Do you believe people are a complete product of they culture?

Question

That there is no idividual input?

and language:

"There is interesting research looking at the structure of languages. The way people express themselves reflects their culture. For example, the frequency of using the word “I” is correlated with individualism. The most individualist countries speak English, and that is the only language where “I” is written with a capital letter. There are cultures where it is almost taboo to use the word “I.”" -Geert Hofstede

Answer 1

Should I believe in a culture producing a perfect human being?

Should I believe in a perfect human being defining culture?

Language is an understanding.

I is latin for God.

The understanding of yiddish, hebrewic languages is that God spoke to his children by means of the Comforter thru his Risen Son at Pentecost to deliver his children from bondage i.e. the law.

Answer 2

Yes and no.

Answer 3

Your Sapir-Worf resurrection has been utterly refuted of late. Pinker's new book has the studies refuting the latest Sapir-Worf resurrection.

It does not matter what anyone " believes ", the evidence is too strong to discount genetic influence and evolutionary processes.

Geert Hofstede is under the usual anthropological delusion of superficial study of a particular culture and coming to premature conclusions. Anthropology is famous for that; from Mead to Elizabeth Thomas Marshall. The litany of empiricist claims later refuted is long.

Answer 4

A vast and tricky question to answer. On the subject of language determining one's relationship to the natural world and apprehension of reality I recommend the Wikipedia article on the now famous "Sapir-Whorf" hypothesis:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir_Whorf

Sapir and Whorf, both American anthropologists, believed that the grammatical categories of language play a paramount role in formation of cultures and societies. They would have been of the view that language is at the root of our cultural norms, symbols and habits and that linguistic change underlies the huge diversity of cultures that exist today.

On the subject of the first person pronoun ("I"), I would attribute its high frequency of use in Western cultures to a philosophical tradition which takes as a foundation for knowledge and enquiry the first person perspective (c.f. Descartes, Kant, Husserl...)

Individuals do have a say in how human life is shaped and reshaped over the ages. But individual effort always takes place against a larger backdrop of the evolution of the human species and the development of cultural and linguistic groups.