Benjamin Lee Whorf, an American linguist who died in 1941, held that each language encodes a worldview that significantly influences its speakers.

1941年去世的美国语言学家本杰明·李·沃尔夫认为，每种语言都蕴含着一种世界观，这种世界观会对使用者产生重大影响。

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Whorf, we now know, made many mistakes.

现在我们知道，沃尔夫当时的确犯了许多错误。

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Whorf proposed first that all higher levels of thinking are dependent on language.

沃尔夫首先提出，所有高层次的思维都倚赖于语言。

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Quijada would endorse a weak version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and the conlanging community includes some of the last true believers in a strong version.

NEWYORKER: Utopian for Beginners

Neither Sapir nor Whorf formulated a definitive version of the hypothesis that bears their names, but in general the theory argues that the language we speak actually shapes our experience of reality.

NEWYORKER: Utopian for Beginners

This is not a new concept--the linguist Benjamin Whorf advanced it a long time ago--but Contributing Editor Dan Seligman does a delightful job of bringing it back to life every now and then.

FORBES: Sidelines