How Language [maybe] Shapes Our Perception of Reality

The many subtle differences across languages might actually change the way we experience the world.

Vivian Giang

But just how much impact language has on the way we think is challenging to determine, says Betty Birner, a professor of linguistics and cognitive science at Northern Illinois University. Other factors, like culture, meaning the traditions and habits we pick up from those around us, also shape the way we talk, the things we talk about, and hence, changes the way we think or even how we remember things.

Numerous studies have found that learning a new language can change how your brain pulls information together, and because of that, enables you to have more perspectives on a particular issue. This was true in the case of Japanese-based company Rakuten after the retail giant mandated English proficiency within two years for all employees.

Tsedal Neeley, an associate professor at Harvard Business School, studied the company for five consecutive years after the mandate and discovered that employees who weren’t native Japanese speakers or English speakers proved to be the most effective workers in the end, even though they had it the roughest in the beginning. Why? Neeley says it’s likely because this group became most flexible after successfully climbing a steep linguistic and cultural curve–they had to learn a new language and a new culture. Once Rakuten successfully switched to a common language, Neeley found that its company culture became stronger because every employee now has access to the culture and are able to connect in their interactions and expressions.

If we believe that language shapes how we think, will learning a new language change the way you think? Probably not, says Birner, but if the newly acquired language is very different than the one you already speak, it might reveal a new way of looking at another culture

[Laird]

This TED Talk recapitulates many of the exact examples of that article, but some might find it a more interesting format:

How language shapes the way we think | Lera Boroditsky | TED

Hat tip to Greg of The Daily Grail for putting me on to it via his article Words are Magic – How the Language You Speak (and Hear) Changes Your Reality from June 18, 2025.

Greg quotes one of the examples from the talk (it is one of the recapitulations, but in much more detail):

What’s cool about Kuuk Thaayorre is, in Kuuk Thaayorre, they don’t use words like “left” and “right,” and instead, everything is in cardinal directions: north, south, east and west. And when I say everything, I really mean everything. You would say something like, “Oh, there’s an ant on your southwest leg.” Or, “Move your cup to the north-northeast a little bit.”

In fact, the way that you say “hello” in Kuuk Thaayorre is you say, “Which way are you going?” And the answer should be, “North-northeast in the far distance. How about you?” … that would actually get you oriented pretty fast, right? Because you literally couldn’t get past “hello,” if you didn’t know which way you were going.

In fact, people who speak languages like this stay oriented really well. They stay oriented better than we used to think humans could. We used to think that humans were worse than other creatures because of some biological excuse: “Oh, we don’t have magnets in our beaks or in our scales.” No; if your language and your culture trains you to do it, actually, you can do it. There are humans around the world who stay oriented really well.

There are also really big differences in how people think about time. So here I have pictures of my grandfather at different ages. And if I ask an English speaker to organize time, they might lay it out this way, from left to right… But how would the Kuuk Thaayorre, this Aboriginal group I just told you about, do it? They don’t use words like “left” and “right.” Let me give you hint. When we sat people facing south, they organized time from left to right. When we sat them facing north, they organized time from right to left. When we sat them facing east, time came towards the body. What’s the pattern? East to west, right? So for them, time doesn’t actually get locked on the body at all, it gets locked on the landscape.

…For the Kuuk Thaayorre, time is locked on the landscape. It’s a dramatically different way of thinking about time.