It is well known that people think in the language they are most comfortable with. So with that in mind, how does language affect thought? I was reading 1984 and the idea came to me, in the same way the dictionary was being restricted to restrict problematic thinking.
Suppose a hypothetical language had a word for "land" made up of conjunction of words, where hypothetically a 'literal translation' of "land" would come out to be something like "blood soil" or whatever. Would then a populace speaking this language be more prone to nationalistic tendencies and/or xenophobia?
Or in a similar vein perhaps their word for "war" translated to "avoidable slaughter". Perhaps the native speakers would be more susceptible to pacifist or diplomatic ideologies?
Or, in a more /sci/ example, if the words for "space" and "time" were closely related, then maybe a speaker of that language would have an easier time discovering special relativity than someone who spoke a language where "space" and "time" were antonyms.
I'm interested in exploring this kind of intersection between linguistics, psychology, and social engineering, so if you know of any papers or studies or further reading please share.
As some food for thought, do you think that the "woke crowd" is trying to go down this route with banning of words like "retard" and adding of words like "cis"? To change perceptions and stereotypes?