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The Language Hoax: Why the World Looks the Same in Any Language
Japanese has a term that covers both green and blue. Russian has separate terms for dark and light blue. Does this mean that Russians perceive these colors differently from Japanese people? Does language control and limit the way we think, such that each language gives its speakers a different "worldview"?
This short, opinionated book addresses the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which argues that the language we speak shapes the way we perceive the world. Linguist John McWhorter argues that while this idea is mesmerizing, it is plainly wrong. Cultural differences are quite real. However, the way languages' grammar world, and the random ways that their vocabularies happen to describe the world—whether time is expresses with vertical expressions instead of horizontal ones, whether a language happens to have a word for stick out or wipe—do not correspond to its speakers' experience of living. The fact that a language has only one word for eat, drink and smoke—as many do— doesn't mean its speakers don't process the differences between food and beverages as vividly as other people, and those who use the same word for blue and green perceive those two colors just as vividly as others do.
McWhorter shows not only how the idea of language as a lens fails but also why we want so badly to believe it: we're eager to celebrate diversity by acknowledging the intelligence of peoples who may not think like we do. Though well-intentioned, our belief in this idea poses an obstacle to a better understanding of human nature and even trivializes the people we seek to celebrate. The reality—that all humans think alike—provides another, better way for us to acknowledge the intelligence of all peoples.
This short, opinionated book addresses the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which argues that the language we speak shapes the way we perceive the world. Linguist John McWhorter argues that while this idea is mesmerizing, it is plainly wrong. Cultural differences are quite real. However, the way languages' grammar world, and the random ways that their vocabularies happen to describe the world—whether time is expresses with vertical expressions instead of horizontal ones, whether a language happens to have a word for stick out or wipe—do not correspond to its speakers' experience of living. The fact that a language has only one word for eat, drink and smoke—as many do— doesn't mean its speakers don't process the differences between food and beverages as vividly as other people, and those who use the same word for blue and green perceive those two colors just as vividly as others do.
McWhorter shows not only how the idea of language as a lens fails but also why we want so badly to believe it: we're eager to celebrate diversity by acknowledging the intelligence of peoples who may not think like we do. Though well-intentioned, our belief in this idea poses an obstacle to a better understanding of human nature and even trivializes the people we seek to celebrate. The reality—that all humans think alike—provides another, better way for us to acknowledge the intelligence of all peoples.
182 pages, Hardcover
First published February 20, 2014
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About the author
John McWhorter
47 books1,713 followersJohn Hamilton McWhorter (Professor McWhorter uses neither his title nor his middle initial as an author) is an American academic and linguist who is Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, where he teaches linguistics, American studies, philosophy, and music history. He is the author of a number of books on language and on race relations. His research specializes on how creole languages form, and how language grammars change as the result of sociohistorical phenomena.
A popular writer, McWhorter has written for Time, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, Politico, Forbes, The Chicago Tribune, The New York Daily News, City Journal, The New Yorker, among others; he is also contributing editor at The Atlantic and hosts Slate's Lexicon Valley podcas
A popular writer, McWhorter has written for Time, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, Politico, Forbes, The Chicago Tribune, The New York Daily News, City Journal, The New Yorker, among others; he is also contributing editor at The Atlantic and hosts Slate's Lexicon Valley podcas
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March 28, 2021
McWhorter has written a book that entirely refutes the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis (Whorphianism) which is essentially that how we see the world is determined by the words we use, the language we speak. The hypotheseis says that the language we learn in the culture we grow up in determines our thinking. McWhorter says rubbish, we all see the world the same no matter what language we speak. He says that the determining factor for our differering world-views is culture not the language we think in or express our views in.
I read this book straight after Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language which is about the brain being wired to acquire language, to organise words with grammar and to instinctively know how to use the grammar to express oneself. It isn't quite the same as Chomsky's, but Pinker respects Chomsky's theories a lot, unlike McWhorter who doesn't (I don't either)
I don't entirely agree with McWhorter, I do think that language shapes thought to some degree. I do think that although, for just one instance, that how we think of girls is influenced by language. T-shirts for girls are often sparkly with Babe or Pretty Barbie or similar, passive words that say girls are praiseworthy when pretty and smile a lot and don't say to much but then nothing much is expected of babes and Barbies. Boys get t-shirts saying Super Hero and if we say they are pretty babes, that is considered an insult. I think this is language in the service of culture, but also language influencing children and so am not quite as anti Whorfism as McWhorter.
I read this book straight after Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language which is about the brain being wired to acquire language, to organise words with grammar and to instinctively know how to use the grammar to express oneself. It isn't quite the same as Chomsky's, but Pinker respects Chomsky's theories a lot, unlike McWhorter who doesn't (I don't either)
I don't entirely agree with McWhorter, I do think that language shapes thought to some degree. I do think that although, for just one instance, that how we think of girls is influenced by language. T-shirts for girls are often sparkly with Babe or Pretty Barbie or similar, passive words that say girls are praiseworthy when pretty and smile a lot and don't say to much but then nothing much is expected of babes and Barbies. Boys get t-shirts saying Super Hero and if we say they are pretty babes, that is considered an insult. I think this is language in the service of culture, but also language influencing children and so am not quite as anti Whorfism as McWhorter.
August 10, 2014
How does a guy who spends his life studying language have so little sense of its gracefulness, its subtleties, its sounds, its rhythms? How can he be so tone deaf? It's like this book was dictated through a megaphone. And what editor glanced at this? Who passed on sentences such as this one: "However, what they demonstrate is cultural traits that language reflects..." IS cultural traits? McWhorter is like someone with a supremely confident command of lists of ingredients and precise temperatures who couldn't cook a dish to save his life. Any point he makes in one short chapter is iterated in the next one, often in the same phrases, just in case we've had a seizure in between. His compelling points and examples are all but obliterated by the blowhard tone, hyperbolic irony, and instructor manual sentencing which, I'm guessing, we are intended to absorb as a kind of cleansing honesty. Who are the contemporary linguists he disagrees with? He has praise for Daniel Everett and for Steven Pinker. His real enemy, it turns out, are the preposterous "headlines" he features in so many paragraphs, unattributed, without footnotes, unsearchable "headlines" that we come to realize he has made up himself. Talk about tempests in tea pots. It feels as though this book were written in a weekend, one man's simmering grudge against his own imagination of pop-culture's neo-Whorfian enthusiasms. And cynically packaged to cash in on popular interest in linguistics.
September 13, 2021
هل تؤثر لغة ما في إدراك الناطق بها للعالَم؟
هذا هو السؤال الذي لا يزال يثير جدالات طويلة لا يبدو أنها ستنتهي، ولا بد أولًا لفهمه كما ينبغي من تحرير مستويات تأثير اللغة في الفكر:
المستوى الأول: أن اللغة تؤثر في التواصل ونقل الأفكار، وفي تأطير وتنظيم وتأويل الوقائع والأحداث، وتؤثر في بعض المساحات التي تتقاطع مع الثقافة، كمسميات الأشياء عند مجتمع أو طبقة من المجتمع، فقد تكثر المسميات في أمور معينة في بعض المجتمعات دون بعض لتفاوت عنايتهم بهذه الجوانب أو تلك.
وهذا محل إجماع، لا ينازع فيه أحد من علماء اللغة واللسانيات.
المستوى الثاني: أن اللغة هي الفكر، أو الوسيط الحصري له، ولا وجود لتفكير بلا لغة، أو أن اللغة هي التي تحدد مسار الفكر، وتدفعه لمسارات بعينها دون سواها، بحيث أن الإنسان لا يمكنه تصور أو تمييز ما لا وجود له في لغته، أو أن اللغة تؤثر بعمق في الأنشطة الذهنية للمتكلم بها، وفي رؤيته للعالم، واستنباطه للمفاهيم والتصورات.
وهذا المستوى محل نزاع نسبي، ويجد رواجًا على المستوى الشعبي، وعند حفنة قليلة من المختصين، وإن كان "الرأي السائد اليوم عند اللغويين وعلماء مبحث الإدراك المعرفي أن تأثير اللغة على الفكر يكون ذا أهمية إذا وقفت لغة ما أمام قدرة متحدثيها على حل مشكلة منطقية يسهل حلها من قبل من يتحدث بلغة أخرى؛ وهذا ما لم يثبت حتى الآن، ولا توجد أي أدلة على مثل هذا التأثير المعيق للتفكير المنطقي، وهذا يعني أننا جوهريًا نفكر جميعًا بالطريقة نفسها"، كما يقول أستاذ اللسانيات غاي دويتشر.
المستوى الثالث: وهو التأثيرات التي تقع في المساحة ما بين المستوى الأول والثاني، مثل أثر الاصطلاح اللوني في اللغة، أي هل وجود مفردة للون الأزرق الفاتح وأخرى للغامق في لغتك يجعلك أكثر حساسية تجاه الفرق بينهما أكثر من حساسية فرد يتحدث لغة لا توجد فيها هذه المفردة مثلًا؟.
***
في هذا الكتاب "خدعة اللغة" يناقش جون ماكوورتر –أستاذ اللسانيات في جامعة كولومبيا بنيويورك- أطروحة غاي دويتشر في كتابه "عبر منظار اللغة – لم يبدو العالم مختلفًا بلغات أخرى؟"، ولذا جعل ماكوورتر عنوان كتابه الفرعي "لم يبدو العالم متماثلًا في كل لغة؟".
يعتقد دويتشر في كتابه "أن تأثير اللغات المختلفة في فكر متحدثيها ليس بسبب ما تتيحه كل لغة لمتحدثيها من فكر، وإنما بسبب أنواع المعلومات التي تفرض كل لغة على متحدثيها التفكير بها، فعندما تفرض لغة ما على متحدثيها الاهتمام بأوجه معينة من العالم كلما نطقوا بها أو استمعوا إليها ستستقر عادات الحديث والاستماع تلك لتصبح عادات عقلية تؤثر في الذاكرة أو الإدراك أو الترابط الذهني او حتى المهارات العملية".
ينتقد ماكوورتر هذه الفكرة المركزية، وهو يعتقد أن السؤال عن تأثير اللغة في تفكير المتكلم بها يصاغ عادةً بطريقة تفترض –ضمنيًا- أن الإجابة لا يمكن أن تكون "لا" [ص42]، ويرى أنك إذا أردت التبصّر في التماثل بين البشر فعليك أن تتأمل "الكيفية التي تعمل بها اللغة" عند جميعهم. [87].
ويرجع هذه النزعات النسبية التي تجعل اللغة تؤثر على المتكلمين بها، بحيث تختلف رؤية العالم من لغة لأخرى كما يُزعم؛ إلى شيوع موجة الاحتفاء بالنسبية الثقافية التي تجتاح الأكاديميا والثقافة الغربية في العقود الأخيرة، وهي موجة تبجّل التنوّع، وتدافع عنه، بصورة تكاد تكون "دينية". [ص304]
وخلاصة رأي جون ماكوورتر أن "الثقافة –وهو حاصل الكيفية التي يفكر بها الناس- لا يمكن أن تخترق النواة الدبقة للكيفية التي تعمل بها اللغة... يمكن للثقافة أن تؤثر في الكيفية التي تستعمل بها تلك اللغة، وتجعلها تسمّي أشياء معينة لها قدر أكبر في تلك الثقافة بطريقة ليس فيه غموض، ولكن لا يمكن للثقافة أن تؤثر على أي شيء من صميم اللغة من ناحية كيفية انبنائها في التفاصيل"، وهو لا ينكر "أن اللغة والثقافة مرتبطتان"، بل يشكك "بنوع خاص من الارتباط بينهما، وهو مستوى السمات النحوية وتكوينات المفردات مما لا يعتبره أي متحدث أصلي لافتًا للنظر مطلقًا؛ شرطًا يؤدي –كما يزعم- إلى طريقة خاصة في معالجة الحياة". [298، 325].
هذا هو السؤال الذي لا يزال يثير جدالات طويلة لا يبدو أنها ستنتهي، ولا بد أولًا لفهمه كما ينبغي من تحرير مستويات تأثير اللغة في الفكر:
المستوى الأول: أن اللغة تؤثر في التواصل ونقل الأفكار، وفي تأطير وتنظيم وتأويل الوقائع والأحداث، وتؤثر في بعض المساحات التي تتقاطع مع الثقافة، كمسميات الأشياء عند مجتمع أو طبقة من المجتمع، فقد تكثر المسميات في أمور معينة في بعض المجتمعات دون بعض لتفاوت عنايتهم بهذه الجوانب أو تلك.
وهذا محل إجماع، لا ينازع فيه أحد من علماء اللغة واللسانيات.
المستوى الثاني: أن اللغة هي الفكر، أو الوسيط الحصري له، ولا وجود لتفكير بلا لغة، أو أن اللغة هي التي تحدد مسار الفكر، وتدفعه لمسارات بعينها دون سواها، بحيث أن الإنسان لا يمكنه تصور أو تمييز ما لا وجود له في لغته، أو أن اللغة تؤثر بعمق في الأنشطة الذهنية للمتكلم بها، وفي رؤيته للعالم، واستنباطه للمفاهيم والتصورات.
وهذا المستوى محل نزاع نسبي، ويجد رواجًا على المستوى الشعبي، وعند حفنة قليلة من المختصين، وإن كان "الرأي السائد اليوم عند اللغويين وعلماء مبحث الإدراك المعرفي أن تأثير اللغة على الفكر يكون ذا أهمية إذا وقفت لغة ما أمام قدرة متحدثيها على حل مشكلة منطقية يسهل حلها من قبل من يتحدث بلغة أخرى؛ وهذا ما لم يثبت حتى الآن، ولا توجد أي أدلة على مثل هذا التأثير المعيق للتفكير المنطقي، وهذا يعني أننا جوهريًا نفكر جميعًا بالطريقة نفسها"، كما يقول أستاذ اللسانيات غاي دويتشر.
المستوى الثالث: وهو التأثيرات التي تقع في المساحة ما بين المستوى الأول والثاني، مثل أثر الاصطلاح اللوني في اللغة، أي هل وجود مفردة للون الأزرق الفاتح وأخرى للغامق في لغتك يجعلك أكثر حساسية تجاه الفرق بينهما أكثر من حساسية فرد يتحدث لغة لا توجد فيها هذه المفردة مثلًا؟.
***
في هذا الكتاب "خدعة اللغة" يناقش جون ماكوورتر –أستاذ اللسانيات في جامعة كولومبيا بنيويورك- أطروحة غاي دويتشر في كتابه "عبر منظار اللغة – لم يبدو العالم مختلفًا بلغات أخرى؟"، ولذا جعل ماكوورتر عنوان كتابه الفرعي "لم يبدو العالم متماثلًا في كل لغة؟".
يعتقد دويتشر في كتابه "أن تأثير اللغات المختلفة في فكر متحدثيها ليس بسبب ما تتيحه كل لغة لمتحدثيها من فكر، وإنما بسبب أنواع المعلومات التي تفرض كل لغة على متحدثيها التفكير بها، فعندما تفرض لغة ما على متحدثيها الاهتمام بأوجه معينة من العالم كلما نطقوا بها أو استمعوا إليها ستستقر عادات الحديث والاستماع تلك لتصبح عادات عقلية تؤثر في الذاكرة أو الإدراك أو الترابط الذهني او حتى المهارات العملية".
ينتقد ماكوورتر هذه الفكرة المركزية، وهو يعتقد أن السؤال عن تأثير اللغة في تفكير المتكلم بها يصاغ عادةً بطريقة تفترض –ضمنيًا- أن الإجابة لا يمكن أن تكون "لا" [ص42]، ويرى أنك إذا أردت التبصّر في التماثل بين البشر فعليك أن تتأمل "الكيفية التي تعمل بها اللغة" عند جميعهم. [87].
ويرجع هذه النزعات النسبية التي تجعل اللغة تؤثر على المتكلمين بها، بحيث تختلف رؤية العالم من لغة لأخرى كما يُزعم؛ إلى شيوع موجة الاحتفاء بالنسبية الثقافية التي تجتاح الأكاديميا والثقافة الغربية في العقود الأخيرة، وهي موجة تبجّل التنوّع، وتدافع عنه، بصورة تكاد تكون "دينية". [ص304]
وخلاصة رأي جون ماكوورتر أن "الثقافة –وهو حاصل الكيفية التي يفكر بها الناس- لا يمكن أن تخترق النواة الدبقة للكيفية التي تعمل بها اللغة... يمكن للثقافة أن تؤثر في الكيفية التي تستعمل بها تلك اللغة، وتجعلها تسمّي أشياء معينة لها قدر أكبر في تلك الثقافة بطريقة ليس فيه غموض، ولكن لا يمكن للثقافة أن تؤثر على أي شيء من صميم اللغة من ناحية كيفية انبنائها في التفاصيل"، وهو لا ينكر "أن اللغة والثقافة مرتبطتان"، بل يشكك "بنوع خاص من الارتباط بينهما، وهو مستوى السمات النحوية وتكوينات المفردات مما لا يعتبره أي متحدث أصلي لافتًا للنظر مطلقًا؛ شرطًا يؤدي –كما يزعم- إلى طريقة خاصة في معالجة الحياة". [298، 325].
January 9, 2019
In The Language Hoax, John McWhorter argues against the notion that people who speak in different languages have differing conceptions of the world around them. That idea, that language influences thought, is called academically the "Whorfian Hypothesis" or "Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis" and has been around for nearly a century in varying forms. An early example was that the Hopi language lacks markers for past, present and future: the conclusion being that the Hopi people exist in a completely different perceptual world than "us westerners" without a concept of linear time. Later research showed that Hopi do have concepts of time, just expressed in different ways.
All that would be fine and interesting, but I found this book to be scattered. The positions McWhorter took shifted and pivoted so quickly that I was never exactly sure who or what he was arguing against, what point he was trying to make, or what a given metaphor or example was supposed to connect with. This feels like a small academic dispute that has been brought to the public, and yet McWhorter keeps insisting that he doesn't dispute the findings of the academic "neo-Whorfians". Or maybe some but not all? Rather, he lampoons the public understanding of these ideas, that congratulates speakers of obscure languages for thinking "differently than us" in a patronizing fashion that can border on racism, even with pure intentions. Again, fine, but then he dives into criticizing the findings of the experts, which supposedly he doesn't dispute, saying their findings are insignificant. He agrees that one study indicates Russian speakers react to questions about shades of blue at a different rate, but dismisses it as irrelevant to questions of thought because the measurable difference was only 124 milliseconds. That's a fairly significant amount of time! It's longer than a baseball batter has to decide whether to swing. Little differences like these compound and can affect culture and history. In another passage, McWhorter deconstructs an academic paper comparing average savings rates by country to see if language affects one's awareness of the future and thus preparedness for it. As he's criticizing outliers in the graph he's talking about, I can't help but feel he's employing selective logic to argue against something that could be true on average, even if it doesn't hold for each example. Or, quite likely, the study is flawed... but for other reasons. Rather than pointing out the factors that the researcher is missing, McWhorter encourages us to doubt studies based on the results they produce. The subtitle claims that the book demonstrates "why the world looks the same in any language", but this is never accomplished. Instead, we're given reasons to doubt the opposite claims and are left to assume his position is correct by default.
There are some interesting language examples, and I was really looking forward to more insights about how languages differ in their representations of thought. One small example: Spanish treats time as an amount of substance, rather than as movement along a line, as English does. That's fascinating. More of that, please! Instead, McWhorter keeps dragging us back to less interesting arguments that we're not sure who is actually making, or that he already addressed.
There are many good insights and nuggets of information throughout, but they don't feel well structured, and are hard to piece together into a cohesive viewpoint (let alone summary). Often times McWhorter would make a point that I'd been shouting for a couple chapters, and could have been addressed sooner (for instance: the fact that anyone can learn any language points to the universality of thought). John McWhorter is still fascinating to listen to, a lively and distinctive contributor to language discussion, and his breadth of knowledge is staggering. I'll gladly read more in the future: I just hope it's better organized.
All that would be fine and interesting, but I found this book to be scattered. The positions McWhorter took shifted and pivoted so quickly that I was never exactly sure who or what he was arguing against, what point he was trying to make, or what a given metaphor or example was supposed to connect with. This feels like a small academic dispute that has been brought to the public, and yet McWhorter keeps insisting that he doesn't dispute the findings of the academic "neo-Whorfians". Or maybe some but not all? Rather, he lampoons the public understanding of these ideas, that congratulates speakers of obscure languages for thinking "differently than us" in a patronizing fashion that can border on racism, even with pure intentions. Again, fine, but then he dives into criticizing the findings of the experts, which supposedly he doesn't dispute, saying their findings are insignificant. He agrees that one study indicates Russian speakers react to questions about shades of blue at a different rate, but dismisses it as irrelevant to questions of thought because the measurable difference was only 124 milliseconds. That's a fairly significant amount of time! It's longer than a baseball batter has to decide whether to swing. Little differences like these compound and can affect culture and history. In another passage, McWhorter deconstructs an academic paper comparing average savings rates by country to see if language affects one's awareness of the future and thus preparedness for it. As he's criticizing outliers in the graph he's talking about, I can't help but feel he's employing selective logic to argue against something that could be true on average, even if it doesn't hold for each example. Or, quite likely, the study is flawed... but for other reasons. Rather than pointing out the factors that the researcher is missing, McWhorter encourages us to doubt studies based on the results they produce. The subtitle claims that the book demonstrates "why the world looks the same in any language", but this is never accomplished. Instead, we're given reasons to doubt the opposite claims and are left to assume his position is correct by default.
There are some interesting language examples, and I was really looking forward to more insights about how languages differ in their representations of thought. One small example: Spanish treats time as an amount of substance, rather than as movement along a line, as English does. That's fascinating. More of that, please! Instead, McWhorter keeps dragging us back to less interesting arguments that we're not sure who is actually making, or that he already addressed.
There are many good insights and nuggets of information throughout, but they don't feel well structured, and are hard to piece together into a cohesive viewpoint (let alone summary). Often times McWhorter would make a point that I'd been shouting for a couple chapters, and could have been addressed sooner (for instance: the fact that anyone can learn any language points to the universality of thought). John McWhorter is still fascinating to listen to, a lively and distinctive contributor to language discussion, and his breadth of knowledge is staggering. I'll gladly read more in the future: I just hope it's better organized.
April 11, 2019
It was very frustrating for me to get through the book as I had very high expectations for it. I had some problems with the tone (his use of rhetoric detracting from actual credible claims), but mostly with the lack of evidence to support his claims. He evokes intuition, but that made the argument very unscientific and uncredible. In the end, McWhorter's argument did not conflict with many proponents of the idea of linguistic relativity, and his actual argument against the strict interpretation of Sapir-Whorf is essentially a straw man.
April 13, 2015
Does the structure of the language we speak affect the way we think and how we perceive the world? If you are intrigued by that idea and don’t mind re-examining any cherished Sapir-Whorf beliefs you may have, this short but spirited and well argued book will be of interest. When we think of the fascinatingly structured Navajo language there is some appeal to the idea that its speakers have a special, maybe advanced, way of understanding reality, but with his usual well informed wit McWhorter makes the case that if you accept that and take the idea that language patterns and limits our perceptions to all its logical conclusions, you’ll end up with some very unpalatable and fortunately wrong judgements about various other peoples of the world--from the Chinese who speak a language which marks hypotheticals less explicitly than English (though surely Chinese speakers around the globe understand the difference between “She would have called him” and “She will have called him” anyway) to the people in New Guinea who speak languages with only one word for eat, drink, and smoke, (but who couldn’t possibly be thus doomed by this lack to be unable to distinguish between those three activities.)
Most people tend to take their own language’s idiosyncrasies (and idioms) in stride, accepting them as what’s normal, but language variations are the actual norm. McWhorter makes a convincing case that most of the often marvelous differences between languages are random, like spontaneous DNA mutations, and almost meaningless when we are looking at cognitive skills. Yes, Amazonian people with languages that have no way to indicate amounts higher than 2 or 3 will likely not be good at math, but McWhorter believes that is driven by circumstance and culture, since hunter-gathers around the world and throughout time have not had much use for a number like 8,527.
McWhorter is always entertaining, and I especially love all the fascinating language facts he deploys, like that the Tuyuca people, who also live in the Amazon, have a language so rich and complex there are multiple suffixes for every verb to indicate where the speaker learned whatever he or she is saying--there’s one suffix affixed to the verb to let listeners know that speakers heard someone else say what they are now saying, another suffix for when the speakers instead saw what they are telling you, yet another for when the speakers think what they are saying is true but aren’t sure, etc. The Language Hoax is replete with wonderful, mind-expanding language anecdotes.
While it’s definitely both fun and worth reading, this isn’t my favorite of McWhorter’s books. Because it focuses somewhat narrowly on the debate about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and its neo-Whorfian revival, The Language Hoax didn’t glue me to its pages with the same level of intensity that some of McWhorter’s other titles have, including Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue, which gives different insights into the history English than I have read elsewhere, The Power of Babel, which covers the worldwide history of language and its development, and What Language Is, which presents an almost fecund biological picture of how languages multiply, evolve, and disperse.
Most people tend to take their own language’s idiosyncrasies (and idioms) in stride, accepting them as what’s normal, but language variations are the actual norm. McWhorter makes a convincing case that most of the often marvelous differences between languages are random, like spontaneous DNA mutations, and almost meaningless when we are looking at cognitive skills. Yes, Amazonian people with languages that have no way to indicate amounts higher than 2 or 3 will likely not be good at math, but McWhorter believes that is driven by circumstance and culture, since hunter-gathers around the world and throughout time have not had much use for a number like 8,527.
McWhorter is always entertaining, and I especially love all the fascinating language facts he deploys, like that the Tuyuca people, who also live in the Amazon, have a language so rich and complex there are multiple suffixes for every verb to indicate where the speaker learned whatever he or she is saying--there’s one suffix affixed to the verb to let listeners know that speakers heard someone else say what they are now saying, another suffix for when the speakers instead saw what they are telling you, yet another for when the speakers think what they are saying is true but aren’t sure, etc. The Language Hoax is replete with wonderful, mind-expanding language anecdotes.
While it’s definitely both fun and worth reading, this isn’t my favorite of McWhorter’s books. Because it focuses somewhat narrowly on the debate about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and its neo-Whorfian revival, The Language Hoax didn’t glue me to its pages with the same level of intensity that some of McWhorter’s other titles have, including Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue, which gives different insights into the history English than I have read elsewhere, The Power of Babel, which covers the worldwide history of language and its development, and What Language Is, which presents an almost fecund biological picture of how languages multiply, evolve, and disperse.
Read
October 5, 2019Such a wonderful insight ‘the language we speak shapes the way we perceive the world’- so many thoughts cross my mind! Indeed in English we say ‘long time’ but in Spanish ‘mucho tiempo’- ‘distance’, ‘an amount’- what if it is both? ( waiting for something to happen looks like a long, very long road you run and run and wish to see a sign for its end, and when eventually that something happens, time disappears - minutes and hours re-arrange their ‘particles’ in a shape that seems to have a mass ( the extreme tiredness we feel once that something is over, like we strenuously lifted heavy objects all the day long!)
"I hope to have made it clear that I, like many investigators of language, feel that an academic culture that treated language entirely apart from the cultures of the people that speak them would be not only arid but empirically hopeless.
[…]
What this book takes issue with is a specific question. Does a language’s structure, in terms of what it does with words and how it puts them together, conspire to shape thought to such an extent that we would reasonably term it a ‘worldview’, a perspective on life robustly different from that of someone whose language structures words and grammar differently?....Many feel that the answer to that question is yes, but their grounds for that conclusion create as many problems as they solve..
Much of the appeal of Whorfianism is the idea that other people’s language lead them to pay more attention to certain things than English speakers do…"
"I hope to have made it clear that I, like many investigators of language, feel that an academic culture that treated language entirely apart from the cultures of the people that speak them would be not only arid but empirically hopeless.
[…]
What this book takes issue with is a specific question. Does a language’s structure, in terms of what it does with words and how it puts them together, conspire to shape thought to such an extent that we would reasonably term it a ‘worldview’, a perspective on life robustly different from that of someone whose language structures words and grammar differently?....Many feel that the answer to that question is yes, but their grounds for that conclusion create as many problems as they solve..
Much of the appeal of Whorfianism is the idea that other people’s language lead them to pay more attention to certain things than English speakers do…"
June 21, 2018
I'm kind of "meh" on his conclusions and his interest in some really trivial research*, but I love learn about how different languages do different things. Grammar is a void in my life, and he fills it nicely with his dad jokes at the ends of paragraphs and his snippets about how some languages doe this and some do that and how seemingly random it is.
*He describes several experiments in detail, and how they are testing whatever-the-hell with the similar kinds of test used for implicit bias (it sounds like) and coming up with really tiny differences of milliseconds in reaction times between two groups, and maybe this is all great stuff and maybe somewhere else the issue is raised that if you divide your test subjects up into two groups you're pretty much always going to see some difference, but unless you can tie that difference to a behavior it doesn't prove anything and is probably not reproducible. What would be bizarre is if you took two small groups of people and tested them for anything and didn't get a difference. Thus endeth the science lesson for the day.
Library copy
*He describes several experiments in detail, and how they are testing whatever-the-hell with the similar kinds of test used for implicit bias (it sounds like) and coming up with really tiny differences of milliseconds in reaction times between two groups, and maybe this is all great stuff and maybe somewhere else the issue is raised that if you divide your test subjects up into two groups you're pretty much always going to see some difference, but unless you can tie that difference to a behavior it doesn't prove anything and is probably not reproducible. What would be bizarre is if you took two small groups of people and tested them for anything and didn't get a difference. Thus endeth the science lesson for the day.
Library copy
May 18, 2020
We are told that what languages teach us about being human is how different we are. Actually, languages’ lesson for us is more truly progressive—that our differences are variations on being the same. Many would consider that something to celebrate.
In this book, John McWhorter tries to promote the idea that language and thought are interconnected, but that doesn't mean that our worldview is shaped by our language. In other words and in contrast to Whorf-Sapir hypothesis, people who speak Chinese, don't have different political views than native English speakers simply because in Chinese there's no evidentiality. Chinese may not have any markers for past tense, but does it mean they view time in a different way? Do they have no concept of the past vs. the present or future? The answer is no. Remember that it is culture that shapes a language and its nuances in grammar and vocabulary, not the other way around. For the same reason, if you learn a second language as an adult, you do not necessarily absorb the culture the natives promote.
In this book, John McWhorter tries to promote the idea that language and thought are interconnected, but that doesn't mean that our worldview is shaped by our language. In other words and in contrast to Whorf-Sapir hypothesis, people who speak Chinese, don't have different political views than native English speakers simply because in Chinese there's no evidentiality. Chinese may not have any markers for past tense, but does it mean they view time in a different way? Do they have no concept of the past vs. the present or future? The answer is no. Remember that it is culture that shapes a language and its nuances in grammar and vocabulary, not the other way around. For the same reason, if you learn a second language as an adult, you do not necessarily absorb the culture the natives promote.
January 11, 2020
Saw McWhorter give a talk, and thought this would be interesting. It isn’t. He’s an embarrassingly poor thinker, and this is a useless contribution to the language question.
To illustrate: he addresses the common question of whether we see colors differently when we have words for them than when we don’t. Turns out we detect a color slightly more quickly when we have a word for it, but we see it whether we can name it or not (I’m oversimplifying some here). The problem is that McWhorter misunderstands the question, and so thinks these rather pointless experiments by psychologists have anything to do with the question of “worldviews.” He asks whether “having different terms for dark blue and light blue has any effect on perception—that is, can language shape thought?” The quick slide from perception to thought is the sophistical move that runs throughout the book. So that when he says that it is a mistake to think that “what your language is like makes you see the world in a particular way,” it is true that we don’t, for instance, fail to perceive a tree if we have no word for it. However, McWhorter draws the conclusion that our “seeing the world” in the metaphorical sense of having certain assumptions and values also therefore cannot be shaped by language.
In short, the guy is kind of a poor thinker, and the book is an embarrassing example of the worst kind of academic sophistry. Two stars only because it might provoke some discussion.
To illustrate: he addresses the common question of whether we see colors differently when we have words for them than when we don’t. Turns out we detect a color slightly more quickly when we have a word for it, but we see it whether we can name it or not (I’m oversimplifying some here). The problem is that McWhorter misunderstands the question, and so thinks these rather pointless experiments by psychologists have anything to do with the question of “worldviews.” He asks whether “having different terms for dark blue and light blue has any effect on perception—that is, can language shape thought?” The quick slide from perception to thought is the sophistical move that runs throughout the book. So that when he says that it is a mistake to think that “what your language is like makes you see the world in a particular way,” it is true that we don’t, for instance, fail to perceive a tree if we have no word for it. However, McWhorter draws the conclusion that our “seeing the world” in the metaphorical sense of having certain assumptions and values also therefore cannot be shaped by language.
In short, the guy is kind of a poor thinker, and the book is an embarrassing example of the worst kind of academic sophistry. Two stars only because it might provoke some discussion.
October 19, 2015
McWhorter sets out to debunk popular misconceptions about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. At first he does so by showing what modern science says about it -- namely that it's only true to such a trivial extent that it could never have an impact on how societies develop. Great. End of book.
Except he keeps going. He trots out a bunch of thought experiments to support his arguments, but these are always things he's made up and have no empirical backing beyond that they feel right -- and in many cases they feel right because the alternative would undermine certain assumptions that are the basis for modern liberal societies. For instance, Chinese is less grammatically complex than many other languages, therefore the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis would indicate that their cultural world-view is also less complex. Well that's a great argument for why we should hope the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is false, but it's not an argument for it actually being false. To determine that requires experimentation, and McWhorter doesn't offer any.
I went into the book expecting a straight up overview of what the current state of science is on Sapir-Whorf and how it disproves the popular mythology that surrounds it, but McWhorter does not deliver.
Except he keeps going. He trots out a bunch of thought experiments to support his arguments, but these are always things he's made up and have no empirical backing beyond that they feel right -- and in many cases they feel right because the alternative would undermine certain assumptions that are the basis for modern liberal societies. For instance, Chinese is less grammatically complex than many other languages, therefore the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis would indicate that their cultural world-view is also less complex. Well that's a great argument for why we should hope the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is false, but it's not an argument for it actually being false. To determine that requires experimentation, and McWhorter doesn't offer any.
I went into the book expecting a straight up overview of what the current state of science is on Sapir-Whorf and how it disproves the popular mythology that surrounds it, but McWhorter does not deliver.
December 18, 2014
John McWhorter's concise little book, while written in his ever-entertaining style, nevertheless illuminates a serious issue which has vexed the popular understanding of linguistics for decades: the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, or Whorfianism; the idea that what kind of language one speaks, specifically in terms of how its grammar expresses ideas, shapes one's thought to such a degree that speakers of different languages actually perceive the world differently. Shades of blues are more vivid to Russian eyes, with their two different words for lighter and darker varieties of what English (and many, but by no means all, other languages) considers "one color." East Asians are more attuned to what kinds of materials various stuff is made of because many languages in the region force one to classify objects into certain categories (long, thin objects, flat objects, small animals) when one counts them. These and more are the classic examples which proponents of the Whorfian paradigm put forward as proof that different human groups, because of what their language's GRAMMAR (as opposed to their culture) forces them to take note of, are somehow more "alive" to these particular facets of reality.
This just isn't true. At least not to the degree that has been claimed. McWhorter cites the large body of evidence which demonstrates that outside of highly contrived laboratory experiments (which do suggest some small perceptual differences), the mechanics of grammar do not affect thought to any significant or meaningful degree. Culture affects how one thinks and the way in which one uses language. The structure of one's language (such as whether it assigns nouns grammatical gender) simply does not affect how or what one thinks about in "real world" situations. Experiments trying to prove otherwise give marginal results. The idea that languages shape a pervasive worldview for their speakers is therefore simply incorrect. This should be a closed book except that it sometimes seems as if people who are not linguists simply will not abandon the idea.
Whorfianism in its extreme, all-encompassing worldview-shaping sense, is of those pernicious little concepts which, although largely discredited by empirical research and no longer given (much) credit among linguists, has filtered into the humanities as well as the sort of NPR-listening tier of popular consciousness through journalistic rather than scientific sources and entrenched itself. McWhorter generously acknowledges that the motive behind this is noble; the impulse to celebrate diversity and acknowledge the possible existence and equal validity of radically different ways of perceiving reality. It must be said that Whorf had an agenda when he put forth his theory that language shapes worldview. Specifically, he wished to prove that the Hopi Indians' relationship to time was conditioned by their language, and, in effect, gave them a separate but equal worldview vis-a-vis time to that of Westerners; one that is cyclical, rather than linear (he was also wrong, incidentally, about how the Hopi mark time in their language.)
McWhorter, however, makes what I consider the definitive case for why this is a poor and potentially harmful way to celebrate diversity; Whorfian claims ultimately offer little but exotification and back-handed compliments to (often, though not always, non-Western, low-population size) speakers of other languages, almost always, it seems, by monolingual Anglophones with college educations who are all too ready to chastise themselves for the perceived lack of vibrancy in their own culture ("Whoa, you must be so, like...in TOUCH with modality from all the explicit marking you do, man.") He also shows convincingly that even linguists who embrace Whorfian ideas have a track record of only doing so to the degree that they are "comforting"; i.e. that they show that non-Western or even simply non-Anglophone peoples (such as the French and their different words for knowing facts and knowing people) have an "expanded" worldview compared to that of the English-speakers conducting the studies. Studies that suggest possible deficiencies in "the other" (such as Mandarin Chinese's lack of many of the shades of conditionality that English has, and what that might imply about how its speakers process the hypothetical) are quickly denounced and expunged from the canon.
Ultimately Whorfianism as understood by the benighted NPR listener is one more Noble Savage fallacy with which to pat oneself on the back for grappling with the idea that people in the Amazon or Papua New Guinea might be more "in tune" with group dynamics than us selfish, despoiling Westerners because their grammar requires them to mark certain things about the number or gender of people involved in some speech event. All Whorfian explanations for how grammar effects cognition similarly collapse into this kind of just-so story under scrutiny.
So then what makes some languages mark certain aspects of reality (like whether something happened in the past) explicitly in their grammar while others leave them to context and yet are still fully developed systems for expressing complex human thought? McWhorter continually emphasizes the linguistic truth of the matter: chance. Whether a language marks something in its grammar or not is virtually random (barring the obvious relationship it bears to the developmental history of that language) and it has nothing to do with the alleged Weltschmerz of a given "ethnos." For some reason, this is very hard for non-linguists to accept. The humanist types in question, especially, seem to only care about the mechanics of language, so fascinating in and of themselves, in as much as they might serve as a window into the "soul" of a people. For a linguist, this is probably the single most depressing aspect of this book. Language, as McWhorter states many times, is just so darn cool on its own terms. Its study, especially the study of small and dying languages, should not need to be justified for any other reason than that its variety is endlessly awe-inspiring, not because that variety tells us anything in particular about how a certain people "thinks." Their cultural practices will tell you that, in all likelihood loudly and forcefully. Why look through a glass darkly for hints that the Japanese are vaguely more sensitive to the composition of "stuff" because they use classifiers, rather than read their literature, or appreciate their art to learn that they have a particular love for all things wistfully transient?
In effect, McWhorter demonstrates what linguists and cognitive scientists have known for a long time; that culture shapes language, not the other way around, and that all people around the world think pretty much the same way, which in itself should be the more comforting realization. Now if NPR would just start sending copies of this book to all its listeners...
This just isn't true. At least not to the degree that has been claimed. McWhorter cites the large body of evidence which demonstrates that outside of highly contrived laboratory experiments (which do suggest some small perceptual differences), the mechanics of grammar do not affect thought to any significant or meaningful degree. Culture affects how one thinks and the way in which one uses language. The structure of one's language (such as whether it assigns nouns grammatical gender) simply does not affect how or what one thinks about in "real world" situations. Experiments trying to prove otherwise give marginal results. The idea that languages shape a pervasive worldview for their speakers is therefore simply incorrect. This should be a closed book except that it sometimes seems as if people who are not linguists simply will not abandon the idea.
Whorfianism in its extreme, all-encompassing worldview-shaping sense, is of those pernicious little concepts which, although largely discredited by empirical research and no longer given (much) credit among linguists, has filtered into the humanities as well as the sort of NPR-listening tier of popular consciousness through journalistic rather than scientific sources and entrenched itself. McWhorter generously acknowledges that the motive behind this is noble; the impulse to celebrate diversity and acknowledge the possible existence and equal validity of radically different ways of perceiving reality. It must be said that Whorf had an agenda when he put forth his theory that language shapes worldview. Specifically, he wished to prove that the Hopi Indians' relationship to time was conditioned by their language, and, in effect, gave them a separate but equal worldview vis-a-vis time to that of Westerners; one that is cyclical, rather than linear (he was also wrong, incidentally, about how the Hopi mark time in their language.)
McWhorter, however, makes what I consider the definitive case for why this is a poor and potentially harmful way to celebrate diversity; Whorfian claims ultimately offer little but exotification and back-handed compliments to (often, though not always, non-Western, low-population size) speakers of other languages, almost always, it seems, by monolingual Anglophones with college educations who are all too ready to chastise themselves for the perceived lack of vibrancy in their own culture ("Whoa, you must be so, like...in TOUCH with modality from all the explicit marking you do, man.") He also shows convincingly that even linguists who embrace Whorfian ideas have a track record of only doing so to the degree that they are "comforting"; i.e. that they show that non-Western or even simply non-Anglophone peoples (such as the French and their different words for knowing facts and knowing people) have an "expanded" worldview compared to that of the English-speakers conducting the studies. Studies that suggest possible deficiencies in "the other" (such as Mandarin Chinese's lack of many of the shades of conditionality that English has, and what that might imply about how its speakers process the hypothetical) are quickly denounced and expunged from the canon.
Ultimately Whorfianism as understood by the benighted NPR listener is one more Noble Savage fallacy with which to pat oneself on the back for grappling with the idea that people in the Amazon or Papua New Guinea might be more "in tune" with group dynamics than us selfish, despoiling Westerners because their grammar requires them to mark certain things about the number or gender of people involved in some speech event. All Whorfian explanations for how grammar effects cognition similarly collapse into this kind of just-so story under scrutiny.
So then what makes some languages mark certain aspects of reality (like whether something happened in the past) explicitly in their grammar while others leave them to context and yet are still fully developed systems for expressing complex human thought? McWhorter continually emphasizes the linguistic truth of the matter: chance. Whether a language marks something in its grammar or not is virtually random (barring the obvious relationship it bears to the developmental history of that language) and it has nothing to do with the alleged Weltschmerz of a given "ethnos." For some reason, this is very hard for non-linguists to accept. The humanist types in question, especially, seem to only care about the mechanics of language, so fascinating in and of themselves, in as much as they might serve as a window into the "soul" of a people. For a linguist, this is probably the single most depressing aspect of this book. Language, as McWhorter states many times, is just so darn cool on its own terms. Its study, especially the study of small and dying languages, should not need to be justified for any other reason than that its variety is endlessly awe-inspiring, not because that variety tells us anything in particular about how a certain people "thinks." Their cultural practices will tell you that, in all likelihood loudly and forcefully. Why look through a glass darkly for hints that the Japanese are vaguely more sensitive to the composition of "stuff" because they use classifiers, rather than read their literature, or appreciate their art to learn that they have a particular love for all things wistfully transient?
In effect, McWhorter demonstrates what linguists and cognitive scientists have known for a long time; that culture shapes language, not the other way around, and that all people around the world think pretty much the same way, which in itself should be the more comforting realization. Now if NPR would just start sending copies of this book to all its listeners...
March 17, 2021
I picked this up because I like McWhorter's podcast on language and linguistics, Lexicon Valley, and it was indeed much like that! This is a short book arguing against the Whorf idea, i.e. that the language people speak influences how they think (e.g. Russian has different words for light blue and dark blue, so Russian speakers see colour differently from other people). It has to be short, because the book really doesn't do anything else but argue against that, but it does it well; McWhorter is engaging and enjoyable to read even when he's being very opinionated. And even though he is quite trenchant, "hoax" in the title is a bit much - McWhorter is approaching the Whorf idea as a reasonable theory put forth by reasonable people that he disagrees with for various detailed reasons. I will check out his other books.
December 19, 2023
Persuasive because of its skill and graciousness
I have learned so much from McWhorter, and not just about language, but about using the tools of persuasion. He could have buried all Whorfianism under an avalanche of wit and reason, and his fans would have followed him. But he carefully distinguishes the good ideas proposed by the movement from the faulty conclusions drawn popularly from its work. The title of the book is a bit clickbaity (publishers choose titles), and he opens his book by calling his work a manifesto, but he doesn’t have that grandiose tone. He’s patient and clear.
I have learned so much from McWhorter, and not just about language, but about using the tools of persuasion. He could have buried all Whorfianism under an avalanche of wit and reason, and his fans would have followed him. But he carefully distinguishes the good ideas proposed by the movement from the faulty conclusions drawn popularly from its work. The title of the book is a bit clickbaity (publishers choose titles), and he opens his book by calling his work a manifesto, but he doesn’t have that grandiose tone. He’s patient and clear.
November 27, 2016
McWhorter is not, as I had assumed before reading this, a complete anti-Whorfian. But he is troubled by the popular misunderstandings of Neo-Whorfian theories that exaggerate a few minuscule variations in how speakers may or may not perform on extremely subtle tests to mean that a language actually shapes how its speakers think and see the world.
McWhorter take Deutscher's Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages as a prime example of this popular misunderstanding, but his gripe is not with Deutscher's writing, which he points out makes a similar point to his own. The title of Deutscher's book contributes to the problem, but McWhorter mostly blames popular media simplifications for dumbing-down this fine scholarly finding. (~ Interesting that in one of my status updates while reading Deutscher's book I wrote: "At this point he seems to be making the case that the world looks the same in all languages." Now I see why I was confused by the mismatch between the broad claims of that book's title and the actual case Deutscher was making. Maybe I should reconsider my opinion of that one.)
Here then, through impeccable logic and painstaking arguments and often humorous examples McWhorter refutes the simplified, popular Whorfian claims and shows that it is more likely culture that affects language and not the reverse. The differences speakers show in linguistic experiments - and by extension how they may or may not view time, say - are vanishingly small. The Chinese language is a good example of where one would run into danger with the claim that language influences thought.
McWhorter take Deutscher's Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages as a prime example of this popular misunderstanding, but his gripe is not with Deutscher's writing, which he points out makes a similar point to his own. The title of Deutscher's book contributes to the problem, but McWhorter mostly blames popular media simplifications for dumbing-down this fine scholarly finding. (~ Interesting that in one of my status updates while reading Deutscher's book I wrote: "At this point he seems to be making the case that the world looks the same in all languages." Now I see why I was confused by the mismatch between the broad claims of that book's title and the actual case Deutscher was making. Maybe I should reconsider my opinion of that one.)
Here then, through impeccable logic and painstaking arguments and often humorous examples McWhorter refutes the simplified, popular Whorfian claims and shows that it is more likely culture that affects language and not the reverse. The differences speakers show in linguistic experiments - and by extension how they may or may not view time, say - are vanishingly small. The Chinese language is a good example of where one would run into danger with the claim that language influences thought.
Where is the warmly received Whorfian literature about how certain languages might make their speakers less aware of something central to existence?: Mandarin Chinese is so "simple" compared to some other languages that a Whorfian would have to conclude that the speakers are, well, a little dim. Of course this is ridiculous. Likewise a tongue such as Navajo is more complex than English. It doesn't much matter. All languages are different and some have more tenses and more words for "blue," and a language's evolution within culture has a lot to do with it what it displays. But even if a word doesn't exist in a language the speakers just say what they think in different words. Because human cognition is always complex.
June 3, 2020
الكاتب كانت عنده فكرة وحدة قعد يكتبها بصيغ مختلفة خلال الفصول مع استشهادات من لغات مختلفة، أن العالم يبدو نفسه بكل اللغات. الكاتب صحح المفهوم الشهير والذي سمعنا به أغلبنا، أن اللغة تأثر على تفكيرنا وعلى الطريقة التي نرى بها العالم من حولنا، الحقيقة أننا نرى العالم نفسه حتى إذا اختلفت الضمائر.
..
الكتاب قصير لكن كتابته سيئة للأمانة، ما أعرف ايش الخلل بالضبط بس أعتقد أنها جافة للغاية وببعض المواضع غير مفهومة لدرجة تعيد تقرأ النص مرتين وثلاثة لفهم سياقه.
2.5/5
..
الكتاب قصير لكن كتابته سيئة للأمانة، ما أعرف ايش الخلل بالضبط بس أعتقد أنها جافة للغاية وببعض المواضع غير مفهومة لدرجة تعيد تقرأ النص مرتين وثلاثة لفهم سياقه.
2.5/5
November 29, 2019
"The Language Hoax" Hoax
In this book, McWhorter argues against the linguistic relativity (Sapir-Whorf) hypothesis. Spoiler alert - with a lot of sarcasm but without much success.
1) A tedious read
McWhorter makes sure the reader gets his message evidenced by the fact that an impressive proportion of the text is just paraphrasing his main point. Reading this book felt like listening to the mantra - I should admit, it's a powerful way to be persuasive.
2) Misleading
To be fair, I should admit that McWhorter's argument does not solely rely on the power of mantra. At least some parts of it are based on the results of interesting studies from cognitive linguistics. Alongside the fascinating insights into the structures of different languages, this is my favorite part of the book and the reason I gave it three stars.
Unfortunately, the portrayal of the results from the aforementioned studies is misleading in the book. One of the first studies described shows that English- and Russian-speakers differ in color processing. Russians have distinctive labels for dark and light blue and they are faster to process these colors. The difference is ~180 milliseconds (ms). McWhorter emotionally and repeatedly stresses out how small this number is. Given the relativistic nature of the term "small" and the broad target audience, it would have been nice to elaborate more on the timescales in the brain. If he told the reader that the detection of visual inputs takes as short as 200-500ms (according to recent studies, even shorter when we are looking at one object) [1], ~180ms would not have sounded that small after all.
3) Get your act together
In the second chapter, McWhorter argues that different behavioral patterns across cultures, that Whorfianism associates with linguistic differences stem from cultural differences. Culture is the fundamental actor that shapes both - linguistic and behavioral differences. In the third chapter, he changes his mind and dedicates several pages to the idea that language is a sterile structure, isolated from environmental/cultural influences.
If you are looking for a portal that will direct you to the interesting psycholinguistics literature, ironically this book can serve as one.
[1] Chun, M. M., & Potter, M. C. (1995). A Two-Stage Model for Multiple Target Detection in Rapid Serial Visual Presentation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 21(1), 109–127.
In this book, McWhorter argues against the linguistic relativity (Sapir-Whorf) hypothesis. Spoiler alert - with a lot of sarcasm but without much success.
1) A tedious read
McWhorter makes sure the reader gets his message evidenced by the fact that an impressive proportion of the text is just paraphrasing his main point. Reading this book felt like listening to the mantra - I should admit, it's a powerful way to be persuasive.
2) Misleading
To be fair, I should admit that McWhorter's argument does not solely rely on the power of mantra. At least some parts of it are based on the results of interesting studies from cognitive linguistics. Alongside the fascinating insights into the structures of different languages, this is my favorite part of the book and the reason I gave it three stars.
Unfortunately, the portrayal of the results from the aforementioned studies is misleading in the book. One of the first studies described shows that English- and Russian-speakers differ in color processing. Russians have distinctive labels for dark and light blue and they are faster to process these colors. The difference is ~180 milliseconds (ms). McWhorter emotionally and repeatedly stresses out how small this number is. Given the relativistic nature of the term "small" and the broad target audience, it would have been nice to elaborate more on the timescales in the brain. If he told the reader that the detection of visual inputs takes as short as 200-500ms (according to recent studies, even shorter when we are looking at one object) [1], ~180ms would not have sounded that small after all.
3) Get your act together
In the second chapter, McWhorter argues that different behavioral patterns across cultures, that Whorfianism associates with linguistic differences stem from cultural differences. Culture is the fundamental actor that shapes both - linguistic and behavioral differences. In the third chapter, he changes his mind and dedicates several pages to the idea that language is a sterile structure, isolated from environmental/cultural influences.
If you are looking for a portal that will direct you to the interesting psycholinguistics literature, ironically this book can serve as one.
[1] Chun, M. M., & Potter, M. C. (1995). A Two-Stage Model for Multiple Target Detection in Rapid Serial Visual Presentation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 21(1), 109–127.
September 23, 2018
McWhorter's The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language (2001) and Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English (2008) are two of my favorite popular linguistics books. Funny, insightful and very readable, these two books even more than similar works by David Crystal or Geoffrey Nunberg set the standard for how to write about linguistics for an everyday reader. Here McWhorter's humor and memorable voice work well, yet the subject itself is pretty slight and would arguably work better in a magazine article than a full length book, even one that's barely 200 pages. In short, McWhorter's claim that the Sapir Whorf hypothesis is mostly bunk is one he makes persuasively enough in the book's first chapter. The rest is interesting but probably superfluous. Plus, McWhorter made this same claim just as well in a final chapter of Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue, which raises the question of whether or not it's worth rehashing here. One more gripe, for a book with such a polemical title (and the implication that it's going to be focused on debunking a persistent hoax) McWhorter's criticism is awfully hedged throughout. A better title might be The Language Idea That's Sort of True to a Small Extent But Not Really Enough to Matter All That Much. Gripes aside, McWhorter's writing, analysis and humor are always worth reading. Readers unfamiliar with the author, however, would be better off starting with The Power of Babel.
June 4, 2021
ما علاقة اللغة بالتفكير..؟
نحن نعلم أننا نفكر باستخدام اللغة، ونتحدث عن أفكارنا باللغة، ولكن هل اللغة نفسها تقوم بتحديد تفكيرنا؟ هل تتحكم اللغة بادراكنا لحالات معينة؟ هل تعطينا اللغة مشاعر اضافية اذا ما تنوعت مصطلحاتها؟ وهل تتيح اللغات تنوعًا في طرق التفكير بناء على بنيتها النحوية؟
يتيح لنا الكتاب الدخول لعالم ما يعرف ب #النسبية_اللغوية، بالبحث بأفكارها وادعاءاتها ثم محاولة التفصيل بالدراسات التي اشتهرت حول اثر اللغة على الفكر، بشكل علمي منهجي بعيد جدا عن محاولات جذب الانتباه والاحتفال وبناء نتائج ضخمة على دراسة عادية.
وكل ادعاء مبني على دراسة له حديثه الخاص، فالكاتب لا يحاول ان يقوّض كل ما جاء تحت (فرضية سباير_وورف)، بل يحاور الجوانب التي لم تطرح منها.
يحاجج الكاتب بفوضوية تطور اللغات بناء على عادات عشوائية تمامًا، ليس بالضرورة ان تتعلق بحاجة الناطقين فيها بل الصدفة. والسمة الثقافية هي التي تخلق السمة اللغوية ولا يحدث العكس الا بنطاق ضيق جدًا.
"إن اللغات، بدلًا من أن تكشف كل واحدة منها عن منحى مختلف للتفكير _فيما عدا وجود تسميات للأشياء الثقافية_ هي بالأحرى تنوعات للمنحى نفسه ��ن التفكير: وهو التفكير البشري. وقد يبدو هذا غير مثير، ولكن التجانس يمكن أن يكون أكثر اثارة للاهتمام مما يبدو. فتفشيه بين البشر، من ناحية مضاطته للحدس، عبرة تفوق التنوع. "
نحن نعلم أننا نفكر باستخدام اللغة، ونتحدث عن أفكارنا باللغة، ولكن هل اللغة نفسها تقوم بتحديد تفكيرنا؟ هل تتحكم اللغة بادراكنا لحالات معينة؟ هل تعطينا اللغة مشاعر اضافية اذا ما تنوعت مصطلحاتها؟ وهل تتيح اللغات تنوعًا في طرق التفكير بناء على بنيتها النحوية؟
يتيح لنا الكتاب الدخول لعالم ما يعرف ب #النسبية_اللغوية، بالبحث بأفكارها وادعاءاتها ثم محاولة التفصيل بالدراسات التي اشتهرت حول اثر اللغة على الفكر، بشكل علمي منهجي بعيد جدا عن محاولات جذب الانتباه والاحتفال وبناء نتائج ضخمة على دراسة عادية.
وكل ادعاء مبني على دراسة له حديثه الخاص، فالكاتب لا يحاول ان يقوّض كل ما جاء تحت (فرضية سباير_وورف)، بل يحاور الجوانب التي لم تطرح منها.
يحاجج الكاتب بفوضوية تطور اللغات بناء على عادات عشوائية تمامًا، ليس بالضرورة ان تتعلق بحاجة الناطقين فيها بل الصدفة. والسمة الثقافية هي التي تخلق السمة اللغوية ولا يحدث العكس الا بنطاق ضيق جدًا.
"إن اللغات، بدلًا من أن تكشف كل واحدة منها عن منحى مختلف للتفكير _فيما عدا وجود تسميات للأشياء الثقافية_ هي بالأحرى تنوعات للمنحى نفسه ��ن التفكير: وهو التفكير البشري. وقد يبدو هذا غير مثير، ولكن التجانس يمكن أن يكون أكثر اثارة للاهتمام مما يبدو. فتفشيه بين البشر، من ناحية مضاطته للحدس، عبرة تفوق التنوع. "
Read
July 14, 2014McWhorter gives two types of argument against "popular Neo-Whorfianism", the view that the language you speak shapes (in some way) your "world view".
The first type of argument is empirical. McWhorter grants experimental evidence supports "academic Neo-Whorfianism", the view that the language you speak shapes thought in subtle and surprising ways. But he denies that the influence of language on thought is significant enough to count as shaping anyone's "world view". One's world view is the result of culture (and, it's safe to assume, your physical make up). Culture can vary independently of language (lots of different world views are held by people who speak English, e.g.), and language can vary independently of culture (speakers of Tzeltal in Mexico and speakers of Guugu Yimithirr in Australia live in similar mountainous regions but have different ways of indicating location).
I am most interested in McWhorter's argument that even the complementary idea that that language is shaped by the "needs" of a culture (other than the obvious sense in which particular expressions can be introduced to handle novel concepts) is mistaken. Again the argument is based on observations about how language varies independently of culture/thought. Everyone needs to keep track of distinctions of rank, but not all languages have intricate honorifics; everyone needs to refer, but not all languages have definite/indefinite descriptions, etc.
I wonder how well J.L. Austin's recommendation that, when philosophizing, we should start by thinking about distinctions that are present in our language (English) as a way of avoiding the tendency to oversimplify that is a risk involved in armchair theorizing. (But: the distinctions encoded in language aren't all the distinctions there are to be drawn, they're just a handy starting place.) First of all, distinctions encoded by languages will vary a lot, so it seems we should be doing a lot of cross-linguistic investigating if we're going to be rigorous about finding distinctions encoded in language. But then there's the problem that some languages cut various phenomena up really really finely: In Navajo, "how you say eat depends on whether you are just eating in general or whether what you are eating is hard, soft, stringy, round, a bunch of little things, or meat" (pp.45-46). It'd be hard to maintain that all of the distinctions encoded in all of the world's languages are philosophically relevant. But then it's not obvious that the lexical distinctions in English that Austin made so much out of (the distinction between doing something "intentionally" vs. "deliberately", e.g.) mark genuine distinctions either. I have a hard time hearing the difference between those adverbs, for example. Since philosophers still favorably quote Austin's methodological recommendation, working out a criticism of it along these lines might be a worthwhile project.
The second type of argument McWhorter gives is moral. Roughly: If you accept popular neo-Whorfianism, then you're forced to embrace some unsavory conclusions about languages (Chinese, e.g.) that encode fewer distinctions of certain types than the baseline (English). The moral argument is meant to get a grip on those who might be attracted to neo-Whorfianism because it seems to express an attitude of respect for those who speak different languages.
The first type of argument is empirical. McWhorter grants experimental evidence supports "academic Neo-Whorfianism", the view that the language you speak shapes thought in subtle and surprising ways. But he denies that the influence of language on thought is significant enough to count as shaping anyone's "world view". One's world view is the result of culture (and, it's safe to assume, your physical make up). Culture can vary independently of language (lots of different world views are held by people who speak English, e.g.), and language can vary independently of culture (speakers of Tzeltal in Mexico and speakers of Guugu Yimithirr in Australia live in similar mountainous regions but have different ways of indicating location).
I am most interested in McWhorter's argument that even the complementary idea that that language is shaped by the "needs" of a culture (other than the obvious sense in which particular expressions can be introduced to handle novel concepts) is mistaken. Again the argument is based on observations about how language varies independently of culture/thought. Everyone needs to keep track of distinctions of rank, but not all languages have intricate honorifics; everyone needs to refer, but not all languages have definite/indefinite descriptions, etc.
I wonder how well J.L. Austin's recommendation that, when philosophizing, we should start by thinking about distinctions that are present in our language (English) as a way of avoiding the tendency to oversimplify that is a risk involved in armchair theorizing. (But: the distinctions encoded in language aren't all the distinctions there are to be drawn, they're just a handy starting place.) First of all, distinctions encoded by languages will vary a lot, so it seems we should be doing a lot of cross-linguistic investigating if we're going to be rigorous about finding distinctions encoded in language. But then there's the problem that some languages cut various phenomena up really really finely: In Navajo, "how you say eat depends on whether you are just eating in general or whether what you are eating is hard, soft, stringy, round, a bunch of little things, or meat" (pp.45-46). It'd be hard to maintain that all of the distinctions encoded in all of the world's languages are philosophically relevant. But then it's not obvious that the lexical distinctions in English that Austin made so much out of (the distinction between doing something "intentionally" vs. "deliberately", e.g.) mark genuine distinctions either. I have a hard time hearing the difference between those adverbs, for example. Since philosophers still favorably quote Austin's methodological recommendation, working out a criticism of it along these lines might be a worthwhile project.
The second type of argument McWhorter gives is moral. Roughly: If you accept popular neo-Whorfianism, then you're forced to embrace some unsavory conclusions about languages (Chinese, e.g.) that encode fewer distinctions of certain types than the baseline (English). The moral argument is meant to get a grip on those who might be attracted to neo-Whorfianism because it seems to express an attitude of respect for those who speak different languages.
December 17, 2021
A dismally argued little book.
I have no dog in this fight. In the introduction, after McWhorter briefly explains what the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is, I thought to myself, "Ah, I must agree with McWhorter: that sounds like mostly nonsense."
As the book winds on, the poor quality of McWhorter's argumentation had almost convinced me of the opposite. He relies on two rhetorical flourishes throughout the book.
The first is that, because the author cannot imagine something to be true, it must not be true. He explicitly uses the phrases "hard to imagine" and "hard to see" to justify his anti-Whorfian position. This almost doesn't bear stating, but an author's lack of imagination isn't evidence for or against anything.
The second flourish, related to yet distinct from the first, is a series of rhetorical questions posited after the author has showcased a Whorfian gaffe or extravagance. These questions are meant to point up how silly the Whorfian position is, but I found them a dishonest means of mischaracterizing others' theories and experiments. Just because a new idea seems to raise many large questions doesn't mean the idea isn't worth considering. (And besides, that the author refuses to answer his own rhetorical questions is simply not evidence that the questions are unanswerable.)
What of the more substantive arguments here? I still found myself unconvinced. McWhorter presses us to think of the Whorfian position as equating certain qualities as either "good" or "bad," but I don't see the evidence that we must necessarily do so. If the Whorfian actually does think that (to take an example from the book) speakers of languages which lack a future tense are worse at planning for the future, or that speakers of languages that lack a word for light or dark blue literally see the world differently than speakers who have those words — it does not follow necessarily that any of these speakers are more or less fully human than others. This is the leap which McWhorter insists repeatedly that Whorfians make, and though some do individually make it (at their peril, yes), the author fails to demonstrate that the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis cannot do without it. Maybe some Whorfians do have a cultural, social, or moral motivation for hyping their hypothesis, but if we discard those motivations the hypothesis itself does not crumble into dust or vanish into air.
So much for his personal aversion to the hypothesis. But what of his empirical and scientific objections? Again, I do not find them persuasive. He repeats again and again that the difference between two groups' response times in a certain experiment were 150 milliseconds apart — and what's 150 milliseconds between friends, really? Well, either something is statistically significant or it isn't, and once you've determined (as the scientists did in the experiment above) that there is a statistically significant difference, then it's totally and wholly unscientific to throw your hands up (as does McWhorter) and say, "Well that's rather not a lot of milliseconds in the grand scheme of things after all, so who cares?"
I still might, in the final summation, agree with McWhorter. I'm very unconvinced that any of the experiments he describes tell us that a language's grammatical structure shapes the way we think about the world. But if I remain unconvinced, it's no thanks to this author.
I have no dog in this fight. In the introduction, after McWhorter briefly explains what the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is, I thought to myself, "Ah, I must agree with McWhorter: that sounds like mostly nonsense."
As the book winds on, the poor quality of McWhorter's argumentation had almost convinced me of the opposite. He relies on two rhetorical flourishes throughout the book.
The first is that, because the author cannot imagine something to be true, it must not be true. He explicitly uses the phrases "hard to imagine" and "hard to see" to justify his anti-Whorfian position. This almost doesn't bear stating, but an author's lack of imagination isn't evidence for or against anything.
The second flourish, related to yet distinct from the first, is a series of rhetorical questions posited after the author has showcased a Whorfian gaffe or extravagance. These questions are meant to point up how silly the Whorfian position is, but I found them a dishonest means of mischaracterizing others' theories and experiments. Just because a new idea seems to raise many large questions doesn't mean the idea isn't worth considering. (And besides, that the author refuses to answer his own rhetorical questions is simply not evidence that the questions are unanswerable.)
What of the more substantive arguments here? I still found myself unconvinced. McWhorter presses us to think of the Whorfian position as equating certain qualities as either "good" or "bad," but I don't see the evidence that we must necessarily do so. If the Whorfian actually does think that (to take an example from the book) speakers of languages which lack a future tense are worse at planning for the future, or that speakers of languages that lack a word for light or dark blue literally see the world differently than speakers who have those words — it does not follow necessarily that any of these speakers are more or less fully human than others. This is the leap which McWhorter insists repeatedly that Whorfians make, and though some do individually make it (at their peril, yes), the author fails to demonstrate that the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis cannot do without it. Maybe some Whorfians do have a cultural, social, or moral motivation for hyping their hypothesis, but if we discard those motivations the hypothesis itself does not crumble into dust or vanish into air.
So much for his personal aversion to the hypothesis. But what of his empirical and scientific objections? Again, I do not find them persuasive. He repeats again and again that the difference between two groups' response times in a certain experiment were 150 milliseconds apart — and what's 150 milliseconds between friends, really? Well, either something is statistically significant or it isn't, and once you've determined (as the scientists did in the experiment above) that there is a statistically significant difference, then it's totally and wholly unscientific to throw your hands up (as does McWhorter) and say, "Well that's rather not a lot of milliseconds in the grand scheme of things after all, so who cares?"
I still might, in the final summation, agree with McWhorter. I'm very unconvinced that any of the experiments he describes tell us that a language's grammatical structure shapes the way we think about the world. But if I remain unconvinced, it's no thanks to this author.
October 30, 2017
This small book is a bit of a rant, but it's something interesting to think about and it's by John McWhorter, so we can all forgive him a published rant and also be very interested in what he has to say ;) Basically, McWhorter objects to the idea that language *controls* thought, to the extent that differences in language can determine that people who speak one language physically experience the world differently and think differently than people who speak a different language.
The pernicious idea here is called "Whorfianism". Contrary to what you might think, it turns out Whorfians, in the world of linguistics, are not people who speak Klingon. Instead, they are people who think that if your language has two words for different shades of blue, that you can see finer differences in shades of blue than someone whose language does not. Or that, if your language doesn't have past tense, you have a harder time thinking about things that have already happened.
There are some minor effects that have been measured, but basically Whorfianism appears to be similar to evolutionary biology -- it's easy to claim that a difference that exists between cultures is due to differences in language (or, for EB, because of some long-ago survival condition) without actually doing any real science to show it. What McWhorter, the Non-Whorfian, pushes here is that, if Whorfian arguments are correct, they aren't consistent with lots of other lingual differences that either indicate the opposite of Whorfianism, or no difference whatsoever despite similar differences in language. Let's hear it for actual science! Apply the principle to other cases with similar conditions, examine the result, and disprove a hypothesis. It's what science is all about. It's why I really like this guy!
One of the key reasons McWhorter is coming out strongly against Whorfianism is because he says that underneath it lies some very dangerous ideas. Basically, it's really easy for Whorfianism to be a front for racism. Yes, it's not used that way now -- Whorfians are very careful to explore and match cultural and lingual differences in a way that celebrates other cultures, not denigrating them. McWhorter wonders, though, if that sets up other cultures to be a kind of sideshow of cultural wonder, to be stared at, and worries it still makes them seem less human since it claims they literally think and sense differently. And he points out that once you let that idea out of the box, you can't pick and choose your comparisons. If you are saying one culture is neat because it does X more, you are essentially saying another culture is less neat because it does X less.
The Language Hoax is very focused, gets to the point, and thoroughly explores it. It's not the best McWhorter I've read (that will actually come later), but it is definitely interesting and thought-provoking.
The pernicious idea here is called "Whorfianism". Contrary to what you might think, it turns out Whorfians, in the world of linguistics, are not people who speak Klingon. Instead, they are people who think that if your language has two words for different shades of blue, that you can see finer differences in shades of blue than someone whose language does not. Or that, if your language doesn't have past tense, you have a harder time thinking about things that have already happened.
There are some minor effects that have been measured, but basically Whorfianism appears to be similar to evolutionary biology -- it's easy to claim that a difference that exists between cultures is due to differences in language (or, for EB, because of some long-ago survival condition) without actually doing any real science to show it. What McWhorter, the Non-Whorfian, pushes here is that, if Whorfian arguments are correct, they aren't consistent with lots of other lingual differences that either indicate the opposite of Whorfianism, or no difference whatsoever despite similar differences in language. Let's hear it for actual science! Apply the principle to other cases with similar conditions, examine the result, and disprove a hypothesis. It's what science is all about. It's why I really like this guy!
One of the key reasons McWhorter is coming out strongly against Whorfianism is because he says that underneath it lies some very dangerous ideas. Basically, it's really easy for Whorfianism to be a front for racism. Yes, it's not used that way now -- Whorfians are very careful to explore and match cultural and lingual differences in a way that celebrates other cultures, not denigrating them. McWhorter wonders, though, if that sets up other cultures to be a kind of sideshow of cultural wonder, to be stared at, and worries it still makes them seem less human since it claims they literally think and sense differently. And he points out that once you let that idea out of the box, you can't pick and choose your comparisons. If you are saying one culture is neat because it does X more, you are essentially saying another culture is less neat because it does X less.
The Language Hoax is very focused, gets to the point, and thoroughly explores it. It's not the best McWhorter I've read (that will actually come later), but it is definitely interesting and thought-provoking.
January 29, 2021
In this book, John McWhorter takes on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, with vigor and enthusiasm, and his usual excellent research.
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis says, basically, that language shapes the way we see and understand the world. One example, a fairly basic one, is that Japanese has one word that identifies both blue and green, while Russian has one word for dark blue and another word for light blue. Does this mean the Japanese can't see different shades of blue and green as clearly as Russians can?
No. The Japanese can see these colors just as well; they just describe them differently.
A more complex example is verb tenses. English has a future tense, a verb tense we use to refer to the future. "I will go out tomorrow." Many other languages, do too, but also many other languages don't have a future tense. Does this mean the speakers of those languages can't plan for the future?
No. Once again, they can anticipate the future, refer to it, plan for it. They just use other means of doing so, often context-dependent.
McWhorter explains this much better than I can, and takes on the idea not just as bad linguistics, but as bad linguistics that, while it originated in a desire to recognize the worth of non-Western or "primitive" cultures, has a pernicious tendency to promote condescension towards other cultures, and a certain ethnocentrism, accepting our own language and culture as obviously the standard.
While not having the lightness and well-used, intentional silliness that enlivens some of his other works, he makes excellent, informative, and entertaining use of the differences among languages in the course of explaining what he sees as wrong in much Sapir-Whorf analysis. And it should be noted, in this context, that English, far from being the obviously normal language we who speak it as our native tongue tend to assume, is in many ways downright weird, an outlier in many ways.
The same, of course, is true of other languages. Each language has evolved on its own path, and the changes are often happenstance, not response to anything to do with the environment of their speakers. Culture and language aren't all that closely related.
It's a fascinating listen, and well worth your time.
I bought this audiobook.
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis says, basically, that language shapes the way we see and understand the world. One example, a fairly basic one, is that Japanese has one word that identifies both blue and green, while Russian has one word for dark blue and another word for light blue. Does this mean the Japanese can't see different shades of blue and green as clearly as Russians can?
No. The Japanese can see these colors just as well; they just describe them differently.
A more complex example is verb tenses. English has a future tense, a verb tense we use to refer to the future. "I will go out tomorrow." Many other languages, do too, but also many other languages don't have a future tense. Does this mean the speakers of those languages can't plan for the future?
No. Once again, they can anticipate the future, refer to it, plan for it. They just use other means of doing so, often context-dependent.
McWhorter explains this much better than I can, and takes on the idea not just as bad linguistics, but as bad linguistics that, while it originated in a desire to recognize the worth of non-Western or "primitive" cultures, has a pernicious tendency to promote condescension towards other cultures, and a certain ethnocentrism, accepting our own language and culture as obviously the standard.
While not having the lightness and well-used, intentional silliness that enlivens some of his other works, he makes excellent, informative, and entertaining use of the differences among languages in the course of explaining what he sees as wrong in much Sapir-Whorf analysis. And it should be noted, in this context, that English, far from being the obviously normal language we who speak it as our native tongue tend to assume, is in many ways downright weird, an outlier in many ways.
The same, of course, is true of other languages. Each language has evolved on its own path, and the changes are often happenstance, not response to anything to do with the environment of their speakers. Culture and language aren't all that closely related.
It's a fascinating listen, and well worth your time.
I bought this audiobook.
July 29, 2014
Well-written, persuasive, fascinating, and rigorous, McWhorter's most recent book tries to slay, once and for all, the persistent Whorfian myths that plague the public's conception of language. Although McWhorter studiously avoids straw men and caricatures, many adherents of Whorfian ideas will nevertheless insist that he is attacking a position that nobody holds. He is also careful to point out that Neo-Whorfian research actually has uncovered some evidence for extremely weak versions of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, but he provides detailed evidence that shows just how utterly trivial and inconsequential this evidence is. Yes, it turns out language can affect thought, in the most negligible and irrelevant ways, and these results are only gleaned after being studiously teased out of extremely artificial experiments. If you or someone you know is still in love with the long-debunked notion that different languages make people more likely to see the world in different ways, then this book is a must-read. It's time we all let go of quaint ideas that have not withstood decades of scientific scrutiny. McWhorter's book argues that the myth is not as attractive as it seems, and that the truth is actually far more appealing.
July 4, 2020
This book is an argument against Whorf's theory that different languages have different ways of seeing the world.
I came into it not knowing anything about Whorf's theory but after a quick search, I feel like I know a lot of stuff. This book makes some valid points. It also uses multiple exclamation marks!!! I can't take that seriously. It burns my eyes.
I'm sorta anti-Whorfian now. I think culture shapes language and not vice versa. I'll need to read something pro-Whorf to make sure of my views on the topic.
It's a fun book to read though, even if you're not into linguistics.
I came into it not knowing anything about Whorf's theory but after a quick search, I feel like I know a lot of stuff. This book makes some valid points. It also uses multiple exclamation marks!!! I can't take that seriously. It burns my eyes.
I'm sorta anti-Whorfian now. I think culture shapes language and not vice versa. I'll need to read something pro-Whorf to make sure of my views on the topic.
It's a fun book to read though, even if you're not into linguistics.
October 1, 2024
Well, that was an adventure.
This book was not at all what I had expected. I came across Dr. McWhorter in his discussions with Glenn Loury about politics and was impressed by how cogently he talked about problems I had experienced when I came back to the states as a white chick completely clueless about the particularities of North American racial issues. I quite liked to listen to those two gentleman dissect different issues, so when I discovered that Dr. McWhorter's expertise was in linguistics, my little heart did a dance for a joy and I determined to be one of the rare people who went from his political content to his linguistic content, instead of the other way round.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered that this book's reason for existence is basically to mock and deride. Granted, that which is being mocked and derided is an untenable position that deserves every well-placed clever little quip, but still. I was surprised. I didn't expect to laugh out loud while reading it. Many of his analogies were so very vivid that that they have taken up permanent residence in my mind. My personal favorite was the following:
"The -a in I'm-a is the linguistic equivalent of the male anglerfish, tiny compared to the female, whose lifecycle consists of sucking onto the female's head permanently and gradually wearing away like a dying pimple until nothing is left but his testicles, whose sperm are absorbed into the female's bloodstream to fertilize her eggs! In I'm-a, -a is stuck to I'm's forehead, fertilizing it with future meaning."
Wow.
What an image. Ha.
I learned something I never knew, useful for the most random of trivia games, and I understood the point he was making about the complexity of how we can mark the future in various dialects of English. Win-win.
The main point of this book is to perform a take-down of the idea of Whorfianism. Which is basically that how a particular language is structured controls how its speakers think or act. Just think of the movie "Arrival", a perfect example of a Whorfian plot. Aliens arrive who speak in circles, so as the lady learns their language she starts to experience time as a circle and can see the past and the future. Everyone thought I would love that movie because of the linguistic aspect...I didn't. I have never understood why Whorfianism is so seductive in our society, I think it's because our society is one of mostly monolinguals.
I think anyone who speaks more than two languages with a high degree of fluency is just confused by the idea that the words you speak and the grammar you connect them with in some way controls the manner in which you think and view the world. If that were so, what would code-switching grammar say about us, after all? That we can't keep a single grammar straight? That could lead to some pretty dicey conclusions that are the opposite of what we know to be true: codeswitching generally demonstrates knowledge of however many grammars of the languages present in the utterance. I personally have somehow managed to produce a sentence that was semantically English, and grammatically Spanish, except that the verb was a spanishified conjugation of a Japanese verb. Why not? I know all of those languages, and the person I was talking to did as well, so my meaning was conveyed perfectly. It didn't say anything about how I viewed the world, I was just trying to explain where in the store peanut butter was located.
I would admit though, that I've never really thought much about Whorfianism beyond that I thought it was dumb. It's clear that Dr. McWhorter has thought about it to a much deeper extent. He decided it deserved mockery because although it came from a good intention: to show that native languages were not 'lesser' than colonial languages; it has become a form of condescension. "Look, your language does this really weird thing, that makes you very cool." Well, doesn't that start from the assumption that the language of the person who says the above sentence is what is normal?
Hmmm. Problematic.
Another good point that he made is that so many of the studies that try to draw conclusions between grammatical structures and human behavior depend on a very small sample of languages. They look at one language of hunter-gatherers in the Amazon and show that they don't have plurals and draw the conclusion that they don't need them because they are such a small people group, but neglect to mention that another language over on the other side of the world also doesn't have plurals, and happens to be a very large people group that is highly industrialized, and actually were never hunter-gatherers. What are we supposed to conclude then?
It was an interesting book. I can definitely see how it wouldn't be for everyone. You have to have a fairly high tolerance for mockery to get through it. I also made the executive decision not to go through the 20% of the book that was after matter, because I knew that if I did so, my to-read list would increase at least two-fold. It's out of control enough as it is. I don't need to add all of the books and articles about Hopi linguistics, and Tzeltal spacial reasoning to that monster...as interesting as those sound...dang it. I'm talking myself into going through it after all!
This book was not at all what I had expected. I came across Dr. McWhorter in his discussions with Glenn Loury about politics and was impressed by how cogently he talked about problems I had experienced when I came back to the states as a white chick completely clueless about the particularities of North American racial issues. I quite liked to listen to those two gentleman dissect different issues, so when I discovered that Dr. McWhorter's expertise was in linguistics, my little heart did a dance for a joy and I determined to be one of the rare people who went from his political content to his linguistic content, instead of the other way round.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered that this book's reason for existence is basically to mock and deride. Granted, that which is being mocked and derided is an untenable position that deserves every well-placed clever little quip, but still. I was surprised. I didn't expect to laugh out loud while reading it. Many of his analogies were so very vivid that that they have taken up permanent residence in my mind. My personal favorite was the following:
"The -a in I'm-a is the linguistic equivalent of the male anglerfish, tiny compared to the female, whose lifecycle consists of sucking onto the female's head permanently and gradually wearing away like a dying pimple until nothing is left but his testicles, whose sperm are absorbed into the female's bloodstream to fertilize her eggs! In I'm-a, -a is stuck to I'm's forehead, fertilizing it with future meaning."
Wow.
What an image. Ha.
I learned something I never knew, useful for the most random of trivia games, and I understood the point he was making about the complexity of how we can mark the future in various dialects of English. Win-win.
The main point of this book is to perform a take-down of the idea of Whorfianism. Which is basically that how a particular language is structured controls how its speakers think or act. Just think of the movie "Arrival", a perfect example of a Whorfian plot. Aliens arrive who speak in circles, so as the lady learns their language she starts to experience time as a circle and can see the past and the future. Everyone thought I would love that movie because of the linguistic aspect...I didn't. I have never understood why Whorfianism is so seductive in our society, I think it's because our society is one of mostly monolinguals.
I think anyone who speaks more than two languages with a high degree of fluency is just confused by the idea that the words you speak and the grammar you connect them with in some way controls the manner in which you think and view the world. If that were so, what would code-switching grammar say about us, after all? That we can't keep a single grammar straight? That could lead to some pretty dicey conclusions that are the opposite of what we know to be true: codeswitching generally demonstrates knowledge of however many grammars of the languages present in the utterance. I personally have somehow managed to produce a sentence that was semantically English, and grammatically Spanish, except that the verb was a spanishified conjugation of a Japanese verb. Why not? I know all of those languages, and the person I was talking to did as well, so my meaning was conveyed perfectly. It didn't say anything about how I viewed the world, I was just trying to explain where in the store peanut butter was located.
I would admit though, that I've never really thought much about Whorfianism beyond that I thought it was dumb. It's clear that Dr. McWhorter has thought about it to a much deeper extent. He decided it deserved mockery because although it came from a good intention: to show that native languages were not 'lesser' than colonial languages; it has become a form of condescension. "Look, your language does this really weird thing, that makes you very cool." Well, doesn't that start from the assumption that the language of the person who says the above sentence is what is normal?
Hmmm. Problematic.
Another good point that he made is that so many of the studies that try to draw conclusions between grammatical structures and human behavior depend on a very small sample of languages. They look at one language of hunter-gatherers in the Amazon and show that they don't have plurals and draw the conclusion that they don't need them because they are such a small people group, but neglect to mention that another language over on the other side of the world also doesn't have plurals, and happens to be a very large people group that is highly industrialized, and actually were never hunter-gatherers. What are we supposed to conclude then?
It was an interesting book. I can definitely see how it wouldn't be for everyone. You have to have a fairly high tolerance for mockery to get through it. I also made the executive decision not to go through the 20% of the book that was after matter, because I knew that if I did so, my to-read list would increase at least two-fold. It's out of control enough as it is. I don't need to add all of the books and articles about Hopi linguistics, and Tzeltal spacial reasoning to that monster...as interesting as those sound...dang it. I'm talking myself into going through it after all!
November 16, 2023
For a theoretical book, I thought this was great. All concepts were clear and explained through a series of examples.
March 14, 2022
Recently reread, concurrently with Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English.
December 21, 2023
"If you want to learn about how human differ, study cultures. However, if you want insight as to what makes all human worldwide the same, beyond genetics, there are few better places to start than how language works". (page 29)
March 30, 2022
في هذا الكتاب "خدعة اللغة" يناقش جون ماكوورتر –أستاذ اللسانيات في جامعة كولومبيا بنيويورك- أطروحة غاي دويتشر في كتابه "عبر منظار اللغة – لم يبدو العالم مختلفًا بلغات أخرى؟"، ولذا جعل ماكوورتر عنوان كتابه الفرعي "لم يبدو العالم متماثلًا في كل لغة؟".
يعتقد دويتشر في كتابه "أن تأثير اللغات المختلفة في فكر متحدثيها ليس بسبب ما تتيحه كل لغة لمتحدثيها من فكر، وإنما بسبب أنواع المعلومات التي تفرض كل لغة على متحدثيها التفكير بها، فعندما تفرض لغة ما على متحدثيها الاهتمام بأوجه معينة من العالم كلما نطقوا بها أو استمعوا إليها ستستقر عادات الحديث والاستماع تلك لتصبح عادات عقلية تؤثر في الذاكرة أو الإدراك أو الترابط الذهني او حتى المهارات العملية".
ينتقد ماكوورتر هذه الفكرة المركزية، وهو يعتقد أن السؤال عن تأثير اللغة في تفكير المتكلم بها يصاغ عادةً بطريقة تفترض –ضمنيًا- أن الإجابة لا يمكن أن تكون "لا" [ص42]، ويرى أنك إذا أردت التبصّر في التماثل بين البشر فعليك أن تتأمل "الكيفية التي تعمل بها اللغة" عند جميعهم. [87].
ويرجع هذه النزعات النسبية التي تجعل اللغة تؤثر على المتكلمين بها، بحيث تختلف رؤية العالم من لغة لأخرى كما يُزعم؛ إلى شيوع موجة الاحتفاء بالنسبية الثقافية التي تجتاح الأكاديميا والثقافة الغربية في العقود الأخيرة، وهي موجة تبجّل التنوّع، وتدافع عنه، بصورة تكاد تكون "دينية". [ص304]
وخلاصة رأي جون ماكوورتر أن "الثقافة –وهو حاصل الكيفية التي يفكر بها الناس- لا يمكن أن تخترق النواة الدبقة للكيفية التي تعمل بها اللغة... يمكن للثقافة أن تؤثر في الكيفية التي تستعمل بها تلك اللغة، وتجعلها تسمّي أشياء معينة لها قدر أكبر في تلك الثقافة بطريقة ليس فيه غموض، ولكن لا يمكن للثقافة أن تؤثر على أي شيء من صميم اللغة من ناحية كيفية انبنائها في التفاصيل"، وهو لا ينكر "أن اللغة والثقافة مرتبطتان"، بل يشكك "بنوع خاص من الارتباط بينهما، وهو مستوى السمات النحوية وتكوينات المفردات مما لا يعتبره أي متحدث أصلي لافتًا للنظر مطلقًا؛ شرطًا يؤدي –كما يزعم- إلى طريقة خاصة في معالجة الحياة". [298، 325].
يعتقد دويتشر في كتابه "أن تأثير اللغات المختلفة في فكر متحدثيها ليس بسبب ما تتيحه كل لغة لمتحدثيها من فكر، وإنما بسبب أنواع المعلومات التي تفرض كل لغة على متحدثيها التفكير بها، فعندما تفرض لغة ما على متحدثيها الاهتمام بأوجه معينة من العالم كلما نطقوا بها أو استمعوا إليها ستستقر عادات الحديث والاستماع تلك لتصبح عادات عقلية تؤثر في الذاكرة أو الإدراك أو الترابط الذهني او حتى المهارات العملية".
ينتقد ماكوورتر هذه الفكرة المركزية، وهو يعتقد أن السؤال عن تأثير اللغة في تفكير المتكلم بها يصاغ عادةً بطريقة تفترض –ضمنيًا- أن الإجابة لا يمكن أن تكون "لا" [ص42]، ويرى أنك إذا أردت التبصّر في التماثل بين البشر فعليك أن تتأمل "الكيفية التي تعمل بها اللغة" عند جميعهم. [87].
ويرجع هذه النزعات النسبية التي تجعل اللغة تؤثر على المتكلمين بها، بحيث تختلف رؤية العالم من لغة لأخرى كما يُزعم؛ إلى شيوع موجة الاحتفاء بالنسبية الثقافية التي تجتاح الأكاديميا والثقافة الغربية في العقود الأخيرة، وهي موجة تبجّل التنوّع، وتدافع عنه، بصورة تكاد تكون "دينية". [ص304]
وخلاصة رأي جون ماكوورتر أن "الثقافة –وهو حاصل الكيفية التي يفكر بها الناس- لا يمكن أن تخترق النواة الدبقة للكيفية التي تعمل بها اللغة... يمكن للثقافة أن تؤثر في الكيفية التي تستعمل بها تلك اللغة، وتجعلها تسمّي أشياء معينة لها قدر أكبر في تلك الثقافة بطريقة ليس فيه غموض، ولكن لا يمكن للثقافة أن تؤثر على أي شيء من صميم اللغة من ناحية كيفية انبنائها في التفاصيل"، وهو لا ينكر "أن اللغة والثقافة مرتبطتان"، بل يشكك "بنوع خاص من الارتباط بينهما، وهو مستوى السمات النحوية وتكوينات المفردات مما لا يعتبره أي متحدث أصلي لافتًا للنظر مطلقًا؛ شرطًا يؤدي –كما يزعم- إلى طريقة خاصة في معالجة الحياة". [298، 325].
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