Re:How Language Seems to Shape One's View of the World
by jgg on Friday January 03, 2014 @11:16AM
(#7006152)
I definitely do not buy the strong Sapir-Whorf at all.
I do not believe someone is explicitly constrained by the language, but I do believe that the explicit existence of certain concepts can facilitate a different kind of thinking more naturally than in other languages, which is the only real point I'm trying to back up.
While English may not have a dual number, a case system (anymore, though it's still seen vestigially in the pronouns), or a verb conjugation expressing the future tense, the point is that English speakers are not constrained in what they are capable of expressing.
For the dual number, we simply say "two cows" or "both cows". To express the future, we have "will", "be going to", or a present (progressive) future construction like:
"We play tennis on Saturday" / "We are playing tennis on Saturday"
Whereas other languages use case to express certain semantic/grammatical relationships, English fills this void with word order and a slew of prepositions.
So at worst English speakers expend a few extra syllables on certain ideas. But there is no limitation on expression or cognition, which is the claim made by a strong version Sapir-Whorf.