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 "

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.