The Young Victoria

Pretty interesting article in the WSJ today. Basically says that language profoundly influences how we see the world. Some examples:

• Russian speakers who have more words for light and dark blues are better able to visually discriminate shades of blue.
• An aboriginal community in Australia don’t use terms like “left” and “right”, and instead use north, south, east and west for directions. As a result they have greater spatial orientation.
• Languages that drop the agent of causality, for example “the vase broke itself” versus “John broke the vase,” don’t remember the agents of accidental events.
• One group who uses the words “few” and “many” in favor of actual number words have difficulty keeping track of exact quantities.
• English speakers see time on a horizontal plane, with the best years ahead and the past behind us. Whereas Mandarin speakers see new events emerging like a spring of water, with the past above and the future below.

Here’s a bit more on the research. Pretty interesting! 

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Language’s influence on culture was my favorite topic in the anthropology class I took freshman year. It’s upsetting to realize how rapidly we’re losing languages around the world.