The language hoax
by John H. McWhorter · first published 2014
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2016–2024first – last mentioned
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"Japanese has a term that covers both green and blue. Russian has separate terms for dark and light blue. Does this mean that Russians perceive these colors differently from Japanese people? Does language control and limit the way we think, such that each language gives its speakers a different 'worldview?' This opinionated book addresses the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which argues that the language we speak shapes the way we perceive the world. Linguist John McWhorter argues that while this idea is mesmerizing, it is plainly wrong... McWhorter shows not only how the idea of language as a lens fa
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You're right, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has been thoroughly disproved. A good book on this is The Language Hoax by linguist John McWhorter. The main reason it still hangs on is that it is used by people to try to support the left-wing ideological idea that human nature is entirely a product of socialization, and…
on “New theory why languages don’t all have the same number of terms for colors” ↗…way we do but don't have as expressive language for these particular topics. For anybody interested in more linguistic oddities and/or the damage linguistic relativism can do I recommend the book 'The Language Hoax' by John McWhorter, there's also an hour long talk on it available on Youtube [0]. The book deals with the more recent studies on how language affects the ways we think in a grounded way and shows how…
on “Why Are Plants Green? To Reduce the Noise in Photosynthesis” ↗I can't take credit for the arguments made, they mostly come form the excellent book 'The Language Hoax' by John McWhorter, I should have referenced this in the original comment but it's a bit too late to edit it. In the book he takes a very hard stance against linguistic relativism and demonstrates the…
on “Sunlight affects whether languages have a word for ‘blue’” ↗John McWhorter's book <i>The Language Hoax</i> explains the linguistic researchers have found that the sapir-whorf hypothesis is just wrong.
on “No one could see the colour blue until modern times” ↗First thought was of John McWhorter's book [The Language Hoax](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/18579574), where he refutes Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. I think in that book he talks about this phenomenon too.
on “The language you speak changes your perception of time” ↗John McWhorter has a book about this called The Language Hoax: Why the World Looks the Same in Any Language in which he's extremely skeptical of Sapir-Worf, particularly the sort of stoner linguistics "what if we're all, like, made of language maaaaaan" as it's…
on “The language you speak changes your perception of time” ↗…linguist, try Guy Deutscher's "Through the Looking Glass". That said, he does come down a bit more on the pro-relativism side, so you may also want to read the counterarguments in John McWhorther's "The Language Hoax", which I haven't read though.
on “Nepal's Kusunda language has no words for "yes" or "no"” ↗