Changing the Way People Think About Bridges in Different Languages

Russian linguist Roman Jakobsen suggested that the arbitrarily assigned grammatical genders are actually changing the way people think about these days of the week and maybe all kinds of other things. Lera: We've done a lot of studies looking at how speakers of Spanish and German and Russianactually think about objects that have opposite grammatical genders. If it's feminine in your language, you're more likely to say that bridges are beautiful and elegant. And if the word bridge is masculine in your language,. You're more likely than not to call them 'manly' or 'womanly' The categorization that language provides to you becomes real, becomes psychologically real," she says.