Does language determine the way we think?

Thought then language or language then thought?

Is the way of thinking of translators and interpreters influenced by the language they speak?

Most believe that what we say depends on what we think.? However, there are many who think that how you see the world depends on the language you speak and this is known as the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, after Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf.

These two 20th century linguists found that the structure of a language influences how speakers of that language see the world.? Hence, speakers of different languages think and behave differently.? So, does a society’s language influence its culture?? Is the way we translators and interpreters think influenced by the languages we speak?

If this is true, then Koreans, Americans, and Italians all have different ways of thinking, of viewing the world because their language determines that view.? Each culture’s vocabulary is a collection of words that describe the world that surrounds it.? In the US and South Korea there are hundreds of words that describe car models, types of vehicles, vehicle parts, maintenance, brands, etc.? In North Korea, those words are not necessary because only the government elite are allowed to have cars.??

Whorf carried out research on Native American languages and compared them to Western languages.? For example, the idea of time in the west is reflected in the grammatical tenses: past, present and future.? The Hopi language, however, has no present, past or future tense but rather an idea of the manifested domain that has a physical universe that includes the present, the immediate past and the future; and an unmanifested domain that includes the remote past, the future and the world of dreams.? Nor does the Hopi language have words for minutes or days of the week, since the concept of time for them consisted of the phases of the moon and the movement of the sun.??

But if a person’s language does not have a word for a concept, does it mean that person cannot understand the concept?? There is a German word that means to take pleasure in someone’s unhappiness.? There is no English word for that idea but it can’t be said that English speakers cannot understand the emotion.??

Yet evidence that language plays a role in how we think can be seen in languages that have genders for inanimate objects.? In Spanish, things that are represented by a masculine word are thought to have male characteristics such as “strong”.? In German, words that are feminine, are considered “elegant” and “beautiful.”? The speakers developed ideas of something being feminine or masculine, not because of the characteristics of the object but because that is how they are classified in their language.??

Is there a word in your language that determines the way you think about the concept it represents and makes that thinking unique to your culture?

References

Kay, P. & Kempton, W. (1984).? What is the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis?? American Anthropologist, 86(1), 65-79.

Whorf, B.L. (1952).? Language, mind, and reality, ETC: A review of general semantics, 167-188.

Whorf, B.L. (1997).? The relation of habitual thought and behavior to language.? In Sociolinguistics (pp. 443-463).? Palgrave, London.

Whorf, B.L. (2012).? Language, thought, and reality: Selected writing of Benjamin Lee Whorf.? MIT Press.