RE the points you make in the latter half of your post: I would remind you that the Mandarin word for person or people is 'Han' ( 漢族 or 漢人 ) and it doesn't include Tibetans, Mongolian, Hu (Chinese Moslems) and a number of smaller ethnic minority groups within the traditional borders of China - some of whom were, in living memory, exhibited in cages in Beijing.
The Overseas Chinese people that I know personally have overcome the obstacle embedded in their language, but it's worth remembering that others have spend all their speaking lives speaking in terms of objects and people with the dividing line placed rather unflatteringly to you and I.
How far language shapes thought is, I think, a question with some rather worrying implications.
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Date: 2012-12-03 11:52 pm (UTC)The Overseas Chinese people that I know personally have overcome the obstacle embedded in their language, but it's worth remembering that others have spend all their speaking lives speaking in terms of objects and people with the dividing line placed rather unflatteringly to you and I.
How far language shapes thought is, I think, a question with some rather worrying implications.