John McWhorter, The Language Hoax *** 1/2

This book is a manifesto. I will oppose... the idea that people's languages channel the way they think and perceive the world. ... The idea that grammar channels people into thinking of time as cyclical is catnip.

Catnip indeed. My original motivation for studying linguistics was the tantalizing possibility that I could glean secrets about people's world views from the way they speak, and I've been an avid reader of books purporting to rehabilitate the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. The Language Hoax presents a convincing case that the tantalizing possibility is false. A person's language does indeed influence his or her thinking to some degree in experimental settings, but not in any interesting way.

I appreciate how McWhorter highlights the fact that linguistics reveals the diversity of languages in ways that are interesting in and of themselves. I also liked his close reading of a randomly overheard English sentence ("Dey try to cook it too fast, I'm-a be eatin' some pink meat!"). I wasn't as happy about the amount of time he spent railing against the well-intentioned paternalism inherent in much of popular Whorfianism: it's a good point, but it's independent of the question of the truth.