One of the most perplexing problems in the field of anthropology over the last hundred years has been the relationship between language and culture. Does language shape culture? Does culture shape language? Further, and perhaps more interesting, does language shape our cognition, effecting the very way that we see the world? Similarly, does culture shape our language in such a way that the very words, concepts, and semantic structures within a language are the direct result of the culture’s physical manifestation? These questions and many others have been the subject of debate within anthropology, linguistics, psychology, and other fields of inquiry for well over a century. Out of this interdisciplinary debate, however, one theory has been of particular interest to all parties – the theory of linguistic relativity.
Developed primarily by Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf (Sapir 1949; Whorf 1956), linguistic relativity originally focused on controlled comparisons between contrasting linguistic traditions and related patterns of behavior in a culture, often with an emphasis on the historical impact of cultural categories on the evolution of language. The reason that the theory has been the subject of debate for so long, however, is because of the lack of good, solid evidence to support it. Although anthropologists, indigenous scholars, and a few psychologists have long recognized the deep interconnection between language, culture, and cosmology, in-depth studies of indigenous languages and their grammatical and semantic differences has been lacking. Likewise, comparisons of different indigenous languages across similar cultural patterns has been hard to achieve. Contributing to the debate, and adding much needed data and evidence, is the recent book by Sean O’Neill:
Cultural Contact and Linguistic Relativity Among the Indians of Northwestern California.
Approaching the principle of linguistic relativity via the works of Boas (1896/1948), Sapir (1949), and Whorf (1956), who all argued for the role of language in guiding human perception, especially in the culturally charged settings of everyday life, O’Neill’s book is a data-rich, theoretically expanding contribution.
Despite centuries of intertribal contact, the Native American peoples of northwestern California have continued to speak a variety of distinct languages. At the same time, they have come to embrace a common way of life based on salmon fishing and shared religious practices. In this thought-provoking re-examination of the hypothesis of linguistic relativity, Sean O’Neill looks closely at the Hupa, Yurok, and Karuk indigenous peoples to explore the striking juxtaposition between linguistic diversity and relative cultural uniformity among their communities.
“That is, neither the language nor the culture of the region holds altogether constant as one passes from one village to the next. Instead, the variables of language and culture achieve a nearly kaleidoscopic variability throughout the area’s many speech communities. Taken together, the staggering linguistic diversity and often sweeping cultural variability found throughout this area allow the variables of language, culture, and worldview to be nearly isolated as one passes from one village to another” (p. 19).
It is through this process of comparing the variables of language, culture, and worldview that O’Neill makes some interesting and important contributions. By closely examining the spatial world and the realm of time among the Karuk, Hupa, and Yurok indigenous Native Americans of northwestern California, one is able to see the subtleties associated with language and culture in a geographically close, but culturally and linguistically diverse setting.
O’Neill examines intertribal contact, multilingualism, storytelling, and historical change among the three tribes, focusing on the traditional culture of the region as it existed during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He asks important historical questions at the heart of the linguistic relativity hypothesis: Have the languages in fact grown more similar as a result of contact, multilingualism, and cultural convergence? Or have they instead maintained some of their striking grammatical and semantic differences? Through comparison of the three languages, O’Neill shows that long-term contact among the tribes intensified their linguistic differences, creating unique Hupa, Yurok, and Karuk identities, including linguistic categories and cognitive processes.
If language encapsulates worldview, as the principle of linguistic relativity suggests, then this region’s indigenous peoples are testament to the theory. Analyzing patterns of linguistic accommodation as seen in the semantics of space and time, grammatical classification, and specialized cultural vocabularies, O’Neill offers solid evidence in support of the theory. What is even more exciting, however, is that
Cultural Contact and Linguistic Relativity Among the Indians of Northwestern Californialends support to the inclusion of indigenous peoples and their worldview within contemporary scientific research, resource management, and policy agendas.
North America 
Reviewed by Peter N. Jones, Bauu Institute and Press