FROM THE OMEGA BLOG

Does the language we speak affect our thinking?

Does the language we speak affect our thinking?
The question of knowledge of foreign languages and the languages themselves as a whole have been exciting for many centuries. Charlemagne said . . Knowing a foreign language means that you have a second soul. American linguist Benjamin Li Worf in 1940 created a theory that two people who speak different languages think differently. His concept is somewhat consistent with the beliefs of another American linguist Edward Sapir, from the early 20th century. Thus, the hypothesis that the language defines thinking is also known as the Sapir hypothesis .

Rebirth of the Language Theory Predestining Thinking

At first this theory was accepted with ovations, but its fame quickly fades away and is defined as absurd, although it has a serious impact on the development of numerous disciplines such as ethnollinguistics, psycholinguistics, common semantics and others. In the early 1980s, some scientists returned to Worf's claims. They conducted a number of studies inspired by his theory by removing its extreme positions. It also comes to the mass belief that language inevitably affects the way the world is perceived and opens new horizons to those who study and mostly speak a foreign language.

How does language affect thinking?

For example, when a vase breaks, an English speaker will tell who broke the vase in case he was a witness or a perpetrator of the break, while the Spanish speakers will probably simply point out the fact that the vase broke. The lack of need to identify the perpetrator suggests a different attitude to responsibility for certain actions. According to some scientists, the different attitude of Anglo-Saxon towards such a simple act and the way they choose words comes from the tradition of punishing anyone who breaks the rules, not so much of the need to point out the guilty. Economist Kate Chen, a professor at the University of Los Angeles, claims that due to the fact that Chinese do not have exactly verb time indicating the future, tend to set aside 30% more in savings than people speaking with clear verb forms for the future. Children speaking languages with male and female words are also considered to be more aware of their sex than children speaking languages where there is no male or female, as is the Finnish language, for example.

Like the question of the egg and the chicken

At the same time, can anyone answer the question ? ? Do people simply not think about things that are not spoken in their language or the lack of those words is determined by the fact that they do not need to think about them? For example, Aboriginals in Queensland, Australia, speaking Gougu Yimitir, have no words like . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The speakers give instructions for a specific place using the words So they will never say that the man stood in front of the house, but east of the house (for example). And another example, in the Bulgarian language, when we talk about rain, we usually resort to adjectives to create different images of rain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .in the Dutch language, while there are 11 different words of rain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . It's the same with snow, but here there's a greater variety of snow in Eskimo dialects. However, we cannot deny that even if language influences the way a people, tribe or community think, their common traditions, lifestyles and cultural habits stand in the foreground.  

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