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From: dmark@acsu.buffalo.edu (David Mark)
Newsgroups: sci.lang,comp.cog-eng,sci.psychology,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Computer Languages and the Sapir/Whorf hypothesis
Keywords: computer languages, Sapir/Whorf hypothesis, linguistics
Message-ID: <33280@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU>
Date: 21 Aug 90 13:42:09 GMT
References: <5137@munnari.oz.au>
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In article <5137@munnari.oz.au> jfl@munnari.oz.au (John Lenarcic) writes:
>
>Does anyone know of any research that has been undertaken on the 
>application of the Sapir/Whorf hypothesis to computer programming
>languages ?
>
>( Briefly stated, the hypothesis is : 
>         " Language shapes the way we think,
>	   and determines what we can think about. " )
>

Anecdotally, I have known several FORTRAN/BASIC programmers who seem
to have a great deal of difficulty grasping the concept of recursion,
or at least with seeing how to apply it.  If that could be documented,
it would be a computer-language version of Sapir-Whorf

David Mark
dmark@acsu.buffalo.edu