Whorfian Hypothesis

QUOTE

Rudyard Kipling once said…

“Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.”

(English journalist and novelist)

CONCEPT

Whorfian Hypothesis

The Whorfian Hypothesis, also called linguistic relativity, proposes that the language we speak influences how we perceive, categorize, and think about the world.

Different languages divide reality in different ways—requiring their speakers to notice distinctions involving things like color, space, time, number, or relationships that other languages may leave optional.

STORY

Blue, Blue … or Blue?

In 2007, researchers put Russian and English speakers in front of the same shades of blue—and discovered that language appeared to change how quickly they could tell those colors apart.

English has one basic word for the entire range: blue. Russian does not. It requires speakers to distinguish lighter blue, goluboy, from darker blue, siniy.

The researchers wondered whether making that distinction thousands of times in ordinary conversation might affect perception itself.

Participants were shown three blue squares at a time. One appeared on top and two underneath. Their task was simply to identify which bottom square exactly matched the top one. Sometimes the two relevant shades belonged to the same Russian color category. Sometimes they crossed the goluboy-siniy boundary.

Russian speakers were faster when the two shades crossed that linguistic boundary.

English speakers, looking at the identical colors, showed no comparable advantage.

Language may not entirely command our view of the world—but it certainly trains us to see or understand things others might not.