Sapir Whorf Hypothesis

How the Sapir Whorf Hypothesis Came to Be

1. Sapir Whorf Hypothesis By Matthew Armstrong

2. The idea behind the Hypothesis The Sapir Whorf Hypothesis is the idea that a language spoken by people can change the way that someone thinks and acts!

3. Based on the hypothesis, a person that can speak more than one language will be affected by all languages the person is knowledgeable of. A person who speaks 10 languages would have more different ways of thinking than people who can only speak 9 of the languages, or only one of the languages!

4. Creators of the Hypothesis The hypothesis was thought of by Edward Sapir (left) and Benjamin Whorf (right) – hence the Sapir Whorf Hypothesis!

5. Originality of Hypothesis Benjamin Whorf based his hypothesis on the Hopi tribe, whose idea of time was far different than other Western cultures because of the tribe’s dialect.

6. Argument against the Hypothesis Steven Pinker argued against the hypothesis, stating that Whorf never met anyone in the Hopi tribe. An anthropologist later found that the Hopi’s concept of time was not so distant from the other cultures around them who spoke different languages.

7. Thank you for reading!