Response to 9/25 Class

After the discussion of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, I am still trying to figure out whether I lean more towards the relativist position or the nominalist position regarding the impact of language on our perception of reality. It is frustrating to think about the idea of different realities and if the language we speak can change how we perceive "reality." I think there has to be a middle ground in this instance-I don't think that language can completely change how we perceive certain things because all human beings are inherently the same and I think we all see the world the same way, it is just that certain things have greater meaning in other languages, so they may be more important in one culture than in another based competely upon the language spoken. For example, the Inuit people have many words for snow because it is more important in their culture than it is in other cultures, but that does not mean that it is percieved differently.