Farb and Lakoff

I thought it was interesting how Lakoff’s article was discussing how we all use metaphors in everyday life and they affect more than just language after I had just read about the Yokutz language that didn’t use any metaphors and all meanings are literal. After reading Lakoff stress the importance of metaphor, I wondered how the speakers of Yokutz got along with their simple, literal language. It made it hard to take Lakoff seriously since Yokutz pretty much proved his main point obsolete. Although, I think it would be hard to communicate without metaphors, because I doubt that an absolutely literal vocabulary would allow us to express all of our abstract thought. Metaphors allow us to interpret others’ thoughts internally and compare them with our experiences so that we understand their thoughts that they wouldn’t be able to express through literal vocabulary. The articles also made me wonder how someone would think without any language. I wondered if it would even be possible, or if maybe it would make it simpler since you didn’t have to worry about finding the right vocabulary for your thoughts.