It’s Not What You Said, It’s How You Said It: How Language Shapes Perception

I went on a trip to Mexico with my girlfriend last year to meet her family and see the country. While there I took the opportunity to practice all the Spanish I had forgotten since high school (which wasn’t very much to begin with — I was a lousy student). Leave it to a love interest to get you back on track I suppose.

To be fair, I’ve always been interested in language as a tool for expression, I just didn’t care much to actually speak it before. (That’s a fancy way to say I was a stubborn ass teenager.)

In a broader sense, my interest with language was more so in the way people expressed their thoughts — the psychology of language if you will— and coming to understand ourselves and each other more deeply based on what we think and how we say it.

So, speaking with my girlfriend’s friends and family was quite the trip, to say the least. Oh boy… was I in for a culture shock.

I came to the realization in Mexico that not only do we project what we think through language, but language shapes what we think. What I mean by that is: the language(s) we speak directly mold how we see ourselves, others, and the world around us.

For example, in English you say “I am 26 years old,” but in Spanish, you’d say, “tengo 26 años,” which directly translates to “I have 26 years.”

That slight nuance might just change everything.

You see, for Spanish speakers, age is something they have — a possession — whereas in English, age is a part of our identity. It’s the difference between having and being.

Could that have any implications on the way Mexicans and Americans view aging for example?

I recall reading once that Inuits (an Eskimo tribe) have over 40 different words for snow. They must see snow the way this meme says women see color:

All jokes aside, there are many other linguistic distinctions that seep into the world’s many cultural differences.

Back to Spanish for a second — there are two forms of the word ‘to be,’ based on their duration or ‘length of being.’

If you’re hungry or tired, which is more of a temporary state of being, you’d use the verb ‘estar.’ However, if you are permanently something (I will always be from New York for instance), you’d use the verb ‘ser.’

English on the contrary doesn’t make that distinction: I am from New York, and I am hungry and tired. (It’s rough out here, ok?)

It’s here I realized that maybe, just maybe, having a way to refer to how long something lasts frames how we view it. If nothing else, I’ll tell you this much… I get way hangrier when I don’t eat than my girlfriend does.

In Latin America, people tell each other “buen provecho” before eating, which is most similar to French’s “bon appétit.” But in English, the closest thing we have to that is “dig in.” Again, it’s a small distinction, but does it possibly say anything about our relationship with food?

It’s interesting to me when meanings get lost in translation like that. It just goes to show how many different angles there are to viewing the same thing.

And if we see things differently, we think about them differently.

Consider these other linguistic characteristics, which differ in every language. For the one(s) you speak, how might these elements change how you see the world?

• What direction is the language read in?
• Do the words have a gender?
• How is the grammar structured? (Noun first or adjective?)
• What part of the mouth/throat is used to speak?
• Are there possessive pronouns?
• How many dialects are there?
• How many letters/characters are there?
• What climates are this language spoken in?
• What is the history of the language?
• What words or phrases don’t have any direct translation?
• What else is absolutely unique to this language?

Did you know that Hebrew is generally written without vowels? How about that American Sign Language uses eyebrow positioning for questions? And in Hindi, a line is used to denote whole words by connecting each letter.

When you come to think about it, there are seemingly infinite ways that the language one speaks informs their psychology. From social class, to regional differences, to other languages one knows and even their individually lived experience, the language one uses is telling of their psyche.