Mostly Disproved / Controversial
aka linguistic relativity principle that suggests that the structure and vocabulary of a language can influence how its speakers perceive and think about the world.
For example, some languages have more words for colors than others, which may influence how speakers of those languages discriminate and remember colors. Some languages have grammatical features that mark the gender, number, or evidentiality of a statement, which may influence how speakers of those languages judge the reliability or relevance of information.
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has been controversial and debated among linguists, psychologists, and anthropologists.
Some versions of the hypothesis claim that language determines or limits thought, which is known as linguistic determinism or the strong hypothesis. This is a strong and extreme view that has been largely rejected by most researchers.
A more moderate and plausible version of the hypothesis claims that language influences or shapes thought, which is known as linguistic relativism. While determinism says that 100% of our worldview is influenced by language, relativism says that there is a possibility that language influences some of our worldview.
mentioned in Arrival