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title: Linguistic Relativity

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# Linguistic Relativity 

I first came across Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis from a sci-fi film by Villeneuve called Arrival. The film was a tremendous success to me, but more so for how it predicted the possible response by humanity if we somehow establish the first contact with an extraterrestrial civilization. And what left a long-term impression was the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, also known as the language relativity theory. 

According to Sapir-whorf—an individual understands reality based on the language they speak. Each language affects its speakers differently and their thought processes become unique, quite unlike speakers of other languages. And when a person learns a different language, they start to acquire unique characteristics, behaviors, thought processes that come with the language. 

The film Arrival took this hypothesis to the extreme, where the alien civilization can write what they want non-linearly (unlike us). Their written communication is all at once. And when the protagonist starts to learn the language, she also starts to adopt the skill to see past, present, future all at once. 

![](https://i.imgur.com/0SexmeO.png)
source - screenshot taken from the film

Now, even if we want to be disbelief at the length the film takes us, I feel like the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is not baseless at all. English is my second language and I'm almost bilingual. And I have faced situations where I thought of some expressions in particular situations that can only be expressed in English. And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't do that in my native tongue. 
I'm learning French instituonally and this time around I'm actively monitoring how my thought process changes everyday anent French and nuances differ from the two languages I already know. I'm pretty sure there is some alteration that happened already.

The hypothesis is of course a hypothesis, not a theory and there is no tangible evidence to back this up. Still might be a great read for any interested body. 

Read more on Sapir-Whorf hypothesis here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity

And the film here - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2543164/

- notacinephile