she talks about how language can have a profound impact on how we place ourselves in the world geographically, and even how we perceive colour.

Although there is obviously more research to be done, it blows my mind just a little every time I think about it. For those who are polygots, there is even still more to be learned. Maybe as I learn (more) words in Dutch, it will also change the way my thoughts are structured. What a curious thought.