The Power of language & its impact on happiness

Today I am riffing on language and the ways it impacts happiness and how we think.

I often say hello to a guy who works down the hallway from me. I asked the other day what he does. “Just mortgages, nothing cool like you”. I was taken aback. He doesn’t even know what I do. And really, mortgages enable people to get houses, fulfill dreams, build generational wealth, and so much more. They are really important. The language you use to frame things matters so much in how you feel about them. The ability to reframe what is good about something or to focus on the impact can change how you feel about it.

The specific language we speak also influences concepts and ideas we can convey. Ancient Greeks didn’t have a word for the color blue. Inuit languages have 100s of words for snow to describe the nuances essential to their survival. In Japanese, the concept of "self”, and the use of personal pronouns (like "I" or "me") is much less frequent compared to English. The language reflects a more contextual and less individually centered approach to identity. Japanese has different words for "I" (such as "watashi," "boku," and "ore") that vary depending on the formality of the situation, the gender of the speaker, and other factors. This linguistic feature underscores a cultural emphasis on social hierarchy, group membership, and situational context rather than the individualistic focus commonly found in Western cultures.

The School of Life has a beautiful box of Untranslatable Words cards that address this so eloquently. I gave their card for Iktsuarpok to my grandmother between visits, it is an Inuit word that refers to the feeling of anticipation and restlessness that comes from waiting for someone to arrive, as if standing by the window speeds up the process.

So, language influences how people think, see the world and perceive themselves and their roles within society —this idea is called linguistic relativity, or the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.    

Cognitive scientist Lera Boroditsky refers to each language as a cognitive universe and eloquently describes these ideas further in this TED Talk. Her description of aboriginal Kuuk Thaayorre use of cardinal directions and landscape as a linguistic framework gave me a whole new understanding of art work as well; and as I Google this informs their perception of time as well.

This article in Nature describes  that we are losing a language every three months, faster than the rapid loss of biodiversity. The impact on the world is a loss of ways of being and thinking, but we have no way of understanding the full impact of that loss. With every language we lose, a universe of ideas fades away, but every word we save, learn, or reinvent is a step toward a richer, more nuanced understanding of our world and each other.

You can hear Ross Perlin speak here about his fascinating new book about endangered languages, and his study of their presence in New York City.

Every word we choose casts a vote for the type of world we want to live in and the connections we aspire to make—change your words, and you're already changing your world.