The Language Hoax
Why the World Looks the Same in Any Language
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Narrated by:
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John McWhorter
About this listen
Japanese has a term that covers both green and blue. Russian has separate terms for dark and light blue. Does this mean that Russians perceive these colors differently from Japanese people? Does language control and limit the way we think?
This short, opinionated audiobook addresses the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which argues that the language we speak shapes the way we perceive the world. Linguist John McWhorter argues that while this idea is mesmerizing, it is plainly wrong. It is language that reflects culture and worldview, not the other way around. The fact that a language has only one word for eat, drink, and smoke doesn't mean its speakers don't process the difference between food and beverage, and those who use the same word for blue and green perceive those two colors just as vividly as others do. McWhorter shows not only how the idea of language as a lens fails but also why we want so badly to believe it: We're eager to celebrate diversity by acknowledging the intelligence of peoples who may not think like we do. Though well intentioned, our belief in this idea poses an obstacle to a better understanding of human nature and even trivializes the people we seek to celebrate. The reality--that all humans think alike--provides another, better way for us to acknowledge the intelligence of all peoples.
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Alva Noë is one of a new breed - part philosopher, part cognitive scientist, part neuroscientist - who are radically altering the study of consciousness by asking difficult questions and pointing out obvious flaws in the current science. In Out of Our Heads, he restates and reexamines the problem of consciousness, and then proposes a startling solution: Do away with the 200-year-old paradigm that places consciousness within the confines of the brain.
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A bold, yet ultimately unsupported, hypothesis
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Babel No More
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We all learn at least one language as children. But what does it take to learn six languages...or seventy? In Babel No More, Michael Erard, "a monolingual with benefits," sets out on a quest to meet language superlearners and make sense of their mental powers. On the way he uncovers the secrets of historical figures like Italian cardinal Giuseppe Mezzofanti, who was said to speak seventy-two languages; Emil Krebs, a pugnacious German diplomat, who spoke sixty-eight languages; and Lomb Kat, a Hungarian who taught herself Russian by reading Russian romance novels.
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Heavy on anecdote, light on science
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Refreshing and concise
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Great resource, but not conducive to audiobook
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Amazing how much irregular verbs can teach.
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Excellent Book!
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The Prodigal Tongue
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"If Shakespeare were alive today, he'd sound like an American." "English accents are the sexiest." "Americans have ruined the English language." "Technology means everyone will have to speak the same English." Such claims about the English language are often repeated but rarely examined. Professor Lynne Murphy is on the linguistic front line. In The Prodigal Tongue she explores the fiction and reality of the special relationship between British and American English.
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TOO MUCH BITTERNESS
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The Bilingual Brain
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How do two languages coexist in the same brain? Why is it possible to forget a language? What are the advantages and challenges of being bilingual? Over half of the world's population is bilingual, and yet this fascinating, complex ability is understood by few. In The Bilingual Brain, leading expert Albert Costa explores the science of language through a wide range of cutting-edge studies and examples from South Korea to Spain and Canada.
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Brains make language and language makes brains
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What Philosophy Is and What It Could Be
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Choice Words
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In productive classrooms, teachers don't just teach children skills, they build emotionally and relationally healthy learning communities. Teachers create intellectual environments that produce not only technically competent students, but also caring, secure, actively literate human beings.
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Check it out at the library or don't
- By Lesley on 04-01-12
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Epistemology
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Epistemology is the philosophical study of knowledge. Without knowledge, scientific enquiry is meaningless and we can’t analyse the world around us. But what exactly is knowledge and how do we obtain it? Should we trust our senses? When is belief knowledge? Presuming no prior experience, Robert Martin covers everything in the topic from scepticism and induction to Kant’s transcendentalism. Clear and readable, this audiobook is essential for philosophy students and a much needed introduction for the general reader.
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Going to hear it again
- By R Durero on 08-02-14
By: Robert M. Martin
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What listeners say about The Language Hoax
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Amazon Customer
- 01-14-18
Great book! Well-read by the author.
A well-researched, well-argued book about the relationship between language and thought. Delightfully narrated by the author.
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- Debra E.
- 12-08-21
Intetesting
I enjoyed this because my education included Sapir-Whorf. This was a. interesting take on that hypothesis.
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- joe c
- 02-10-24
Another great McWhorter book
My favorite writer on language. He never fails to illuminate. Chomsky, eat your heart out!
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- Elisabeth Carey
- 01-29-21
A look at the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
In this book, John McWhorter takes on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, with vigor and enthusiasm, and his usual excellent research.
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis says, basically, that language shapes the way we see and understand the world. One example, a fairly basic one, is that Japanese has one word that identifies both blue and green, while Russian has one word for dark blue and another word for light blue. Does this mean the Japanese can't see different shades of blue and green as clearly as Russians can?
No. The Japanese can see these colors just as well; they just describe them differently.
A more complex example is verb tenses. English has a future tense, a verb tense we use to refer to the future. "I will go out tomorrow." Many other languages, do too, but also many other languages don't have a future tense. Does this mean the speakers of those languages can't plan for the future?
No. Once again, they can anticipate the future, refer to it, plan for it. They just use other means of doing so, often context-dependent.
McWhorter explains this much better than I can, and takes on the idea not just as bad linguistics, but as bad linguistics that, while it originated in a desire to recognize the worth of non-Western or "primitive" cultures, has a pernicious tendency to promote condescension towards other cultures, and a certain ethnocentrism, accepting our own language and culture as obviously the standard.
While not having the lightness and well-used, intentional silliness that enlivens some of his other works, he makes excellent, informative, and entertaining use of the differences among languages in the course of explaining what he sees as wrong in much Sapir-Whorf analysis. And it should be noted, in this context, that English, far from being the obviously normal language we who speak it as our native tongue tend to assume, is in many ways downright weird, an outlier in many ways.
The same, of course, is true of other languages. Each language has evolved on its own path, and the changes are often happenstance, not response to anything to do with the environment of their speakers. Culture and language aren't all that closely related.
It's a fascinating listen, and well worth your time.
I bought this audiobook.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Mark Ward
- 12-16-23
Persuasive because of its skill and graciousness
I have learned so much from McWhorter, and not just about language, but about using the tools of persuasion. He could have buried all Whorfianism and his fans would have followed him. But he carefully distinguishes the good ideas proposed by the movement from the popular conclusions drawn from its work. He opens his book by calling his work a manifesto, but he doesn’t have that grandiose tone. He’s patient and clear.
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- khaledalyami001
- 07-24-16
A linguistic masterpiece
I loved this book from A to Z. This is a linguistic magnficient masterpiece. 👍
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9 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 12-06-18
A short book but it could be even shorter.
The message of the book is quite simple, so the book could be shorter. I would have add more info in the book besides debunking of worfian hypothes. Narration and writing style are top notch.
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- Scott Kingdon
- 01-12-23
Run Whorfians Run!
John McWhorter produces yet another fantastic book. To date he is my favorite for his clarity, humor, directness, knowledge, ability to teach and logical views. I can’t get enough.
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- Dillon
- 05-30-16
Wonder Book
this is a wonderful book with lots of citation to help drive home the point that it's trying to make. The author has gone through a lot of painstaking work to portray his subject matter with his much care and due diligence as possible while still refuting the overarching claim flowing from it. his care and appreciation that he shows is a nice break from the standard yelling matches that seem to plague us. also since it is written and read by the same man there is a level of craftsmanship and naturalness to the reading of this book that was quite refreshing. I would recommend this book to almost anyone.
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7 people found this helpful
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- Marc R.
- 11-29-18
Brilliant
Brilliant man,
Brilliant and witty exposition
Deeply moral thesis, a truly humanist understanding of language
Thank you, John McWhorter!!!!
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