Benjamin Lee Whorf: Language

Benjamin Lee Whorf was American linguist. Explore interesting quotes on language.
Benjamin Lee Whorf: 16 quotes0 likes

“We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native language. The categories and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because they stare every observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscope flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds—and this means largely by the linguistic systems of our minds. We cut nature up, organize it into concepts, and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement to organize it in this way—an agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is codified in the patterns of our language. The agreement is of course, an implicit and unstated one, but its terms are absolutely obligatory; we cannot talk at all except by subscribing to the organization and classification of data that the agreement decrees. We are thus introduced to a new principle of relativity, which holds that all observers are not led by the same physical evidence to the same picture of the universe, unless their linguistic backgrounds are similar, or can in some way be calibrated”

Benjamin Lee Whorf

Whorf (1940) "Science and linguistics" in: MIT Technology Review Vol 42. p. 229-31.

“The very natural tendency to use terms derived from traditional grammar like verb, noun, adjective, passive voice, in describing languages outside of Indo-European is fraught with grave possibilities of misunderstanding.”

Benjamin Lee Whorf

Whorf (1937) "Grammer categories" in: Language, (1945) Vol 21. p. 1-11.

“We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native language.”

Benjamin Lee Whorf

Source: Language, thought and reality (1956), p. 213.

“Thinking is most mysterious, and by far the greatest light upon it that we have is thrown by the study of language. This study shows that the forms of a person's thoughts are controlled by inexorable laws of pattern of which he is unconscious. These patterns are the unperceived intricate systematizations of his own language--shown readily enough by a candid comparison and contrast with other languages, especially those of a different linguistic family. His thinking itself is in a language—in English, in Sanskrit, in Chinese. And every language is a vast pattern-system, different from others, in which are culturally ordained the forms and categories by which the personality not only communicates, but also analyzes nature, notices or neglects types of relationship and phenomena, channels his reasoning, and builds the house of his consciousness.”

Benjamin Lee Whorf

Source: Language, thought and reality (1956), p. 252.

“Most metaphysical words in Hopi are verbs, not nouns as in European languages. The verb tunatya contains in its idea of hope something of our words 'thought,' 'desire,' and 'cause,' which sometimes must be used to translate it.”

Benjamin Lee Whorf

Source: Language, thought and reality (1956), p. 61.