by Rex Trulove

Created on: March 11, 2009

What is language? To many people, it is a difficult question to answer. It doesn't need to be. Language is the means to express the thoughts, ideas and feelings of one person, to another. By simply understanding this, it becomes easy to see how language influences culture.

Any culture is created and shaped according to the ideas and thoughts of the people in that culture. As an example, Eskimos have many different words for snow. This makes sense, considering that snow is a major facet of their lives and culture. Being able to describe snow is important for them. On the other hand, it wouldn't be at all important in Hawaii, so there aren't as many ways to talk about snow there.

This example is more about how culture influences language than how language influences culture, but the idea works the other way too. If words can adequately describe the things that are important in the thoughts and ideas of the people in a given region, they cannot help but influence the culture of that region.

For instance, in the example above, the words describe the various types of snow and the conditions under which they are found. A child learning the language knows very early that snow is important. In turn, it shapes their ideas and thoughts, and thus, their culture.

If words don't exist in a language to put forth the idea or thought, for good or bad, that also impacts the culture. This is easily shown. In the English language, there is a term for women who crave sex. It is "nymphomaniac". There is no English word, which refers to men with the same affliction previously mentioned. Consequently, men who suffer from that malady are considered normal, while women who feel the same way are somehow ill. That isn't just a double standard it shapes society and culture.

It can be thought of in this way: If you can't express your thoughts and ideas, others will have a harder time understanding them. The more difficult it is to understand the thoughts and ideas, the less likely it is to affect culture. The exchange of those thoughts, feelings, and ideas is what drives the evolution of cultures. Cultures are never static, they are always changing, and so the exchange of the ideas keeps it moving.

This also works when another assimilates one culture. One of the reasons the English language is constantly changing is because of other cultures it has absorbed. There are many new words added to the English language every year, and most of those are non-English terms. They are only needed in order to relate thoughts and ideas, so there aren't any doubts that these will have an impact on the culture of English speaking countries.

The bottom line is that language shapes cultures, and cultures shape languages. The two are intimately linked.

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