The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis and Gender Politics
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis states that people experience the world based on the structure of their language, and that linguistic categories shape and limit cognitive processes. It proposes that differences in language affect thought, perception, and behavior, so speakers of different languages think and act differently.
Spoilers Ahead for the movie “Arrival” – One key plot point in the movie “Arrival” was tied to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Essentially, language forms thoughts. I think we have all experienced this. For example, what is the language of your inner dialogue? The only language I have studied extensively, other than English, is Latin. As such I sometimes think in Latin. This is especially true when it comes to idoms and verb conjugation. Getting back to Arrival; in the movie, the aliens had a distinctively non-linear concept of time that was reflected in their language. As the scientists in the movie raced to understand the alien language, it altered their perception of time to the extent that they no longer perceived of time in a linear manner.
OK, so what does any of this have to do with gender politics? One of the hot-button issues of this election cycle has been the use of pronouns. It seems like being respectful to an individual’s identity should be relatively simple. Aside from all of the politicizing, one thing that may contribute to the issue is the lack of a strong gender neutral case in English. “They” works just fine, but it is the the third-person plural. The third-person singular, of course, is “it”, which just doesn’t work and has a long history of derogatory use. Unfortunately, there are some languages that are even more binary than English (e.g. French). Which brings me back to Latin, which does a much better job at being non-binary. Even adjectives have a masculine, feminine and neutral form, which makes it easy to see the world as being both binary and non-binary.
It is a somewhat complex issue – or maybe it really isn’t. Maybe all we need are some alternatives to our current linguistic structure so that our language can better fit the range of our identity.