
Obese? No Retirement Savings? Perhaps It's Because of the Language You Speak - mcobrien
http://bigthink.com/ideas/42306?page=1
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ColinWright
Fascinating. For discussions on similar questions do a search on HN for "Sapir
Whorf":

[http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=sapir+whorf](http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=sapir+whorf)

In particular, we have:

How language shapes thought (scientificamerican.com)
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2594625>

Sapir-Whorf with Programming Languages (nklein.com)
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2374796>

In what language do deaf people think? (straightdope.com)
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1505365>

... and many, many more.

Sapir-Whorf has fallen out of favor, and perhaps in its original, or more
correctly "more extreme" form it is not true, but there are so many studies
and anecdotes that polyglots I speak with claim it's "obviously true. Sort
of."

So this article is another piece of evidence in the attempt to construct a
model of what's really true, and to avoid the unseemly trap of "linguistic
relativism."

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir-Whorf_hypothesis>

~~~
reirob
Yes it is fascinating. And thanks for posting the link to Sapir-Whorf
hypothesis. I never heard about this before.

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lukevdp
I'm a bit skeptical. The lines between what makes a language "strong future-
time-reference" and "weak future-time-reference" aren't clear cut. All
languages have ways of separating future from present. Choosing a slightly
different way of categorising languages makes the correlation with savings
dissapear.

[http://languagesoftheworld.info/language-and-mind/you-
save-w...](http://languagesoftheworld.info/language-and-mind/you-save-what-
you-speak.html)

