Relatively speaking: do our words influence how we think? (Josephine Livingstone, The Guardian)

Linguistic relativity can tell us about our perceptions of reality and the relationship between language and the way we think.

The Namibian Himba people only label colour according to four categories. One area of linguistic relativity research is the relationship between language and colour perception. Photograph: Burger/Alamy.

Shortly after New Year’s Eve, I sat in a Berlin airport, clutching my head. Around me a few other English EasyJetters waited, too, listening vaguely to the German voice coming over the loudspeaker. One of my bleary countrymen turned to another and said: “They sound like they’re angry all the time, don’t they? Speaking that language all day must do something to your brain.”