Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
"Human beings... are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society...The fact of the matter is that the 'real world' is to a large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group."
— Edward Sapir, 1929 "The Status of Linguistics as a Science"
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
In the early twentieth century, linguistic anthropologist, Benjamin Lee Whorf, and his teacher, Edward Sapir, proposed the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. They argued that the language you speak determines your perspective of the world (Comrie). This is also known as linguistic determinism. Such perceptions may include gender, color, counting, measurement, time, direction, size, age, values, etc. Moreover, entire cultures may perceive realities differently because of the languages they speak (Comrie). This is considered linguistic relativity. To its extreme, the hypothesis suggests that we may not be able to conceptualize certain objects or ideas if our language does not allow for it. For example, many cultures have different words for different types of love. So there would be a word for romantic love, platonic love, familial love, etc. However, in English, we only have the one word. This show the way English speakers lump all types of love into the same, or at least a substantially similar, category, while in other cultures, the different types of love hold significantly different weight and therefore require entirely different words.
"We cut nature up, organize it into concepts, and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement to organize it in this way—an agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is codified in the patterns of our language."
— Benjamin Whorf, 1940 "Science and Linguistics"
"No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached."
— Edward Sapir, 1929 "The Status of Linguistics as a Science"
History
Whorf was strongly influenced by Sapir’s mentor, anthropologist Franz Boas. In the 1880s, Boas traveled to northern Canada to study the Inuit people and their culture. He was particularly intrigued by their language and went on to write about how they had hundreds of words for snow in his 1911 book, “Handbook of American Indian Languages” (Robson, 2013).
Looking at Boas’ research, Whorf noted that because the Inuit people were so familiar with snow, they had a much larger vocabulary for it than people in warmer climates. “We have the same word for falling snow, snow on the ground, snow packed hard like ice, slushy snow, wind-driven flying snow — whatever the situation may be. To an Inuit, this all-inclusive word would be almost unthinkable; he would say that falling snow, slushy snow, and so on, are sensuously and operationally different, different things to contend with; he uses different words for them and for other kinds of snow” (Whorf, 1940).
The Inuits' climate shaped the language they spoke. More importantly, however, their vocabulary gave them a different perspective. While we have one word, “snow,” we need additional descriptive words to describe exactly what type of snow it is or the dangers it may impose. An Inuit could look at the same object and assess it much quicker because their language allows for it. His perception is different than ours, based on his language.
Whorf himself spent time with the Hopi, a Native American tribe found in what is now northeastern Arizona. He observed that their language did not have a past or future tense, so he hypothesized that their perceptions of time were different than that of other cultural groups since their language did not indicate such ideas (Harbeck, 2018).
Color Perception in Languages
Humans from every region of the world are capable of seeing a wide range of colors through their eyes, but the way colors are interpreted and understood often differs based on what language is spoken. Unless someone is experiencing some sort of blindness, colors are constantly taken in visually by humans and they tell us many things about what is happening in our environment. Colors also take on many meanings. For example, in the U.S., red usually means stop or danger but it can also symbolize love. Cultures divide their colors up into different categories and these categories differ between cultures. The way that humans categorize colors shows how we assign meaning to out surroundings and when cultures are compared, the amount of detail observed by individuals can be noted by the number of categories they identify. Tone and meaning are assigned to the different color categories found within each culture and language which causes the members to view their surroundings in a specific way. The amount of categories ranges between as few as three (typically black, white, and red) and as many as twelve. Most cultures divide their colors into cool tones and warm tones as well (Trafton 2017). Industrialized cultures typically have the most color categories. Shade ranges can be classified as different colors in some languages or colors that westerners would consider entirely different are lumped together, like blue and green. The Greeks differentiate blues into light blue and dark blue as separate colors (Brady 2019). Also, languages may have different names for each color within the same category, like how English has grass green and forest green. All of these classifications of color shows what is important to every culture.
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Today
In decades following its publishing, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis was largely discredited, especially with the arrival of linguist Noam Chomsky's theory (Evans and Levinson, 2009). Chomsky declared that all languages share certain grammatical characteristics, which many believed undermined the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. However, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is making a comeback with more research completed and empirical evidence gathered by modern linguistic anthropologists and psychologists today.
For example, in the early 2000s, researchers looked at the color perceptions of two groups, the Berinmo of Papua New Guinea and the Himba of Namibia. While these people see the same colors as we do, they have different color categories in their language. As a result, they can more easily differentiate between two colors that look very similar to us. This also allows them to remember better precisely what color they saw when they try to remember it in the future (Roberson, Debi, et al., 2005).
Another example is gendered language. In many languages, such as Spanish, French, and German, nouns are labeled either male or female. A study by Lera Boroditsky in 2003 illustrated that an object's grammatical gender can influence the way speakers consider it. "When shown a picture of a bridge, for which the German word is feminine and the Spanish word is masculine, German speakers called it pretty, peaceful, elegant, beautiful, and fragile, while Spanish speakers called it strong, dangerous, sturdy, and towering" (Department of Linguistics, The Ohio State University, 2016, p. 461).
Learn More
Cognitive scientist, Lera Boroditsky, shares examples ranging from an Aboriginal community in Australia to the Romance languages of Europe of how language shapes the way we think: https://www.ted.com/talks/lera_boroditsky_how_language_shapes_the_way_we_think?language=en#t-962
Lera Boroditsky also discusses this topic in an article for the Wall Street Journal in 2010: http://lera.ucsd.edu/papers/wsj.pdf
For an example on how speakers of different languages represent time differently, read "The Whorfian time warp: Representing duration through the language hourglass" by Emanuel Bylund http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.bradley.edu/10.1037/xge0000314
Language may shape our perception in ways that turn out to be harmful, as described by Robert Sapolsky on storm naming: https://www.wsj.com/articles/language-shapes-thoughtsand-storm-preparations-1429716713
For more on Edward Sapir, see https://sites.google.com/fsmail.bradley.edu/buanthro/edward-sapir?authuser=0
Informational video grasping main concepts of the hypothesis with animations and examples. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df25r8pcuI8
Works Cited
Brady, Alicja. 2019. "7 Facts About Colors in Other Languages." K International. Retrieved December 6, 2021, from https://www.k-international.com/blog/colors-in-other-languages/.
Comrie, Bernard. "Language and Thought." Linguistic Society of America, https://www.linguisticsociety.org/resource/language-and-thought Accessed 10/1/2020.
Department of Linguistics, The Ohio State University. "Language Files: Materials for an Introduction to Language and Linguistics, 12th Edition." The Ohio State University Press, p. 461
Evans, N., & Levinson, S. C. 2009. "The myth of language universals: language diversity and its importance for cognitive science." The Behavioral and brain sciences, 32(5), 429–494.
Harbeck, James. 2018. "Can language slow down time?" BBC News, BBC, https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180806-can-language-slow-down-time
Roberson, Debi, et al. "Color Categories: Evidence for the Cultural Relativity Hypothesis.” Cognitive Psychology, vol. 50, no. 4, 2005, pp. 378–411.
Robson, David. 2013. "There Really Are 50 Eskimo Words for 'Snow'." The Washington Post, www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/there-really-are-50-eskimo-words-for-snow/2013/01/14/e0e3f4e0-59a0-11e2-beee-6e38f5215402_story.html.
Sapir, Edward. 1929. "The Status of Linguistics as a Science." Language, vol. 5, no. 4 pp. 207–214.
Trafton, Anne. 2017. "Analyzing the Language of Color." MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Retrieved December 6, 2021, from https://news.mit.edu/2017/analyzing-language-color-0918.
Whorf, Benjamin. 1940. "Science and Linguistics." MIT Technology Review, pp. 213-4 https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/whorf.scienceandlinguistics.pdf