Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Joseph I. Lauer" <josephlauer AT hotmail.com>]

   In today's New York Times Sunday Magazine section article by Guy
Deutscher, "Does Your Language Shape How You Think?", the only reference
that I see that mentions "the role of the Hebrew language in the development
of the Jewish religion" is in the following: "For decades, Whorf's theory
dazzled both academics and the general public alike. In his shadow, others
made a whole range of imaginative claims about the supposed power of
language, from the assertion that Native American languages instill in their
speakers an intuitive understanding of Einstein's concept of time as a
fourth dimension to the theory that the nature of the Jewish religion was
determined by the tense system of ancient Hebrew." This is immediately
followed by: "Eventually, Whorf's theory crash-landed on hard facts and
solid common sense, when it transpired that there had never actually been
any evidence to support his fantastic claims."
   Although the article discusses more recent research (including that "new
research has revealed that when we learn our mother tongue, we do after all
acquire certain habits of thought that shape our experience in significant
and often surprising ways."), it only mentions Hebrew once more (about the
gender of a bed).
   Perhaps there is more information in the author's forthcoming book,
"Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other
Languages", from which the article was adapted.
   The article is at
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/magazine/29language-t.html or
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/magazine/29language-t.html?pagewanted=all
(single page version).
   Joseph I. Lauer
   Brooklyn, New York