How language and thought are related and affect one another?

Question

How language and thought are related and affect one another?

Answer 1

It is still controversial how much thought and language are related to each other in Human cultures. To a certain extent, they seem to be. For example, one scholar has pointed out that unlike English, Chinese has several different words for "stir-fry" depending upon the method of stir-frying. Another scholar cited the fact that "German, French, and Spanish all have words that mean a sudden overthrow and replacement of the government: Putsch, coup d'etat, pronunciamiento. . . " "Happily, English does not,"  he said.

However, recently, someone wrote to "The Economist" magazine with a good point that tends to offset the theory about language reflecting thought. He said that Romanian has no word for "dating" yet, this still hasn't  prevented Romanians from engaing in the activity.

So, there seem to be some instances where thought and language are related and others where they are not.

Rudimentary thinking doesn't seem to require any language at all. For example, a study done about 15 years ago showed that crows could count up to the number seven even though they have nothing like a human language at all. It also appears that most mammals (squirrels, cats, dogs etc.) can count at least to three, the same number as people in the most primitive human societies.  

Answer 2

The words in your language define and limit the concepts you are able to think with.  For example, I know a language that is from a culture where everything used to be owned by the King, literally everything.  So the concept of ownership is difficult and awkward to express in that language--nobody ever owned anything when the language developed.  In English, our language came from a culture where people owned lots of things, so the concept had to be easy to express.  

Answer 3

You have heard the joke about how the eskimos have something like twenty different words for "snow"?  

How many do we have in English?  like four? (count snow, hail, sleet, freezing rain).  They THINK differently in that when they see snow, they see something more specialized than we do.

I'm not sure how true the joke is, but the concept is true.

And, if you have never seen a turkey before, what do you call it?  It probably doesn't have a name, yet.  So you have to name it.