To what extent does language determine the way we think or experience the world?

[closeupready]

In a column about the death of an obscure language known as Bo, this guy argues that this argument (about language determining the way we think) is false; I disagree with him:

>>Neither do I buy the idea that the language we speak determines the way we think. If that were the case, you'd worry that each language extinction might mean the loss of a unique way of seeing the world. This is called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and it's fun, but doesn't really stand up to scrutiny. Benjamin Whorf was a fire-insurance inspector who became obsessed with Native American languages. He studied them mainly from books, and as a result came up with some quirky ideas about the way Native Americans actually thought, contrasting this with a mentality created by what he called "standard average European" . Because of the way their sentences were structured, Whorf thought that Hopi speakers had "no general notion of time as a smooth flowing continuum in which everything in the universe proceeds at an equal rate, out of a future, through a present and into a past". This now sounds like an almost mystical idealisation of Native Americans. The structure of language is a reflection of the way we perceive our environment, and Hopi speakers have the same brains as all the rest of us.<<

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/05/bo-language-extinct-linguistics

For example, a well-known fact is that the Intuit/eskimoes have many different words for snow - wet snow, small snowflakes, snow that stings your exposed flesh etc. The English have just about one word - can't be too many more. I imagine there are cultures that don't even have original words for snow.

Obviously, the presence or absence of a word in a chosen vocabulary, a word which describes a fact of life of other cultures, doesn't change the reality of the existence of that fact; but it does have an impact on how someone views reality, thus, the way they think.

Anyone disagree?

[arbusto_baboso]

1. You're definitely on the right track.

Language is one - among several - of the major factors that shapes our would-view. Period. Any decent historian, anthropologist or linguist will tell you that.

[closeupready]

2. Linguistics can be a very abstract science, so I imagine nobody ever

settles these arguments; but I find it fun to think about. (In college, I was such a geek, that I'd go to the linguistics library and check out book after book about semantics and rhetoric and nonverbal communication, lol. :D )

[unpossibles]

3. I'm more in the determine/reflect camp

I do think that language is an indicator of cultural thought/experience/value but I see it's role of determining it as both cause and effect, that culture and language create a feedback loop of sorts with each reinforcing the other over generations.

That said, I also believe that biology/physiology affect how we experience the world, so I think that obviously there will be things which transcend language in how we experience the world.

It's a fascinating topic though. I'm illiterate in a couple of languages, but I still enjoy studying them even if not fluent (or even conversational sometimes). My favorite things about languages are humor and idioms, and how those can sometimes reflect that cultural element you mention, and both of which are hard to understand without a certain level of fluency because they do not translate well.

[closeupready]

4. Good post. If you get a chance,

try moving abroad for six months, and then coming back to the US - absolutely nothing can prepare you for the culture shock. It's challenging, but educational. You see things as a resident that no tourist can ever grasp, because they become part of your reality as opposed to parochial customs.

[Forkboy]

5. Tricky Linguistics sketch....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFD01r6ersw

[Duer 157099]

6. I think it does too

Although I don't know exactly *what* those effects are and whether they are good or bad or neutral. I just know that it does.

Also, consider that language actually can affect your physical body. If you must use certain muscles to form certain sounds, then your facial muscles will develop differently than those who speak a different language. Again, I don't know what significance this has, but it's an actual physical effect.

As to how it may affect abstract thought, I think that also happens. For example, why is it that the most satisfying curse words in English are all either religious, scatological or sexual? Why? And is this true in other languages? If so (or not), what does this suggest?

[Odin2005]

7. The Inuit words for snow thing is a myth.

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is complete, utter garbage, no serious linguist really accepts it. In fact, I think it's completely backwards, our culture and how we view the world influences language.

The "language influences how we see reality" notion shows the neurological biases of the people that believe it more than anything else, same with the "language = self-awareness" notion popular in some circles of cognitive science. Most people think verbally, thought for them is an inner dialogue, so it is natural for such people to equate language with thought. But there are a minority of us, mainly those on the Autism Spectrum, that do NOT think in words, we think visually. I often have a hard time "translating" my thoughts into words, especially when stressed, and it is not unusual for me to pantomime something because I can't remember the word for something simple like a broom. This is also why I tend to talk to myself, I find it very hard to think verbally without at the very least some sub-vocal use of mouth and vocal cords.

[XemaSab]

9. There are all kinds of words used to describe different types of sea ice

Knowing that vocabulary opens the eyes to the subtleties therein.

[XemaSab]

8. Knowing the words for things opens up doors in the mind

Different cultures recognize different colors, different musical scales, different basic flavors, and different fundamental elements.

[Odin2005]

10. No, words are just labels.

just because different languages make different basic color distinctions, for example, does not mean they don't make the distinctions. many languages do not distinguish lexically between Green and Blue, but that does not mean the can't tell the difference between the two colors, they just use compounds like "sea-grue" and "grass-grue" to mean blue and green. Most Romance languages have 2 words for "to be", one for inherent or essential qualities ("I am an American" = "Soy Norteamericano") and one for transient states ("I am sick" = "Estoy enfermo"), that doesn't mean us English speakers can't tell the difference between the two kinds of "to be".

[XemaSab]

11. I'm not a linguist, but I don't agree

Shouting iVIVA! at a celebration is very different, and reflects a different outlook on life, than anything that English-speakers could say in a similar situation.

Phrases like "feng shui" or "pura vida" or "karma" really can't be translated without losing context and worldview.

[Odin2005]

14. I can translate "Karma" very easily: "Causality".

Sure, it's enmeshed in South Asian cultural assumptions, but the essential meaning is that of cause and effect.

[XemaSab]

15. Karma and causality aren't even close to the same word

and taking the word karma out of the cultural context is impossible.

[Rabrrrrrr]

12. It both helps determine the way of thinking in thefuture, but also reflects the thinking of the past

That is, it's a differential equation of language influences thinking, and though influences the language.

English, and Greek, are very noun-based languages.

Hebrew is a verb-based language.

And there are absolutely quite different ways of looking at the world that come through (and are reflected in) those viewpoints.

So it works on the linguistic/syntactic end of language; but also on the vocabulary end - the words that a particular culture finds words for that another culture doesn't (for example, 'umame' and 'chi' in Japanese; schadenfreude in German; lack of pronouns in Japanese; the gendered nouns of German and Spanish and French and Hebrew; English only has one word for 'love' and Greek has three (philia, eros, agape); and so on).

I think your guy writing for the Guardian is dead wrong.

[Twillig]

13. You may want to investigate the writings of Steven Pinker

You may find good ammunition in his writings.

Such as his book:

The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature

Here's a good and fun talk he gave about the "Language of Swearing."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BcdY_wSklo

[AlienGirl]

16. I don't think in words

My thoughts don't become words until the stage where I'm planning how to express them through speech or writing.

Tucker