Benjamin Lee Whorf

Is that because of the difficulty of the Japanese language, the complexity of it, or what would you describe as being particularly hard about learning Japanese?

Well, I'm a strong adherent of the Benjamin Lee Whorf thesis, which says that languages are the way they are for a reason, because they help us to think the way we think.

Determinism, I think it's called.

And the Japanese don't focus on facts as we do.

Well, it, it, it's, it's more than just that, that silly example.

The, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is this really well-known sociological, anthropological, psychological theory that the words you have, your vocabulary, affects your ability to, to think, perceive, and, and act in the world.

That it literally changes your experience of reality when you have words for things.

And there is some, there is a bit [laughs] of evidence for this.

They would, like, chuck them around even though they still had flammable vapors in them.

Even though people kind of knew that they had flammable vapors in them anyway, they sort of didn't treat them with the respect that they deserved because they read the word empty and assumed that that meant the danger just, just wasn't, wasn't there.

So, so the, the kind of strong version of this, the strong version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis says that your language determines your thought, right? If your language lacks a concept, you cannot think it, and therefore it doesn't exist to you, which is neat but also probably wrong.

Why do you say probably wrong? Because, uh, the, the most concrete, convincing examples I've seen are in the realm of color perception, where if a culture has a word for a particular kind of, say, green, then they can pick that green out better than people from cultures that don't have that word.