In the 1930s benjamin Lee Whorf, a full-time chemist and engineer but an amateur in the field of linguistics, began studying with Sapir. Whorf’s papers based on his work with the Hopi and Shawnee Indians had revolutionary implications for the relation of language to both thought and perception. Language, he said, is more than just a medium for expressing thought. It is, in fact, a major element in the formation of thought. Furthermore, to use a figure from our won day, man’s very perception of the world about him is programmed by the language he speaks, just as a computer is programmed. Like the computer, man’s mind will register and structure external reality only in accordance with the program. Since two languages often program the same class of events quite differently, no belief or philosophical system should be considered apart from language.
— Edward T. Hall. The Hidden Dimension: An anthropologist examines man’s use of space in public and in private. 1969.
