{"id":13154,"date":"2020-01-02T15:18:01","date_gmt":"2020-01-02T20:18:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.pimsleur.com\/?p=13154"},"modified":"2025-11-20T10:56:52","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T15:56:52","slug":"how-language-shapes-the-way-we-think-and-see-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pimsleur.com\/blog\/how-language-shapes-the-way-we-think-and-see-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"How Language Shapes the Way We Think and See the World"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

How Language Influences The Way You See Colors, Space, and Time<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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One day I was in my Kiswahili language learning course when my instructor taught us something profound about how language influences how we see other people. In the course, he taught us how a noun class identifier that was supposed to denote \u201cthings\u201d was actually a way to denote a disabled<\/em> person. 
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Here, I\u2019ll walk you through the example so this makes sense:
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So, in my professor\u2019s example, the word kiti<\/em> translated to “chair”, where the \u201cki<\/em><\/strong>\u201d is the object signifier, denoting that the speaker is referring to a thing<\/em>.
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The word Mtoto<\/em>, on the other hand, translates to “child”, as the \u201cm<\/strong>\u201d is a noun signifier, indicating that the speaker is referring to a person.<\/em>
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To describe a blind person, however, the word in the language is ki<\/strong>pofu<\/em>.
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In this example, the blind person was actually referred to as an object, by using the signifier \u201cki<\/strong>\u201d instead of an “m<\/strong>” for a person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Power of Language:<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The professor taught that the words used to refer to things and people revealed cultural attitudes around them — in that using this noun class to denote disabled persons, there was an attitude that disabled people were seen as things and not people.
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The language has recently been updated to fit modern cultural attitudes, so now there is a more appropriate term to describe a blind person: M<\/strong>pofu.
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Whether people decide to adopt this change in the language is another story. Regardless, there is no denying how profound language can be to shape our beliefs, attitudes, and worldviews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Does Your Language Determine Your Perception of The World?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Surprisingly, yes, though the effects are often subtle. 
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The idea of linguistic relativity (or linguistic determinism), that the language(s) we speak determines our thoughts and actions, was made popular by Benjamin Lee Whorf in the 1950\u2019s. 
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While the strict Whorfian hypothesis has long been abandoned by researchers, the notion that language affects thought is around to stay\u2014largely because there is some truth behind it. 
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Let\u2019s look at how language changes our perception of color, space, and time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

How a Language Affects the Way You See Color<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Although our language does not directly affect the way we see color, it does affect how we think (and talk) about color. 
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\u201cOur perception of color is not only related to the colors we see, but to the words that we give colors!\u201d
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Watch this video below to learn more about this phenomenon:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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