How do language and culture shape the way we think?

Do we think in language, or does language shape how we think? How do you see the sun? A man? A woman? Non gender? What if I told you that’s not your personal imagination, but it’s how the language that you speak shapes your perspective of seeing the world? For example, Spanish speakers would most likely imagine the sun is a more masculine figure as it is considered male, and German speakers would imagine it more feminine as it is considered female, or it could be perceived as genderless, such as in English. Now imagine there are approximately 7,000 languages in the world, and each language and dialect has a different perspective on seeing the world. Each language shapes the way we perceive things and shapes our personalities differently. 

Language can not only shape the way that we imagine things, but also the way we perceive colours too. For example, in Russian, there is no word for “blue”; there is only a word for dark blue and light blue. An article published by Cambridge University Press analyses around 70 different studies on colour perception and how language influences it (link), and while it says that there is a visible correlation between languages and colours, it depends on how you’re asked to look at the colour and what your brain is doing at the time. So, it also depends on the way you interpret the research question and what exactly the study is observing. Another striking example is this experiment: Mongolian and Chinese speaker participants were shown a screen with a grid of many small, coloured squares. One odd colour was hidden among the rest. Participants had to find and click the odd colour as quickly as possible. Sometimes the odd colour was across a Mongolian language-specific colour category boundary (dark blue distinguished from light blues), sometimes within the same category. In the outcome, Mongolian speakers spotted the “odd” colour faster when it was in a different language category — meaning their linguistic categories sped up visual search. Chinese speakers didn’t show this effect. But in other studies that didn’t include the language colour boundary, the researchers concluded that there is no direct correlation between colour perception and language.  

The same is found is with the perception of numbers, as in some cases, people who live in a country with a stronger currency would perceive numbers differently from those who have a weaker currency, as well as that with people who use inches or centimetres and pounds or kilograms. They might perceive certain numbers as more “heavy” or “big” if the standard units of measure there are inches rather than centimetres. There can also be certain meanings connected with the numbers that are influenced by language, for example, in East Asian languages, the number 4 associates with negativity as it sounds like the word “death”. And therefore, many buildings avoid this number even when building floor plans or elevators. You’ll often see hotels avoid rooms or floors with “4” in them, and gifts of four items are a big no-no. 

But how about the emotions? Do you think all people experience the same feelings as any person in the world? Well, what if I say that the Japanese describe “regret” in different ways, there is a separate word for “Regret tied to farewells or endings, like graduation or moving away” and “Regret mixed with emotional clinging or inability to let go.”  

The way we see time and space is also affected by the language we speak. For example, Hebrew speakers perceive timelines from right to left as past to future. Mandarin speakers often think of time vertically, the past is “up”, and the future is “down,” but as well as that, often, it is noted that Mandarin speakers would imagine the future being behind them and the past ahead of them, calling the day before yesterday "front day" and the day after tomorrow "back day". Aymara speakers in South America do exactly the opposite and imagine the past as in front of them (because it’s known) and the future as behind (because it’s unknown).  

To conclude, the languages that we use are not just a tool to express or connect with people, but they actively shape how we perceive and interpret the world around us. So, it is important to understand that our points and perspectives are not just a matter of our own minds but a result of the cultural influence of hundreds of years, and a way to help us appreciate cultural diversity and the uniqueness of each other.