Linguists tell us that there are about 7,170 languages spoken around the world presently. Realistically, give or take a language as they sometimes go extinct (or if you’re at a fourth-grade slumber party, they often get invented; see: Pig Latin.)

The point is, language isn’t only a tool for communication. The words we use and the order, tenses, and inflection we give them can literally influence how we perceive time, color, emotions, and everything in between. Some call this linguistic relativity, and many have been delving into it at great length to explore just how much our language affects our worldview.

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis puts forth the idea that our culture, hence our specific languages, truly shape how we think about the world around us. In an article for Verywell Mind, contributing writer Rachael Green explains that the entire concept was the brainchild of anthropologist and linguist Edward Sapir and his student, Benjamin Lee Whorf. (She notes that, despite their names being in the title, “they never formally co-authored a definitive hypothesis together.”)

How many colors do you have for ‘blue?’

The way we perceive color is an interesting example. Green shares, “Color is one of the most common examples of linguistic relativity. Most known languages have somewhere between two and twelve color terms, and the way colors are categorized varies widely. In........

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