Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf

I used this book in research back in the 60's, while trying to create a theory of learning based on game theory, linguistic analysis and linguistic relativism. Long past my senior thesis days, Whorf's work still intrigues me, especially now that physics has revealed new levels of reality. Back in the 60's, I was just beginning to understand that Wittgenstein was essentially a metaphysician, and that his 'linguistic analysis' was breaking down our conventional view of the world, opening up new approaches to thinking about the nature of reality, Time, Memory, and Meaning. Whorf's writing on the cultural relativism of language and thought was instrumental in opening my awareness to the possibilities of meta-linguistics. Far from being out of favor as one reviewer has stated, Satir-Whorf is the language of today's science and knowledge, and describes the gradual change in how we perceive the world.

The reviewer claiming that Whorf is out of favor in the field of linguistics has a skewed idea of the disipline. Plenty of first-class linguists, including John Lucy, Stephen Levinson, Eve Danziger, Michael Silverstein, Penny Lee, John Gumperz and others take direct inspiration in their cutting-edge research from Whorf.

It is important to understand that the term "Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis" is a misnomer, a misreading that developed in the positivistic 50s after Whorf was dead. He was too smart to refer to his "Principal of Linguistic Relativity" (his term) as a 'hypothesis'. It's closer to an axiom, not an empirically testable hypothesis. This book is not for beginners, but read it carefully and you will gain much insight into the connections between language and thought. If you want a discussion of language for total beginners, Edward Sapir's book _Language_, first published in 1921 has been in continuous print for good reason--it's still excellent and relevant.

It's an interesting topic, no doubt, but the Whorf Hypothesis has gone out of favor in the field of linguistics.
I recommend Pinker for not-too-technical linguistic reading.

This was the first time I had read a book about linguistics. For some time I had heard about Benjamin Lee Whorf and his seminal work on American Indian languages. This is his most famous book, a book of some of his papers during the 30's and 40's.

Unfortunately, given my lack of linguistic knowledge I did not understand much of the terminology throughout his more academic papers such as "Some Verbal Categories of Hopi" or "Gestalt Technique of Stem Composition in Shawnee". Nevertheless there is plenty to read which discusses languages without too much academic terminology, although there is always some. His most interesting reads are the more general ones such as "Language, Mind and Reality" or "Language and Logic".

Whorf makes the fascinating assertion, new for his time, that the language we speak, to some degree at least, forces us to orient our view of the world in a certain direction, for example the noun based structure of Indo-European languages forces it into considering the world as made up of interacting fixed parts whereas Hopi doesn't even have a tense system and doesn't consider the past or the future and sees events as either manifest or unmanifest. A completely different way of viewing the world and yet possessing its own internal logic and ability to express whatever is necessary. This is something Whorf stresses throughout and the so-called `primitive' languages of for example, the native Americans, is far from this western perspective. In fact Hopi stands out as being a language ideally suited to the new physics.

Whorf really lives in two worlds regarding his linguistic studies 1. the fascinating metaphysical world of language constructions throughout the world, i.e. the world view generated by these languages and 2. the strict linguistic approach to languages with its own very formal and structured method to analyse languages, see for example the formulaic approach for one-syllable English words in the paper entitled "Linguistics as an Exact Science".

This book is worth it as no doubt the one by Sapir as well.

This book was required reading when I was in college, and it made such an impression on me that 50 years later I sought it out, and re-read it. Anyone interested in communication, and the impact language has on society ( or how society impacts language!) will find the examples of words used (and not used)in various cultures fascinating.