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September 10, 2010
Letters: You Are What You Speak
Guy Deutscher continues a tradition of blaming Benjamin Whorf for the strong linguistic
determinism hypothesis (language constrains thought). But Whorf never made that claim. He
argued for the weak version that language influences thought. After several paragraphs
attacking a straw-man Whorf, Deutscher also writes about the weak version, which is plenty
interesting in itself.
One of Whorfs most famous articles, The Relation of Habitual Thought and Behavior to
Language, has it right there in the title: habitual. Whorf was talking about what people tend to
think by default and by habit, not about what they must think. In his article, Whorf quotes
Edward Sapir: We see and hear and experience very largely as we do because the language
habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation. Note: predispose, not
determine.
In his book The Language Instinct, Steven Pinker takes the same road as Deutscher:
dramatically debunking a claim Whorf never made (linguistic determinism) then proceeding to
agree with the claim Whorf did make (influence). A professor of mine in college pointed out
Pinkers mistake, a mistake easily seen by reading Whorfs work.
Deutscher ought to correct the record.
HAVOC PENNINGTON
Asheville, N.C.
It would be interesting to know to what extent cultural and societal views and attitudes are
shaped by language. For example, Yiddish has a word, machatunim, for the relationship
between the two sets of parents of a married couple. Culturally, there is a joint responsibility on
the part of the machatunim for the welfare of the couple. Did the culture give rise to the need
for the word? Does the existence of this word in Yiddish in turn help foster the cultural
attitude?
ALLEN MINCER
New York
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The issues brought up by Guy Deutscher are beyond theoretically interesting: word choices
have practical consequences. In my field, orthopedic surgery, designating wear and tear of
cartilage as osteoarthritis (the suffix, -itis, points to inflammation that is not present)
wrongly suggests that anti-inflammatory medications are necessarily better than gentler
painkillers; calling shoulder pain impingement syndrome has prompted many surgeons to cut
out normal but supposedly impinging bone.
Even when the nomenclature is technically correct, the choice of words influences our
therapeutic thinking: for example, the bones in osteoporosis are indeed porous, but other
important risk factors for fracture (like weakness or poor vision) are inappropriately obscured
by the very name of the condition.
To be sure, no sane physician these days treats melancholia by draining the black bile the name
connotes that approach crash-landed on hard facts and solid common sense but for
generations that was the norm. Words do indeed shape how we think.
JOSEPH BERNSTEIN, M.D.
Philadelphia
At one point I think Deutscher overstated the effect of language on thought. The lesson from
what he calls geographic languages is not, as he puts it, while we are always at the center of
the world, and it would never occur to us that pointing in the direction of our chest could mean
anything other than to draw attention to ourselves, a Guugu Yimithirr speaker points through
himself, as if he were thin air and his own existence were irrelevant. But the line, one of whose
points is the North Pole, let us say, needs anchoring at another point, which is the place of the
person speaking. So the speakers own existence is not irrelevant. The only aspect of ourselves
that we English speakers must discriminate, and they do not, is our orientation toward the
object we are speaking about. There is still egocentricity in the Guugu Yimithirr speakers sense
of direction.
ARTHUR FALK
Kalamazoo, Mich.
If a society were discovered in which people routinely discussed the infrared and ultraviolet
colors of flowers, that would be fascinating, because it would indicate that human eyes are
sensitive to a wider range of optical wavelengths than anyone had previously suspected. Butit
would not be a discovery about language. The fact that the speakers of Guugu Yimithirr
routinely and effortlessly use geographical coordinates to describe spatial relations tells us that
humans have a better innate ability to orient themselves geographically than many of us had
realized. That is fascinating. But if humans lacked this innate ability, a language like Guugu
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Yimithirr could never have come into existence. By attributing the acute spatial sense of the
Guugu Yimithirr speakers to language, Guy Deutscher comes close to repeating Benjamin
Whorfs error.
DAVID MERRITT
Rochester Institute of Technology
Rochester
I enjoyed Deutschers description of how some languages rely primarily on geographical
coordinates instead of egocentric coordinates to describe direction, even to the point of telling
someone to take three steps east or bend southwest instead of simply move to your right
or bend backward. My grandmother lived all her 99 years in the same West Texas county
and used north, south, east and west constantly to indicate where and what actions she
expected you to move and take. Ive always been mystified as to how she knew which way was
north or south regardless of where she was indoors or outdoors. Deutschers article sheds
some light on that mystery. Hers wasa way of life that no longer exists. We are so mobile these
days that our environment is continually shifting. But in her very stationary and reliable patch
of Texas, my grandmother always knew exactly where she was.
JANELLE YATES
Staten Island
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