Gandhigiri & The Saphir-Whorf Hypothesis. Can Language Determine Behaviour?
If you have lived amongst the Amazonian tribes Munduruku and Pirahã you will realize they are by far represent our past. We were hunter-gatherers and then civilization ruined us (just kidding).
Yuval Noah Harari in his book Sapiens goes on to say that agriculture domesticated humans, built armies, started wars, thus civilizations.
You can call the tribes as anumeric. Meaning? they don’t have numbers in their language. Hence they cannot count beyond 3. Outrageous, isn’t it?
The Cantoshi tribe, another in the deep forests of Amazon can identify only five colours. Black, Yellow-orange, white, red, green (they use the same words for green and purple.
Will the above tribes survive in our civilization? Without numbers? Without able to have different words for colours?
Does the language we speak affect our understanding of the world around us?
This is what Saphir first, Whorf later went proposing a hypothesis that is known as Saphir-Whorf hypothesis.
At the time Whorf was studying the Hopi tribe, he found they have one-word for anything that flies- ‘insects’ or ‘aviator’ or ‘aeroplane’.
The Esikmos have close to 100 words for snow and activities related to or behaviours around the word snow.
“All observers are not led by the same physical evidence to the picture of the universe unless their linguistic backgrounds are similar” Whorf mentioned in his 1940 essay.
This also means two things: if you have a word for it, you have an activity or behaviour associated with it; conversely, if you don’t have a word for an activity, then you cannot expect a behaviour around it.
For example, take the Danish word ‘Hygge’ pronounced as Hu-ugh.
The Danish apparently use the maximum number of candles than any others in the world. Thanks to Hygge.
What’s Hygge? It’s a word for a concept. The word has no direct translation in English. It means having a lovely, cosy home and lighting candles at home in the evening gives you the feeling of Hygge. Danish doctors recommend “tea and hygge” as a cure for the common cold.
The concept of Hygee drives behaviour.
Drink and drive is a problem everywhere. The highest number of accidents are attributed to drink and drive. A lot of Public Service campaigns were and are still being tried.
The Harvard Alcohol Project found an interesting way. They borrowed the Scandinavian concept word- DD aka Designated Driver.
A designated driver is the person in the group of friends who voluntarily agrees to abstain from drinking and agrees to drop all others.
Now the phrase Designated Driver was made famous by inserting in plays, Hollywood scripts and behaviour was instituted around it. The accidents decreased almost by 50%.
Popularizing a word, drove the behaviour.
When I was rewatching Lagey Raho Munnabhai, I realized the film is the best example of Sapir Whorf hypothesis.
The film showcases a different use-case where by using the word Gandhigiri a new set of behaviours emerge. It sparks a unique set of solutions based on the concept of Gandhism.
As an example, the film shows the transition of a goon who is on an extreme end of the spectrum (compared to Gandhism) into a follower and practitioner. Just by coining the term Gandhigiri.
The word Gandhigiri has indeed empowered the common man to believe that he/she had an option to deal with people around in a different way. If we go by what Whorf had said, it helped people unlock a new world reality by offering them a linguistic background.
That’s the power of language. It can abstain people from behaviour or encourage them to pursue.
Can we solve many personal or professional problems by merely changing or assigning a concept?
If LOCKDOWN word induces a behaviour of panic wrt buying, stocking up and migrants rushing home 1000 kms away, then what behaviour would UNLOCK induce?
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