How does our language shape the way we think?

givemesomethingtoread:

What we have learned is that people who speak different languages do indeed think differently and that even flukes of grammar can profoundly affect how we see the world.

I’m sorry, but this doesn’t advance the Whorfian argument in any way.  The issue isn’t proving that different language speakers *do* perceive the world in different ways (and even that difference is easy to overstate); it’s the issue of causation.

Also, let’s stop talking about language as a “cognitive facility” and start talking about it as a collective of cognitive facilities.  I still don’t see how language is a unified cognitive facility any more than driving a car is.