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Some findings on how language can affect thinking.

* Russian speakers, who have more words for light and dark blues, are better able to visually discriminate shades of blue.

* Some indigenous tribes say north, south, east and west, rather than left and right, and as a consequence have great spatial orientation.

* The Piraha, whose language eschews number words in favor of terms like few and many, are not able to keep track of exact quantities.

* In one study, Spanish and Japanese speakers couldn't remember the agents of accidental events as adeptly as English speakers could. Why? In Spanish and Japanese, the agent of causality is dropped: "The vase broke itself," rather than "John broke the vase."

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