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The concept of linguistic relativity posits that the structure of the language we learn to speak affects the way we see the world in concrete terms. Studies have been carried out to see whether the manner in which a language describes color impacts a speaker’s cognitive perception of color.
A recent paper offers another approach by asking whether language influences future-oriented behavior. In M. Keith Chen’s The Effect of Language on Economic Behavior: Evidence from Savings Rates, Health Behaviors, and Retirement Assets, Chen looks across a spectrum of 39 languages and classifies them according to how they mark the future tense. In some languages, French for example, using the future tense is obligatory when talking about tomorrow, while in others (German) the present tense can be used in reference to the future (‘Morgen regnet es’ translates literally as ‘It rains tomorrow.’). What difference does it make?
Well, Chen suggests that by describing the future as distinct from the present, it is perceived as distinct and not necessarily connected to present. On the other hand, describing the future in present tense terms leads to a cognitive perception of the future as a continuation of the present. According to Chen, seeing the future as something separate from the present might mean that future-oriented behavior – in the case of the study, Chen used economic markers such as savings rates, etc. – would be less predominate. Seeing the future as contiguous with the present would encourage actions that are future-oriented because they are directly connected to the now.
Chen then compared national listings across the World Values Survey with the languages spoken in those countries and did indeed find a correlation. He even found a correlation within multi-lingual countries such as Switzerland, which showed different behavior patterns across the French-German linguistic divide. The German-speaking Swiss save at more than twice the rate of their French-speaking countryfolk.
Just as we have found that a language and culture must contain the concepts of equality or democracy before even beginning to embark upon their implementation, what might an examination of this concept across conservation and environmental values yield? Is the way we deal with the world around us determined by the language we speak? If so, how can we effectively communicate across languages?
Not only do color names vary from language to language, but within a language they vary from person to person. For example, there’s a wildflower in Texas called the bluebell, whose name implies that someone (or various someones) must have seen it as blue, but I always see it as violet or purple:
http://portraitsofwildflowers.wordpress.com/2011/06/15/detail-of-a-bluebell-flower/
As for verb tenses, before the Normans invaded Britain in 1066, English was down to two tenses: a present (which doubled and still can double as a future) and a past. (There were also some modals.) The formal system of tenses that we have now was copied from French.