How We Think

Recently, in my linguistics class, we discussed the concept of the Whorfian Hypothesis (also known as the linguistic relativity hypothesis). The basic premise of this theory is that as humans, our linguistic paradigm -- that is, the language we use -- reflects our perception of the world around us. For example, in different cultures, there are different numbers of words available to describe colors. A dark blue versus a light blue in American culture can be represented as two completely separate colors in another culture (not just two shades of one color). Moreover, who determined that pink is separate from red and not just "light red?" Minor differences such as these make me wonder if some aspects of this linguistic theory are indeed true. Of course, it would be ludicrous to argue that individuals speaking different languages perceive their worlds completely differently, but perhaps there is more than meets the eye.

When learning new languages, there are always those words/concepts that lack a proper translation into another language. In many of these cases, multiple words in one language are needed to express the precise definition of the word in a different language. Does this lack of a word indicate a different thinking process? Words are formed in order to fulfill the needs of society; hence, if a certain word has not been formed, is its meaning trivial within that culture?

Jonathan