so I'll be speaking to you using
language because I can this is one of
these magical abilities that we humans
have we can transmit really complicated
thoughts to one another so what I'm
doing right now is I'm making sounds
with my mouth as I mix hailing I'm
making tones and hisses and puffs and
those are creating air vibrations in the
air those air vibrations are traveling
to you they're hitting your eardrums and
then your brain takes those vibrations
from your eardrums and transforms them
into thoughts I hope I hope that's
happening so because of this ability we
humans are able to transmit our ideas
across vast reaches of space and time
right we're able to transmit knowledge
across across minds I can put a bizarre
new idea in your mind right now I could
say imagine a jellyfish waltzing in a
library while thinking about quantum
mechanics now if everything has gone
relatively well in your life so far you
probably haven't had that thought before
but now I've just made you thinking
through language right now of course
there isn't just one language in the
world there about 7,000 languages spoken
around the world and all the language is
different from one another in all kinds
of ways some languages have different
sounds they have different vocabularies
and they also have different structures
very importantly different structures
that begs the question does the language
we speak shape the way we think now this
is an ancient question people have been
speculating about this question for
forever Sharla mom Holy Roman Emperor
said to have a second languages to have
a second soul strong statement that
language crafts reality but on the other
hand Shakespeare has Juliet say what's
in a name a rose by any other name would
smell as sweet well that suggests that
maybe language doesn't craft reality
these arguments have gone back and forth
for thousands of years but until
recently there hasn't been any data to
help us decide either way recently in my
lab and
labs around the world we've started
doing research and now we have actual
scientific data to weigh in on this
question so let me tell you about some
of my favorite examples I'll start with
an example from an Aboriginal community
in Australia that I had a chance to work
with these are the cooked higher people
they live in palm Parral at the very
west edge of Cape York and what's cool
about coop tire is in coop tire 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 and cook tire is you say which
way are you going and the answer should
be north northeast in the far distance
how about you so imagine as you're
walking around your day every person you
greet you have to report your heading
direction 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're going in
fact people who speak languages like
this stay oriented really 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 some biological excuse
oh we don't have magnets and our beaks
or in our scales no if your language and
your culture trains you to do it
actually you can do it they're humans
around the world who stay oriented
really well and just to get us in
agreement about how different this is
from the way we do it I want you all to
close your eyes for a second and point
southeast I'll keep your eyes closed
point okay so you can open your eyes I
see you guys pointing there there there
I don't know which way it is myself you
have not been a lot of help so let's
just say the accuracy in this room was
not very hot this is a big difference in
cognitive ability across languages right
where one group very distinguished group
like you guys doesn't know which way is
which but in another group I could ask a
five-year-old and they would know him
they're 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 this
has to do with writing direction if you
were a speaker of Hebrew Arabic you
might do it going in the opposite
direction from right to left well how
would the crook tire this Aboriginal
group I just told you about do it
they don't use words like left and right
let me give you a hint when we set
people facing south they organize 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 so for me if I'm
facing this way then time goes this way
and find facing this way then time goes
this way I'm facing this way time goes
this way very egocentric of me to have
the direction of time chased me around
every time I turn my body for the kook
tie or time is locked on the landscapes
a dramatically different way of thinking
about time here's another really smart
human trick suppose I ask you how many
penguins are there well I bet I know how
you'd solve that problem if you solved
it you went one two three four five six
seven eight you counted them right you
named each one with a number and the
last number you said was the number of
penguins now this is a little trick that
you're taught to use as kids you learn
the number list and you know you learn
how to apply it a little linguistic
trick well some languages don't do this
because some languages don't have exact
number words there languages that don't
have a word like 7 or a word like 8 and
in fact people who speak these languages
don't
and they have trouble keeping track of
exact quantities so for example if I ask
you to match this number of penguins to
the same number of ducks you would be
able to do that by Counting but folks
who don't have that linguistic trick
can't do that language is also different
how they divide up the color spectrum
the visual world some languages have
lots of words for colors some have only
a couple words light and dark and
languages differ in where they put
boundaries between colors so for example
in English there's a word for blue that
covers all of the colors that you can
see on the screen but in Russian there
isn't a single word instead Russian
speakers have to differentiate between
light blue gala boy and dark blue Seanie
so Russians have this lifetime of
experience of in language distinguishing
these two colors when we test people's
ability to perceptually discriminate
these colors what we find is that
Russian speakers are faster across this
linguistic boundary they're faster to be
able to tell the difference between a
light in a dark room and when you look
at people's brains as they're looking at
colors say you have color shifting
slowly from light to dark blue the
brains of people who use different words
for light and dark blue will give a
surprise reaction as the color shift
from light to dark as if ooh something
has categorically changed whereas the
brains of English speakers for example
that don't make this categorical
distinction don't give that surprise
there's nothing as categorically
changing wine we just have all kinds of
structural quirks this is one of my
favorites lots of languages have
grammatical gender so every noun gets
assigned a gender often masculine or
feminine and these genders differ across
languages so for example the Sun is
feminine and German but masculine in
Spanish and the moon the reverse could
this actually have any consequence for
how people think do German speakers
think of the Sun is Tom somehow more
female like and the moon somehow more
male like actually it turns out that's
the case so if you ask German and
Spanish speakers to say describe a
bridge like the one here bridge happens
to be
grammatically feminine and German
grammatically masculine in Spanish
German speakers are more likely to say
bridges are beautiful elegantly
stereotypically feminine words whereas
Spanish speakers will be more likely to
say they're strong or long these
masculine words languages also differ in
how they describe events right so you
take an event like this an accident in
English it's fine to say he broke the
vase
in a language like Spanish you might be
more likely to say the vase broke or the
vase broke itself if it's an accident
you wouldn't say that someone did it in
English quite weirdly we can even say
things like I broke my arm now in lots
of languages you couldn't use that
construction unless you are a lunatic
and you went out looking to break your
arm and you succeeded right if it was an
accident you would use a different
construction now this has consequences
so people who speak different languages
will pay attention to different things
depending on what their language usually
requires them to do so we show the same
accent to English speakers and Spanish
speakers English speakers will remember
who did it because English requires you
to say he did it he broke the vase where
Spanish speakers might be less likely to
remember who did it if it's an accident
but they're more more likely to remember
that it was an accident they're more
likely to remember the intention so two
people watched the same event witnessed
the same crime but end up remembering
different things about that event this
has implications of course from
eyewitness testimony it also has
implications for blame and punishment so
if you take English speakers and I just
show you someone breaking a vase and I
say he broke the vase as opposed to I
say the vase broke even though you can
witness it yourself you can watch the
video you can watch the crime against
the vase you will punish someone more
you will blame someone more if I just
said he broke it as opposed to it broke
right the language guides our reasoning
about events
now I've given you a few examples of how
language can profoundly shape the way we
think and it does so in a variety of
ways so language can have big effects
like we saw with space and time where
people can lay out space and time in
completely different coordinate frames
from each other language can also have
really deep effects that's what we saw
with the case of number having count
words in your language having number
words opens up the whole world of
mathematics of course if you don't count
you can't do algebra you can't do any of
the things that would be required to
build a room like this or make this
broadcast right this little trick of
number words gives you a stepping-stone
until a whole cognitive realm language
can also have really early effects what
we saw in the case of color right these
are really simple basic perceptual
decisions we make thousands of them all
the time and yet language is getting in
there and fussing even with these tiny
little perceptual decisions that we make
language can have really broad effects
so the case of grammatical gender may be
a little silly but at the same time
grammatical gendered applies to all
nouns that means language can shape how
you're thinking about anything that can
be named by a noun it's a lot of stuff
and finally I give you an example of how
language can shape things that have
personal way to us ideas like blame and
punishment or eyewitness memory these
are important things in our daily lives
now the beauty of linguistic diversity
is that it reveals to us just how
ingenious and how flexible the human
mind is human minds have invented not
one cognitive universe but 7,000 7,000
languages spoken around the world and we
can create many more languages of course
are living things things that we can
hone and change to suit our needs now
the tragic thing is that we're losing so
much of this linguistic diversity all
the time so we're losing about one
language a week and by a some estimates
half of the world's languages will be
gone in the next hundred years
the even worse news is that right now
almost everything we know about the
human mind and the human brain is based
on studies of usually American English
speaking undergraduates at universities
right that excludes almost all humans so
what we know about the human mind is
actually incredibly narrow and biased
and our our science has to do better I
want to leave you with this final
thought I've told you about how speakers
of different languages think differently
but of course that's not about how
people elsewhere think it's about how
you think it's how the language that you
speak shapes the way that you think and
that has gives you the opportunity to
ask why do I think the way that I do how
could I think differently and also what
thoughts do I wish to create thank you
very much
[Applause]
[Music]