How much does language affect our thinking?

Monday, 27 November 2017 — I wrote an essay in regards to how language affect our thinking. The essay was originally part of my content on Quora and the following is the copy of that answer, with an added personal note at the end.

At the time, I thought that the question was a very interesting one, and happens to be related to my expertise as a graphic designer and my interest in human psychology, so I gave it my shot to explain this in terms of my own personal knowledge and perspective on the subject.

Q: How much does language affect our thinking?

It does, very much so. But I should say, it affects our thinking in too many ways that we can’t always know, especially if you are not a bilingual person.

Recently, I made an answer to a related question, regarding the correlation of language and our perception of colors:

• Teguh Li’s answer to Was the Indonesian word “cokelat” first used to refer to the colour or to chocolate?

And on the answer, I attached an article to support that:

• Hues and views — American Psychological Association

The way I understand this, your language will determine the way you see things, the kind of things you see and how many things you see. As for the example of colors, I find this very relatable as well.

English, for example, tend to have more names for different hues of colors.

Different hues and shades of blue and green colors. Although most of these colors are only marginally different, each of those colors are named accordingly. In professional contexts, such as in graphic design, this more comprehensive color naming can be especially useful.

This isn’t the case at all in my native tongue, Indonesian — the language doesn’t have as many color names as I’d like it to be, that as a graphic designer, I have to borrow a lot of English words to explain the very exact colors that I’m referring to.

So yes, in this example of language and color naming, language definitely has a lot to do in the way we see colors and the number of colors we could differentiate between different shades and hues. In other words, the more your language make use of different names to distinguish one color shade over another, the more colors your society will have.

Thank you for the request.

Personal Note on the Answer

I think this particular fact might be less obvious (or even unknown) to people who are not bilingual, for the simple fact that they might lack the knowledge to do a comparative study. One reader also mentioned that not many people might be aware of this correlation between language and color, which I agreed upon, since my view is that, not many people would need to learn so many color names if they’re not a professional in the design industry, or has any interest in this subject.

As far as my knowledge goes, reading numerous studies and psychological articles, I am convinced that language does shape our thinking in so many ways, that we can’t always know for sure how language exactly does that on every level, especially if you can’t speak any other language than your native tongue. Consistent with my previous essay on how words affect us as human beings, I still believe that as a species that have evolved through the use of complex communication media such as language, I think this subject of the power of language in shaping our personal, communal and collective psychology will always be an interesting one to look at and be studied upon.

What do you think of my take on this subject? Do you agree or disagree on my take on it? If you find my content interesting, do follow me on Medium to be updated on future highlights as well.

Footnote

This writing was part of my content on Quora.
— A simplified copy on Quora.

Feel free to check out my profile over there as well:
— Teguh Li on Quora.

See you around.