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Do Japanese have smaller heads than Caucasians?

Tuffy said:
What an insult!! :eek:
I, for one, am using 110% of my brains! So there!!

Oh, wait... :?
wb Tuff xD 呆け:D

myrrhine said:
also (and this is key), no foreign media is dubbed (beyond kids stuff). and most entertainment media is in english. advertisement is often at least partially in english. people throw in english words all the time when they speak.
Yeah I think you are 100% right on that, French ppl usually don't even bother to speak english, but start rambling in french wich I find rude(not saying every french person does).We pick up the language quite easy because we use it in daily life, on tv(NO DUBS) and we learn english in school.In Japan people study english for X year and still know ZIP of it ☝ ...but they have their (mostly) japanese,korean or chinese shows/series.So they don't come much in contact with english besides the katakana thingy maybe...that should be an explanation why they are not so good in english even though they studied it.(and need lots of foreign persons to teach them ;-)).
 
Maciamo said:
The funny thing is that we didn't even talk about the "beauty" of the head or facial traits in this thread. If you are Japanese as you name implies, that reveals a lot about Japanese values or way of thinking ;-).



Now that's really offtopic, but beauty is a subjective concept. Personally I don't think all races are beautiful. I especially don't find Aborigenal Australian attracive (and I have met a lot in Australia). Btw, my wife is Japanese. ;-)

Lolz :D I know its off topic Maciamo I didn't on purpose...
 
We do envy the Swedish, when they come to Switzerland, a lot of them speak German and even Swiss German on a native level in less than 1-2 years (similar to their English skills). That's almost impossible for everyone else. Swiss German, a complicated and strong dialect (not to understand but to speak) is also absolutely difficult for German people (they usually stick to high-German even if here for years). Meeting foreigners who speak our dialect is a rare thing. On the other hand, our American friends envy us because for us it seems natural to speak 3-4 languages. If nothing was dubbed on TV, I'm sure we would also perform that well in foreign languages. As a landlocked and small country surrounded by France, Germany, Austria and Italy, we have no choice but to learn several languages, and it's not too difficult for us - because of our education and the similarities of the languages. Learning Japanese or Chinese is entirely different, and achieving an advanced level seems almost impossible.

In Japan, a "sea-locked" country ;-), for the average guy there's not much need to be able to speak English. And I don't recall a lot of Americans who speak more than their native tongue, why should they? The Japanese have trouble learning European languages. But not the Japanese who grew up in Europe, they are skilled like everybody else.

Once I heard the argument, that the Japanese can't pronounce the letter 'R' correctly (and say 'L' instead) because they have a shorter tongue! :p
So the Japanese who grew up here must have grown a longer tongue... :D
For Koreans learning Japanese or vice-versa, that's not a big deal because the languages are relatively similar.

The younger generation in Taiwan generally has very advanced English skills. Why is that, with Taiwan being so close to Japan and with so many Japanese there (who also mixed with the locals)? Nobody can afford to score low in English. The country is so small and the pressure on the young students extremely high. There is an urgent need for language skills, not to mention the severe competition among the students. The future career and any prospects to get out of Taiwan depend on how well you perform in an international business environment.

Regarding western and eastern logic: what is considered as "logic" strongly depends on the culture and the spirit of age. Tests for measuring logic and intelligence have to be adapted to a culture. People from an isolated tribe somewhere in the rainforest fail terribly in unadapted tests, developed in the occidental culture area. In our computerized age most people with the same schematic way of thinking would score well, but if taken 20 years earlier only few would score high. People did not become more intelligent, it's just that the way of thinking was different before.

The way of thinking is indeed different throughout all cultures, but that does not solely mean one way of thinking is more emotional or logic than another. If logic is defined as a strict mathematical and programcode-like schema, I agree that western logic is more logic. Also consider that this is a phenomenon of our time. Or is your grandma a remarkably logic person? In life, we do not base decisions or considerations on mathematical structures/laws, we are still fault-prone human beings ;-) What might seem illogical from one point of view might be very logical from someone other's point of view. This is always related to someone's cultural and personal background. In addition, long term or short term considerations produce different results. But often this is not said and therefore the result seems illogic. If you knew which considerations led someone to a certain result, it might suddenly appear logic as well.

If there are any good logic tests available, we could start a series on this forum and draw our own conclusions.
 
myrrhine said:
however this suggests that people with generally larger brains would have a generally larger potential for intelligence (in the greater sense as noted by maciamo) - and from what i understand this isn't true.

There are two key elements : brain size and neuron density. It is not correct to say that only brain size determines the maximum potential intelligence. To understand why, just imagine that someone has suffered brain damages (=loss of neurons) due to lack of oxygens or some kind of poison/toxin. The same person can actually lose a lot of potential in a short time if they have a accident (eg. near-drown). And everybody loses neurons with aging (esp. after about 20 years old, but anytime since childhood).

ok, that said the biggest leap in logic that i'm seeing here is the leap from skull shape to brain shape. does anyone know if this is an at all valid leap?

Just look at brain scans or MRI (there are plenty on the net). The shape of the brain fits pretty well the shape of the skull.

take sweden for example. the majority of the population speaks english, and pretty good english at that. most also know a smattering of french, german, or spanish. pretty average. of course, for one, it's the same alphabet. also plenty of common roots. also (and this is key), no foreign media is dubbed (beyond kids stuff). and most entertainment media is in english. advertisement is often at least partially in english. people throw in english words all the time when they speak. your average swede cannot go a day without a whole lot of exposure to the language. which naturally makes it easier to learn.

But Japanese people are certainly as exposed to English everyay as the Swedes, if not more. English is everywhere, and thousands of katakana English words are used in everyday language. Almost all foreign movies are subtitled rather than dubbed in cinemas and videos, and the main TV channels are even bilingual Japanese/English ! You can watch the news or any movie in either language just by pressing a button on your remote control. Do you have that in Sweden ? What is more NHK2 (equivalent of BBC2) has language learning programmes all day long (and not just English, but also French, Italian, Spanisj, German, Russian, Chinese, Korean...). English or language schools can be found near every station in Japanese cities (and even some villages). To the best of myknowledge, this does not happen anywhere else in the world.

So, the environment in Japan strongly favours language, and especially. English learning. As for the alphabet, all Japanese know romaji (Latin alphabet) since the age of 6 or 7, much earlier than they can master their own kanji. So they have no disadvantage.

and lo and behold, are the french generally known for their amazing language skills? or the english?
anyways this turned out longer than i intended and now i must eat dinner.

The weird thing is that most French people I have met in Japan (about 30 people) speak better English than many university-educated Japanese (even those who studied English at university !). Of course, it's easier for French-speakers to learn English, but when it comes to learning Japanese, they usually speak it fluently after 1 or 2 years in Japan - better than Japanese people speak English after 6 years at school 4 years at university, a few months o a year abroad and additional Eikaiwa lessons.

Japanese people are often surprised that (motivated) foreigners learn about all the 1945 joyo kanji 2 or 3 years (some less, some more), while it takes them 12 years at school (full-time + homework) and Japanese don't even have to remember the meaning of words as it is their mother tongue !

kara said:
conclusions: The results showed a persistent positive secular trend in head circumference in Japanese children of both genders. Comparison of these data with those of recent Caucasian studies revealed ethnic difference in head circumference, with Japanese having relatively larger head circumference for height as compared with Caucasians.

"Larger head circumference for height" ? That is completely irrelevant. What about weight then ? The proportion of the head to the body does not affect the size of the brain. What if I told you that the tiniest mouse could have a bigger brain than humans comparatively to its body ?

That is just a distorted way to admit that the Japanese have smaller heads. Btw, I had seen this study on the website of the first link I posted in this thread.

canadian_kor said:
Another thing, about Japanese being more sensually oriented because they have bigger top heads sounds absurd. A personality is not determined by skull structure but through neurons and life experience. The idea that skull structure determines personality is that outdated 19th century concept which also fed into the Nazi propaganda machine.

So far this thread has not be the discussion it ought to be, but a display of how people react to preconceived ideas that they associated with the title of this thread. I only understand better to what level each of you is biased or politically correct in their approach to comparing head size and brain shapes. Some associated it directly with phrenology because they have heard that name somewhere and it looks cool to spit it out on a public forum. Others start talking about completely irrelevant things like how beautiful each race is or the proportion of head to body size.

Here you are talking the influence of brain size on personality and again phrenology, as if you had not read the most important post of this thread.

If you are not mature or knowledgeable enough to have a cold rational discussion devoid of all personal feelings or moral prejudice, please refrain from posting in this thread.

rakuten said:
In Japan, a "sea-locked" country ;-), for the average guy there's not much need to be able to speak English.

I am sorry, but have you ever been to Japan ? English is like a second language for most people here. So much so that hundreds or thousands of new English words enter the language every year. Most of the famous Japanese singers sing partly or mostly in English. Almost anybody working for a big company (that is most people in big cities) is taking regular TOEIC tests, because it's the key to getting a good jobs or a promotion. That's why there are so many Eikaiwa schools for adults.

But Japanese people also need English to travel. There most popular holiday destination are Hawaii, Guam and Saipan (all English speaking). But wherever they go, they know that they will need English because it's the world's lingua franca. That may explain why Native English-speakers may not feel the need to learn foreign languages, but that does certainly not apply to the Japanese, who are very aware that their language is only spoken in their country.

What's more, the influence of the US in Japan is tremendous. Some Japanese even joke that Japan is a US State (there was even a sketch on TV where a fake G.W Bush sincerely thought that Japanese could vote at the US election).

As for the environment, all signs in the street, subway, stations, etc. are bilingual Japanese English. There are certainly more signs in English in Japan than anywhere in continental Europe. See the above reply for more.

Anyway, saying that Japanese don't need English is not knowing them at all.

The way of thinking is indeed different throughout all cultures, but that does not solely mean one way of thinking is more emotional or logic than another. If logic is defined as a strict mathematical and programcode-like schema, I agree that western logic is more logic.

I didn't know there were many definition of the word "logic". The purpose of logic is to prove an argument right or wrong. Take two people and make them debate and see who has the most compelling arguments combined with the most efficient structure to prove it. Japanese people are so bad at debating that the government is considering introducing special courses in schools. You could say that the non-confrontational consensus approach of the Japanese prevent them from debating and asserting their views. But many business people now realize that they need more efficient and logic decision-making. It's not always the boss that is right and not always the feeling of the majority that is true either.

Also consider that this is a phenomenon of our time. Or is your grandma a remarkably logic person?

If you ask me, I'd my grandfathers were very logical people. I think that logic is very deeply rooted in European culture. People have been learning Latin and Greek for centuries (even now, although it's dwindling) and these two languages are extremely logical (esp. the grammar). The "traditional" school curriculum in most of Europe (if not all) has been Latin, Greek and Mathematics (+ Sciences for some). The "traditional" school curriculum in Japan was Chinese poetry, calligraphy, Confucianism and maybe other arts like tea ceremony and ikebana, depeding on the gender. It also included "Bushido" for the samurai class. We are not talking about different ages. Just take the period from the 16th to 19th centuries and compare the education style. China is very much like Japan, as is the rest of East Asia. I also don't think that originally the culture has influenced the way people think, but rather the other way round, because before the age of civilizations there was no culture - only people with different brains.

If there are any good logic tests available, we could start a series on this forum and draw our own conclusions.

Good idea. But we should also take into considerarion that in general females are less logical than males, due to hormonal differences. Btw, Mongoloids people also have lower testosterone levels than Caucasians, which explains their lower pilosity (=less body hair, less beard and baldness for men).

And whatever the brain shape, testosterone does have an infuence of rationality and logic too. That also explains for the more collectivist and less confrontational way of Mongoloid people.

Don't forget that higher testosterone levels in blood not only means being more rational/logical, but also more aggressive and uncompromising. So I am not saying that being logical is necessarily better, like Elizabeth or Kara (among others) presupposed. At the contrary, it is this lower testosterone that make the Japanese so polite, respectful and altruistic. But as in the Yin and Yang, it is difficult to conciliate opposites in one same person.
 
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Maciamo said:
"Larger head circumference for height" ? That is completely irrelevant. What about weight then ? The proportion of the head to the body does not affect the size of the brain. What if I told you that the tiniest mouse could have a bigger brain than humans comparatively to its body ?
Irrelevant? But the conclusions I quoted in my last post was wriiten by an expert.... Well, logical people like you may have your own thought. で、その反論からすると「骨格と身長の相関関係と、骨格と体重の相関関係とは同視してかまわない」、となりますが。。。

Maciamo said:
Btw, I had seen this study on the website of the first link I posted in this thread.
Have you really seen that study? I think what you presented was not the whole study, but only an abstract. And I posted another.

Btw, I noticed my previous link didn't work well, so I pasted it again.

Metapress | A Fast Growing Resource for Young Entrepreneurs
 
Important Note

As I said earlier, stupidity is universal. That means that whatever the average size or shape of the brain of a particular group of people, there will always be stupid people. We could even say that this stupidity level is not proportional at all with the size of the brain.

So, IF indeed Mongloid brains are slightly smaller than Caucasoid ones, and IF the neuron density between each ethnic group is the same (I have no data regarding this 2nd hypothesis), it is still very possible that the average IQ or other intelligence level among Mongoloid (or a particular socio-cultural group, like the Japanese) be higher the the average among a Caucasoid group. This can be explained very easily. Intelligence does not depend just on brain size and neuron density. As I said before this determines the Potential. Actual intelligence depends on the quality of pregnancy, early environment and nutrition, etc. Therefore, given that these last factors are better in the Mongoloid group, their intelligence level will be better.

The Potential defined by brain size only determines the upper limit. But as each type of intelligence has different locations in the brain (sometimes various, such as language in the frontal and temporal), what matters for one type of intelligence is not the size of the whole brain, but the size of the specific area of the brain responsible for it.

With my previous hypothesis (from physical observations) that Caucasoids have bigger frontal lobes (and smaller parietal lobes) than Mongloids, that would only mean that the Caucasoid potential for the abilities present in the frontal lobe is bigger. But as we know,
1) Intelligence also depends on the neuron density different in every individual whatever the race.
2) Pregnacy and early education matter more than brain size.
3) Nobody develops their intellectual abilities 24h/24, as that would lead to a neurasthenia or serious depression.
4) Most people do not even try to develop their intellectual or physical abilities as much as they healthily could.

What we could say is that, in theoretical case that will probably never happen, where we take 100,000 Caucasoid people and 100,000 Mongoloid people, born and raised in the same environment, same language and given the same food in the same way, and enciting them to develop their intellectual abilities in the same way, the average intelligence in both group will be about the same too. However, the top performers of the Mongoloid group will probably do better in the areas soliciting the parietal lobe, while the top performers of Caucasoid group will probably do better in the areas soliciting the frontal lobe.

This is what I have been trying to explain this the beginning of this thread. 😌

Now, whether the frontal lobe happens to regulate logic, language, and the parietal lobe movements or sensations or whatever is not so important.

For example, language depends on at least two zones of the brain. The first one known as Broca's area is in the frontal lobe and regulate grammar and complex sentence structure. The second, known as Wernicker's area is in the temporal lobe and regulate vocabulary, speech, comprehension and fluency.

All this to say that we should relativize, even if what I have written here happens to be true (I am not even sure myself, except for the brain circumference thing, which I have measured myself).

kara said:
Irrelevant? But the conclusions I quoted in my last post was wriiten by an expert.... Well, logical people like you may have your own thought. で、その反論からすると「骨格と身長の相関関係と、骨格と体重の相関関係とは同視してかまわない」、となりますが。。。

Irrelevant means 関係ない. It is irrelevant because you article did not say that Japanese had bigger heads, but that they had bigger head proportionally to their body height. As everybody knows Japanese people are (much) shorter than Caucasians, so that eventually means that Caucasians have bigger heads.

Have you really seen that study? I think what you presented was not the whole study, but only an abstract. And I posted another.

Here is the study I found on the first webiste :

CONCLUSIONS: The results showed a persistent positive secular trend in head circumference in Japanese children of both genders. Comparison of these data with those of recent Caucasian studies revealed ethnic difference in head circumference, with Japanese having relatively larger head circumference for height as compared with Caucasians.

Similar isn't it ? This is by the same team of researchers (Anzo M, Takahashi T, Sato S, Matsuo N) as in your link, and the same that said that "there is a significant ethnic difference in head circumference, as large as one channel of usual percentiles, between Japanese and Caucasian children" in my first link.
 
Sorry to post in Japanese. I think my English is inferior to Maciamo's Japanese, and this is the better way for our debate.
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いや、だから「身長の割に日本人は頭が大きいです=同じ身長だと日本人の子供の方がコーカソイドの子供よりも大きいです」がその研究の結論でしょ?

もちろん1)身長の高い方が頭部もある程度は大きい、2)コーカソイドの方が日本人よりも平均身長が高い、は常識だけれども、最高に高いと言われるオランダ人と比べてもせいぜい約10cm、スペインやポルトガルあたりだと3cmぐらいしか違わないわけで、となると「同身長なら日本人」という本研究と併せて、一概にコーカソイドの方が頭が大きいとはいえない訳よ。そこには別の研究や論文が必要でしょ。例えば「身長が1cm違うと頭部円周は何cm違うか、またその比率に人種間格差は存在するか」みたいな研究が。

ちなみに俺自身は「日本人の方が頭がでかい」とも、「頭がでかい方が優秀な人種だ」とも言ってないよ。そういう点で俺がflame upしてるとお考えなら的外れです。ただ、その研究の結論(日本人の方が頭がでかい。但し同一身長ならば)と真逆の結論を、その研究に自分の推論をちょっと付加することによって簡単に導いてもよいものか、それはあまりに軽率で非論理的なのではないか、むしろ誤解・誤読と批判されても仕方ないのではないか、そう指摘したい訳です。

例えば松井秀喜はメジャーでも頭が大きいことで有名なんだけど、彼より10cm以上身長の高い選手なんてMLBにはザラに居るよ。また松井一人だけじゃなくて、イチローも(ほぼ同身長の)ジョージ・シスラーの帽子を記念に贈られたとき、頭がでかくて帽子が入らなくて恥ずかしそうにしてたよ。まあこんな2例で論理的結論なんて出せっこないし、これこそirrelevantあるいはmeaninglessな反論かも知れないけれども。
 
(I apologize in advance... this turned out to be a rather long rant.)

Maciamo, I respect all the research you seem to have done on this topic, but I have to admit that these theories make me cringe whenever I hear them, whether they're coming from a native Japanese or Westerner. I don't have the expertise in neuroscience to deny any of the hard facts about the construction of the human brain, but it seems to me that all arguments that these factors things like creativity, language ability, logical thinking, emotions, etc. to _any_ significant degree are based almost entirely on questionable anecdotal evidence.

Maciamo said:
The weird thing is that most French people I have met in Japan (about 30 people) speak better English than many university-educated Japanese (even those who studied English at university !).
Why is it "weird" exactly that a French person would speak better English than a Japanese? French and English are far and away more closely related languages than either one of them is to Japanese. Furthermore, as for the Japanese you mention who may have studied "English" at university -- how do you know they didn't specialize in English literature or something of the like? If they did, maybe their reading (and possibly writing) ability in English is just fine. Studying Shakespeare, for example, at a Japanese university is not going to make you a more fluent speaker of English in day-to-day conversation, especially because I would imagine that their discussions and papers about the topics they study are probably done in their native language. They've probably lived their whole lives in an environment where conversational fluency in English is _not_ a prerequisite for functioning in daily life. Likewise, I know plenty of Americans who have studied Japanese history or literature at university whose competence in the Japanese language is nearly non-existent.

Of course, it's easier for French-speakers to learn English, but when it comes to learning Japanese, they usually speak it fluently after 1 or 2 years in Japan - better than Japanese people speak English after 6 years at school 4 years at university, a few months o a year abroad and additional Eikaiwa lessons.
First of all, I have to highly question your assertion that the average French speaker "usually" becomes fluent in Japanese after one or two years in Japan. What exactly are you basing this on? People you've met? It seems to me like you're comparing very different groups of people. The average Westerner who is devoted enough to learning Japanese to choose (and be successfully able!) to live in Japan for an extended period of time is going to be far more devoted to achieving a practical command of the language than e.g. a housewife who goes to an eikaiwa school as her "hobby." For every Westerner you can show me who's become a fluent in the language after a few years of living in Japan, I can show you countless others who have taken four years of Japanese language courses at university and have almost no real proficiency to show for it. For the housewives or salarymen who go to NOVA every week without ever coming close to achieving spoken fluency in English, I can show you a recent graduate who studied abroad and received a four-year degree from an American university, something which requires a level of proficiency in English that I would say is achieved by only the rarest, most devoted American students of the Japanese language.

Of course, both of us are only citing anecdotal evidence, but I think there are enough examples of Japanese who have become proficient in English (or another European language) and Westerners who have failed to become proficient in Japanese to say with any degree of certainty that a biological predisposition to language plays any sort of a significant role here compared to factors like quality of education, study skills, motivation, and the degree to which 'survival' in their daily life is dependent upon their ability to learn.

Also, as for what you say above about the difficulty of the Japanese to comprehend "Western logic" -- do you honestly think that this is in any way caused by biological factors? Hypothetically speaking, if you were to take an ethnic Japanese and have him adopted by an American or European family and raised as a monolingual speaker of English (or another European language), do you think that his "Mongoloid" brain would in any way put him at even the slightest disadvantage in being able to function in a world of Western language and Western ways of thinking, compared to his Caucasian countrymen? I would have to see some pretty hard factual evidence to believe even for a second that someone like this would display any of the qualities traditionally attributed to being a "Japanese" way of thinking.

I've already rambled enough about this, but in closing I just want to mention one reason why these theories are such a big pet peeve of mine:

Maciamo said:
Aren't you a bit too naive ? Do you believe in physical (incl. psychological/intellectual) equality between all people in the world ? Then everybody should succeed equally well at school, at work and in love if given equal chances. I believe that not even identical twins are equal. But the mistake is to think that you can rank people simply. There are thousands if not millions of differences between 2 individuals. How could we ever rank which one comes as the "better" one ?

Unfortunatly, I come to understand that people who need political correctness are those who lack understanding of things of the worl or real deep-rooted tolerance.
I don't believe that all people are equal, but I do question where this sort of excessive analysis of racial differences will take us. If, for example, it were actually proven that Caucasians enjoy certain advantages over Asians in areas like logic and language abilities, or are more "creative" or good at abstract thinking, or that Japanese are more 'practical' or 'sensual', what exactly are we supposed to do with this knowledge?

If I meet a Japanese exchange student who's devoted herself to the study of English and achieved an excellent level of proficiency to the degree that she's getting straight A's here at an American university, should I compliment her for overcoming the decreased affinity for language inflicted upon her by her Mongoloid brain? Likewise, if a Caucasian student in a Japanese class that I'm teaching is struggling with the material compared to an ethnically Chinese classmate of his, should I get on his case for not developing his natural predisposition for language conferred upon him by virtue of having been born white?

More frighteningly, as we gradually move to a more internationalized society, I'm afraid that too much focus on these sort of ethnic differences are going to lead to people taking this to extremes and suggesting that individuals of certain races are more inclined to succeed in certain fields. If a Japanese college student wants to study logic or mathematics, for example, should we discourage him from doing so on the grounds that, biologically, he's less likely to be able to come up with groundbreaking new scholarship in the field than his American and European counterparts? Do we envision a world community where Americans and Europeans are the visionaries and innovators while the Japanese are expected to fill the role of refining pre-existing concepts?

I realize that you personally might not be saying these things, but I think the problem is that there are unfortunately people out there who would be more than happy to take these theories to those sort of unpleasant extremes. I think that no matter how you look at it, other factors like environment and a person's own free will are so much more important than race in determining these things that to put any sort of belief in these theories is only going to do us a disservice in the end.

It's not about saying that we're all 100% equal. It's simply about not forcing upon individuals the suggestion that they are more or less inclined to be able to realize a particular goal or dream simply because of their racial heritage.

Again, I apologize for rambling here, but this topic is somewhat of a pet peeve of mine. I just want to say again to Maciamo that I don't mean any offense to you by what I've said here, and I welcome any further debate or rebuttal of any of the things I've said here.
 
jt_ said:
(I apologize in advance... this turned out to be a rather long rant.)

Thanks for you rant, because it turned ou to be the most interesting reply so far. It seems that we can really have an interesting discussion here.

I do not deny that I lack both knowledge, thorough research and statistics to make this analysis. I takes years if not decades to analyses such delicate differences as the "mind" between ethnies made up of billions of people speaking hundreds of languages.

Why is it "weird" exactly that a French person would speak better English than a Japanese?

That was a slightly sarcastic remark to myrrhine who was saying that French people aren't usually famous for their language skills. What I meant is that although French people are considered among the worse learners of foreign languages in Europe (along with the British), they usually speak English better than the Japanese who learn it for many more years. But it's obvious that it is easier for French people to learn English.

Furthermore, as for the Japanese you mention who may have studied "English" at university -- how do you know they didn't specialize in English literature or something of the like?
...
Likewise, I know plenty of Americans who have studied Japanese history or literature at university whose competence in the Japanese language is nearly non-existent.

Don't confuse history and literature. You can study history in any language, but how can you study a language's literature without knowing, even passively this language ? But it is true that some people are more gifted for languages than others, whatever ethnic group they belong to. We could easily say that even if Caucasoid brains had an advantage for languages, the 50% (or so) least gifted Caucasian would never be as good as the most gifted Mongoloids. I never denied that possibility. I even mentioned something like that about intelligence in general. Motivation, nutrition, (cerebral) health, etc. are certainly more influencial factors than the shape of the brain. I don't want anyone to misunderstand this !

First of all, I have to highly question your assertion that the average French speaker "usually" becomes fluent in Japanese after one or two years in Japan. What exactly are you basing this on? People you've met?

People I have met (I am a French speaker myself) and spoken to on French-speaking forums about Japan.

It seems to me like you're comparing very different groups of people. The average Westerner who is devoted enough to learning Japanese to choose (and be successfully able!) to live in Japan for an extended period of time is going to be far more devoted to achieving a practical command of the language than e.g. a housewife who goes to an eikaiwa school as her "hobby."

Yes, you are right about th housewife learning as a hobby (in that case they can't even hold a simple conversation in English, and I speak from experience in teaching them). But my wife or many other Japanese who were studying in London (or Australia, US, etc) for a year are not all good at English. Some are more gifted than others, but most can't speak so well, eventhough they had learned English for 10 years or so before going abroad. I may be an exception, but starting from zero, my Japanese reached my wife's English level after 1,5 year. She had a 10 year headstart. I know that frustrates her, or her friends who have studied abroad.

Of course, both of us are only citing anecdotal evidence, but I think there are enough examples of Japanese who have become proficient in English (or another European language) and Westerners who have failed to become proficient in Japanese to say with any degree of certainty that a biological predisposition to language plays any sort of a significant role here compared to factors like quality of education, study skills, motivation, and the degree to which 'survival' in their daily life is dependent upon their ability to learn.

Yes, I don't deny that some Japanese are very good at languages, and can even become better at English than native English speakers. But I want to know whether their proportion is the same as that of Caucasians with the same motivation and intelligence.

Anyway, my assumption about language was only if language was located in the frontal lobe. In fact, there are 2 areas for language (see above post). The one in the frontal lobe controls syntax and complex sentences. As a matter of fact, it is almost impossible to make complex sentences in Japanese, as there are no relative sentences.

Have to go, we continue later...
 
jt_ said:
Also, as for what you say above about the difficulty of the Japanese to comprehend "Western logic" -- do you honestly think that this is in any way caused by biological factors?

No, because I never said that Japanese had difficulty understanding Western logic. Maybe I don't express myself clearly enough, considering that every reply in this thread so far have included various misunderstanding of what I wrote. Or maybe do people want to make me say what I didn't, or just read too quickly and miss the nuances in my sentences.

In any case, what I said here about "Western logic" is that some Japanese businessmen I know were taking special courses in "Western logic" because they thought it was more efficient that the so-called "Japanese logic". Now let see if you have understood that clearly ? Did I say that they were not able to understand the courses of "Western logic" ? NO, I didn't. Actually they do understand, but it doesn't come naturally to them, as it would to me, and I have never studied "logics" (taking a special course for it).

The same is true for debates. Most Westerners (or is it French, Belgian and British people more than others :? ) do not need to follow a debate course to actually debate. It comes naturally. I am sure that the culture has a major role in it, but as I said earlier culture originally comes from a group of the people and not the opposite.


Hypothetically speaking, if you were to take an ethnic Japanese and have him adopted by an American or European family and raised as a monolingual speaker of English (or another European language), do you think that his "Mongoloid" brain would in any way put him at even the slightest disadvantage in being able to function in a world of Western language and Western ways of thinking, compared to his Caucasian countrymen?

You can'y isolate one particular ability like language without seeing the impact on other abilities. If some people are more gifted for one thing (maths, language, arts, etc.) than others, it is because they allocate more space for this particular ability in their brain. The Frontal lobe for instance has many very different functions (arithmetic, logic, syntax, imagination, creativity, organization, understanding of the world, etc.). Any individual has limits to his/her mental capacities. But whoever specializes in one particular type of intelligence will reduce the amount of neurons available for other tasks in the same area of the brain.

As you know, everybody has a slightly different brain size, shape and neuron density, even in the same ethnic group, even among relatives, as no two brains are exactly the same (even for identical twins, especially as they get older). So what I have been explaining about the different size and shpae of brain between ethnic groups is just evidence itself. If not even two siblings have the same brain size and shape, how could people who look so different in their facial traits and shape of heads have same brains ?

It is obvious that some people have more potential than others. Some people are gifted for everything, others for nothing, sometimes also among siblings. Do you still follow me ? Everybody has a unique brain. Some brains have bigger potential.

Now, take 2 individuals : A and B (again no need to talk about races, but just any two individuals, even siblings). A has a bigger brain than B. But it is completely possible for B with a smaller brain to become more gifted or more intelligent in something specific, by alloted more space to this ability in his/her brain.

And to answer your question, no we cannot say that if a Mongoloid with a smaller frontal lobe, is raised in a Western family, he or she will have even a slight disadvantage for aquiring the language. Nevertheless, to achieve the same level of "grammar and syntax" (as this is what the frontal lobe manages regarding language), this person may use proportionally more "space" in the frontal lobe. The space used is the same, but as the frontal lobe is slightly smaller, there is slightly less space left for other frontal lobe abilities. Please understand that we are talking of a difference of about 1%, which is almost negligible, as most people never use 100% of their cerebral capabilities. This is highly theoretical then.

If, for example, it were actually proven that Caucasians enjoy certain advantages over Asians in areas like logic and language abilities, or are more "creative" or good at abstract thinking, or that Japanese are more 'practical' or 'sensual', what exactly are we supposed to do with this knowledge?

For many people nothing. For me, understand better the cause of cultural and psychological differences between Western countries and Japan or other East Asian countries. My life is like a long exploration of the causes of all that exist. Being a atheist, I cannot be contended by the explanation that the world was created by god and that's it. I need a explanation for everything. I live in Japan and have a Japanese wife. I observe differences between Japanese people and me and the Western people I had known so far. I see cultural, psychological, moral differences on the one hand, and physical differences on the other. What I am trying to do and understand the connection between these two.


More frighteningly, as we gradually move to a more internationalized society, I'm afraid that too much focus on these sort of ethnic differences are going to lead to people taking this to extremes and suggesting that individuals of certain races are more inclined to succeed in certain fields.
...
I realize that you personally might not be saying these things, but I think the problem is that there are unfortunately people out there who would be more than happy to take these theories to those sort of unpleasant extremes.

This could be a problem. I realised from posting this thread that almost all the people who replied were prejudiced toward races at an unconscious level, which made me angry. They try to deny differences that are obvious because they fear that would lead to a ranking of the races. The reason is that they didn''t understand what was being said. They supposed without reading all or thinking twice that I was deducting personalities from ethnic differences in skull shapes. This is doubly absurd because :
1) the world "personality" only applies to individuals. All personality type exist in each ethnic group, so that just doesn't make sense to even think reducing a whole ethnic group to one kind of personality.
2) Personality depends on the environment someone grew up in and their relations to others, as well as experience. It is not even much related to intellectual abilities. And this discussion is not even about intellectual abilities, but potential (keyword) intellectual abilities.

So, yes I understand your concern. I am always too idealistic in thinking that people can understand if they want to. But the hard realities of the world are that most humans do not want to understand, just live in their preconceived ideas, fixed forever in their mind. As long as I can find at least one or two persons to discuss intelligently, I will consider myself satisfied.

I think that no matter how you look at it, other factors like environment and a person's own free will are so much more important than race in determining these things that to put any sort of belief in these theories is only going to do us a disservice in the end.

I agree about the free-will, etc. However I feel it necessary to research these kin of things to satisfy for thirst for understanding the world I live in. I know that the vast majority of the people are not like me, and others may use this information in a distorted way because they do not fully grasp it, as we have seen above.

jt_ said:
I welcome any further debate or rebuttal of any of the things I've said here.

I will be happy to debate this further with you. :)
 
Yes, I don't deny that some Japanese are very good at languages, and can even become better at English than native English speakers. But I want to know whether their proportion is the same as that of Caucasians with the same motivation and intelligence.

Anyway, my assumption about language was only if language was located in the frontal lobe. In fact, there are 2 areas for language (see above post). The one in the frontal lobe controls syntax and complex sentences. As a matter of fact, it is almost impossible to make complex sentences in Japanese, as there are no relative sentences.

Have to go, we continue later...
Although recent findings have coalesced around a small number of neural substrates working together for language (specializing in detecting particular properties) rather than one or two localizable areas and that an intermediate-level second language would be coded over an even wider cortical area. Even subdivisions of Brochas area, btw, participate in other abilities, such as music recognition and motoric imitation, so you should be seeing a range of disfluencies for Japanese production, articulation plus others. Basically there's virtually no pathway for a structurally impacted frontal lobe to effect second language acquisition in particular, at least after controlling for intelligence and short-term auditory memory (which is generally one of the main culprits in poorer L2 learners). At least since my days in the loop as a grad student...someone else may well have a more updated story by now....

More likely are the small number of sounds in Japanese or the way it was once originally taught (forced memorization of arcane grammatical points by non-English teachers). :?
 
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Elizabeth said:
...
More likely are the small number of sounds in Japanese or the way it was once originally taught (forced memorization of arcane grammatical points by non-English teachers).

Interesting info about the language areas of the brain.

The small number of sounds has an obvious influence on pronunciation or listening, but the most difficult thing about English is justly its pronunciation (for everybody, not just Japanese speakers). What is more, Italian or Spanish also have only 5 vowels and not many more consonants than Japanese. But does that affect their speakers' language skills?

As for the way Japanese is taught at school, it is obviously one of the main factors. But what about all the Japanese studying abroad (tens of thousands of them each year) and the millions of them studying with native speakers in schools like Nova, Aeon, Berlitz, ECC, etc. in small groups (3 to 5) or individual lessons? Few Japanese really motivated to learn English (or sometimes not so motivated but need English for their job or for travelling) have not learnt for at least a few months (usually a few years) in such schools. So we can't blame the education system when anybody in the world can learn at Berlitz or equivalent, but with different results. I have been teaching English in Japan for about 3 years, but on average I don't feel that their memory or rapidity of comprehension are as good as that of my Western acquaintances. Only a few gifted people do speak English very well, and often because they are very intelligent (have top jobs too) or (usually and) have studied abroad for several years at university. These are rare people and I have a lot of respect for them. But they surely represent less than 1% of the Japanese.
In Europe, it's maybe 2%! (wow, twice as good as languages !) :p

I want to be clear on this; no society in the world can pride itself on having like 30 or 50% of the people being really gifted in languages. I just feel the percentage is lower in Japan compared to the European people I know. I might be misled by a non-representative sample of people I have met, but worldwide TOEFL and TOEIC averages have shown that the Japanese performed among the worst worldwide.*

I am open to all the possible reasons that make the Japanese comparatively bad at languages. The smaller frontal lobe may account for 1%. The poor educational system for 50%. What are the other possible causes?

*Here are the TOEIC results worldwide : Asia perfoms worst, while Afrca is 2nd after Europe ! Japan is 2nd to last for reading after Vietnam, and 2nd to last for listening after Saudi Arabia.

As for TOEFL Scores, In the paper test, Japan ranks second to last in Asia after Cambodia, and 6th to last worldwide, after 4 other African countries. By native language, Japanese is 2nd to last worldwide. In the CBT total, they rank 2nd to last by native language and 7th to last by country.
 
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I have been teaching English in Japan for about 3 years, but in average I don't feel that their memory or rapidity of comprehension are as good as that of my Western aquaintances.
Most probably they are listening -- translating into Japanese -- framing an answer in Japanese -- translating back into English before replying. Is that the procesessing strategy they've learned in school ?
 
Maciamo's misunderstood thread

Now that Maciamo posted his research and gave a more detailed description about what he actually means, misunderstandings like at the start of this thread should diminish and we could finally come to the discussion as intended. But first things first.

Maciamo said:
So far this thread has not be the discussion it ought to be, but a display of how people react to preconceived ideas that they associated with the title of this thread. I only understand better to what level each of you is biased or politically correct in their approach to comparing head size and brain shapes. Some associated it directly with phrenology because they have heard that name somewhere and it looks cool to spit it out on a public forum. Others start talking about completely irrelevant things like how beautiful each race is or the proportion of head to body size.
It was a bit rash to dismiss everyone who did not instantly agree as biased or having preconceived ideas. Don't think you are the only one aware of the obvious differences between individuals in particular and between ethnicities in general. And I don't think we hide behind the so called "political correctness" (not that you said so, directly).

At the present time too much is unknown about the brain and its functions. We can only make assumptions about a possible potential of a certain brain region, but these could as well be completely wrong. In short, we don't know. One important thing you learn when studying natural sciences is, not to presume anything and deduce a conclusion publicly unless it can be proven. One would lose his reputation and credibility, and the career is gone.
Today people are a bit too science credulous, although simple question cannot be answered yet. Or can anyone tell me the actual reason for sore muscles? Well it's still under research, medicine still lacks the scientific evidence...

Maciamo said:
I am sorry, but have you ever been to Japan ? English is like a second language for most people here.
No, it's not. And if I didn't know better, I would doubt that you are in Japan. Tokyo is not Japan, as NY is not the US. The big business, glamour, fashion and everything else under strong influence from the west is aggregated in Tokyo (and particularly in Osaka). Working in the industry reveals only one part of the reality. Our company sends business people to Tokyo although they don't speak Japanese. It's not necessary because our partners are fluent. More and more English enters the Japanese language and especially in Tokyo it seems omnipresent, but pronounced in Japanese it's hardly understandable and memorizable, similar to Latin when you hear it for the first time spoken at a foreign university - completely incomprehensible. A lot of business men you meet in Tokyo as well as Japanese who spent several years abroad, speak English fluently and on a very high level. Further and strong English influence comes from movies, TV, popsongs, fashion etc., yes that's all true but - for the average Japanese living in Japan, there is no urgent economical need to have a proficient level in spoken English. I was accentuating "sea-locked" country because I was indirectly referring to other countries i.e. in Europe, with its many countries bordering on each other. Especially Switzerland as a small and completely land-locked country has no choice but to adapt to its neighbours. Our market and economy strongly depend on the EU and although we are still not a member yet, regarding the dozens of agreements with the EU, it makes almost no difference anymore. It is inevitable to be able to speak multiple languages, even for an average job. There is an urgent need, and the bad employment rate adds to the pressure. Getting a simple job in an office or as a cashier? Well we are sorry to say that we preferred someone who has the same qualities, but also speaks English and French. My Spanish friends have (also due to the bad economy and low employment rate) no choice but to fit best for the European market. I don't recall this for the country of Japan.

Maciamo said:
As for the alphabet, all Japanese know romaji (Latin alphabet) since the age of 6 or 7, much earlier than they can master their own kanji. So they have no disadvantage.
Try Finnish or Welsh, same alphabet so no disadvantage. These languages are hard to learn if you're not already familiar with a related language (Estonian for Finnish and Breton for Welsh). It's not about the few letters from the Latin alphabet, the language is entirely different.

Maciamo said:
But Japanese people also need English to travel. There most popular holiday destination are Hawaii, Guam and Saipan (all English speaking). But wherever they go, they know that they will need English because it's the world's lingua franca. That may explain why Native English-speakers may not feel the need to learn foreign languages, but that does certainly not apply to the Japanese, who are very aware that their language is only spoken in their country.
Yet a lot travel although having really low English skills. Popular destinations as mentioned above, also Europe (especially Italy and Switzerland). But statistically Korea, Hongkong and Sydney are in the top charts. Not surprising with a statistical average of 1-2 consecutive holidays - if someone doesn't believe this, go look it up. The popular destinations are usually too far away, so it has to be a destination within reach. Golden Week is one of the few occasions when the popular places come within the realm of possiblity.

Maciamo said:
As for the environment, all signs in the street, subway, stations, etc. are bilingual Japanese English. There are certainly more signs in English in Japan than anywhere in continental Europe. See the above reply for more.
Thanks to a governmental resolution, all station and street names had to be printed in English throughout the whole country - regarding the influence on the English skills of the Japanese....I'd say negligible.

Maciamo said:
Anyway, saying that Japanese don't need English is not knowing them at all.
Nobody ever said they don't need it, there wouldn't be that many eikaiwa school throughout Japan, more than in any other country (as you already pointed out). But the economical pressure and the competition among each other are not high enough, and the conditions regarding language family, absence of direct competitors and borders for the whole time resulted in a different development, and most of the consequences are present until today. Of course there are more reasons, some were already mentioned in this thread.

Maciamo said:
I didn't know there were many definition of the word "logic". The purpose of logic is to prove an argument right or wrong.
Well then you learned something new. The purpose of logic? Logic seen from a mathematical point of view is different from logic applied in philosophy. And it's not the same as used in daily conversation and in colloquial speech. The definition you might find in an encyclopaedia relates to logic as developed and defined in the occidental area. Argumentation you find in eastern philosophy or war-related books do neither follow nor match our definition of logic, but still the argumentation is highly logic and understandable.


Maciamo said:
Take two people and make them debate and see who has the most compelling arguments combined with the most efficient structure to prove it. Japanese people are so bad at debating that the government is considering introducing special courses in schools. You could say that the non-confrontational consensus approach of the Japanese prevent them from debating and asserting their views. But many business people now realize that they need more efficient and logic decision-making. It's not always the boss that is right and not always the feeling of the majority that is true either.
That's a typical western way to argue. Hopefully when staying in Japan for longer, you will understand why this kind of arguing is not working. On the other hand, a lot is changing and not everyone happily agrees or kills himself for the good of the company etc. The way of debating we know (some Swiss even see it as the 'art of debating') puts westeners into trouble also when in China. But this is culture and education, not testosterone. I for example grew up in Europe, I wouldn't confront people this way or debate if I'd grown up in Asia, I'd rather refrain from discussing without arguing anymore. But I grew up here, and sometimes I'm way too aggressive when arguing at company meetings - should be impossible with my low testosterone level.

I recall courses for businessmen (in the late 70's and 80's) and even books, which helped to communicate better with the Japanese and understand their logic. For a short time this became (relatively) popular, after several western companies miserably failed when trying to set up long term businesses with Japanese companies.

Maciamo said:
And whatever the brain shape, testosterone does have an infuence of rationality and logic too. That also explains for the more collectivist and less confrontational way of Mongoloid people. Don't forget that higher testosterone levels in blood not only means being more rational/logical, but also more aggressive and uncompromising. So I am not saying that being logical is necessarily better, like Elizabeth or Kara (among others) presupposed. At the contrary, it is this lower testosterone that make the Japanese so polite, respectful and altruistic. But as in the Yin and Yang, it is difficult to conciliate opposites in one same person.
The politeness is also a fassade, and behind the curtain the politeness is gone. Still there's a huge difference in daily life between east and west concerning respect and how they treat each other. But it's not that everyone's nice as they appear to be. In general I prefer the Japanese way, but here in Europe I wouldn't get far if I was overpolite all the time, that's sad but you know how it is. When I'm in Asia I change completely, that's adaption. I doubt that testosterone is significantly involved. My relatives in Asia are absolutely different in behaviour, and I wouldn't dare to confront them how I do it with my family in Europe. I'm somewhere between the cultures and between my relatives in Europe and my relatives in Asia. And I assure you, not everyone's polite and respectful!

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Some condensed information about our brain (I should go to bed!):
In neurobiology the brain is seen from 3 levels:
- the main functions of larger brain areas, i.e. specialized tasks of different areas of the cerebral cortex, basal ganglion and the amygdala
- functions and activities of bonds of larger groups of cells
- activities of single cells and molecules

A lot is already discovered on the top and the lowest level, we can accurately track the intensity and location of activated areas during certain brain activities. Listening to music, solving riddles or math problems, painting, strong emotions (fear, empathy) etc.
Also on the lowest level much is discovered about how neurotransmitters work, peptides and neurohormones, how they interact and how internal signals of nervecells are processed. There are accurate computermodels and simulations for single neurons and small groups of neurons. Though not much is known yet about the codes nervecells use to communicate with each other.
But on the middle level - almost nothing can be predicated about what happens between the topmost and the lowest level.

Knowing where and how intense brain activities happen does not give any explanation as to why and how. These methods reveal the amount of consumed energy. Measuring the consumed energy of areas of a supercomputer wouldn't give you more than a basic clue about the functioning. Why our brain works how it does and how it maps immediate perception together with what we remember to our consciousness (which itself is a mystery) - at the present time only basic knowledge is available.

Another problem arises with the exponential complexity of millions or billions of interacting neurons. No supercomputer will be capable of an accurate simulation for the next 20 years at least, if there's not a quantum leap in computer technology soon. We also lack the methods to measure and track consecutive activities. It seems that single neurons work relatively simple and predictable. But as said, the complexity of thousands or billions of neurons makes it unpredictable and the higher organization level, new attributes come into existence. While higher organization levels depend on the lower structures, new attributes are not predictable from knowing only the laws of the lower structures. Physics cannot predict chemistry, chemistry can't predict what happens in molecular biology and the latter cannot predict biology, it's lifeforms and social behaviour. This is not some mumbo jumbo, neuroscience progressed considerably in the last ten years and a lot is going to be revealed. But at the present time we know almost nothing (relatively seen) and it's way too early to predicate theories as stated in this thread.
 
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