Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Breakdown What would it be like for you to go to China or Russia, not knowing a word of their language? You would of-course be rather uncomfortable and quite lost in a language all so strange to your familiar. This is part of what the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis states except this hypothesis has a little more to do with language and culture. The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis states that language forms your thoughts and thus forming the patterns of your culture. Edward Sapir stated in 1958 that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of communication or re