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What does Spirituality and Worldviews have to do with Language? More than you may realize.

I don’t know whether worldviews determined the nature of the language or languages created the worldview, but it doesn’t take more than a cursory look at low or high context languages to see how they mirror the worldview of the culture's speakers. Asians tend to value community and possess philosophies/religions that promote a holistic view/relationship with the world. Westerner’s value individuality, and possess philosophies/religions that promote a person-centric mindset.

This makes it particularly difficult for Westerners and Asians to communicate effectively. What is considered polite in one culture is considered rude in the other. What is considered obvious in one culture is consider obscure and even indecipherable in the other. This takes on even more significance when one culture appropriates the sacred texts or philosophical writings of the other and interprets it based on their own pre-existing language and perspective. The result is not an accurate rendering of the original writings, but a syncretism/merging of two different worldviews into something new, and it deserves a new name to identify it as something different than the original, because it is different than the original.

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Citations/References:

[1] For a more depth look at the differences on how Western and Eastern cultures acquire language, see https://groups.psych.northwestern.edu/waxman/documents/LavinHallWaxman2006ActionMeetsWord.pdf

[2] These may differ depending upon the specific Asian country. Korean is hierarchical language. “Social hierarchy is ingrained in the language, more than any other language of the world, and depending on who you are talking to will determine what vocabulary, verb endings, particles, suffixes and address terms to use. Scholars say that traditionally there were 8 levels of honorific endings and around 4-6 are in use today.” (https://asiasociety.org/korea/lost-translation-cultural-differences-linguistic-aspect)

[3] Drawn from https://savory.global/what-is-holistic-management/

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