Human

Talking is a very interesting ability that we humans have. We humans have the ability to transmit our ideas and knowledge across minds through language. We make sounds with our mouths as we exhale, and that creates vibrations in the air which travel to the recipient and hitting their eardrum. And the brain takes those vibrations from your eardrums and transforms them into thoughts. 

Of course, there isn't just one language. There are about 7000 languages spoken around the world and all languages differ from one another in all kinds of ways. That begs the question: does the language we speak shape the way we think?

This is a question that people have been speculating for forever. But until recently, there hasn't been any data to help us decide. Recently in some labs around the world, scientists have started doing research and now we have actual data to weigh in on this question.

An Aboriginal community in Australia known as the Kuuk Thaayore people don't use words like "left" or "right", but instead they use cardinal directions: north, south, east, and west. People who speak languages like this stay oriented really well. We thought that humans were worse than other creatures because of our biology. But that isn't correct. If your language and culture trains you to do it, then you can do it. 

Languages also differ in how we divide the color spectrum. For example, in English, there's a word for blue that covers all colors that look blue, but in Russian there isn't a single word. Instead, Russian speakers have to differentiate between light blue, "goluboy", and dark blue, "siniy". When we test people's ability to perceptually discriminate between these colors, what we find is that Russian speakers are faster to tell the difference between a light and a dark blue. 

Lots of languages have grammatical gender. Every noun gets assigned a gender, and these genders differ across languages. Could this have any consequence for how people think? It turns out that's the case.

Languages also differ in how they describe events. For example, someone accidentally broke a vase. In English it's fine to say, "They broke the vase". In a language like Spanish, you might be more likely to say, "The vase broke". If it's an accident, you wouldn't say someone did it. So, people who speak different languages will pay attention to different things, depending on what their language usually requires them to do. 

Language can have big effects, where people can lay out space and time in completely different coordinate frames from each other. Language can also have really early effects, like what we saw with colors. These are really simple, basic, perceptual decisions. And yet, language is getting in there and fussing even with these little perceptual decisions we make. Language can have really broad effects, like the case with grammatical genders. And, finally, language can shape things that have personal weight to us. Ideas like blame and punishment, or eyewitness memory. 

Linguistic diversity reveals to us how ingenious and flexible the human mind is.