Are you bilingual?

Or do you code-switch?

Do you ever find yourself struggling to express what you want to say because you can’t seem to find the right words for it?

Well, what if I told you that there is a linguistic theory out there that explains how the way you think and act is dictated by your language? You may have heard of it: it’s called the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, also known as linguistic relativity, and it states that the semantic structure of a language shapes or limits the ways in which a speaker forms conceptions of the world (ex. English has cardinal directions but another culture may not and instead refers to directions by the landscape). This may sound like an obvious thing to some, but others propose that it’s actually the other way around and that the way humans think is what shapes how language is used (the concept of “lateness” differs across different peoples). In fact, many linguists actually disregard the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis due to its limited experimental support. I personally see the merit of both sides. But I’m not here to debate the matter, rather, I want to discuss how meanings sometimes get lost in translation, especially amongst differing cultures.

English has one word for “love.” It usually means to either desire or care for another. We can use the same word for many different situations. Yet Sanskrit has 96 words for love. Perhaps if we had more words for love, we would naturally become more affectionate with one another because we can better express how we feel! But you may argue that this difference in number makes sense because it’s an abstract concept and thus doesn’t always mean the same thing to each person. So let’s use another example: English has one word for “snow” and I think we can all agree that it’s a very specific thing that doesn’t leave much debate for what it means. Yet, the Eskimos have 30 words for snow “because it is a life-and-death matter to them to have exact information about the element they live with so intimately” (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/96-words-for-love_b_1644658). Imagine that! One could potentially face danger if they weren’t aware of the concept of more than one type of snow…

Now, does a metaphor in one culture always translate well into another? Not always, and this brings up the idea of universality. In English, the phrase “It’s raining cats and dogs” generally connotes that it’s pouring heavily. Yet if you literally translated that phrase in another language, a speaker of that language might look at you are if you were crazy! And in Argentina, they say, “It’s raining dung head-first” but to that, we might look at them as if though they were the crazy ones. If you’re interested in how the phrase is said in even more countries, take a look at this link: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/12931/15-international-idioms-describe-heavy-rain. (Bonus: Do you think color is universal? What about their connoted meanings?)

The concept of language will never cease to amaze me. That’s why, if you’re interested in the concepts discussed in this post and are a fan of sci-fi, I highly recommend watching the movie, Arrival. You can watch as a linguistics professor and her crew race against time to communicate with the alien forms inside 12 spaceships that one day suddenly appeared around the world. Rather than communicate through words as we understand communication to be, they communicate in what appear to be inky symbols. The film had won the awards for Best Sci-Fi/Horror Movie and Best Adapted Screenplay and nominated for many more. You can watch the trailer below: