> >This strikes me as a suggestion that spoken language or cultural
> >attitude shapes reality, which is dubious.
>
>The article says that the research may confirm the Sapir-Whorf
>Hypothesis (though I don't believe they name it).
I'm not really interested in debating what the research may or may not confirm but was speaking about glorantha here. I don't believe that the type of language spoken or cultural attitude _shapes_ gloranthan reality.
>In any case, this isn't really the forum for detailed (and likely
>controversial) linguistic debate. I brought this up because of its
>MGF possibilities.
I really don't see what these possibilities are. All you have is a tribe with a somewhat extreme view of the world and a marked resistance towards change and you want to say that this was typical of humanity during the Bleak Period? How on earth did they learn to relax and accept what the Lightbringers were saying to them then?
>IMO two
>examples are the idea of waves of invading culture-holders (rather
>than diffusion of ideas), and Sir Arthur Evans's reconstructions of
>Knossos.
Well, invading culture-holders and diffusion of ideas are really two extremes of the same phenomenon rather than an either/or proposition so I'm uncertain as to how it proves that the Piraha are intensely relevant to glorantha. And Evans was creating fiction which is why it is enjoyable.
> >I prefer to think that
> >until the Sunstop, the perception of the Sky World
>
>I think this is an entirely different phenomenon.
No, it's not.
>The Lightbringer
>missionaries were able to enlighten folk long before Sunstop.
I know. What I was saying was that until the Sunstop, the perception of the Sky World was subjective. That is why some people could think they were in a Bleak Period whereas for others, the Dawn had come. This makes far better sense than to assume that after the Dawn, the missionaries marching across the fresh green fields under the light of the new sun to find people singing "la la li la la, not paying attent-ion". After all, not even the Piraha would be so resistant to change.
--Peter Metcalfe
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