What Does Anthropology Analyze in the Issue of Language?

Studying languages, the anthropologist prefers to consider the nature of the language, the origin of the words and the thematic of the language in general. Many scholars are sure that each language makes the nations that use it to see the environment from different perspectives. Thus, the perception of reality is different depending on the language one speaks. Those people who speak different languages perceive the surrounding world from different perspectives, they are given an opportunity to see the world differently. Why is the problem of languages considered by anthropologists? Anthropologists are the scientists who study the human environment in general. The perception of this environment by different nations is exactly what these people study.

Whorf is one of the well-known scientists who try to prove that languages impact human perception of the world. Considering the languages, their grammar, and syntax, Whorf has come to the conclusion that some nations have absolutely different perceptions of time as they do not differentiate between the present, the past and the future. It does not mean that these people do not understand whether the situation happened two weeks ago or it is going to happen tomorrow. It just means that having no grammar structures which denote past, present or future like in English, these people perceive these time periods differently. The same deals with the colors. Some nations have a great variety of words that denote colors and their gradations, while others just have the words for the most basic colors such as black, white, green, blue, etc. It does not mean that they do not have grey color, it just means that they perceive it as almost black for example. Therefore, studying language anthropologists have an opportunity to consider the surrounding world and check how different nations that speak various languages perceive reality.