How do we know that language is more than denotation?

Denotation tends to be described as the literal or obvious meaning of a sign, in the case of linguistic signs denotative meaning is what the dictionary describes the word as. According to the denotation theory what distinguishes and meaningful from a meaningless word is that the meaningful word will stand for something, in other words, will have a context for it. An example is the word France, it means something since it stands for the country in Europe. While, Julatamba is meaningless because their is nothing in the world that corresponds to it. I believe that language is much more than denotation because it will affect our perception and thoughts about the world. We think in words therefore the more words you know the more thoughts you can have. This means that language allows you to have ideas that might be un-haveable without language and also that people who master different words will live in different conceptual worlds, this theory is called "whorfianism" named after Benjamin Lee Whorf. Lets think about Eskimos, they have a lot of different words for snow affecting how they perceive it. Try calling dry now "dax" even wet snow "blicket", it will certainly change the way you think about snow. We have only one name for frozen precipitation, snow, therefore we will see it and perceive differently than Eskimos. 

Another important concept of language is that the mother tongue does not force or prohibit certain ideas or perspectives, however its speakers form habits of perceiving concepts in a particular way. By learning words and attaching meaning to them one immediately forms a unique kind of comprehension for a object or concept. I am not saying that language may limit perspective, and what one is able to perceive, but it can influence how someone perceives and understand a particular idea. An example is the Himba tribe, which have words that describe various colours at the same time. When asked to differentiate the green square from the blue they were incapable of or took a very long time, since the word for blue and green in their culture is the same. Although, when asked to differentiate different shades of green they rapidly were able to do it, due to the different names for these shades. Many of us would find it extremely hard to differentiate these shades since we classify these various shades as green therefore perceiving everything as the same and not being able to distinguish between them. 

The linguist Roman Jakobson said, " Languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may convey". This quote is basically trying to unlock the real force of the mother tongue, which is that; if different languages influence our minds, this is not because of what our language allows us to think, but because of what it constantly makes us think about. An example is that when speaking English the gender of a friend, neighbour or person that comes up in conversation may not be revealed, while in other languages it must be revealed. Consider this phrase,"I spent yesterdays evening at my neighbours house", the gender of the neighbour is not defined. Although when speaking in French or German the gender of this neighbour must be defined due to the words "voisin" or "voisine" and "Nachbar" or "Nachbarin". These languages make me inform you about the sex of the neighbour whether or not it is your concern. This does not mean that english speakers are unable to differentiate between evenings spent with male or female neighbours, but it means that they do not need to consider the sex of the neighbour, differently from other languages that speakers must reveal this information. If your language make you specify certain information, it may force you to be attentive to details in the world, in which speakers of other languages may not be aware of. Overall, habits of speech can become habits of mind, which affect perceptions, memories, feelings, experiences and universal comprehension of the world. 

To believe that language is merely denotation is to underestimate the power of words. Language can serve as denotation and connotation since a word invokes much more than its literal or primary meaning, it invokes our ability to reason, therefore shaping our mental structure and mindsets that as a consequence affect our line of thoughts.