Linguistic relativity, associated with Benjamin Lee Whorf and Edward Sapir, proposes that the language we speak shapes our thought and perception. The strong version (linguistic determinism) claims that language determines thought. The weaker version claims that language influences thought and perception in measurable ways. After decades of skepticism, modern research has revived linguistic relativity through carefully controlled experiments demonstrating real but modest effects of language on cognition.
Color and Space
Color naming has been the primary testing ground. Languages divide the color spectrum differently: Russian distinguishes light blue (goluboy) and dark blue (siniy) with separate basic color terms, while English uses "blue" for both. Russian speakers show faster discrimination of colors spanning their linguistic boundary than within-category colors — an effect that is reduced under verbal interference, suggesting language-mediated processing. Similar effects have been found for spatial relations, time concepts, and number systems.
Modern Findings
Evidence now suggests that language influences "thinking for speaking" — how we conceptualize events for the purpose of linguistic expression — and can affect habitual patterns of attention and memory. Speakers of languages with obligatory grammatical distinctions (like evidentiality in Turkish) attend more to the relevant distinctions even in nonlinguistic tasks. However, these effects are typically modest and strategic rather than reflecting deep restructuring of perception or thought.
The current consensus is that language effects on cognition are real but limited. Language does not imprison thought within linguistic categories (we can think about things we lack words for), but it creates habitual patterns of attention and categorization that influence certain cognitive tasks. These effects are strongest when the task engages verbal coding and weakest when it does not, suggesting that language provides a set of cognitive tools that shape habitual thought rather than determining the boundaries of possible thought.