5 ms·
I'd be very interested to see some references discrediting it.
by pius 19y ago
I'd be very interested to see some references discrediting it.
- michaelneale 19y agoA few books on amazon have criticism of it, that is all I have seen. But no "mythbusters" episode ;)
- michael_nielsen 19y agoSteven Pinker's wonderful book "The Language Instinct" claims the the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is bunk. It's not the strongest part of the book, but still well worth reading. As a taste, Pinker tracks the evolution of the myth that the eskimos have more words for snow than English-speakers. He explains how this myth was manufactured by anthropologists who wanted to give credibility to Sapir-Whorf, and eventually took on the status of a "fact", appearing in textbooks and so on.
- michaelneale 19y agoyeah that sounds familiar. These sorts of things become self perpetuating as facts.
- altay 19y agoThe Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, in a nutshell, is "language influences thought." The classic debunking example is the urban legend, "Eskimos have over a hundred words for 'snow.'" This is often overextended to imply, "...and so Eskimos must conceive of snow on a whole 'nother level, dude!" But our non-Eskimo language doesn't fundamentally limit our capacity to comprehend the nuances of snow. We just add modifiers (e.g., 'wet' and 'fluffy') to "snow", instead of using a different word. And, actually, it turns out the Eskimos use modifiers, too. The Language Instinct is a great read. Pinker's got a real talent for popular science writing that's accessible but not dumbed down. Check out his first hit, How the Mind Works, if you're interested in general cognitive science.
- rms 19y agoThe Eskimo example isn't a very good one because English has lots of words for snow/frozen things, like glacier, frost, sleet, slush, etc.