Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis suggests that the structure of a language affects its speakers’ worldview or cognition, and thus people’s perceptions are relative to their spoken language. The theory states that the way people think is strongly affected by their native languages. The hypothesis is named after the American linguist Edward Sapir and his student Benjamin Lee Whorf. Sapir and Whorf believed that language and thought are intertwined, and that different languages encode different categories and distinctions, leading speakers of different languages to think and behave differently. There are two main versions of the hypothesis:

• The strong version suggests that language determines thought and cognitive categories.
• The weak version suggests that linguistic categories and usage influence thought and certain kinds of non-linguistic behavior.

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis remains controversial and has sparked much debate in the fields of linguistics, cognitive science, and anthropology.