Are we all seeing the same world?

What if the language you speak changes the way you see the world?

Not just how you communicate. But how you think, remember and even experience time.

It's a fascinating idea explored by researchers for decades. A 2022 BBC article titled "The weird way language affects our sense of time and space" highlights research suggesting that the languages we speak can influence how we perceive the world around us.

Working in international journalism, where the same story can be told in several languages, I have often wondered whether we are simply translating words or also changing the way people understand them.

We tend to assume that people everywhere think in much the same way. We simply use different words to express our thoughts.

But research suggests it is not quite that simple.

Take Turkish, for example.

"Ali eve geldi" and "Ali eve gelmiş" both tell us that Ali came home.

But there is a subtle difference. The second can suggest that you learned about his arrival indirectly, rather than witnessing it yourself.

Turkish has a grammatical distinction that draws attention to how we know something. English can express the same idea, but often needs extra words.

Now consider French.

A table is feminine. A book is masculine. Even a car has a grammatical gender.

Strange, isn't it?

Some experiments suggest that grammatical gender can influence the characteristics people associate with everyday objects.

The same object. A different language. Potentially different associations.

And then there is time.

In English, we look forward to the future and leave the past behind.

But in Aymara, a language spoken in South America, the opposite metaphor exists.

The past is in front of us. The future is behind.

Why?

Because we can see what has already happened. The future remains unknown, like something behind our backs.

Suddenly, it makes perfect sense.

Perhaps one of the most fascinating examples comes from Australia.

Speakers of the Indigenous language Kuuk Thaayorre commonly use compass directions rather than relying on left and right.

Instead of saying something is to your left, they might describe it as being to the southwest.

Imagine having to know where north is just to explain where you left your keys.

Research has linked such linguistic habits to an impressive awareness of geographical direction.

Of course, none of this means that one language is better than another. Or that language completely determines how we think.

Culture, upbringing and personal experiences matter too.

But language can influence what we pay attention to. And what we repeatedly pay attention to can shape how we understand the world.

This is particularly interesting in journalism.

We often assume that translating a story means delivering the same message in another language. Yet the words we choose, the distinctions we make and the cultural meanings behind them can influence how that story is understood.

Perhaps that is why learning another language offers something far more valuable than simply being able to communicate with more people.

It gives us another perspective on the same world.

And sometimes, understanding another language means discovering that our way of seeing the world was never the only one.