Whorfian hypothesis

n. The idea that the ways people perceive the world and think is determined by their language(s); having learned different languages, people understand the world differently. Thus Benjamin Whorf believed that monolingual Hopi speakers who have only one word for flying things would less readily distinguish among birds, bats, and butterflies than speakers of English. Subsequent research has not confirmed this strong version of the hypothesis, but the notion that language has subtle guiding effects on thought and perception persists. Also known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.