How language shapes our perception of the world

You could wonder, why have people developed language? And what is language exactly? At the very least, language is used to transfer a message. There are approximately 7000 languages in the world. That means that there are as many ways to transfer a message. Then you would not be surprised to know that there are many differences in how that transfer happens. Also, remember that language is an important part of culture, and that we look at the world with our own cultural glasses. Research from cognitive researcher Lera Boroditsky shows that the language itself, and not only our culture where we grow up in, influences our perception of the world. She illustrates her research with a few examples, which I would like to highlight.

7000 languages in the world and as many ways to transfer messages.

Not every language has the same concepts, take the so-called 'unique concepts' for example, they exist in one language but not in the other. In Australia there is an aboriginal community called Kuuk Thaayorre who don't use left and right for directions, but the cardinal directions. Don't say 'turn left', but 'turn to the northeast'. The people who speak that language always know where they are. However, they even take it a step further. If they meet each other, they do not start with 'how are you?', but with 'where are you going?'. In other words, they can orientate themselves much better than other people. Why? Because their language trains them to do so, because otherwise you would not get much further than 'hello'.

Where are you going? North, and you?

A second example is the grammatical gender of nouns and adjectives. For instance, in Spanish and German word gender is strongly present. Some words are masculine, others feminine. However, that distinction between genders differs between languages. A 'bridge' is masculine in Spanish (el puente) and feminine in German (die Brücke). Assemble a Spaniard and a German and ask them to describe the word 'bridge'. You'll notice some striking things. Spaniards are more likely to describe the masculine word with words associated with 'masculine': strong, long, robust. Germans tend to use more 'feminine' words, such as elegant and beautiful. The difference is clear: the description of a word is influenced by the gender of the word in a certain language.

The language we speak determines on which pieces of information we put our focus and what we find less important.

Finally, there are also large differences in how we experience and later describe situations and events. Imagine the following scenario: a man visits a museum and accidentally knocks over an invaluable vase. The vase breaks into a thousand pieces. A Belgian and a Spaniard witnessed everything and are asked to described what happens. The Belgian would probably say: 'the man broke the vase'. The Spaniard will say something else: 'el jarrón se rompió' or 'the vase broke'. Both versions have a different perspective: the Belgian focuses more on the person, on the whodunit question, while the Spaniard emphasises the event without mentioning the culprit. After all, it was an accident. In short, the language we speak determines on which pieces of information we put our focus and what we find less important.

What happens exactly to people who speak multiple languages fluently?

Language clearly shapes our perception of the world. We live in our own cognitive universe so to speak. And that means there are approximately 7000 different cognitive universa. That diversity shows how complex the human brain is. And to conclude, I want to ask you a question: what happens exactly to people who speak multiple languages fluently?