Hanna Vegvari
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
Sapir-Whorf’s theory states that people from different cultures think differently because of
their different language, in short concluding that different languages have an influence on our way
of thinking. I believe this hypothesis to be true for a number of reasons, mostly from personal
experience from living abroad at an early age.
Even without looking at language, people in the same culture still have different ways of
thinking, due to the fact that there are different regions in a country with different philosophies /
ideologies, principles and values. Different families are also raising children in varying ways,
influencing and determining their child’s way of thinking from an early age. Language only adds
onto this fact by being an integral part of one’s culture. Languages in my opinion developed from
the influence of certain historical factors. They needed to be created as our intelligence developed
and we needed to communicate with each other. As new events occurred, people changed and
surroundings changed, different words needed to be created and added, widening vocabulary.
Some languages like English became very widely known due to for example colonizations. When
I lived in Canada, we visited many places where indigenous tribes lived, and I studied their history
in school. I found their culture fascinating and how they had words for everything, even the
different types and sounds of wind or the flow of rivers, and special names for fish or animals.
Their community is one of its own, and when they were conquered by the English they were forced
to attend schools where they tried to transform them. They tried to “cleanse” them and rip them
from their cultures and teach them English, in hopes of being more powerful by transforming their
land into English land. When these kids went back to their families, they forgot their language and
culture. Christianity strongly correlates with colonization, as trying to spread Christian ideologies
also closely joins with the English language. Thus we can conclude that people from different
cultures think differently because of language.
On the contrary, bilingual or multilingual people prove this theory wrong. Sometimes, the two
languages and ‘personalities’ blend into one, or when two parents from different countries raise a
child. They raise their children usually based on a mutual agreement, the child becoming a mixture
of the two cultures.
In conclusion, language influences peoples’ way of thinking to a great extent. We can think
differently about things in different languages, have the words to express them or not, and a
country’s language is greatly influenced by its culture and historical background.