This article is effectively discussing the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which in its strong form says that language constrains the thoughts you can have, and in it's

This article is effectively discussing the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which in its strong form says that language constrains the thoughts you can have, and in it's weak form says that language merely influences your thoughts. Wikipedia's article on linguistic relativity probably explains it better. The strong form is clearly false -- when was the last time you wanted to say something but struggled to find the right word that expressed just the nuance you meant? In the end, you may have settled for a more complicated explanation, simply because you didn't know of an English word that fitted. The lack of the word didn't stop you having the thought or feeling though. On the other hand, the weak hypothesis is clearly true. Some of the article's examples show that you can't have simple expressions in some languages without being expressing gender, compass direction, seniority, etc. To express these things, you need to mentally aware of them, at least in the sense of having some background cognitive machinery that makes it available to you when forming utterances. It will be very interesting to see how the evidence converges over time.