What is Veeky Forums opinion on the Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis? I have seen it get trashed on this website before

From my admitadly poor knowledge of the subject.

Weak version is logical and is just common sense while strong version is dumbfuck retardation.

We had a thread about this about a week ago. If you search for it, it'll turn up in the archives.

TL;DR there's two versions of the Hypothesis, a strong version and a weak version. Strong version is a joke, the weak version is taken seriously.

The strong version is that language DETERMINES thought. It's best exemplified by Whorf's claims about the Hopi language: that the language grammaticalizes and refers to time in fundamentally different ways than European languages do, and that consequently the Hopi experience time differently than we do. NB: the idea isn't just that they THINK about time differently, it's that their subjective EXPERIENCE of the passage of time is different than ours.

Both Whorf's claims about Hopi and the strong version of the Hypothesis were in vogue for a little over a decade. Now they're universally ridiculed, and the period when they were fashionable is seen as an embarrassment to the field, which is why for a lot of linguists "Sapir-Whorf" is a borderline swearword.

There's also a weak version of the Hypothesis, which is that language *influences* thought without deterministically shaping it. To some degree that's almost certainly true. To what EXTENT it's true, and in what ways, is a matter of ongoing research & debate. There have been a lot of interesting studies, but it is important to remember that there's no consensus in the field and any pop sci articles that trumpet shit like "Speakers of [X] language have an easier time seeing shades of green!", while not wrong, aren't telling the full story.

He was wrong about hopi language btw.

Your brain is a semantic network. All concepts are intrinsically associated with words and sounds. When you think, it is in the form of words. Higher order thought/consciousness and language are inextricably linked.

You want to change the way someone thinks about something? Force them to use different words for it.

>The strong version is that language DETERMINES thought.
Why is this considered wrong? Not trying to argue, genuinely curious.

English does have gender.
his,her,it,xir

This but unironically. I find it comical when any gender controversy in America is related to just pronouns when in my language even verbs, adjectives and inanimate nouns are gendered.

it is interesting and even necessary as a methodological tool, but it cant be defended as a fact.

the opposite is as absurd too.

thought and language are not two different phenomena, so debating about which determines the other is senseless. that is why it can be endlessly debated, because it is based on a misconception.

Language can and does effect thought. But thoughts can exist without human language.

t. *nglo
See

>thought and language are not two different phenomena
t. Morgan Freeman
>debating about which determines the other is useless
I'm pretty sure thoughts were invented before language was, user.......... mentality is a big factor in determining language.

If it Spanish? I always wondered if there's a movement in Hispanic countries to stop referring to mixed gender groups as ellos.

But people are inherently different in the way they think, thoughts aren't exactly universal either. A certain mindset creates a certain language, it's safe to say that different languages are composed of different morals. See English vs Japanese and their infinite comprehensive barriers.

Slovak.

of course but at the same time it is undeniable that labguage cones to influence thought as well

this is why i say the question is pointless for it can be defended in both directions

language is just a tool devised by thought in the adaptation process. a tool next to other non verbal ones that are, all, intended to help in that adaptation process. their particularities are irrelevant as such, what matters is its usefulness in the endeavor of survival

Because research just doesn't back it up.

First off, as a prev. user mentioned, Whorf's primary example, the Hopi language, was simply wrong. Hopi does in fact have words for time, it has plenty of ways to express the passage of time, Hopi speakers do refer to time sometimes by using a spatial metaphor (e.g. talking about time as though has a location in space, as though it "moves" or "flows" like a physical substance), and Hopi speakers do divide time into concrete units (like days, minutes, seconds). All of those are things that Whorf and his acolytes thought Hopi ... didn't do.

Similarly, Whorf claimed that the "Eskimo" language had more words for snow than English did - yeah, that famous claim. It's maybe the one thing that triggers linguists even more than the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Probably you're starting to see why many linguists aren't enormous Whorf fans. It's even LESS correct than his Hopi claim, because 1. there's no such language as "Eskimo" (it would be like saying, "In the language 'Indo-European' ...") and 2. since languages like English and Inuit/etc have fundamentally different morphologies, "which one has more words for X" is not even a MEANINGFUL question.

So right there, that's a lot of Whorf's evidence, and credibility as a linguist, chucked out the window. (It's not quite fair - he did some good linguistic work as well, and he's never remembered for that, but that's how it is.)

Beyond that, linguists and anthropologists simply have not observed language acting as a mental straightjacket in the way Whorf claimed it did, with the single highly controversial example of Pirahã. People like to say things like "well, it's awfully hard to test for" but it fucking isn't - there are dozens of ways you can test it, and the strong version just doesn't bear up.

You are mixing culture and language too much which is understandable cus they are hard to separate. Americans and british speak roughly same language yet they have very different morals and have comprehensive barriers.

>Americans and british have different morals
Hardly, both are very European based
>comprehensive barrier
Political opinions=/=comprehensive barrier

Also
>roughly the same language
>roughly
Nigga wtf it's just accent

English morals are closer to scottish morals in comparison to Brits to american. Yet scottish is a language in itself. Morals are not connected to language.
*dialect

>hurrr durrr an island that used to be divided thousands of years ago has similar morals now
>lets ignore the fact that scots were morally barbarians durrrrrr
>Scottish language XD
>American dialect
HOLY BRAINLET

>culture isn't the product of thought

...?

>english doesn't have gender
Tell me, user, what do we refer to our ships and countries as?

Stop, man. You are embarrassing yourself.

Let me tell a, somewhat random, story that might support your post.

In a dark land and a dark time, I was homeless. Got to a shelter, assigned a case worker, and had mandatory "groups" for a few months before getting that group time back as free time.

On some unknown day, she led an hour group which was a circle where people were allowed to vent or discuss issues. She started off by chiding the patients (I think they used the euphemism "guests") for using the word "Bitch" and, funny enough, she bitched about how it demeaned women blah blah. Also mind you this circle was made up of homeless veterans 100%

If I was as mentally stable and clear headed now back then, I'd probably explain how retarded that was in the most sarcastic and angry way.

Our mental concepts wrap around words, not the opposite. You abolish "bitch"? Oh noes, it's not like groups of language people invent new terms for the same thing based on their environment and social experience.

It's why 1984 is a bit heavy handed in worrying about the abolishment of such words as "freedom". Because there will still be the desire for freedom and its existence, or lack thereof, in humans. You abolish the word "freedom"? We'll just make another dialect that contains a new word for the banned one.

Yeah. Mr. 3775298, they mean in the sense that something like Spanish has gendered units of grammar.

El Nino, La Nina, El gato, La Pinata...

>When you think, it is in the form of words

I can visualize my thoughts

There are quite a number of "visualets" and they have a tendency to be either normies or Ashkenazi.

???? Are you impaired?

There are people that think in normal language mixed with visual metaphors, there are people who almost exclusively think in visual metaphors, there are people who think in fucking rap and rhymes (Eminem has a sort of autism where a nearly 24 hour stream runs through his mind everyday on top of other shit).

You might want to ask yourself that same question btw. I say "visualets" because cocksucking normies, and Ashkenazi jews, have a predilection for verbally constructing seemingly solid systems with a wide explanatory power.

The problem is they forget to verify via a simulation of mechanics that would inform them that "this shit has all sorts of holes and cracks".

*sociolect

By "visualet" do you mean people incapable of visualizing?

I don't understand how everything can be language, how does a painter or a dancer or musician make art if everything in their mind is language?

??????? Maybe try not having autism and see how you can both visually and verbally conduct your thoughts without depending on specific meme buzzwords and comparissons. I can have an extended litettary knowledge and still visualise things. Hence when you picture things in your mind, you don't construct those thoughts with fucking words, you use visual reels.

*brainlect

Lead singer of Nickelback?

Not exactly. A painter has a good sense of visuals and is able to attach emotions to each shade and shape, that hopefully viewers can be sympathetic to. A dancer has strong visual, prioperceptive, and kinisthetic abilities and imagination, if the dancer is good.

Ever see something trying to talk with their hands? That feeling of putting the hand down softly and putting it harshly are tied to different emotions, which one again the "speaker" assumes, or hopes, that his audience is sympathetic to.

I think we are arguing for the same, or similar, things. I didn't say people couldn't use an array of sensual metaphors in combo. But most normies, and Ashkenazis on average, have a far more developed sense of linguistic imagination and construction than their more visual and mechanical abilities.

A strong visual component doesn't necessarily mean you're good at mechanics. You might be able to visualize still pictures but have trouble when elements of the picture are supposed to interact in analogous ways to natural logic and mechanics. You'd be surprised at the number of people who have trouble visualizing the movement of two gears interacting, with 10 teeth each.

youtube.com/watch?v=6Si1LiJKts0

CONT.

Though honestly, I can see some of the difficulty in the assumption that our calculations are done in our consciousness (as opposed to being time delayed reflections of thoughts already generated). I don't "see" the words I type or even think about the "sound and rhythm " of the words I type. My verification is far more empirical visual (symbolic recognition and pattern matching) than someone who automatically imagine someone reading out the words.

"see" the words prior to typing*

of the words I type. I just type.*

>Our mental concepts wrap around words, not the opposite.

Isn't what you described the other way around? Words such as "freedom" are abstractions ("wrapping around") the desire for freedom and its existence

????

Well I meant that we have mentation of concepts prior to the need for word. An ugly metaphor would be calling it "mentalese" even though it'd be like calling the system of components in electronics "computerse"

People like doing things that, in our language, embody a "free individual". They try to communicate with it and agree upon "freedom", well more like users as a majority use freedom that dominates a lesser majority of users who might use "Ouuuba" and are relegated to being considered a dialect.

It's a game we play automatically. People use words to communicate concepts and play language games where certain words are favored and increase in use, for whatever qualities and emotional imprinting that word has, and certain words are sporadically used until falling into disuse.

Our emotional mentalese is a mercenary that tries to pick the most suitable candidate for communication/reproduction. Happy won out in its niche over Gay because different sets of emotions began to be associated with "Gay" as it was used in more and more language games that used it as a pejorative for Gay.

CONT.

EX: Hunger for a fat middle class kid, eating garbage food, is almost a zombie compulsion that robs the majority of sensitivity and pleasure from heating. When he thinks hunger, he only knows the anarchic stirrings that compel him to quell it by eating all throughout the day.

For someone whose escaped soldiers in Siberia, hunger, in his own isolation, becomes the most golden and well baked loaf of bread. The crumbs must be especially crispy and the smell! The smell! Biting into it must seem better than heaven.

Of course these are examples of the language games people play by themselves, where their experience and understanding alters the emotional meaning of words they hear and speak.

Seen as this is a related thread. Im interested in linguistics, any good books to start on? (specifically forensic)
And maybe, to an extent.