best thing I read today: Does Language Influence Culture?
Pretty interesting article in the WSJ today. Basically says that language profoundly influences how we see the world. Some examples:
- Russian speakers who have more words for light and dark blues are better able to visually discriminate shades of blue.
- An aboriginal community in Australia doesn’t use terms like “left” and “right”, and instead uses north, south, east and west for directions. As a result they have greater spatial orientation.
- People who speak languages that drop the agent of causality, for example “the vase broke itself” versus “John broke the vase,” don’t often associate blame for events.
- One group who uses the words “few” and “many” in favor of actual number words has difficulty keeping track of exact quantities.
- English speakers see time on a horizontal plane, with the best years ahead and the past behind us. Whereas Mandarin speakers see new events emerging like a spring of water, with the past above and the future below.
Here’s a bit more on the research. Pretty interesting!
