Language in Society*

The hypothesis starts when Whorf argues that the Hopi people in Arizona do not conjugate verbs into past, present, and future tenses as English speakers do and that their words for units of time (like “day” or “hour”) were verbs rather than nouns. From this finding, he believes that Hopi people do not see time as a physical object that can be counted in minutes and hours, as contrast to English speakers. Hopi people, according to Whorf, view time as a formless process. Others than account that Hopi people do not have any concept of time (Green, 2023).

Its relativity can also be seen from a number of languages. English and many other European languages normally that perceive the future in front of us and the past as being behind us, in Swedish for instance (framtid/front time). But In Aymara language, spoken by Aymara people who live in Andes in Bolivia, Chile, Peru and Argentina, the word for future means “behind time”. They tend to make backward gestures when talking about future.

*This book which was published in 2023 was written in collaboration with Zulkhaeriyah. Double check the publisher website for further information: Language in Society (penerbitadab.id)

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