Language is a very powerful tool used to express ideas. Without language, it would be almost impossible to describe what we think. Language and cognition are tightly wound, each dependent on the other. They are so tightly wound, it is important to ask certain questions about their relationship. Questions such as: Can language determine the nature and content of thought? Does language shape how we perceive and conceptualize the world? Does language influence thought, or does thought influence language? These are age old questions that have spawned the theories of language determinism and language relativism, the likes of which have been debated for centuries.

Benjamin Lee Whorf is credited as one of the fathers of language relativism and language determinism (Underhill, 2009). He and his mentor, Edward Sapir, were two of the first linguists to develop the idea that language may directly influence our thoughts. Language determinism and language relativism, although used sometimes interchangeably, exist on a spectrum. They both, however, involve the idea that language impacts our cognition (Underhill, 2009). Language determinism is the stronger of the two theories. This theory, as the name suggests, proposes that language determines thought. Whorf tended to be a strong supporter of this notion, claiming that thought is directly constrained by language (Underhill, 2009). Language relativism is a somewhat lighter idea, suggesting that language simply shapes our thoughts. The theory of language relativism proposes that differences in language will create a variation in thought, however thought may not be directly constrained by language. These two theories have been debated for a very long time, with many proponents rejecting both hypotheses altogether. Rejectors tend to believe that cognition is universal, unbound by language and culture altogether.

There are many examples that add fuel to this debate. One such example lives with the Piraha tribe of Brazil. These hunter/gatherers live in the Amazon in villages of about 10 to 20, with a population around only 200 people (Gordon, 2004). The interesting thing about the Piraha is they have no words for numbers. Their counting system exists of “hoi” which means few and “baagi” or “aibai” which means many (Gordon, 2004). It has been shown that the Piraha have incredible difficulty conceptualizing numbers past “many” as well as making distinctions between medium sized numbers like four or five (Gordon, 2004). To test them, a number of simple matching games were conducted. In one test, the experimenter laid out a number of batteries and instructed a Piraha member to match it (Gordon, 2004). The Piraha could match one to one and two to two with 100 percent accuracy. However, past three, the Piraha began to make mistakes (Gordon, 2004). This example argues for a strong version of language determinism. That is, without the concept of numbers, the Piraha fail to accurately conceptualize and distinguish between numbers (Gordon, 2004). In addition to numbers, there are many other concepts that vary due to language.

Another example of language determinism rests with anthropologist Renato Rosaldo. In 1967, Renato Rosaldo and his wife Shelly went to live with the Ilongot tribe in an isolated part of the Philippines (Spiegel, 2017). This tribe went unstudied up until Renato and Shelly due to the fact that they were known for beheading people. The couple studied many aspects of the Ilongot extensively, including the tribe’s emotional language (Spiegel, 2017). The most intriguing and difficult emotion to translate was an emotion named “liget.” Initially, liget seemed to be a positive emotion, one of passion and energy (Spiegel, 2017). However, the anthropologists discovered liget was also an emotion one felt when grieving. In order to express this grief, the Ilongot tribe would commonly embark on the communal activity of headhunting (Spiegel, 2017). Eventually, under tragic circumstances, Renato would learn the true meaning of liget by way of experiencing it (Spiegel, 2017).

In 1981, Shelly fell to her death while on a hike through the Philippines. On that day, Renato claimed that a “seed of an alien emotion was discovered,” one that he had never felt before (Spiegel, 2017). This emotion was liget. The best English translation for liget, Renato found, was that it feels like high voltage rushing through the body (Spiegel, 2017). On that day, Renato unlocked a new emotion that was once hidden within a language. For him, liget was a better form of grieving than the westernized counterpart. There is no English word for liget, therefore translating the word across cultures proved to be challenging (Spiegel, 2017). Without knowing the word for liget, one is unable to feel this powerful emotion. However, after extensive years of studying and translating the word, Renato believes he finally experienced the emotion (Spiegel, 2017). This is another example of a strong language determinism. Without the language for something like an emotion, it may be impossible to truly experience it.

A lighter example of language relativism pertains to how speakers construct and think about time spatially. Time can be a challenging concept to understand, think about, and talk about. To help in the conceptualization of time, many people think of time in spatial terms (Hendricks, & Boroditsky, 2015). For instance, people tend to say “the past is behind us,” or “the future is ahead of us” (Hendricks, & Boroditsky, 2015). Furthermore, when constructing timelines on paper, people tend to go left to right (Hendricks, & Boroditsky, 2015). This is so ingrained in our thinking, it is hard to think of another way, however this conceptualization of time is culturally dependant (Hendricks, & Boroditsky, 2015). Cultures which read right to left will also construct timelines starting right to left (Hendricks, & Boroditsky, 2015). Additionally, some cultures, such as the Aymara, think of the future as being behind them, whereas the past is in front of them, because we can see the past but not the future (Hendricks, & Boroditsky, 2015). In both cases, differences in language result in differences of cognition, providing a good example of language relativism.

Some take a different approach to language determinism, believing language does not constrain our thoughts, but rather it is our thoughts and experiences that give us our language. A group of cognitive scientists have discovered an essentially universal phenomenon, many years in the making. They have discovered people can communicate warm colors more easily than cool ones (Michaels, 1977). Whereas the human eye can perceive millions of distinct colors, human language categorizes very few colors (Michaels, 1977). Additionally, there are far more color names for warm colors, such as red, orange, and yellow, than there are for cool colors, such as blue and green (Michaels, 1977). This phenomenon has been found in over 100 languages and may be explained due to the fact that natural backgrounds are comprised of cool colors, whereas objects that stand out from the background tend to be warm colors (Michaels, 1977). Furthermore, we tend to be more interested in talking about objects than we are talking about backgrounds (Michaels, 1977). That is to say a tiger, which is made of warm colors like orange and white, will be talked about more than the forest it lives in, made of cool colors such as greens and blues. Therefore, language has naturally evolved to reflect our need to describe important objects against unimportant backgrounds. This example goes against the theory of language determinism as previously described. It is not language that determines our thought, but rather our thoughts and perceptions that determine our language.

Similarly, additional evidence suggests that thought is universal and naturally evolves a language. In one study, speakers from four different languages were recruited (Goldin-Meadow et al., 2008). The four languages, English, Spanish, Turkish, and Chinese, all differ in word order. Participants were asked to perform two nonverbal tasks, one communicative and the other non-communicative (Goldin-Meadow et al., 2008). The communicative task was to describe an event through gesture, whereas the non-communicative task was to reconstruct an event using pictures (Goldin-Meadow et al., 2008). Surprisingly, word order did not influence the participants performance of the tasks. In all cases, participants used a subject-object-verb word order to communicate non-verbally (Goldin-Meadow et al., 2008). Subject-object-verb word order is very common, constituting about 46 percent of all languages and found in newly developing gestural languages (Goldin-Meadow et al., 2008). These findings suggest there is a natural order to how we process and describe events, separate from the confines of language (Goldin-Meadow et al., 2008). It could be that the way the think is universal, which precedes and determines our language, rather than our language determining the way we think.

Whether it is our ability to understand numbers, our expression of an emotion, or the way we conceptualize time spatially, there is ample evidence supporting both language relativism and language determinism. Additionally, there is evidence that seems to support the opposite. The way we categorize and label colors and our natural order of processing events non-verbally both give evidence to support that thought may exist unconstrained by language. Regardless of whether you believe in language determinism, language relativism, or reject both theories, the debate rages on as the scientific community continues to unravel these mysteries.

References

Boroditsky, L. (2012). How the languages we speak shape the ways we think: The FAQs. In M. J. Spivey, K. McRae, M. F. Joanisse, M. J. Spivey, K. McRae, M. F. Joanisse (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of psycholinguistics (pp. 615-632). New York, NY, US: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139029377.042

Goldin-Meadow, S., So W.C., Ozyurek, A., & Mylander, C. (2008). The natural order of events: How speakers of different languages represent events nonverbally. PNAS, 105, 9163–9168.

Gordon, P. (2004). Numerical cognition without words: Evidence from Amazonia. Science, 306, 496–499.

Hendricks, R. K., & Boroditsky, L. (2015). Constructing mental time without visual experience. Trends in cognitive sciences, 19(8), 429-430. doi:https://doi-org.libproxy.unh.edu/10.1016/j.tics.2015.06.011

Michaels, D. (1977). Linguistic relativity and colour terminology. Lang Speech, 20(4), 333-343. doi:10.1177/002383097702000405

Spiegel, A. (2017). A man finds an explosive emotion locked in a word. Invisibilia. Podcast retrieved from https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/06/01/529876861/an-anthropologist-discovers-the-terrible-emotion-locked-in-a-word

Underhill, J. (2009). Whorf. In Humboldt, Worldview and Language (pp. 33-50). George Square, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.libproxy.unh.edu/stable/10.3366/j.ctt1r29b9.10