Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

In linguistics, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (SWH) states that there is a systematic relationship between the grammatical categories of the language a person speaks and how that person both understands the world and behaves in it. This controversial hypothesis is named after the linguist and anthropologist Edward Sapir and his colleague and student Benjamin Whorf.

Fictional Examples

• The Dispossessed—novel by Ursula K. Le Guin describes a fictional anarchist culture where use of the possessive case is taboo
• The Languages of Pao—science fiction novel by Jack Vance depicting a social engineer who designs new languages for societies that wish to change their lot
• Babel-17—science fiction novel by Samuel R. Delany that supposes that the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is strongly true, depicting a fictional language, Babel-17, which causes anyone who learns it to become a traitor to their political organisation
• Newspeak—fictional language described in Nineteen Eighty-Four, designed to constrict thought to support the totalitarian regime of that book
• Anthem—Ayn Rand's short novel where the word "I" is prohibited by a collectivist state
• Nuspeak —a language found in Robert Heinlein's short story "Gulf", which is designed to increase the speed of thinking by expressing concepts more compactly
• Iain M. Banks' fictional anarcho-socialist civilisation, The Culture, has developed a language called Marain "with the specific intention of providing a means of expression which would be a culturally inclusive and as encompassingly comprehensive in its technical and representational possibilities as practically achievable"
• Morality Fable by Rebecca Hitherby