Sublime

“Language exerts hidden power, like the moon on the tides." — Rita Mae Brown

If you’re bilingual or ever had to “code switch” based on your social context, you know Rita is right. This isn't just about swapping words; it's about inhabiting a completely different reality. This phenomenon, which linguists call the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis or "

the tenuous relationship between language and reality; details the array of effects language has on our memory, attention, and reasoning; and describes how these varied effects power narratives and storytelling as well as political spin and conspiracy theories. Why should we care what language is good for? Enfield, who has spent twenty years at the

Testimony from polyglots like her has invited a more sophisticated take on Whorf’s ideas. What if language is less like a yoke than like a wind, nudging us in various directions? This moderate approach, which is more in line with Whorf’s original perspective, is known as “weak Whorfianism” or, paradoxically, neo-Whorfianism.

Learning a new language is about building a communication skill.”

Richard Nisbett articulates the essence of the paradoxical Middle Way of language and thought in his book The Geography of Thought: