Guy Deutscher - Through the Language Glass, Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages

“what it encourages and stimulates its speakers to do”: Humboldt 1821b, 287. “Sieht man blo auf dasjenige, was sich in einer Sprache ausdrücken lässt, so wäre es nicht zu verwundern, wenn man dahin geriethe, alle Sprachen im Wesentlichen ungefähr gleich an Vorzügen und Mängeln zu erklären… Dennoch ist dies gerade der Punkt, auf den es ankommt. Nicht, was in einer Sprache ausgedrückt zu werden vermag, sondern das, wozu sie aus eigner, innerer Kraft anfeuert und begeistert, entscheidet über ihre Vorzüge oder Mängel.” Admittedly, Humboldt made this famous pronouncement for the wrong reasons. He was trying to explain why, even if no language constrains the possibilities of thought in its speakers, some languages (Greek) are still much better than others, because they actively encourage speakers to form higher ideas.

“the words in which we think are channels of thought”: Müller 1873, 151.

“every single language has its own peculiar framework”: Whitney 1875, 22.

“it is the thought of past humanity imbedded”: Clifford 1879, 110.

page 138 Boas’s influence on Sapir: It is often suggested that Franz Boas may also have inspired Sapir’s ideas about relativity. There are hints of this view in Boas 1910, 377, and a decade later (1920, 320) Boas made the argument more explicit in saying that “the categories of language compel us to see the world arranged in certain definite conceptual groups which, on account of our lack of knowledge of linguistic processes, are taken as objective categories, and which, therefore, impose themselves upon the form of our thoughts.”

“everything to learn about language”: Swadesh 1939. See also Darnell 1990, 9.

“Language misleads us both by its vocabulary and by its syntax”: Russell 1924, 331. Sapir was introduced to such ideas by the book The Meaning of Meaning: A Study in the Influence of Language upon Thought , by Ogden and Richards (1923).

“tyrannical hold that linguistic form”: Sapir 1931, 578.

“incommensurable analysis of experience in different languages”: Sapir 1924, 155. Whorf (1956 [1940], 214) later elaborated the principle of relativity: “We are thus introduced to a new principle of relativity, which holds that all observers are not led by the same physical evidence to the same picture of the universe, unless their linguistic backgrounds are similar.”

“is not merely a reproducing instrument for voicing ideas”: Whorf 1956 (1940), 212.

“Some languages have means of expression”: Whorf 1956 (1941), 241; “Monistic view of nature”: Whorf 1956 (1940), 215.

“What surprises most is to find that various grand generalizations”: Whorf 1956 (1940), 216.

“has zero dimensions; i.e., it cannot be given a number”: Whorf 1956 (1940), 216; “to us, for whom time is a motion”: Whorf 1956 (1941), 151.

“no words, grammatical forms, constructions or expressions”: Whorf 1956, 57.

“a Hopi Indian, thinking in the Hopi language”: Chase 1958, 14.

“time seems to be that aspect of being”: Eggan 1966.

“relate grammatical possibilities”: This and the quotations that follow are from Steiner 1975, 137, 161, 165, 166.

page 147 Wir hören auf zu denken : Colli et al. 2001, 765.

“the limits of my language mean the limits of my world”: Wittgenstein 1922, §5.6.

“grammar performs another important function”: Boas 1938, 132-33. Boas also went on to explain that even when a grammar does not oblige speakers to express certain information, that does not imply obscurity of speech, since, when necessary, clarity can always be obtained by adding explanatory words.

“Languages differ essentially in what they must convey”: Jakobson 1959a, 236; see also Jakobson 1959b and Jakobson 1972, 110. Jakobson (1972, 107-8) specifically rejects the influences of language on “strictly cognitive activities.” He allows their influence only on “everyday mythology, which finds its expression in divagations, puns, jokes, chatter, jabber, slips of the tongue, dreams, reverie, superstitions, and, last but not least, in poetry.”

Matses: Fleck 2007.

Effects of language on thought are mundane: Pinker 2007, 135.

“In the A.M. four of the Natives”: Captain Cook’s Journal during the First Voyage round the World (Wharton 1893, 392).

“Mr. Gore, who went out this day with his gun”: Hawkesworth 1785, 132 (July 14, 1770).

“it is very remarkable that this word”: Crawfurd 1850, 188. In 1898, another lexicographer added to the confusion (Phillips 1898), when he recorded other words for the animal: “kadar,” “ngargelin,” and “wadar.” Dixon et al. (1990, 68) point out that the ethnologist W. E. Roth wrote a letter to the Australian in 1898, saying that gangooroo was the name of a particular type of kangaroo in Guugu Yimithirr. But this was not noticed by lexicographers.

Kant’s analysis of the primacy of egocentric conception of space: Kant 1768, 378: “Da wir alles, was au er uns ist, durch die Sinnen nur in so fern kennen, als es in Beziehung auf uns selbst steht, so ist kein Wunder, da wir von dem Verhältni dieser Durchschnittsflächen zu unserem Körper den ersten Grund hernehmen, den Begriff der Gegenden im Raume zu erzeugen.” See also Miller and Johnson-Laird 1976, 380-81.

“we were in the middle of a young diggings township”: G. E. Dalrymple, Narrative and Reports of the Queensland North East Coast Expedition , 1873, quoted in Haviland and Haviland 1980, 120. For the history of Guugu Yimithirr, see Haviland 1979b, Haviland and Haviland 1980, Haviland 1985, and Loos 1978.

“when savages are pitted against civilisation”: “The black police,” editorial, Cooktown Herald and Palmer River Advertiser , June 24, 1874, p. 5.

No words for “in front of” and “behind”: Haviland (1998) argues that Guugu Yimithirr can in some limited circumstances use the noun thagaal , “front,” in relation to space, e.g., in George nyulu thagaal-bi , “George was at the front.” But this seems to be used to describe not spatial position as such but George’s leading role.

Guugu Yimithirr spatial language and orientation: Levinson 2003.

“two girls, the one has nose to the east”: Levinson 2003, 119.

Geographic coordinates in Australian languages: The Djaru language of Kimberley, Western Australia: Tsunoda 1981, 246; Kayardild from Bentinck Island, between the Cape York Peninsula and Arnhem Land: Evans 1995, 218; Arrernte (Western Desert): Wilkins 2006, 52ff.; Warlpiri (Western Desert): Laughren 1978, as quoted in Wilkins 2006, 53; Yankunytjatjara (Western Desert): Goddard 1985, 128. Geographic coordinates elsewhere: Madagascar: Keenan and Ochs 1979, 151; Nepal: Niraula et al. 2004; Bali: Wassmann and Dasen 1998; Hai||om: Widlok 1997. See also Majid et al. 2004, 111.

Marquesan: Cablitz 2002.

Bali: Wassmann and Dasen 1998, 692-93.

McPhee’s House in Bali : McPhee 1947, 122ff. In the south of Bali, where McPhee lived, the mountain direction is roughly north, so McPhee follows the usual practice of translating the terms seaward and mountainward as south and north, respectively. It should be noted that the directions of the dance in Bali have religious significance.

page 171 “But white fellows wouldn’t understand that”: Haviland 1998, 26.