/* ---- Google Analytics Code Below */

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Considering the Whorfian Hypothesis

An extensive NYT Magazine article on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: That the language you speak effects how you think. Was often characterized by the observation that some far-northern peoples had many more words for snow, caused by the need for the specificity. But its much more than that, including things like the effect of differing genders for nouns. This was generally debunked, and I think they spend a lot of time getting to that fact. Some new and intriguing nuggets are tossed out, but it mostly plays to misplaced relativistic theories.

No comments: