>When discussing linguistic issues, it's best to use linguistic theory and terminology, rather than misleading analogies to software development. What you are propounding is a version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, that language structure (such as lexical rules which allow free construction of compound nouns) somehow influences or constrains cognitive processes.

No, I'm saying a much more basic, and widely accepted, undisputed even, thing: if language X has a specific term for a situation, then its speakers have captured that situation and understand it better and can refer to it more readily than people whose language lacks the term (and can only describe the notion with different ad-hoc phrases).

That's essentially what language does, even for native speakers. Captures things (nouns), sentiments, ideas, etc, to communicate them.

If a language lacks a term akin to "kawaii" then its people don't have immediate access to that notion the way Japanese have. They could say "cute" but it doesn't cut it, or they could explain it with one or more phrases. But still the person hearing it and the person expressing it would have mismatches etc. Whereas for a Japanese it's already a preset cultural notion.

I'm not saying that having such a term or having a syntax structured in such a way, makes the Japanese to thing this or that way, or affects how they think.

I'm saying that having a work for a phenomenon means you can refer to the phenomenon directly versus not having one, and people will immediately understanding what you mean.