"Language and Time"

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Does language make it harder to deal with the passage of time?

For instance do people who use/depend on language a great deal to navigate through life, who take language very seriously, have more trouble handling time, or have to use more energy on handling it, ( requiring complex support structures; timetables etc, to do so ), than people who use language relatively little or relatively casually?

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It helps if inarticulate people have a wristwatch.

I don't see how anybody on this forum would be able to accurately answer that. Being able to post on this forum means being able to use language a great deal to navigate through life. For all I know there may be non-verbal posters here....but typing is using language. There are dyslexic posters and posters who say "I have trouble communicating" but here they are. Really, is it possible to be a poster if you use language only a little or only casually?

*Henriksson would like to answer the question, but he can't since he doesn't use language*

it could be due to cultural differences; Northern Europeans/Americans are much more time-oriented (in the concept of 'late', etc), than people in Southern Europe, etc. Just something to take into account.

"Phil gestures to Henriksson to use mime in order to get his message across"

" raises his thumb to wish him luck and waves goodbye"

be cautious ! !

"Thumbs up" traditionally translates as the foulest of gesticular insults in some Middle Eastern countries

Perhaps as a group, although I don't think it is a requirement. I am not particularly good at time. Even with clocks and calendars, I don't like using them, and tend to get temporally disorganized.

Being good at language does not preclude being good at anything else. To indicate that using timetables somehow limits one's ability to be aware of time is one of the strangest concepts I have come across.

in my sci fi i am careful even to avoid having my characters shake their heads or nod.
if they vary so much from country to country, they'd vary even more from world to world. im a nitpick

Very strange, but it's not mine; I was asking if people/cultures which depend particularly heavily on language need more complex support structures to deal with time than people/societies which don't.

Anyway, I was just reading how people in Greece and neighbouring mediterranean countries express durations of time as "amounts", ( bigger, smaller ), whereas English speakers express durations by length/distance, ( longer, shorter ), and this linguistic framework actually interferes with our ability to correctly judge durations of time. ie. if asked to say if it took longer to draw one line than another English speakers tend to believe that the time taken to draw a line is longer if the line is longer, even if it took less time, and Greek speakers will get confused about how long it takes to fill a bottle, if the bottle is bigger.

Apparently the theory is that we all experience time with our bodies in similar ways before having the language for it, ( in infancy that is ), but that the language which we learn to use for time will emphasise one kind of physical experience/manifestation of time and that this will shape/deform our experience of it thereafter.

The assumption is that our pre-verbal experiences of time are all spatial, hence the spatial metaphors for time. Eg. an infant will supposedly learn about "time" by seeing someone walking further as time passes, or by seeing a glass filled with water, or milk. But what if people actually experience time in very different ways depending on their neurophysiology/sensory processing/early infant experience. Perhaps some of us experience time as connected to increasing hunger/urgency? Or sounds becoming fainter, or tastes fading from the tongue.

The only "proof" that time is first experienced/learned spatially, ( either as length/distance or amount/volume ), is that this is how it is generally expressed in language. And even then different cultures frame past and future very differently for example, some seeing the future "in front" of them, and some seeing it behind their back/invisible to them.

And the other assumption is that we experience time at all before learning the language which refers to it ... as if the existence of words for it proves that it exists.

I was wondering how the concept time came to be invented, as something distinct from references to the physical locations of the sun, stars or planets, the state of shadows etc. And whether if language was responsible for creating this category "time" those of us particularly sensitive to language might be most sensitive/vulnerable to the value-system "time".

Cultures/societies which used little or no writing until introduced to it by imperial/colonial powers are famous for having a very relaxed attitude towards "time", people wait half a day for a bus to market without complaint or surprise. There is something about this category "time" which is very odd, and I was wondering why so many people on the spectrum have problems with it. What is it about "time" which is so challenging to so many AS?

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Maybe some/many of us don't in fact experience time spatially? And the dominant language framework for it doesn't "suit" us.

Or, if we do experience it spatially perhaps it is the relatively recent ( the last couple of millenia perhaps ), reframing of "time" as something very linear, flat, two dimensional, whereas to some/many of us it may "feel" more three dimensional, ( positions of things; sun, stars, horizon, etc ), which causes some of the problems?

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Somewhat offtopic but, do middle eastern or cultures outside the West have somthing similar to Mimes?

Although Einstein firmly indicated that space and time are closely welded in our universe human experience with time mostly concerns rates of change. All living and even minimally conscious beings are acutely aware of change. It is a basic survival issue.

Er, why refer to literacy here? Would it not make more sense to reference trains?

The time threads always get my attention, but I am having touble understanding what you are getting at, ouinon. Please explain 'deal with the passage of time' and 'handling time'. I think I depend heavily on language, but do not understand the link you are trying to make here. Unless I make a point to, I have no notice or awareness of time at all.