Our Language Affects What We See

[rangerrebew]

Our Language Affects What We See

A new look at “the Russian Blues” demonstrates the power of words to shape perception

    By Catherine L. Caldwell-Harris, Ph.D. on January 15, 2019

Our Language Affects What We See
 

Does the language you speak influence how you think? This is the question behind the famous linguistic relativity hypothesis, that the grammar or vocabulary of a language imposes on its speakers a particular way of thinking about the world.

The strongest form of the hypothesis is that language determines thought. This version has been rejected by most scholars. A weak form is now thought to be obviously true, which is that if one language has a specific vocabulary item for a concept but another language does not, then speaking about the concept may happen more frequently or more easily. For example, if someone explained to you, an English speaker, the meaning for the German term Schadenfreude, you could recognize the concept, but you may not have used the concept as regularly as a comparable German speaker.   

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/our-language-affects-what-we-see/

[rangerrebew]

Just like the old saw:  We see things not as THEY are, we see things as WE are.

[Sanguine]

Fairly circular argument - we develop language to describe what we see in our context, and the language that we develop, of necessity, limits our vision to what we can describe with that language.