Hopi Language - Metalinguistics

Metalinguistics

Benjamin Lee Whorf, a well-known linguist and to this day one of the foremost authorities on the relationships obtaining between southwestern and Central American languages, used the Hopi language to exemplify his argument that one's world-view is affected by one's language and vice-versa. Among Whorf's best-known claims was that Hopi had “no words, grammatical forms, construction or expressions that refer directly to what we call “time.” Whorf's statement has been misunderstood to mean that Hopi has no concept of duration or succession of time, but in fact he meant only that the Hopi have no conception of time as an object or substance that may be divided and subdivided. Furthermore, according to John A. Lucy, many of Whorf's critics have failed to read his writings accurately, preferring instead to proffer uncharitable caricatures of his arguments. The existence of temporal concepts in the Hopi language was extensively documented by Ekkehart Malotki, while other linguists and philosophers are skeptical of Whorf's broader argument and his findings on Hopi have been disputed or rejected by some.