Select an option below to continue reading this premium story. Already a Honolulu Star-Advertiser subscriber? Log in now to continue reading. Another aspect of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is the idea ...

What would you think if we said that the language we speak not only allows us to communicate but also determines how we perceive reality? This may seem like an exaggeration, but the Sapir-Whorf ...

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, the idea that languages are not mirrors of the world but are culturally specific frames through which distinctive worlds are created, arose as American academics engaged ...

Does language shape thought? Do the languages we speak affect how we live our lives? These are some of the oldest questions in the cognitive and social sciences, and a handful of high-profile research ...

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is a nearly century-old idea based on the belief that people experience their world through their language and that language shapes thought. Recent research in support of ...

In the 1930s, Benjamin Lee Whorf discovered that the Native American language Hopi had no time or tense markers—no word for later or before, no grammar to refer to past or future events or actions. He ...

In linguistics, there is a theory of relativity called the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, which holds that language shapes one’s worldview and cognition. The most extreme version of this hypothesis states ...