Your Language Is Your Reality

Your language constructs your reality. Imagine we had only one word for the colours ‘blue’ and ‘green;’ i.e. we didn’t distinguish between these two concepts linguistically. We could call this colour grue, which means either blue or green. This would mean that whether we saw a green plant or a blue plant we would utter the same sentence: “There is a grue plant.” If we were to adopt this change in language, it would in effect entail a change in our perception of reality. We would no longer be able to label blue and green things as being distinct in colour. There would only be six colours in a rainbow. Our reality would be different.

We need not venture too far into philosophy or science fiction to investigate this idea further. A brief look at Wikipedia reveals that “Many languages do not have separate terms for blue and green, instead using a cover term for both (when the issue is discussed in linguistics, this cover term is sometimes called grue in English),” citing Vietnamese, Korean and several Nguni languages as examples.

But this paradigm-shifting realisation is made even more incredible when we think of how many other words may differ in reference to our own. One even begins to wonder if there may be differences such as that regarding “grue” in every single word we use. Perhaps all English words and their foreign equivalents are faux amis; i.e. they can never be precise equivalents.

Studying or learning another language enables one to detach from the reality that has been constructed for you. When you realise that your mother tongue does not dictate the ways things are it can be a real eye-opener. This can apply to minor differences, such as calling potatoes “apples of the earth,” and might go as far as having an underlying influence on cultural world views, such as thinking Christmas is necessarily linked to cold weather, or that man is separate from nature.

It is often remarked that the Chinese have the same word for ‘crisis’ as they do for ‘opportunity.’ From a Western perspective the adoption of this language bite would result in a significant shift in our reality. Newspapers would be filled with headlines such as “Financial Opportunities Deepen”, “Ten Ways to Survive the Impending Financial Opportunities”, “Home Affairs Admits To Bureaucratic Opportunities”, or best of all, “Opportunities? What Opportunities?”

Ever wondered what we’d call this amalgamated concept? That’s easy. When Homer Simpson was asked if he knew the Chinese have the same word for crisis as they do for opportunity, he answered: “Yes! Crisatunity!!!”