Does the language you speak really affect how you see the future?
The way people discuss the future varies from language to language. Some have a well-defined future tense, while others distinguish much between present and future. But does this point of grammar actually affect how we see the world?
For the Lao this can be an interesting question.
An economist is considering the effect of the future tense in different cultures’ future-oriented behavior.
“The idea is that some languages have very clear grammar governing the future tense - like in English, how we can distinguish between “I am doing something” and “I will do something” - whereas other languages don’t. His hypothesis is that the former, the so-called strong future time references (FTR) languages, are more likely to make poor decisions in terms of planning for the future, which means higher rates of obesity, debt, smoking, drinking, and so forth.”
This will probably be a very controversial paper if and once it’s finished, but it can lead to some interesting possibilities.
