Linguistics on Ghafoor's Personal Blog

How Language Shapes Space - Time and Colour

hello@ghafoorsblog.com (AG Sayyed) — Sun, 01 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Does the language you speak change how you find your way, picture time, see colour or remember who caused an accident? Six shorts offer cases from Australia, the Andes, Namibia, the Amazon and beyond, each suggesting that words shape experience.

Space Without Left or Right

Published 2026-08-13 · Watch the short

The Kuuk Thaayorre live in Pormpuraaw on the western coast of Cape York Peninsula in Australia. Their language has no words for left or right, so everything is described by compass direction: an ant is on your southwest leg, and you are asked to move north.

Framing - Metaphor and Control Through Language

hello@ghafoorsblog.com (AG Sayyed) — Sun, 01 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Words can limit what people can say, set the terms of an argument, and carry meanings that are never spoken. These shorts look at how vocabulary, frames and metaphors quietly steer thought, and how much meaning lives in the gaps between sentences.

Newspeak and the Shrinking of Thought

Published 2026-09-08 · Watch the short

In the novel 1984, George Orwell describes a government system called Newspeak. Its goal was not only censorship but reducing the number of words people could use. The short presents Orwell’s belief that the fewer words people have, the fewer thoughts they can think. If there is no word for freedom or rebellion, it becomes harder to discuss or imagine them.

The Sapir-Whorf Idea and the Film Arrival

hello@ghafoorsblog.com (AG Sayyed) — Sun, 01 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Does the language you grew up in only label the world, or does it help build the world you notice? These shorts follow that question from a science fiction film to memory experiments, the words for feelings, and the things we know without words.

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis and the Film Arrival

Published 2026-09-07 · Watch the short · Published 2026-08-18 · Watch the second short

Two shorts present the same idea. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis says that the structure of a language shapes the structure of thought, including which categories and distinctions a speaker notices. Languages divide time, space, colour and responsibility in different ways, so two people may perceive the same moment differently.

Word Origins and Hidden Patterns in Language

hello@ghafoorsblog.com (AG Sayyed) — Sun, 01 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Ordinary words can carry old and surprising histories, and language itself has patterns we rarely notice. These shorts trace the path of logos and glamour, ask why language exists at all, show a mathematical regularity in word use, and look at what translation can change.

Logos, From a Plain Word to the Order of the Universe

Published 2026-08-04 · Watch the short

The short tells the history of the Greek word logos across about six centuries.