I think the biggest disproof to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is not having the words to describe something - the feeling where you know exactly what something is like, but language has failed you, thus suggesting that language does not have purview on how you think. This is most often the case with smells.
I don't think that's disproof. Did you read the Piraha tribe article I linked? It is seriously super interesting. One thing they talk about is how this tribe does not seem to have numbers in their language, and this ends up affecting their ability to track amounts. They did an experiment where they puts objects into a container and then took out objects one by one, asking the people if any objects were left. They would be fine when something like 1-3 objects were there, but above that the people could not track it.
You know, I'm not totally against Sapir-Whorf, and actually, I'm happy you linked to that article because I've been meaning to reread it for years. (You and I seem to have similar interests...) It is super-interesting and great proof for relativistic linguistics (right term? something like that), I admit.
If anything -- and I tried to emphasize this when I brought up this critique -- it's not the possibility of relativistic linguistics I opened this argument with ... it's more like, as I understand it, Sapir-Whorf has a bad rep
even if you believe in this kind of thing.
There was a NYT magazine article a few years ago on new approaches to relativist linguistics, and it mentioned a lot of interesting, subtle ways that your native language can make you see reality somewhat differently, but on a pretty small scale that you might not notice much, not anything nearly as sweeping as, "Inuits have many words for snow, so they see the world much differently."
Anyway, I'd like to hear from somebody with real roots in linguistics what they think about the Piraha article -- I mean, yes, it's pretty incredible evidence, but it's also just one article, and I've never heard anything about it since.
