From [log in to unmask] Sun Oct  5 20:44 EDT 1997
Date: Sun, 05 Oct 1997 18:48:16 -0600
From: "Niall McKenna" <[log in to unmask]>
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To: STAN MULAIK <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Sapir/Whorf Doctrine racist?
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STAN MULAIK wrote:

> A linguistics graduate student has indicated to me that the
> Saper/Whorf
> Hypothesis is regarded as racist.  This student says that this is
> current
> linguistic doctrine.  Is this so?  Could someone enlighten me as to
> how the racist angle enters into it?
>
> My intent is not to defend the doctrine, but simply to understand the
> reasoning.

I feel strongly that this theory could be the anti-thesis of racism.
The two theologians responsible for this theory were studying the Hopi
Indian tribe and discovered that they had no future tense.  (This is
also true of languages like Bahasa-Indonesian.)  Therefore, the idea
that something WILL be done or that one will do something LATER or
TOMORROW do not exist.  And, with this, comes the cultural understanding
that such planning is not necessary to accomplish tasks.  So if someone
is making a craft, the importance is not on WHEN it will be done.  It
WILL be done but there is no capacity in the language and, therefore,
the culture to say when it will be done.  Sapir and Whorf therefore
concluded that because these two elements complement each other,
language's capacity and cultural doctrines, they spawn each other.  And
it's true.  If you speak more than one language fluently you understand
that switching between the two is not so much a matter of translating
but thinking totally differently.  As far as the theory being racist.
It actually empowers cultures I think because it lets them know that
things like their language are important tools of self-preservation.  So
if, in a given population, people can speak a language that naturally
associates itself with their culture, then they are safeguarding their
culture!

Niall McKenna
Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada