Linguistic relativity

The hypot hesis of linguistic relativity, also known as t he Sapir–Whorf hypothesis

/səˌpɪər ˈwɔːrf/, t he Whorf hypothesis, or Whorfianism, is a principle suggest ing t hat t he
st ruct ure of a language affect s it s speakers' worldview or cognit ion, and t hus people's
percept ions are relat ive t o t heir spoken language.

Linguist ic relat ivit y has been underst ood in many different , oft en cont radict ory ways t hroughout
it s hist ory.[1] The idea is oft en st at ed in t wo forms: t he strong hypothesis, now referred t o as
linguist ic det erminism, was held by some of t he early linguist s before World War II,[2] while t he
weak hypothesis is most ly held by some of t he modern linguist s.[2]

The strong version, or linguistic determinism, says t hat language determines t hought and t hat
linguist ic cat egories limit and det ermine cognit ive cat egories. This version is generally agreed
t o be false by modern linguist s.[3]

The weak version says t hat linguist ic cat egories and usage only influence t hought and
decisions.[4] Research on weaker forms has produced posit ive empirical evidence for a
relat ionship.[3]

The t erm "Sapir–Whorf hypot hesis" is considered a misnomer by linguist s for several reasons:
Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf never co-aut hored any works, and never st at ed t heir ideas
in t erms of a hypot hesis. The dist inct ion bet ween a weak and a st rong version of t his hypot hesis
is also a lat er development ; Sapir and Whorf never set up such a dichot omy, alt hough oft en t heir
writ ings and t heir views of t his relat ivit y principle are phrased in st ronger or weaker t erms.[5][6]

The principle of linguist ic relat ivit y and t he relat ion bet ween language and t hought has also
received at t ent ion in varying academic fields from philosophy t o psychology and ant hropology,
and it has also inspired and colored works of fict ion and t he invent ion of const ruct ed languages.

History

The idea was first clearly expressed by 19t h-cent ury t hinkers, such as Wilhelm von Humboldt and
Johann Got t fried Herder who saw language as t he expression of t he spirit of a nat ion. Members
of t he early 20t h-cent ury school of American ant hropology headed by Franz Boas and Edward
Sapir also embraced forms of t he idea t o a cert ain ext ent , including in a 1928 meet ing of t he
Linguist ic Societ y of America,[7] but Sapir in part icular, wrot e more oft en against t han in favor of
anyt hing like linguist ic det erminism. Sapir's st udent , Benjamin Lee Whorf, came t o be seen as t he
primary proponent as a result of his published observat ions of how he perceived linguist ic
differences t o have consequences in human cognit ion and behavior. Harry Hoijer, anot her of
Sapir's st udent s, int roduced t he t erm "Sapir–Whorf hypot hesis",[8] even t hough t he t wo scholars
never formally advanced any such hypot hesis.[9] A st rong version of relat ivist t heory was
developed from t he lat e 1920s by t he German linguist Leo Weisgerber. Whorf's principle of
linguist ic relat ivit y was reformulat ed as a t est able hypot hesis by Roger Brown and Eric
Lenneberg who conduct ed experiment s designed t o find out whet her color percept ion varies
bet ween speakers of languages t hat classified colors different ly.

As t he st udy of t he universal nat ure of human language and cognit ion came int o focus in t he
1960s t he idea of linguist ic relat ivit y fell out of favor among linguist s. From t he lat e 1980s, a
new school of linguist ic relat ivit y scholars has examined t he effect s of differences in linguist ic
cat egorizat ion on cognit ion, finding broad support for non-det erminist ic versions of t he
hypot hesis in experiment al cont ext s.[10][11] Some effect s of linguist ic relat ivit y have been shown
in several semant ic domains, alt hough t hey are generally weak. Current ly, a balanced view of
linguist ic relat ivit y is espoused by most linguist s holding t hat language influences cert ain kinds of
cognit ive processes in non-t rivial ways, but t hat ot her processes are bet t er seen as arising from
connect ionist fact ors. Research is focused on exploring t he ways and ext ent t o which language
influences t hought .[10]

Ancient philosophy to the Enlightenment

The idea t hat language and t hought are int ert wined is ancient . Plat o argued against sophist
t hinkers such as Gorgias of Leont ini, who held t hat t he physical world cannot be experienced
except t hrough language; t his made t he quest ion of t rut h dependent on aest het ic preferences
or funct ional consequences. Plat o held inst ead t hat t he world consist ed of et ernal ideas and
t hat language should reflect t hese ideas as accurat ely as possible.[12] Following Plat o, St .
August ine, for example, held t he view t hat language was merely labels applied t o already exist ing
concept s. This view remained prevalent t hroughout t he Middle Ages.[13] Roger Bacon held t he
opinion t hat language was but a veil covering up et ernal t rut hs, hiding t hem from human
experience. For Immanuel Kant , language was but one of several t ools used by humans t o
experience t he world.

German Romantic philosophers

In t he lat e 18t h and early 19t h cent uries, t he idea of t he exist ence of different nat ional
charact ers, or Volksgeister, of different et hnic groups was t he moving force behind t he German
romant ics school and t he beginning ideologies of et hnic nat ionalism.[14]

Swedish philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg inspired several of t he German Romant ics. As early as
1749, he alludes t o somet hing along t he lines of linguist ic relat ivit y in comment ing on a passage
in t he t able of nat ions in t he book of Genesis:

"Everyone according to his language, according to their families, as

to their nations." [Genesis 10:5] This signifies that these were
according to the genius of each; "according to their language,"
according to the opinion of each.... "Language," in its inner meaning,
signifies opinion, thus principles and persuasions. This is because
there is a correspondence of the language with the intellectual part
of man, or with his thought, like that of an effect with its cause.[15]

In 1771 he spelled t his out more explicit ly:

There is a common genius prevailing among those who are subject

to one king, and who consequently are under one constitutional law.
Germany is divided into more governments than the neighboring
kingdoms.... However, a common genius prevails everywhere among
people speaking the same language.[16]
Wilhelm von Humboldt

Johann Georg Hamann is oft en suggest ed t o be t he first among t he act ual German Romant ics t o
speak of t he concept of "t he genius of a language."[17][18] In his "Essay Concerning an Academic
Quest ion", Hamann suggest s t hat a people's language affect s t heir worldview:

The lineaments of their language will thus correspond to the

direction of their mentality.[19]

In 1820, Wilhelm von Humboldt connect ed t he st udy of language t o t he nat ional romant icist
program by proposing t he view t hat language is t he fabric of t hought . Thought s are produced as
a kind of int ernal dialog using t he same grammar as t he t hinker's nat ive language.[20] This view
was part of a larger pict ure in which t he world view of an et hnic nat ion, t heir "Welt anschauung",
was seen as being fait hfully reflect ed in t he grammar of t heir language. Von Humboldt argued
t hat languages wit h an inflect ional morphological t ype, such as German, English and t he ot her
Indo-European languages, were t he most perfect languages and t hat accordingly t his explained
t he dominance of t heir speakers over t he speakers of less perfect languages. Wilhelm von
Humboldt declared in 1820:
 The diversity of languages is not a diversity of signs and sounds but
a diversity of views of the world.[20]

In Humboldt 's humanist ic underst anding of linguist ics, each language creat es t he individual's
worldview in it s part icular way t hrough it s lexical and grammat ical cat egories, concept ual
organizat ion, and synt act ic models.[21]

Herder worked alongside Hamann t o est ablish t he idea of whet her or not language had a
human/rat ional or a divine origin.[22] Herder added t he emot ional component of t he hypot hesis
and Humboldt t hen t ook t his informat ion and applied t o various languages t o expand on t he
hypot hesis.

Boas and Sapir

Franz Boas
Edward Sapir

The idea t hat some languages are superior t o ot hers and t hat lesser languages maint ained t heir
speakers in int ellect ual povert y was widespread in t he early 20t h cent ury.[23] American linguist
William Dwight Whit ney, for example, act ively st rove t o eradicat e Nat ive American languages,
arguing t hat t heir speakers were savages and would be bet t er off learning English and adopt ing a
"civilized" way of life.[24] The first ant hropologist and linguist t o challenge t his view was Franz
Boas.[25] While undert aking geographical research in nort hern Canada he became fascinat ed wit h
t he Inuit people and decided t o become an et hnographer. Boas st ressed t he equal wort h of all
cult ures and languages, t hat t here was no such t hing as a primit ive language and t hat all
languages were capable of expressing t he same cont ent , albeit by widely differing means.[26]
Boas saw language as an inseparable part of cult ure and he was among t he first t o require of
et hnographers t o learn t he nat ive language of t he cult ure under st udy and t o document verbal
cult ure such as myt hs and legends in t he original language.[27][28]

Boas:

It does not seem likely [...] that there is any direct relation between
the culture of a tribe and the language they speak, except in so far
 as the form of the language will be moulded by the state of the
culture, but not in so far as a certain state of the culture is
conditioned by the morphological traits of the language."[29]

Boas' st udent Edward Sapir reached back t o t he Humboldt ian idea t hat languages cont ained t he
key t o underst anding t he world views of peoples.[30] He espoused t he viewpoint t hat because of
t he differences in t he grammat ical syst ems of languages no t wo languages were similar enough
t o allow for perfect cross-t ranslat ion. Sapir also t hought because language represent ed realit y
different ly, it followed t hat t he speakers of different languages would perceive realit y
different ly.

Sapir:

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.[31]

On t he ot her hand, Sapir explicit ly reject ed st rong linguist ic det erminism by st at ing, "It would be
naïve t o imagine t hat any analysis of experience is dependent on pat t ern expressed in
language."[32]

Sapir was explicit t hat t he connect ions bet ween language and cult ure were neit her
t horoughgoing nor part icularly deep, if t hey exist ed at all:

It is easy to show that language and culture are not intrinsically

associated. Totally unrelated languages share in one culture; closely
related languages—even a single language—belong to distinct
culture spheres. There are many excellent examples in Aboriginal
America. The Athabaskan languages form as clearly unified, as
structurally specialized, a group as any that I know of. The speakers
of these languages belong to four distinct culture areas... The
cultural adaptability of the Athabaskan-speaking peoples is in the
strangest contrast to the inaccessibility to foreign influences of the
languages themselves.[33]
Sapir offered similar observat ions about speakers of so-called "world" or "modern" languages,
not ing, "possession of a common language is st ill and will cont inue t o be a smoot her of t he way
t o a mut ual underst anding bet ween England and America, but it is very clear t hat ot her fact ors,
some of t hem rapidly cumulat ive, are working powerfully t o count eract t his leveling influence. A
common language cannot indefinit ely set t he seal on a common cult ure when t he geographical,
physical, and economics det erminant s of t he cult ure are no longer t he same t hroughout t he
area."[34]

While Sapir never made a point of st udying direct ly how languages affect ed t hought , some
not ion of (probably "weak") linguist ic relat ivit y underlay his basic underst anding of language, and
would be t aken up by Whorf.[35]

Independent developments in Europe

Drawing on influences such as Humboldt and Friedrich Niet zsche, some European t hinkers
developed ideas similar t o t hose of Sapir and Whorf, generally working in isolat ion from each
ot her. Prominent in Germany from t he lat e 1920s t hrough int o t he 1960s were t he st rongly
relat ivist t heories of Leo Weisgerber and his key concept of a 'linguist ic int er-world', mediat ing
bet ween ext ernal realit y and t he forms of a given language, in ways peculiar t o t hat language.[36]
Russian psychologist Lev Vygot sky read Sapir's work and experiment ally st udied t he ways in
which t he development of concept s in children was influenced by st ruct ures given in language.
His 1934 work "Thought and Language"[37] has been compared t o Whorf's and t aken as mut ually
support ive evidence of language's influence on cognit ion.[38] Drawing on Niet zsche's ideas of
perspect ivism Alfred Korzybski developed t he t heory of general semant ics t hat has been
compared t o Whorf's not ions of linguist ic relat ivit y.[39] Though influent ial in t heir own right , t his
work has not been influent ial in t he debat e on linguist ic relat ivit y, which has t ended t o cent er on
t he American paradigm exemplified by Sapir and Whorf.

Benjamin Lee Whorf

More t han any linguist , Benjamin Lee Whorf has become associat ed wit h what he called t he
"linguist ic relat ivit y principle".[40] St udying Nat ive American languages, he at t empt ed t o account
for t he ways in which grammat ical syst ems and language-use differences affect ed percept ion.
Whorf's opinions regarding t he nat ure of t he relat ion bet ween language and t hought remain under
cont ent ion. However, a version of t heory holds some "merit ," for example, "different words mean
different t hings in different languages; not every word in every language has a one-t o-one exact
t ranslat ion in a different language"[41]Crit ics such as Lenneberg,[42]. Black, and Pinker[43] at t ribut e
t o Whorf a st rong linguist ic det erminism, while Lucy, Silverst ein and Levinson point t o Whorf's
explicit reject ions of det erminism, and where he cont ends t hat t ranslat ion and commensurat ion
are possible.

Det ract ors such as Lenneberg,[42] Chomsky and Pinker[44] crit icized him for insufficient clarit y in
his descript ion of how language influences t hought , and for not proving his conject ures. Most of
his argument s were in t he form of anecdot es and speculat ions t hat served as at t empt s t o show
how "exot ic" grammat ical t rait s were connect ed t o what were apparent ly equally exot ic worlds
of t hought . In Whorf's words:

We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native language. The
categories and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena
we do not find there because they stare every observer in the face;
on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscope flux of
impressions which has to be organized by our minds—and this
means largely by the linguistic systems of our minds. 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 [...] all observers are
not led by the same physical evidence to the same picture of the
universe, unless their linguistic backgrounds are similar, or can in
some way be calibrated.[45]
Whorf's illustration of the difference between the English and Shawnee gestalt construction of cleaning a gun with a
ramrod. From the article "Science and Linguistics", originally published in the MIT Technology Review, 1940.

Among Whorf's best -known examples of linguist ic relat ivit y are inst ances where an indigenous
language has several t erms for a concept t hat is only described wit h one word in European
languages (Whorf used t he acronym SAE "St andard Average European" t o allude t o t he rat her
similar grammat ical st ruct ures of t he well-st udied European languages in cont rast t o t he great er
diversit y of less-st udied languages).

One of Whorf's examples was t he supposedly large number of words for 'snow' in t he Inuit
language, an example which lat er was cont est ed as a misrepresent at ion.[46]

Anot her is t he Hopi language's words for wat er, one indicat ing drinking wat er in a cont ainer and
anot her indicat ing a nat ural body of wat er.[47] These examples of polysemy served t he double
purpose of showing t hat indigenous languages somet imes made more fine grained semant ic
dist inct ions t han European languages and t hat direct t ranslat ion bet ween t wo languages, even of
seemingly basic concept s such as snow or wat er, is not always possible.[48]

Anot her example is from Whorf's experience as a chemical engineer working for an insurance
company as a fire inspect or.[46] While inspect ing a chemical plant he observed t hat t he plant had
t wo st orage rooms for gasoline barrels, one for t he full barrels and one for t he empt y ones. He
furt her not iced t hat while no employees smoked cigaret t es in t he room for full barrels, no-one
minded smoking in t he room wit h empt y barrels, alt hough t his was pot ent ially much more
dangerous because of t he highly flammable vapors st ill in t he barrels. He concluded t hat t he use
of t he word empty in connect ion t o t he barrels had led t he workers t o unconsciously regard t hem
as harmless, alt hough consciously t hey were probably aware of t he risk of explosion. This
example was lat er crit icized by Lenneberg[42] as not act ually demonst rat ing causalit y bet ween
t he use of t he word empty and t he act ion of smoking, but inst ead was an example of circular
reasoning. Pinker in The Language Instinct ridiculed t his example, claiming t hat t his was a failing
of human insight rat her t han language.[44]

Whorf's most elaborat e argument for linguist ic relat ivit y regarded what he believed t o be a
fundament al difference in t he underst anding of t ime as a concept ual cat egory among t he
Hopi.[49] He argued t hat in cont rast t o English and ot her SAE languages, Hopi does not t reat t he
flow of t ime as a sequence of dist inct , count able inst ances, like "t hree days" or "five years," but
rat her as a single process and t hat consequent ly it has no nouns referring t o unit s of t ime as SAE
speakers underst and t hem. He proposed t hat t his view of t ime was fundament al t o Hopi cult ure
and explained cert ain Hopi behavioral pat t erns. Malot ki lat er claimed t hat he had found no
evidence of Whorf's claims in 1980's era speakers, nor in hist orical document s dat ing back t o t he
arrival of Europeans. Malot ki used evidence from archaeological dat a, calendars, hist orical
document s, modern speech and concluded t hat t here was no evidence t hat Hopi concept ualize
t ime in t he way Whorf suggest ed. Universalist scholars such as Pinker oft en see Malot ki's st udy
as a final refut at ion of Whorf's claim about Hopi, whereas relat ivist scholars such as Lucy and
Penny Lee crit icized Malot ki's st udy for mischaract erizing Whorf's claims and for forcing Hopi
grammar int o a model of analysis t hat doesn't fit t he dat a.[50]

Whorf’s argument about Hopi speakers’ concept ualizat ion about t ime is an example of t he
st ruct ure-cent ered approach t o research int o linguist ic relat ivit y, which Lucy ident ified as one of
t hree main st rands of research in t he field.[51] The "st ruct ure-cent ered" approach st art s wit h a
language's st ruct ural peculiarit y and examines it s possible ramificat ions for t hought and behavior.
The defining example is Whorf's observat ion of discrepancies bet ween t he grammar of t ime
expressions in Hopi and English. More recent research in t his vein is Lucy's research describing
how usage of t he cat egories of grammat ical number and of numeral classifiers in t he Mayan
language Yucat ec result in Mayan speakers classifying object s according t o mat erial rat her t han
t o shape as preferred by English speakers.[52]

Whorf died in 1941 at age 44, leaving mult iple unpublished papers. His line of t hought was
cont inued by linguist s and ant hropologist s such as Hoijer and Lee, who bot h cont inued
invest igat ions int o t he effect of language on habit ual t hought , and Trager, who prepared a
number of Whorf's papers for post humous publishing. The most import ant event for t he
disseminat ion of Whorf's ideas t o a larger public was t he publicat ion in 1956 of his major writ ings
on t he t opic of linguist ic relat ivit y in a single volume t it led Language, Thought and Reality.

Brown and Lenneberg

In 1953, Eric Lenneberg crit icized Whorf's examples from an object ivist view of language holding
t hat languages are principally meant t o represent event s in t he real world and t hat even t hough
languages express t hese ideas in various ways, t he meanings of such expressions and t herefore
t he t hought s of t he speaker are equivalent . He argued t hat Whorf's English descript ions of a
Hopi speaker's view of t ime were in fact t ranslat ions of t he Hopi concept int o English, t herefore
disproving linguist ic relat ivit y. However Whorf was concerned wit h how t he habit ual use of
language influences habit ual behavior, rat her t han t ranslat abilit y. Whorf's point was t hat while
English speakers may be able t o understand how a Hopi speaker t hinks, t hey do not think in t hat
way.[53]

Lenneberg's main crit icism of Whorf's works was t hat he never showed t he connect ion bet ween
a linguist ic phenomenon and a ment al phenomenon. Wit h Brown, Lenneberg proposed t hat
proving such a connect ion required direct ly mat ching linguist ic phenomena wit h behavior. They
assessed linguist ic relat ivit y experiment ally and published t heir findings in 1954.

Since neit her Sapir nor Whorf had ever st at ed a formal hypot hesis, Brown and Lenneberg
formulat ed t heir own. Their t wo t enet s were (i) "t he world is different ly experienced and
conceived in different linguist ic communit ies" and (ii) "language causes a part icular cognit ive
st ruct ure".[54] Brown lat er developed t hem int o t he so-called "weak" and "st rong" formulat ion:

Structural differences between language systems will, in general, be

paralleled by nonlinguistic cognitive differences, of an unspecified
sort, in the native speakers of the language.

The structure of anyone's native language strongly influences or

fully determines the worldview he will acquire as he learns the
language.[55]

Brown's formulat ions became widely known and were ret rospect ively at t ribut ed t o Whorf and
Sapir alt hough t he second formulat ion, verging on linguist ic det erminism, was never advanced by
eit her of t hem.

Joshua Fishman's "Whorfianism of the third kind"

Joshua Fishman argued t hat Whorf's t rue posit ion was largely overlooked. In 1978, he suggest ed
t hat Whorf was a "neo-Herderian champion"[56] and in 1982, he proposed "Whorfianism of t he t hird
kind" in an at t empt t o refocus linguist s' at t ent ion on what he claimed was Whorf's real int erest ,
namely t he int rinsic value of "lit t le peoples" and "lit t le languages".[57] Whorf had crit icized
Ogden's Basic English t hus:

But to restrict thinking to the patterns merely of English […] is to

lose a power of thought which, once lost, can never be regained. It is
the 'plainest' English which contains the greatest number of
 unconscious assumptions about nature. […] We handle even our
plain English with much greater effect if we direct it from the
vantage point of a multilingual awareness.[58]

Where Brown's weak version of t he linguist ic relat ivit y hypot hesis proposes t hat language
influences t hought and t he st rong version t hat language determines t hought , Fishman's
"Whorfianism of t he t hird kind" proposes t hat language is a key to culture.

Rethinking Linguistic Relativity

The publicat ion of t he 1996 ant hology Rethinking Linguistic Relativity edit ed by Gumperz and
Levinson began a new period of linguist ic relat ivit y st udies t hat focused on cognit ive and social
aspect s. The book included st udies on t he linguist ic relat ivit y and universalist t radit ions. Levinson
document ed significant linguist ic relat ivit y effect s in t he linguist ic concept ualizat ion of spat ial
cat egories bet ween languages. For example, men speaking t he Guugu Yimit hirr language in
Queensland gave accurat e navigat ion inst ruct ions using a compass-like syst em of nort h, sout h,
east and west , along wit h a hand gest ure point ing t o t he st art ing direct ion.[59]

Lucy defines t his approach as “domain-cent ered” because researchers select a semant ic domain
and compare it across linguist ic and cult ural groups.[51] Space is anot her semant ic domain t hat
has proven fruit ful for linguist ic relat ivit y st udies.[60] Spat ial cat egories vary great ly across
languages. Speakers rely on t he linguist ic concept ualizat ion of space in performing many ordinary
t asks. Levinson and ot hers report ed t hree basic spat ial cat egorizat ions. While many languages
use combinat ions of t hem, some languages exhibit only one t ype and relat ed behaviors. For
example, Yimit hirr only uses absolut e direct ions when describing spat ial relat ions— t he posit ion
of everyt hing is described by using t he cardinal direct ions. Speakers define a locat ion as "nort h of
t he house", while an English speaker may use relat ive posit ions, saying "in front of t he house" or
"t o t he left of t he house".[61]

Separat e st udies by Bowerman and Slobin t reat ed t he role of language in cognit ive processes.
Bowerman showed t hat cert ain cognit ive processes did not use language t o any significant
ext ent and t herefore could not be subject t o linguist ic relat ivit y.[62] Slobin described anot her kind
of cognit ive process t hat he named "t hinking for speaking" – t he kind of process in which
percept ional dat a and ot her kinds of prelinguist ic cognit ion are t ranslat ed int o linguist ic t erms
for communicat ion. These, Slobin argues, are t he kinds of cognit ive process t hat are at t he root
of linguist ic relat ivit y.[63]
 Color terminology

Since Brown and Lenneberg believed t hat t he object ive realit y denot ed by language was t he
same for speakers of all languages, t hey decided t o t est how different languages codified t he
same message different ly and whet her differences in codificat ion could be proven t o affect
behavior. Brown and Lenneberg designed experiment s involving t he codificat ion of colors. In t heir
first experiment , t hey invest igat ed whet her it was easier for speakers of English t o remember
color shades for which t hey had a specific name t han t o remember colors t hat were not as easily
definable by words. This allowed t hem t o compare t he linguist ic cat egorizat ion direct ly t o a non-
linguist ic t ask. In a lat er experiment , speakers of t wo languages t hat cat egorize colors
different ly (English and Zuni) were asked t o recognize colors. In t his way, it could be det ermined
whet her t he differing color cat egories of t he t wo speakers would det ermine t heir abilit y t o
recognize nuances wit hin color cat egories. Brown and Lenneberg found t hat Zuñi speakers who
classify green and blue t oget her as a single color did have t rouble recognizing and remembering
nuances wit hin t he green/blue cat egory.[64] This approach, which Lucy would lat er classify as
domain-cent ered,[51] is acknowledged t o be sub-opt imal, because color percept ion, unlike ot her
semant ic domains, is hardwired int o t he neural syst em and as such is subject t o more universal
rest rict ions t han ot her semant ic domains.

Brown and Lenneberg's st udy began a t radit ion of invest igat ion of linguist ic relat ivit y t hrough
color t erminology. The st udies showed a correlat ion bet ween color t erm numbers and ease of
recall in bot h Zuni and English speakers. Researchers at t ribut ed t his t o focal colors having higher
codabilit y t han less focal colors, and not wit h linguist ic relat ivit y effect s. Berlin/Kay found
universal t ypological color principles t hat are det ermined by biological rat her t han linguist ic
fact ors.[65] This st udy sparked st udies int o t ypological universals of color t erminology.
Researchers such as Lucy,[51] Saunders[66] and Levinson[67] argued t hat Berlin and Kay's st udy
does not refut e linguist ic relat ivit y in color naming, because of unsupport ed assumpt ions in t heir
st udy (such as whet her all cult ures in fact have a clearly defined cat egory of "color") and
because of relat ed dat a problems. Researchers such as Maclaury cont inued invest igat ion int o
color naming. Like Berlin and Kay, Maclaury concluded t hat t he domain is governed most ly by
physical-biological universals.[68][69]

St udies by Berlin and Kay cont inued Lenneberg's color research. They st udied color t erminology
format ion and showed clear universal t rends in color naming. For example, t hey found t hat even
t hough languages have different color t erminologies, t hey generally recognize cert ain hues as
more focal t han ot hers. They showed t hat in languages wit h few color t erms, it is predict able
from t he number of t erms which hues are chosen as focal colors, for example, languages wit h
only t hree color t erms always have t he focal colors black, whit e and red.[65] The fact t hat what
had been believed t o be random differences bet ween color naming in different languages could
be shown t o follow universal pat t erns was seen as a powerful argument against linguist ic
relat ivit y.[70] Berlin and Kay's research has since been crit icized by relat ivist s such as Lucy, who
argued t hat Berlin and Kay's conclusions were skewed by t heir insist ence t hat color t erms
encode only color informat ion.[71] This, Lucy argues, made t hem blind t o t he inst ances in which
color t erms provided ot her informat ion t hat might be considered examples of linguist ic relat ivit y.

Universalism

Universalist scholars ushered in a period of dissent from ideas about linguist ic relat ivit y.
Lenneberg was one of t he first cognit ive scient ist s t o begin development of t he Universalist
t heory of language t hat was formulat ed by Chomsky as Universal Grammar, effect ively arguing
t hat all languages share t he same underlying st ruct ure. The Chomskyan school also holds t he
belief t hat linguist ic st ruct ures are largely innat e and t hat what are perceived as differences
bet ween specific languages are surface phenomena t hat do not affect t he brain's universal
cognit ive processes. This t heory became t he dominant paradigm in American linguist ics from t he
1960s t hrough t he 1980s, while linguist ic relat ivit y became t he object of ridicule.[72]

Ot her universalist researchers dedicat ed t hemselves t o dispelling ot her aspect s of linguist ic

relat ivit y, oft en at t acking Whorf's specific point s and examples. For example, Malot ki's
monument al st udy of t ime expressions in Hopi present ed many examples t hat challenged
Whorf's "t imeless" int erpret at ion of Hopi language and cult ure,[73] but seemingly failed t o
address linguist ic relat ivist argument act ually posed by Whorf (i.e. t hat t he underst anding of t ime
by nat ive Hopi speakers differed from t hat of speakers of European languages due t o t he
differences in t he organizat ion and const ruct ion of t heir respect ive languages; Whorf never
claimed t hat Hopi speakers lacked any concept of t ime).[74] Malot ki himself acknowledges t hat
t he concept ualizat ions are different , but because he ignores Whorf's use of scare quot es around
t he word "t ime" and t he qualifier "what we call," t akes Whorf t o be arguing t hat t he Hopi have no
concept of t ime at all.[75][76][77]

Today many followers of t he universalist school of t hought st ill oppose linguist ic relat ivit y. For
example, Pinker argues in The Language Instinct t hat t hought is independent of language, t hat
language is it self meaningless in any fundament al way t o human t hought , and t hat human beings
do not even t hink in "nat ural" language, i.e. any language t hat we act ually communicat e in; rat her,
we t hink in a met a-language, preceding any nat ural language, called "ment alese." Pinker at t acks
what he calls "Whorf's radical posit ion," declaring, "t he more you examine Whorf's argument s, t he
less sense t hey make."[44]

Pinker and ot her universalist s have been accused by relat ivist s of misrepresent ing Whorf's views
and arguing against st rawmen.[78][71][53]

Cognitive linguistics

In t he lat e 1980s and early 1990s, advances in cognit ive psychology and cognit ive linguist ics
renewed int erest in t he Sapir–Whorf hypot hesis.[79] One of t hose who adopt ed a more Whorfian
approach was George Lakoff. He argued t hat language is oft en used met aphorically and t hat
languages use different cult ural met aphors t hat reveal somet hing about how speakers of t hat
language t hink. For example, English employs concept ual met aphors likening t ime wit h money, so
t hat t ime can be saved and spent and invest ed, whereas ot her languages do not t alk about t ime
in t hat way. Ot her such met aphors are common t o many languages because t hey are based on
general human experience, for example, met aphors associat ing up wit h good and bad wit h down.
Lakoff also argued t hat met aphor plays an import ant part in polit ical debat es such as t he "right
t o life" or t he "right t o choose"; or "illegal aliens" or "undocument ed workers".[80]

Parameters

In his book Women, Fire and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind,[53]
Lakoff reappraised linguist ic relat ivit y and especially Whorf's views about how linguist ic
cat egorizat ion reflect s and/or influences ment al cat egories. He concluded t hat t he debat e had
been confused. He described four paramet ers on which researchers differed in t heir opinions
about what const it ut es linguist ic relat ivit y:

The degree and dept h of linguist ic relat ivit y. Perhaps a few examples of superficial
differences in language and associat ed behavior are enough t o demonst rat e t he exist ence of
linguist ic relat ivit y. Alt ernat ively, perhaps only deep differences t hat permeat e t he linguist ic
and cult ural syst em suffice.

Whet her concept ual syst ems are absolut e or whet her t hey can evolve

Whet her t he similarit y crit erion is t ranslat abilit y or t he use of linguist ic expressions

Whet her t he focus of linguist ic relat ivit y is in language or in t he brain

Lakoff concluded t hat many of Whorf's crit ics had crit icized him using novel definit ions of
linguist ic relat ivit y, rendering t heir crit icisms moot .

Refinements

Researchers such as Borodit sky, Choi, Majid, Lucy and Levinson believe t hat language influences
t hought in more limit ed ways t han t he broadest early claims. Researchers examine t he int erface
bet ween t hought (or cognit ion), language and cult ure and describe t he relevant influences. They
use experiment al dat a t o back up t heir conclusions.[81][82] Kay ult imat ely concluded t hat "[t he]
Whorf hypot hesis is support ed in t he right visual field but not t he left ".[83] His findings show t hat
account ing for brain lat eralizat ion offers anot her perspect ive.

Behavior-centered research

Recent st udies have also t aken t he "behavior cent ered" approach, which st art s by comparing
behavior across linguist ic groups and t hen searches for causes for t hat behavior in t he linguist ic
syst em.[51] In an early example of t his approach, Whorf at t ribut ed t he occurrence of fires at a
chemical plant t o t he workers' use of t he word 'empt y' t o describe t he barrels cont aining only
explosive vapors.

More recent ly, Bloom not iced t hat speakers of Chinese had unexpect ed difficult ies answering
count er-fact ual quest ions posed t o t hem in a quest ionnaire. He concluded t hat t his was relat ed
t o t he way in which count er-fact ualit y is marked grammat ically in Chinese. Ot her researchers
at t ribut ed t his result t o Bloom's flawed t ranslat ions.[84] St rømnes examined why Finnish fact ories
had a higher occurrence of work relat ed accident s t han similar Swedish ones. He concluded t hat
cognit ive differences bet ween t he grammat ical usage of Swedish preposit ions and Finnish cases
could have caused Swedish fact ories t o pay more at t ent ion t o t he work process while Finnish
fact ory organizers paid more at t ent ion t o t he individual worker.[85]

Everet t 's work on t he Pirahã language of t he Brazilian Amazon[86] found several peculiarit ies t hat
he int erpret ed as corresponding t o linguist ically rare feat ures, such as a lack of numbers and
color t erms in t he way t hose are ot herwise defined and t he absence of cert ain t ypes of clauses.
Everet t 's conclusions were met wit h skept icism from universalist s[87] who claimed t hat t he
linguist ic deficit is explained by t he lack of need for such concept s.[88]

Recent research wit h non-linguist ic experiment s in languages wit h different grammat ical
propert ies (e.g., languages wit h and wit hout numeral classifiers or wit h different gender grammar
syst ems) showed t hat language differences in human cat egorizat ion are due t o such
differences.[89] Experiment al research suggest s t hat t his linguist ic influence on t hought
diminishes over t ime, as when speakers of one language are exposed t o anot her.[90]

A st udy published by t he American Psychological Associat ion's Journal of Experiment al

Psychology claimed t hat language can influence how one est imat es t ime. The st udy focused on
t hree groups, t hose who spoke only Swedish, t hose who spoke only Spanish and bilingual
speakers who spoke bot h of t hose languages. Swedish speakers describe t ime using dist ance
t erms like "long" or "short " while Spanish speakers do it using quant it y relat ed t erms like "a lot " or
"lit t le". The researchers asked t he part icipant s t o est imat e how much t ime had passed while
wat ching a line growing across a screen, or a cont ainer being filled, or bot h. The researchers
st at ed t hat "When reproducing durat ion, Swedish speakers were misled by st imulus lengt h, and
Spanish speakers were misled by st imulus size/quant it y." When t he bilinguals were prompt ed wit h
t he word "duración" (t he Spanish word for durat ion) t hey based t heir t ime est imat es of how full
t he cont ainers were, ignoring t he growing lines. When prompt ed wit h t he word "t id" (t he Swedish
word for durat ion) t hey est imat ed t he t ime elapsed solely by t he dist ance t he lines had
t raveled.[91][92]

Kashima & Kashima showed t hat people living in count ries where spoken languages oft en drop
pronouns (such as Japanese) t end t o have more collect ivist ic values t han t hose who use non–
pronoun drop languages such as English. They argued t hat t he explicit reference t o “you” and “I”
reminds speakers t he dist inct ion bet ween t he self and ot her.[93]

Psycholinguistic research

Psycholinguist ic st udies explored mot ion percept ion, emot ion percept ion, object represent at ion
and memory.[94][95][96][97] The gold st andard of psycholinguist ic st udies on linguist ic relat ivit y is
now finding non-linguist ic cognit ive differences in speakers of different languages (t hus
rendering inapplicable Pinker's crit icism t hat linguist ic relat ivit y is "circular").

Recent work wit h bilingual speakers at t empt s t o dist inguish t he effect s of language from t hose
of cult ure on bilingual cognit ion including percept ions of t ime, space, mot ion, colors and
emot ion.[98] Researchers described differences bet ween bilinguals and monolinguals in
percept ion of color,[99] represent at ions of t ime [100] and ot her element s of cognit ion.

One experiment found t hat speakers of languages wit hout numbers great er t han t wo had
difficult y count ing t he number of t aps, for example, making more errors dist inguishing bet ween
six and seven t aps.[101] Presumably t his is because t hey could not t rack t he t aps using numbers
repeat ed in t he phonological loop.

Other domains

Linguist ic relat ivit y inspired ot hers t o consider whet her t hought and emot ion could be influenced
by manipulat ing language.

Science and philosophy

The quest ion bears on philosophical, psychological, linguist ic and ant hropological quest ions.

A major quest ion is whet her human psychological facult ies are most ly innat e or whet her t hey are
most ly a result of learning, and hence subject t o cult ural and social processes such as language.
The innat e view holds t hat humans share t he same set of basic facult ies, and t hat variabilit y due
t o cult ural differences is less import ant and t hat t he human mind is a most ly biological
const ruct ion, so t hat all humans sharing t he same neurological configurat ion can be expect ed t o
have similar cognit ive pat t erns.

Mult iple alt ernat ives have advocat es. The cont rary const ruct ivist posit ion holds t hat human
facult ies and concept s are largely influenced by socially const ruct ed and learned cat egories,
wit hout many biological rest rict ions. Anot her variant is idealist , which holds t hat human ment al
capacit ies are generally unrest rict ed by biological-mat erial st rict ures. Anot her is essent ialist ,
which holds t hat essent ial differences may influence t he ways individuals or groups experience
and concept ualize t he world. Yet anot her is relat ivist (Cult ural relat ivism), which sees different
cult ural groups as employing different concept ual schemes t hat are not necessarily compat ible
or commensurable, nor more or less in accord wit h ext ernal realit y.[102]

Anot her debat e considers whet her t hought is a form of int ernal speech or is independent of and
prior t o language.[103]

In t he philosophy of language t he quest ion addresses t he relat ions bet ween language,
knowledge and t he ext ernal world, and t he concept of t rut h. Philosophers such as Put nam,
Fodor, Davidson, and Dennet t see language as represent ing direct ly ent it ies from t he object ive
world and t hat cat egorizat ion reflect t hat world. Ot her philosophers (e.g. Quine, Searle, and
Foucault ) argue t hat cat egorizat ion and concept ualizat ion is subject ive and arbit rary.
Anot her quest ion is whet her language is a t ool for represent ing and referring t o object s in t he
world, or whet her it is a syst em used t o const ruct ment al represent at ions t hat can be
communicat ed.

Therapy and self-development

Sapir/Whorf cont emporary Alfred Korzybski was independent ly developing his t heory of general
semant ics, which was aimed at using language's influence on t hinking t o maximize human
cognit ive abilit ies. Korzybski's t hinking was influenced by logical philosophy such as Russell and
Whit ehead's Principia Mathematica and Wit t genst ein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.[104]
Alt hough Korzybski was not aware of Sapir and Whorf's writ ings, t he movement was followed by
Whorf-admirer St uart Chase, who fused Whorf's int erest in cult ural-linguist ic variat ion wit h
Korzybski's programme in his popular work "The Tyranny of Words". S. I. Hayakawa was a follower
and popularizer of Korzybski's work, writ ing Language in Thought and Action. The general
semant ics movement influenced t he development of neuro-linguist ic programming (NLP),
anot her t herapeut ic t echnique t hat seeks t o use awareness of language use t o influence
cognit ive pat t erns.[105]

Korzybski independent ly described a "st rong" version of t he hypot hesis of linguist ic relat ivit y.[106]

We do not realize what tremendous power the structure of an

habitual language has. It is not an exaggeration to say that it
enslaves us through the mechanism of s[emantic] r[eactions] and
that the structure which a language exhibits, and impresses upon us
unconsciously, is automatically projected upon the world around us.

— Korzybski (1930)[107]

Artificial languages

In t heir fict ion, aut hors such as Ayn Rand and George Orwell explored how linguist ic relat ivit y
might be exploit ed for polit ical purposes. In Rand's Anthem, a fict ive communist societ y removed
t he possibilit y of individualism by removing t he word "I" from t he language. [108] In Orwell's 1984
t he aut horit arian st at e creat ed t he language Newspeak t o make it impossible for people t o t hink
crit ically about t he government , or even t o cont emplat e t hat t hey might be impoverished or
oppressed, by reducing t he number of words t o reduce t he t hought of t he locut or.[109]
Ot hers have been fascinat ed by t he possibilit ies of creat ing new languages t hat could enable
new, and perhaps bet t er, ways of t hinking. Examples of such languages designed t o explore t he
human mind include Loglan, explicit ly designed by James Cooke Brown t o t est t he linguist ic
relat ivit y hypot hesis, by experiment ing whet her it would make it s speakers t hink more logically.
Speakers of Lojban, an evolut ion of Loglan, report t hat t hey feel speaking t he language
enhances t heir abilit y for logical t hinking. Suzet t e Haden Elgin, who was involved in t he early
development of neuro-linguist ic programming, invent ed t he language Láadan t o explore linguist ic
relat ivit y by making it easier t o express what Elgin considered t he female worldview, as opposed
t o St andard Average European languages which she considered t o convey a "male cent ered"
world view.[110] John Quijada's language It hkuil was designed t o explore t he limit s of t he number
of cognit ive cat egories a language can keep it s speakers aware of at once.[111] Similarly, Sonja
Lang's Toki Pona was developed according t o a Taoist point of view for exploring how (or if)
such a language would direct human t hought .[112]

Programming languages

APL programming language originat or Kennet h E. Iverson believed t hat t he Sapir–Whorf

hypot hesis applied t o comput er languages (wit hout act ually ment ioning it by name). His Turing
Award lect ure, "Not at ion as a Tool of Thought ", was devot ed t o t his t heme, arguing t hat more
powerful not at ions aided t hinking about comput er algorit hms.[113]

The essays of Paul Graham explore similar t hemes, such as a concept ual hierarchy of comput er
languages, wit h more expressive and succinct languages at t he t op. Thus, t he so-called blub
paradox (aft er a hypot het ical programming language of average complexit y called Blub) says
t hat anyone preferent ially using some part icular programming language will know t hat it is more
powerful t han some, but not t hat it is less powerful t han ot hers. The reason is t hat writing in
some language means thinking in t hat language. Hence t he paradox, because t ypically
programmers are "sat isfied wit h what ever language t hey happen t o use, because it dict at es t he
way t hey t hink about programs".[114]

In a 2003 present at ion at an open source convent ion, Yukihiro Mat sumot o, creat or of t he
programming language Ruby, said t hat one of his inspirat ions for developing t he language was t he
science fict ion novel Babel-17, based on t he Sapir–Whorf Hypot hesis.[115]

In popular culture
Ted Chiang's short st ory "St ory of Your Life" developed t he concept of t he Sapir–Whorf
hypot hesis as applied t o an alien species which visit s Eart h. The aliens' biology cont ribut es t o
t heir spoken and writ t en languages, which are dist inct . In t he 2016 American film Arrival, based on
Chiang's short st ory, t he Sapir–Whorf hypot hesis is t he premise. The prot agonist explains t hat
"t he Sapir–Whorf hypot hesis is t he t heory t hat t he language you speak det ermines how you
t hink".[116]

In his science fict ion novel The Languages of Pao t he aut hor Jack Vance describes how
specialized languages are a major part of a st rat egy t o creat e specific classes in a societ y, t o
enable t he populat ion t o wit hst and occupat ion and develop it self.

In t he Samuel R. Delany science fict ion novel, "Babel-17," t he aut hor describes a highly advanced,
informat ion-dense language t hat can be used as a weapon. Learning it t urns one int o an unwilling
t rait or as it alt ers percept ion and t hought . [117]

The Tot alit arian regime depict ed in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four in effect act s on t he
basis of t he Sapir–Whorf hypot hesis, seeking t o replace English wit h Newspeak, a language
const ruct ed specifically wit h t he int ent ion t hat t hought s subversive of t he regime cannot be
expressed in it , and t herefore people educat ed t o speak and t hink in it would not have such
t hought s.

Social Media

Linguist ic relat ivit y plays a role in social media across different cult ures. Social media is a
widespread plat form across t he ent ire world allowing different cult ures t o connect . However,
because social media is not always face t o face, who lose t hat int eract ion and underst anding of
what people from different cult ures might be t rying t o say.

Sociolinguist ics is t he st udy of how language is shaped wit hin a cult ural cont ext , or how people
from different cult ures use language. [118]Sociolinguist ics also plays a role in variables wit hin
language, like t he way words are pronounced, word select ion in cert ain dialogue, cont ext , and
t one. These can all be lost in t he plat form of social media.

See also

Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution

Bicameral ment alit y – Hypot hesis in psychology

Eskimo words for snow – Linguist ic cliché

Et hnolinguist ics – Academic discipline

Hopi t ime cont roversy – Academic debat e

Hypocognit ion

Language and t hought  – The st udy of how language influences t hought

Language planning – Deliberat e effort t o influence languages or t heir variet ies wit hin a speech
communit y

Linguist ic ant hropology – Int erdisciplinary st udy of how language influences social life

Linguist ic det erminism – Idea t hat language and it s st ruct ures limit and det ermine human
knowledge or t hought

Psycholinguist ics – St udy of relat ions bet ween psychology and language

Relat ivism – Philosophical view reject ing universalism, e.g. about t rut h

Terminist ic screen – Term in t he t heory and crit icism of rhet oric

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1. Leavitt 2010, p. 3.

2. Boroditsky, Lera; Liberman, Mark (13–23 December 2010). "For and Against Linguistic Relativity" (http
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3. Ahearn, Laura M. (2012). Living language : an introduction to linguistic anthropology (https://www.worl

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5. Hill & Mannheim 1992.

6. Kennison, Shelia (2013). Introduction to language development (1 ed.). Los Angeles: Sage. ISBN 978-
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7. Koerner 1992, p. 180.

 8. "The Sapir–Whorf hypothesis", in Hoijer 1954, pp. 92–105.

9. This usage is now generally seen as a misnomer. As Jane Hill and Bruce Mannheim write: Yet, just as
the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire the "Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis" is
neither consistent with the writings of Sapir and Whorf, nor a hypothesis (Hill & Mannheim 1992,
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10. Koerner, E.F.K. "Towards a full pedigree of the Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis: from Locke to Lucy", chapter in
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11. Wolff & Holmes 2011.

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13. Gumperz & Levinson 1996, p. 2.

14. Leavitt 2010, p. 75.

15. Arcana Coelestia section 1059. http://smallcanonsearch.com/read.php?book=ac&section=1059 .

16. True Christian Religion section 813. http://smallcanonsearch.com/read.php?book=tcr&section=813 .

17. Robert L. Miller The Linguistic Relativity Principle and Humboldtian Ethnolinguistics p. 18.

18. McAfee 2004.

19. Quoted in Bernard D. Den Ouden, Language and Creativity: An Interdisciplinary Essay in Chomskyan
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20. Trabant, Jürgen. "How relativistic are Humboldts "Weltansichten"?", in Pütz & Verspoor 2000.

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23. Migge & Léglise 2007.

24. Seuren 1998, p. 180.

25. Seuren 1998, p. 181.

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30. Leavitt 2010, p. 133.

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pp. vii–xxiii, ISBN 978-0-262-51775-1

Lucy, John A. (1992a), Grammatical Categories and Cognition: A Case Study of the Linguistic Relativity
Hypothesis, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Lucy, John A. (1992b), Language Diversity and Thought: A Reformulation of the Linguistic Relativity
Hypothesis, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Lucy, John A. (1997), "Linguistic Relativity" (http://www.linguisticanthropology.org/wp-content/upload

s/2010/08/1997-Lucy-LinguisticRelativity-s.pdf) (PDF), Annual Review of Anthropology, 26: 291–
312, doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.26.1.291 (https://doi.org/10.1146%2Fannurev.anthro.26.1.291) ,
JSTOR 2952524 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/2952524)

Lucy, John A. (1996), "The Scope of Linguistic Relativity:An analysis of Empirical Research", in
Gumperz, John; Levinson, Stephen (eds.), Rethinking Linguistic Relativity, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, pp. 37–69

Lucy, J. A.; Wertsch, J. (1987), "Vygotsky and Whorf: A comparative analysis", in Hickmann, M. (ed.),
Social and functional approaches to language and thought, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press., pp. 67–86

Malotki, Ekkehart (1983), Werner Winter (ed.), "Hopi Time: A Linguistic Analysis of the Temporal
Concepts in the Hopi Language" (https://books.google.com/books?id=XSeGmS4uXykC) , Trends
in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs, 20, ISBN 9789027933492

McAfee, Christina (2004), "The Linguistic Relativity Theory and Benjamin Lee Whorf" (https://journals.
mcmaster.ca/mjc/article/view/221) , The McMaster Journal of Communication, 1 (1): 26–31

Migge, Bettina; Léglise, Isabelle (2007), "Language and colonialism" (https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.f

r/halshs-00292388/document) , in Hellinger, Marlis; Pauwels, Anne (eds.), Handbook of Language
and Communication: Diversity and Change, Handbooks of Applied Linguistics, De Gruyter Mouton,
doi:10.1515/9783110198539.2.299 (https://doi.org/10.1515%2F9783110198539.2.299) ,
hdl:10197/8009 (https://hdl.handle.net/10197%2F8009) , ISBN 9783110198539

Niemeier, Susanne (2000), René Dirven (ed.), Evidence for linguistic relativity, John Benjamins Publishing
Company, ISBN 978-90-272-3705-7

Pavlenko, Aneta (1999), "New approaches to concepts in bilingual memory" (https://semanticscholar.

org/paper/bc0f2ac244bfec6382a9273a9a4d08f21ea71eff) , Bilingualism: Language and Cognition,
 2 (3): 209–230, doi:10.1017/S1366728999000322 (https://doi.org/10.1017%2FS136672899900032
2) , S2CID 28571055 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:28571055)

Phillips, Webb; Boroditsky, Lera (2003), "Can quirks of grammar affect the way you think?
Grammatical gender and object concepts", in R. Alterman; D. Kirsh (eds.), Proceedings of the
Twenty-fifth Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Boston: Cognitive Science Society

Pinker, Steven (1994), The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language, Perennial

Pula, Robert P. (1992), "The Nietzsche–Korzybski–Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis?", ETC: A Review of General

Semantics, 49 (1): 50–57

Pullum, Geoffrey (1991), The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax and other Irreverent Essays on the Study of
Language (http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/EskimoHoax.pdf) (PDF), Chicago University Press

Pütz, Martin; Verspoor, Marjolyn, eds. (2000), Explorations in linguistic relativity, John Benjamins
Publishing Company, ISBN 978-90-272-3706-4

Sapir, Edward (1921), Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech, Harcourt, Brace

Sapir, Edward (1983), David G. Mandelbaum (ed.), Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture,
and Personality, University of California Press

Schultz, Emily Ann (1990), Dialogue at the Margins: Whorf, Bakhtin, and Linguistic Relativity, University of
Wisconsin Press

Seidner, Stanley S. (1982), Ethnicity, Language, and Power from a Psycholinguistic Perspective, Bruxelles:
Centre de recherche sur le pluralinguismePress

Seuren, Pieter A. M. (1998), Western linguistics: An historical introduction, Wiley-Blackwell, ISBN 978-0-

631-20891-4

Trager, George L. (1959), "The Systematization of the Whorf Hypothesis", Anthropological Linguistics,
1 (1): 31–35

Whorf, Benjamin (1956), Carroll, John B. (ed.), Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings of
Benjamin Lee Whorf, MIT Press
Whorf, Benjamin Lee (2012), Language, thought, and reality : selected writings of Benjamin Lee
Whorf (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/801407269) , John B. Carroll, Stephen C. Levinson,
Penny Lee (2nd ed.), Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, ISBN 978-0-262-51775-1,
OCLC 801407269 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/801407269)

Wolff, K. J.; Holmes (2011), "Linguistic relativity" (https://web.archive.org/web/20130718073620/htt

p://userwww.service.emory.edu/~kholme2/WHwires.pdf) (PDF), Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews:
Cognitive Science, pp. 253–265, archived from the original (http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~kho
lme2/WHwires.pdf) (PDF) on 18 July 2013
 Further reading

Alford, Dan Moonhawk, The Great Whorf Hypothesis Hoax (ht t p://www.hilgart .org/enformy/dma
-Chap7.ht m)

Borodit sky, Lera, "How Does Our Language Shape The Way We Think?" (ht t p://edge.org/3rd_ cu
lt ure/borodit sky09/borodit sky09_ index.ht ml) , Edge

Borodit sky, Lera; Schmidt , Lauren; Phillips, Webb, "Sex, synt ax, and semant ics" (ht t p://lera.ucsd.
edu/papers/gender.pdf) (PDF), Language in Mind: Advances in the Study of Language and
Thought, pp. 61–79

Borodit sky, Lera; Segel, Edward (2011). "Grammar in Art " (ht t ps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/art i
cles/PMC3153848) . Frontiers in Psychology. 1: 244. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2010.00244 (ht t ps://d
oi.org/10.3389%2Ffpsyg.2010.00244) . PMC 3153848 (ht t ps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/art i
cles/PMC3153848) . PMID 21833297 (ht t ps://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21833297) .

Deut scher, Guy (26 August 2010), "Does Your Language Shape How You Think?" (ht t ps://www.n
yt imes.com/2010/08/29/magazine/29language-t .ht ml) , The New York Times Magazine

Deut scher, Guy (2011), Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other
Languages (ht t ps://books.google.com/books?id=6NOjIzNZvosC) , Arrow Books, ISBN 978-0-
09-950557-0

Everet t , Dan (2005), "Cult ural Const raint s on Grammar and Cognit ion in Pirahã: Anot her Look at
t he Design Feat ures of Human Language" (ht t p://ldc.upenn.edu/myl/llog/Everet t Piraha.pdf)
(PDF), Current Anthropology, 46 (4): 621, doi:10.1086/431525 (ht t ps://doi.org/10.1086%2F43
1525) , hdl:2066/41103 (ht t ps://hdl.handle.net /2066%2F41103) , S2CID 2223235 (ht t ps://a
pi.semant icscholar.org/CorpusID:2223235)

Kay, Paul; Kempt on, Willet (1984), "What is t he Sapir–Whorf Hypot hesis?" (ht t ps://semant icsch
olar.org/paper/9035cac5e3a2078cba6f91c110bc1f59d67eaeeb) , American Anthropologist,
86 (1): 65–79, doi:10.1525/aa.1984.86.1.02a00050 (ht t ps://doi.org/10.1525%2Faa.1984.86.1.02
a00050) , S2CID 15144601 (ht t ps://api.semant icscholar.org/CorpusID:15144601)

Kay, Paul; Chad K., McDaniel (1978), "The Linguist ic Significance of Meanings of Basic Color
Terms", Language, 54 (3): 610–646, doi:10.2307/412789 (ht t ps://doi.org/10.2307%2F41278
9) , JSTOR 412789 (ht t ps://www.jst or.org/st able/412789)

McWhort er, John H. (2016). The Language Hoax: Why the World Looks the Same in Any
Language. Oxford Universit y Press. ISBN 978-0190468897.
 O'Neill, Sean (2008), Cultural Contact and Linguistic Relativity Among the Indians of
Northwestern California, Universit y of Oklahoma Press, ISBN 978-0-8061-3922-7

Swoyer, Chris (2015), "The Linguist ic Relat ivit y Hypot hesis" (ht t ps://plat o.st anford.edu/archive
s/sum2015/ent ries/relat ivism/supplement 2.ht ml) , Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Archive

"Which comes first , language or t hought ?" (ht t p://www.news.harvard.edu/gazet t e/2004/07.22/

21-t hink.ht ml) , Harvard Gazette, 22 July 2004

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