Talks to Watch

Does the language you speak change how you think?

1.6M views · Nov 6, 2023 · 5:25 · 1 HN recommender · 3 mentions · discussed 2023–2024

Tom Scott, with linguists Gretchen McCulloch and Molly Ruhl, examines whether the language you speak changes how you think. The short answer is mostly no, with caveats about the weak version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.

Why Hacker News points people here: Linked as a concise, accessible rebuttal whenever linguistic relativity comes up in a thread.

“I recommend this Tom Scott video on the issue”HN comment, 2024

What Hacker News said 3

RecommendscardanomeJun 2024

“I recommend this Tom Scott video on the issue”

Explains the linguistic relativity debate

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Note that Orwell promotes an hard form of the Sapir Whorf hypothesis called linguistic determinism meaning that a language would make it impossible think certain thoughts. This is obviously wrong. Have you ever experienced anything for which you didn't have the words to explain? This already proves that you can feel and think things that are not easily expressed in the languages you know. Also some people don't even think in words but are more visual thinkers. But even for the softer version, linguistic relativism, these is not much hard evidence. You subjective experience is not easily measurable. Yes, the act of learning new languages can gives you new perspectives and enrich you as a person because it gives you access to a whole new culture but that is different to saying you can suddenly experience new forms of emotions because you didn't have the words for it before or see more colors. I recommend this Tom Scott video on the issue: this video

Cites itelvis10tenNov 2023

“So it seems languages might not change how you think”

Related video on whether language shapes thought

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Related video which I just remembered: this video So it seems languages might not change how you think, but might be able to emphasize certain aspects of things like you allude to (I believe).

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Cites itwilgJan 2024

“Tom Scott recently did a video about how linguistic relativity (Sapir-Whorf) is almost certainly not true”

Tom Scott arguing linguistic relativity is almost certainly untrue

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Tom Scott recently did a video about how linguistic relativity (Sapir-Whorf) is almost certainly not true: this video It's an alluring idea, but it's been debunked.