Through the Window of Language: Assessing the Influence of Language Diversity on Thought

Abstract

Historically, researchers divided over whether the diverse representations of reality across languages were natural or conventional, but all tacitly assumed an optimal fit between language and reality. Twentieth century anthropological linguists interested in linguistic relativity have questioned this assumption and sought to characterize "reality" without it by using domain- or structure-centered approaches.

Keywords

• language and thought, Sapir-Whorf, linguistic relativity, language development, number marking.