{"id":5549,"date":"2025-05-15T13:19:39","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T13:19:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/?p=5549"},"modified":"2025-05-15T13:19:47","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T13:19:47","slug":"a-gentler-sapir-whorf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/2025\/05\/15\/a-gentler-sapir-whorf\/","title":{"rendered":"A gentler Sapir-Whorf"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n

Although the languages with top scores for \u201csnow\u201d are all spoken in snowy regions, the top-ranked languages for \u201crain\u201d were not always from the rainiest parts of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For instance, South Africa has a medium level of rainfall, but languages from this region, such as Nyanja, East Taa and Shona, have many rain-related words. This is probably because, unlike snow, rain is important for human survival \u2013 which means people still talk about it in its absence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For speakers of East Taa<\/a>, rain is both relatively rare and desirable. This is reflected in terms such as l\u00e1be ||n\u00fau-b\u00e2<\/em>, an \u201chonorific form of address to thunder to bring rain\u201d and |q\u00e1ba<\/em>, which refers to the \u201critual sprinkling of water or urine to bring rain\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our tool can also be used to explore various concepts related to perception (\u201csmell\u201d), emotion (\u201clove\u201d) and cultural beliefs (\u201cghost\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The top-scoring languages for \u201csmell\u201d include a cluster of Oceanic languages such as Marshallese<\/a>, which has terms such as jatbo<\/em> meaning \u201csmell of damp clothing\u201d, me\u013c\u013c\u0101<\/em> meaning \u201csmell of blood\u201d, and aelel<\/em> meaning \u201csmell of fish, lingering on hands, body, or utensils\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/theconversation.com\/do-inuit-languages-really-have-many-words-for-snow-the-most-interesting-finds-from-our-study-of-616-languages-252522<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Although the languages with top scores for \u201csnow\u201d are all spoken in snowy regions, the top-ranked languages for \u201crain\u201d were not always from the rainiest parts of the world. For instance, South Africa has a medium level of rainfall, but languages from this region, such as Nyanja, East Taa and Shona, have many rain-related words. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3pfIY-1rv","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5549"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5550,"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5549\/revisions\/5550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}