ABSTRACT
The nature of the relationship between language, thought, and culture was under consideration long before anthropology became recognized as a scholarly field in its own right. From a contemporary standpoint, however, it appears that Whorf overstated his case. lexical and grammatical categories of a language completely determine how its speakers perceive the world around them. There is no question that the lexicon of any language mirrors whatever the nonverbal culture emphasizes; that is, those aspects of culture that are important for the members of a society are correspondingly highlighted in the vocabulary. Speakers of English use the personal pronoun you whether they are addressing one or several children, adults, old persons, subordinates, or individuals much superior to themselves in rank. Pronoun usage in Japanese is more complex than in the Indo-European languages, as other dimensions beside familiarity must be considered.
