Language

Does language shape thought, or merely express it? The question has occupied linguists and philosophers for centuries. Benjamin Lee Whorf proposed that language determines perception — that speakers of different languages inhabit different cognitive worlds. Steven Pinker countered that thought is independent, language just a communication channel. The truth sits somewhere between, and the location matters.

What’s clear: language is not a transparent window on reality. Every language carves the world differently. Russian distinguishes light blue (goluboy) from dark blue (siniy) as separate colors. Speakers actually perceive the distinction faster. English lumps them into one “blue.” The language doesn’t prevent seeing the difference, but it makes certain distinctions more cognitively available.

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Language creates conceptual grooves. The metaphors embedded in common speech guide understanding without awareness. In English, time is spatial — we look forward to next week, put problems behind us. Mandarin speakers often use vertical metaphors — earlier events are shàng (up), later ones xià (down). These aren’t just different words. They’re different ways of organizing temporal experience.

Grammar encodes attention. Japanese leaves subjects implicit when context provides them; English requires explicit subjects. Turkish verbs mark evidentiality — how the speaker knows the information (witnessed, inferred, heard from others). Each grammatical requirement makes certain distinctions obligatory, training speakers to notice what their language demands.

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The strong claim — that language determines thought absolutely — doesn’t hold. Speakers of all languages can understand concepts their language doesn’t encode. Germans comprehend schadenfreude without having lived with the word. The concepts exist independently; language provides handles.

But the weak claim — that language influences what’s easy or hard to think — has robust support. Some ideas flow naturally in one language and fight the grammar of another. Philosophical traditions cluster linguistically, perhaps because certain languages make certain moves more natural.

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Writing changes language’s cognitive role. Oral cultures store knowledge in memory, embedding it in rhythm and story. Literate cultures externalize memory to text, freeing cognition for different tasks. Programming languages make certain operations natural and others awkward. The tools we think with shape what thoughts are thinkable.

Related: [[sapir-whorf]], [[metaphors-we-live-by]], [[e-prime]], [[linguistic-determinism]]