> Care to back up this claim with examples? To me, it sounds like you're advocating for linguistic relativism [1], which doesn't really hold up to our modern understanding of language and thought.
As I said in another comment, I think there is a feedback loop between language and mind, so IMO strong relativism or determinism creates a false dichotomy. As Tainnor mentioned, the article you linked provides some examples that suggest the weak form of relativism or however you want to call it exists. At the same time it agrees that determinism is false.
To my amateur eye this just shows that a feedback loop exists. Anecdata to back it up would include writers, scholars, philosophers, many of them polyglots, like Conrad, Watts, Nabokov, Huxley, and many others who seem to express a similar sentiment. In a polyglot context this hypothesis seems to arise often, see for example this interview:
http://writeparagraphs.blogspot.com/2014/02/a-stroll-with-al...
> I can draw polar opposite philosophical lessons from my experience. On the one hand, languages are only fascinating (or frustrating, depending on your point of view) as long as they are foreign – once they become familiar, that is, once they are simply used as a vehicle for communication, then they all do the same thing. So, in this sense, no matter how different they might seem, they are all the same. Obviously, this is true of us as human beings as well.
> On the other hand, each language has certain unique characteristics, words, and concepts that do not exist in other languages. Furthermore, there is an enormous variety of ways to express ideas and thoughts. Many of these ways of expressing what is in the brain seem absolutely essential to those who use them, but in point of fact they are not, as other languages do without them entirely.
> Finally, as far as culture is concerned, all languages are created equal and all languages do carry the culture of their speakers if by culture we mean simply the ways and traditions of a group of people.
or this article:
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/sep/05/multilingu...
> Each language resonates with me in a distinct way, bringing out a different part of my character. Russian makes me more melancholic because of its minor tone. In French, I am super pensive. Brazilian Portuguese is a very flirtatious and sweet language.
> But there is more to it than that though – each language has its own way of expressing thoughts and ideas, so you get a real insight into diverse thinking. Language carries the culture of the country that uses it and when you internalise it, it becomes a part of you too.
etc.
My personal experience with Polish and English also aligns with this. Switching between these languages influences how I build thoughts. Sometimes I seem to make mistakes in Polish because my mind is more used to thinking about a certain area in English and the other way around as well.
For expressing some thoughts I find Polish more suitable with its ubiquitous prefixes and suffixes and flexible word order. For other thoughts English seems better with its ubiquitous homonyms and simplicity. Sometimes it's easier to make leaps of understanding and connection between different concepts in one, sometimes in the other.
These are the two languages that I think and speak daily with something close to 50/50 ratio, perhaps more English, even though it is my second language.
Other languages that I've been exposed to also seem to show me different ways of thinking. For example German feels more rigid then either English or Polish but also more lego-like. Chinese or Japanese seem to be quite different still, with their peculiar subtlety. Arabic, written, with its single case letters (I was pretty surprised when I learned that), simpler in some areas than other languages, more subtle in others. Even the fact that different languages use different writing directions is itself kind of mind-bending when you first learn and think about it.