To what degree might different languages shape in their speakers different concepts of themselves and the world? What are the implications of such differences for knowledge?

        Whorf’s conclusion of his study was that no human was born free.  A person’s mind was made up for him/her from their day of birth.  This resulted because of the language of their speech community.  Whorf suggested that that English speakers have been tricked all their lives into thinking along certain channels.  

        The strong weakness of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is the lack of tools that would give the Hopis a different view of time than the Europeans.  Difficulty exists in trying to explain the cultural differences and similarities among the various languages.  Great religions flourished through different languages and the absence of clocks, calendars, etc.  

        There have been several experiments conducted to prove the hypothesis.  One experiment was with the bilingual Japanese women married to American men.  These women spoke English around family and neighbors but spoke Japanese whenever they joined each other in gossiping or talking about home.  The Japanese women inhabited two language worlds.  This inhabitation causes the women to think differently among the worlds.  These two worlds sometimes displayed different answers to a certain question.  

        The one exception within the discussion of the topics with the women is believed to be language.  The differences in the women’s attitudes are accounted by the language world they have.  The same answer given would show that language does not impact an answer.  Another example of different perceptions can relate to animals.  Their language shapes their perception of themselves and their environment.  Animals are unable to understand as much as human due to restrictions of their language.  Animals such as dogs can only react to somewhat simple variations of speech towards them.

        Different languages strongly shape one’s concept of themselves and their surroundings.  One with more than one language background tends to speak differently in several situations.  The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis truly explains the various perceptions.