[[quoteright:288:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sapir-worf_2620.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:288:Edward Sapir, left, would consider English and [[Franchise/StarTrek Klingon]] not "sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality."]]

->''"In the language of the Ordos, there are no words for the concepts of 'trust' or 'honour'. There are more than three hundred for the concept of 'profit'."''
-->-- '''Ordos introduction''', ''EmperorBattleForDune''

The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity Sapir-Whorf hypothesis]] states that a person's language, through its vocabulary and structure, shapes the way that person perceives reality, thinks and behaves. In RealLife this theory is very controversial; it comes in a semi-infinite variety of interpretations, some of which are trivially false ("if you don't have a word for it you can't think about it"), some trivially true ("it's a lot easier to speak intelligibly about things you've got words for"), and many untested, possibly untestable.[[note]]Hypotheses in science are defined as being testable and falsifiable. That means none of these things count as hypotheses until you've come up with an experiment to test them with. People go right on saying "hypothesis" when they mean "conjecture," linguists get really mad, nobody learns anything, and [[YouKeepUsingThatWord We Keep Using That Word]] anyway.[[/note]] Regardless, this makes for an interesting device in fiction, particularly for characterizing a PlanetOfHats through their vocabulary (grammatical structures can also indicate a certain way of thought, but vocabulary is easier to write about without a comprehensive background in linguistics). For instance, one can characterize a [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy very warlike race]] by saying that they have no words for "peace" or "surrender"; conversely, the inhabitants of a pacifist MarySuetopia may lack a word for "war" or "hate". This sort of thing also shows up frequently on lists of LittleKnownFacts, the most common version being "[[EskimoLand the Eskimos]] have [some large number] words for snow" (they don't, by the way[[note]][[http://people.ucalgary.ca/~kmuldrew/cryo_course/snow_words.html English may actually have more words for frozen water]][[/note]]). (On the other hand, Americans do have a large number of words for "being drunk."[[note]]However, many of these words are regional slang words, and may not be recognized as meaning "being drunk". For example, an English-speaking person from outside the United States might interpret the use of the phrase "totally wasted" not to mean "really drunk", but rather "thin and starving", or the more literal "wasting his life"[[/note]] )

The idea that language equals thought also raises the possibility of a novel form of MindControl-- restricting people's thoughts by forcing [[NewSpeak a different language]] on them. A limited form of which is the staple of RealLife propaganda -- [[PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad aggressive promotion of "proper" terms]] for the same things, such as when followers of a particular leader [[InsistentTerminology always refer to him]] by an evocative nickname. If you meet aliens speaking a StarfishLanguage, you may be in for some truly strange psychology. BlackSpeech is a related trope, in which the sound of a language reflects some aspect of the speakers' character.

Note that a common subversion is that the language has some terminology for the concept. It could be more clunky - the ProudWarriorRace might explain peace being 'time after fighting', or more humorously '[[TranslationYes a long period of time in which you and your allies are not fighting your enemies and their allies, and in which it is acceptable to trade for needed goods and attend the same social gatherings without fighting]]'. Or it might be outright borrowed from another language which already has a word for it (a common occurrence in real life languages). It still gets across the point that the concept is not one encountered commonly in a culture, but does not make them look like complete morons. After all, it should be possible to describe ''any'' concept in ''any'' language - it's just that some languages might require a very long description where others use a single word. Another subversion is that they have no words for something ''very familiar'' to them - "they have no words for war... because they've never stopped warring long enough to think about it".

Also note that most instances of this trope implicitly equate languages with their words, which is a failure to understand even basic linguistics. Linguists see languages as '''grammars''', systems of rules according to which people can form complex expressions (sentences, phrases, words) out of smaller, discrete parts (morphemes, phonemes). The more solid versions of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis are about how ''grammar'', not ''words'', influence thought. People consciously [[{{Neologism}} invent new words]] or adopt foreign ones all the time, in an offhand manner without any effort, which in RealLife enormously weakens the "they can't think X because they have no word for X" trope. People, on the other hand, rarely consciously invent new grammatical tenses for their language, much less invent new obligatory grammatical rules for things like [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidentiality evidentiality]].
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!!Examples:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Comicbooks]]
* This trope is lampshaded in Larry Gonick's ''CartoonHistoryOfTheUniverse'', after it's mentioned that the Romans decimated (i.e., killed every tenth person--though in actual Roman times this was reserved for executing deserters, but RuleOfFunny reigns in this case) Athens:
--> Woman in conquered Greece: How many languages even '''''have''''' a word for “killed every 10th person”?
* Subverted in [[JusticeLeagueofAmerica JLA]], in one issue of GrantMorrison's run. [[MadScientist Mad scientists]] T.O. Morrow and Dr. Ivo decide to find out which one of them is the better scientist by creating an android super-hero named Tomorrow Woman to invade the League and then destroy it. Morrow (in charge of the brain while Ivo was in charge of the body) deliberately leaves the word "freedom" out of her vocabulary. Despite this, when the time for her to destroy the JLA, she defies her very programming, making a HeroicSacrifice to save the other members of the JLA. When Superman asks her remains why she did that in the last seconds of her activation, she says [[IDieFree "word not present in vocabulary"]].
** Showing his true character as a scientist (if a mad one) T.O. Morrow was so thrilled by his creation's transcendence of her programming that he didn't mind being arrested (though it's also likely that he's just happy that he "won" the dispute)
* Morrison also uses this a number of times in ''TheInvisibles''. As an example, Key 17 is a drug that causes people to hallucinate whatever a word is whenever they read it. For instance, reading the word "dad" will cause a hallucination of your father to show up.
* In AlanMoore's classic ''GreenLantern'' story "In Blackest Night", GL Katma Tui traveled through a starless expanse of space called the Obsidian Wastes to seek out a native on a planet in that region as a recruit for the Green Lantern Corps. The alien she discovered, Rot Lop Fan, is of a species that, due to there being no light in this sector of space, evolved without eyes. As a result, when Katma attempted to communicate with Fan her ring couldn't translate any words pertaining to vision, light or color, such as 'green', 'lantern', 'ray' or 'sight'. She got around this by retooling Rot's ring to respond to sound instead of color, and naming him "F-Sharp Bell".
** This is less LanguageEqualsThought and more a species which cannot conceptualise something which it is incapable of experiencing. In other words, Thought Equals Language (which actually might justify some of these examples).
*** They probably do have a word for "electromagnetic radiation", but only in the same way humans have a word for "gravity waves" or "telepathy".
* In the WarrenEllis comic ''{{Ocean}}'', some scientists find alien life forms in suspended animation under the frozen ocean of Europa (one of Jupiter's moons). One of the scientists is trying to figure out their language before an automatic program wakes them up...and when he does, he finds that they have thousands of words for "[[OhCrap murder]]."
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Fan Fiction]]
* Inverted in ''The Basalt City Chronicles'', a race known as the Deltharians have no word for sound. This is because around 98% of the population has a genetic condition that renders them entirely deaf.
* Discussed in the ''KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'' fanfic ''Destiny's Pawn.'' Kairi (the mind-wiped Revan) had been given a new identity as a linguist. Even Zhar is a little baffled by why she would rather use conventional language study rather than relying on the Force. And Kairi is fustrated by the Jedi Masters' lazy assumptions about Mandalorians part because of her association with Canderous and part because they haven't a single document in the Mandalorian language in the archives.
-->''"Language tells you how a culture thinks. Learn it, and you learn them."''
* In the ''TsubasaReservoirChronicle'' fanfic ''The Missing Worlds,'' Mokona normally provides automatic magical translation in every world they come to. But when the travelers come to an ocean world with no landmasses, the first mermaid they come across is stymied by concepts like 'dry' 'land' and 'drown.' They had a similar problem with the word 'feather' in a world with no birds; the word automatically translated into 'fin,' which was the analogous concept but failed to accurately describe the actual object.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Film]]
* ''Film/TheChroniclesOfRiddick'':
--> Balance is everything to an elemental. [...] We have 33 different words for it.
* ''TheInventionOfLying''. They have no word for the act of lying; the closest they get, throughout the film, is "saying something that isn't". Even the protagonist, who is the one who comes up with lying, can't think of a word for it.
* Lampshaded in JohnWoo's ''[[Film/BrokenArrow1996 Broken Arrow]]''. "I don't know what's scarier, losing nuclear weapons, or that it happens so often there's actually a ''term'' for it."
** This is TruthInTelevision. Real life is, of course, worse... we have far more than one word for "something bad has happened involving one of the most powerful weapons known to man". We have words covering everything from an erroneous transportation of a nuclear weapon (Bent Spear), the loss in transit or damage incurred to a nuclear weapon (Broken Arrow), the confirmed theft of a nuclear weapon (EmptyQuiver), and incidents involving other nuclear power systems than weapons (Faded Giant).
** This is just a cheap joke, however, and [[OutsideJoke relies upon a logical fallacy]] that suggests that only things that exist or have happened have terms for them. We have lots of terms for things that haven't happened (like, say, 'nuclear winter').
* In ''{{Amistad}}'', the translator is having trouble explaining the phrase "I should not have done that", because the tribe allegedly doesn't have a word equivalent to the English modal verb "should". Cinqué's explanation: "You either do something or you don't". So it ends up being translated as something like "I will fix this; I will do something", giving the Africans false hope.
* In ''Film/GalaxyQuest'', the Thermians don't have a word, associated concept, or anything else for "acting" or "pretending," which explains why they thought that a TV show was a historical document.
* In a deleted scene from ''Film/{{Avatar}}'', it is stated that the Na'vi do not have their own word for "lie," but were taught the word [[HumansAreBastards by humans]]. The canonicity of this statement is debatable, since it ''is'' a deleted scene, and no Na'vi dictionaries on the web make any note of "lie" being a loanword or anything. It's unlikely, however, that they do not understand the concept of deception, being hunters.
* ''DeadPoetsSociety'': Keating insists that the student must use rich language. "Very tired" is strictly forbidden -- use "exhausted".
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* "They don't have grammatical gender, therefore their society is gender-egalitarian" (or "because their society is egalitarian, they don't have grammatical gender") is a common assumption among sci-fi writers who are not linguists. The first objection is that many languages' genders are "animate/inanimate" or "personal/impersonal", instead of "masculine/feminine". The second is that the Turkic and Sino-Tibetan languages have no grammatical gender, but the societies that speak them are not noticeably more egalitarian than those that speak Indo-European or Semitic languages.
* ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'''s NewSpeak is the government's attempt to control how people think by changing the English language. Their goal is to make thoughts against the Party impossible due to an inability to put such thoughts into words. Many words are outright eliminated, and the meanings and connotations of other words are changed, so that even though you could still construct statements like "Big Brother is ungood" or "All men are equal", you'd have trouble explaining them; they would seem as absurd as the statement "All men are redhaired," and be rejected out of hand.
* In ''Literature/{{Anthem}}'' by Creator/AynRand, the collectivist society has removed the first-person singular pronoun "I" from language and made "ego" into a forbidden word.
** [[CriticalResearchFailure Ignoring the fact]] that [[IndoEuropeanAlienLanguage some languages don't have a separate grammatical category "pronoun"]] ''at all''. Japanese, for example, uses words that mostly have actual definitions for its personal references—yet Oda Nobunaga would fit right in among Rand's heroes, down to de-regulating industry and contempt for religion.
* In the ''GreenSkyTrilogy,'' the Kindar do not even have any word for things like violence, grief, or anger. The closest they have is "unjoyful" and "sorrow" is considered indecent language. Only the elite priesthood of the Ol-Zhaan are supposed to know the words or the concepts. This is all the better to control the population and "protect" them from the human tendency for violent or anti-social behavior.
* Similarly, in Creator/GeneWolfe's ''Literature/BookOfTheNewSun'' the Ascians were only permitted to speak memorized phrases from Approved Texts. Anything else was not correct thought. Played out full throttle in the story told by Loyal to the Group of 17. This is slightly subverted, as Severian notes that Loyal to the Group of 17 is able to use the phrases to communicate meanings different from their original intention.
* ''Babel-17'' by Creator/SamuelRDelany is built wholly around this trope. The smallest (and least spoilish) example is a race of aliens whose language is based almost entirely around temperature gradients but have no word for "house" - because of this, they build incomprehensible starships that look like a mass of strung-together boiled eggs. And of course, [[spoiler: the titular language enables extremely fast thinking and enhanced spatial awareness]].
* Also used in the Literature/{{Discworld}} novel "Discworld/WitchesAbroad", with specific reference to the Inuit/snow legend, by saying...it's false. And that, similarly, dwarves don't have a hundred words for "rock". They have words describing the ''precise kind'' of rock--igneous, sedimentary, and that's just to start--but not one for just "rock":
-->Show a dwarf a rock and he sees, for example, an inferior piece of crystalline sulphite of barytes.
** The people of Lancre also have twenty words for snow, most of them unprintable.
** And then there's how dwarves feel about gold, which is almost a language in and of itself.
** In "Discworld/SmallGods", Vorbis, a powerful Omnian Quisitor, while visiting the Ephebian Tyrant in order persuade them to surrender, notes that "slave" is an Ephebian word, and Omnians have no word for slave. The Tyrant replies "I imagine fish have no word for water."
*** Which, while awesome, is also kind of silly: we have words describing air and wind after all...
*** Also in "Small Gods", we meet a fisherman from a tiny tribe that has no word for "war", because they have no one to fight. When the gods appear and tell everyone (in their own languages) to stop waging war [[spoiler: on Omnia]], his god has to explain, "Remember when Pacha Moj hit his uncle with big rock? Like that, only more worse."
*** Omnians often have rather long, hyphenated names related to religious practice such as "Visit-the-ungodly-with-explanatory-pamphlets" (normally shortened to Visit). This may be a parody of some Puritan names like "Praise-God". According to Visit, his name is much shorter in the Omnian language.
** Played straight with the D'regs, who have the same word for 'stranger' and 'target'. Many Native American languages—Navajo and Apache, for instance—use the same word for 'foreigner' and 'enemy', so that's not that much of a stretch. 'D'reg' wasn't even their original name, it was just the word used by all their neighbors for 'enemy'. They adopted the name out of pride. Oh, and their word for 'freedom' is the same as their word for 'fighting'.
---> '''Vimes:''' They certainly make their language do a lot of work, don't they?
*** It's actually a bit like that in Indo-European languages. For instance, "guest" and "hostile" (via Latin "hostis") are both derived from the same Proto-Indo-European word meaning "stranger".
** Also played straight in ''Discworld/TheColourOfMagic'' with a mention of Black Oroogu, a language containing "no nouns, and only one adjective, which is obscene." We never see its speakers, but there are presumably either not many of them left or, umm, quite a few of them.
*** In the same book, an enraged Rincewind is trying like hell to swear at Twoflower over his latest example of boneheadedness, but since the only language they had in common was Trob, which had no real profanities, the result is... rather odd.
-->'''Rincewind:''' You little ''[such a one who, while wearing a copper nose ring, stands in the bath atop Mt. Raruaruaha during a thunderstorm and shouts that the goddess of lightning has the face of a diseased uloruaha root]''!!
** "Discworld/InterestingTimes": In the language of the xenophobic Agatean Empire, the word for "foreigner" is the same as the word for "ghost", and very close to the word for "victim".
*** TruthInTelevision here: in RealLife, a pejorative Chinese word for foreigners, Europeans specifically, is "lo fan", which means "white ghost".
** Trolls have only one word for plants. In ''Discworld/MovingPictures'' this leads to Detritus presenting his sweetheart with a large uprooted tree rather than the flowers she requested.
** Averted in ''Discworld/MonstrousRegiment'' when Polly is talking to her friend about her odd behavior and possible miracles and the narration mentions that her language had no word for "freaky", but she would have welcomed its inclusion. She settles on calling it "strange."
*** From the same book, there's a Borogravian folk song called "Plogviehze", which means [[TranslationYes "The Sun Has Risen, Let's Make War!"]] Vimes notes that it takes a very special history to get that into one word.
**** Were it a real language, one might surmise that it's a compound of [[DawnAttack "dawn" and "attack"]] with some grammatical feature indicating it's a suggestion[[note]]Generally that's known as the "hortative", with subtypes like cohortative, exhortative, etc.[[/note]].
*** Athabaskan languages can get "I wish I had resumed carrying multiple loose objects after an interruption" into one word.
** Similarly to Polly and "freaky", when Tiffany thinks that the Discworld/{{Wintersmith}} writing her name on the window in frost is just a bit ... cool.
-->"She didn't think the word, because as far as Tiffany knew it meant 'slightly cold'. But she thought the thought."
* In the allegorical fantasy novel ''Crown of the Dragon'', there is a subversion: It takes place in a world divided into two countries, good and evil. The evil country is pretty much what you'd expect, but the good country has things like enforced mandatory smiling, and has wiped out all words with negative meanings. They can still say "not good" when they mean "bad", it's just heavily frowned upon. When the inevitable clash with the evil kingdom comes, they have to dig out ancient pages from forbidden works in order to fight the Black Prince's "scheming".
* Creator/RobertAHeinlein's ''Literature/StrangerInAStrangeLand''. Dr. Mahmoud (a linguist) says that since the Martians don't have words for "war," "weapon" or "fighting," they aren't aggressive. He says: "If a word for a concept isn't in a language, then its culture simply doesn't have the referent the missing word would symbolize." However, this is subverted at the end when we learn that the Martians are more than capable of annihilating entire planets if they feel the need.
** Because the Martian civilization we see is so immensely powerful in terms of their longevity and psychic ability, they literally have no "weapons." They think things out of existence, and it happens. "War" and "fight" carry the implication that the other side could fight back and defeat you, whereas Martians have no need to describe anything between "peace" and "extermination".
** This was first posed by Heinlein in his novella ''{{Gulf}}'', which featured a one-phoneme-per-concept "Speedtalk." It's extremely interesting and has been written about by tons and tons of linguists. But much like in ''Literature/StrangerInAStrangeLand'', it's wedged between a few hundred pages of AuthorTract about the {{ubermensch}}.
*** An attempt at creating a speed talk-like language has been made. Ithkuil is listed under StarfishLanguage and described as "You Head A'splode, the Language."
*** Mark Rosenfelder [[http://zompist.com/kitlong.html#howmany debunked this idea]] as part of his Language Construction Kit.
* In DavidEddings' ''{{Elenium}}'' setting, this pops up with the Troll language in the later trilogy, when the knights have a working alliance with the Trolls. Turns out the Trolls don't have a word for 'I'm sorry', 'I apologize', or even anything close to it, since a troll never does anything he's sorry for. In this case, it's not supposed to show them as particularly virtuous, but rather as childlike -- or even animal-like -- innocents.
* In ''NoPresentLikeTime'', the language of the Rhydanne has no words for groups of people or plural verb forms. The Rhydanne are a race of asocial humanoids with catlike traits, for whom the natural unit of organization is the individual. Comet Jant Shira remarks that Rhydanne is a very good language in which to be antisocial.
* The ''StarWars: NewJediOrder'' series has a bioengineered creature used by the Yuuzhan Vong invaders that seems to be a ShoutOut to ''Franchise/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy''--the tizoworm, a little wriggly thing one places in one's ear that translates for one. However, bred as it was by Yuuzhan Vong, it doesn't really have a word for "peace".
** In ''OutboundFlight'', Commander Mitth'raw'nuruodo tells Jorj Car'das that he's known among his people, the Chiss, for ...[[MilitaryMaverick unusual tactics]]. The Chiss are {{Martial Pacifist}}s and isolationists; they ''never'' strike first. Thrawn does strike first, against peoples that he thinks are a great enough future danger to the Chiss, and against peoples who might never threaten the Chiss but who ''are'' threatening the weaker cultures just outside of Chiss space. Thrawn seems mildly surprised when Car'das tells him that he's talking about making preemptive strikes, which is a new phrase to him, and tells the human that it's good to know that he's not the only one to consider the morality of striking first.
** A magazine article on Mandalorians claims they have no word for "hero" - not because they have no concept of heroism, but because they take it for granted. The closest they come is the insult "hut'uun", which means "one who is not a hero".
*** Although the article does claim "hero" means "prepared to die for your family and friends, or what you hold dear", which has [[CreatorProvincialism historically been most cultures]]' idea of [[HumansAreWarriors "dignified behavior"]], not "hero" (which tends to involve, as mentioned in the formula of many military honors, "above and beyond").
** ''Mando'a'' also does not have gendered pronouns or make any difference between "friend" and "sibling." If you've seen enough battles with a Mando, you might as well be his brother. The culture also has a proverb that translates to "family is more than blood"
* ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' itself parodies this trope in its discussion about the Shaltanac race of Broop Kidron XIII, whose only equivalent to the expression "the other man's [[GrassIsGreener grass is always greener]]" is "the other Shaltanac's joopleberry shrub is always a more mauve-y shade of pinky russet." The Guide concludes that "the best way not to be unhappy is not to have a word for it."
** And then plays with it in ''So Long and Thanks for All the Fish'', with lorry driver Rob [=McKenna=]. He refers to the 50-words-for-snow idea, and ups it with meticulously describing over 200 types of rain--and, aside from the multiple Inuit/Eskimo/guys who live north language issue, does it for the same reasons.
* In ''Literature/GulliversTravels'', the eponymous Gulliver comes upon the Houyhnhnms, a race of sentient horses who live in a simplistic Utopian society and are relatively naive about the evils of the world; for example, they lack a word for "lie".
* In ''ThreeWorldsCollide'' by Eliezer Yudkowsky the alien [[EatsBabies Baby Eaters]] have more children than they can support and eat the excess. Their word for "to be moral" is the same as their word for "to eat babies." The Super Happy People from the same story think and communicate by exchanging DNA, so their words (or rather, their DNA codes) for "to have sex" and "to talk" are the same.
* A few of the ''KnownSpace'' stories by Larry Niven mention that the (extinct) Tnuctipun didn't have a word for intelligent aliens; their close equivalent roughly translated to "food that talks".
** Similarly Louis Wu's Kzin friend in ''{{Ringworld}}'', a translator at the UN, has a job title (he hasn't [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin made a name for himself]] yet) that literally translates as "Speaker-to-Animals". He usually renders it as "interspecies translator", of course, but when he's annoyed he uses the literal version, to be insulting. (Although Louis, obviously not insulted, calls him "Speaker" throughout.)
** Kzinti language contains numerous [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Register_%28sociolinguistics%29 registers]] (mislabeled "tenses") for interaction between different classes. Anything spoken in the Dominant Tense is automatically an insult (and anything in the Dominated Tense is an apology), and using the Imperative Tense[[note]]not the Ultimate Imperative Tense, mind you, just the regular one[[/note]] means "Obey instantly or be torn to pieces." Technically, registers aren't tenses, but [[CriticalResearchFailure doing the research]] on theoretical linguistics was a lot harder when there was no Internet.
* In ''[[Literature/CallahansCrosstimeSaloon Callahan's Legacy]]'', the alien creature the gang nicknames "The Lizard" has 360-degree vision, its three eyes spaced around its body. This comes into play when they're trying to talk with it. Though it doesn't trust them...
-->'''Jake Stonebender''': As Mary had pointed out, the three-eyed Lizard ''did not have a blind spot'', had in its experience no analogs for such biped binocular concepts as "sneak up on," "behind your back," "blindside," or "backstab"--and hence was just a little less paranoid than a human would have been.
** They obviously had concepts for "TrapDoor" and "DeathFromAbove", however.
* ''TheCulture'' apparently invokes this intentionally with 'Marain', their official language, which in-universe was [[ConLang created from whole cloth]] around the time of the Culture's foundation. Some of the Narrators take time in their '[[LiteraryAgentHypothesis Translation Notes]]' to lambast such 'barbaric' concepts as gender-specific pronouns, for example.
** This is a plot point in ''The Player of Games''; Marain is contrasted against Azadian, which Gurgeh learns in order to understand his opponents better. [[spoiler: Before his last match, his drone deliberately engages him in conversation in Marain in order to help him think with more of a Culture perspective again, which proves to be the key to the game.]]
* In KimStanleyRobinson's ''[[RedMarsTrilogy Red Mars]]'', Mars is colonized by a multinational team that ends up speaking a mixture of Arabic and Russian. Arabic because it has the best words for describing the landscape, and Russian because it has the best words for describing grim perseverance in the face of a terrible climate and political situation.
* The Canim in the ''Literature/CodexAlera'' series have a very martial culture, and they supposedly have a dozen different words that translate to English (or [[HumansByAnyOtherName Aleran]], or [[TranslationConvention whatever you call what the reader is reading]]) as "enemy". However, the only such word we actually hear is ''gadara'', which means more specifically something like "[[WorthyOpponent honorable and respected enemy]]", [[TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou whom I alone claim the right to kill]]". A ''gadara'' is considered better than a friend, since they have to defend their claim on the other's eventual death. Also of note are the Marat, who had no word for lying until they started talking to Alerans. The closest they got was someone being mistaken, and accusing someone of being "intentionally mistaken"...does not go over well. To say the least. The protagonist eventually tells his Marat companion to simply use the word "falsehood," in order to avoid confusion with the other meanings of the word "lie."
* And then you have Creator/JackVance's SF novel ''Literature/TheLanguagesOfPao'', where the plot centered around a project to completely change the culture of a planet by replacing their native language with created languages specifically designed to shape their thought patterns.
** It it worth noting that the project [[spoiler:ultimately fails miserably with a switch to a language that's a blend of all the created languages, likely making it a deconstruction.]]
* Ted Chiang's short story "Story of Your Life" focuses on the challenges two linguists face when trying to learn and understand the language of a radially symmetric alien species. Since any direction they are facing can be considered "forward," their culture and language lack a detailed conception of linearity.
* Creator/CJCherryh's ''Literature/{{Foreigner}}'' sequence is this trope in spades. The Atevi have a language with a numerical basis and have the idea of 'felicitous numbers', so every sentence has to be constructed to reflect not only the actual numbers of people you are talking to, but amended so as not to insult. This makes the introduction of computers etc exciting, since some Atevi think they are being cursed by infelicitous numbers. They also have a different emotional structure, stated to be hardwired biology - they have no exact word for 'friend', but it is a lot more complicated than that. The biggest problem is that they [[RubberForeheadAliens so nearly look like humans]], and a big part of the issue is that humans still think that one day [[HumanityIsInfectious they'll 'get' human concepts and loosen up]]. Despite the fact that this precise misunderstanding nearly led to an extinction event once before...
* Old Solar in CS Lewis's SpaceTrilogy has no words for 'bad' or 'evil' or 'sin' or 'war' or... pretty much anything else that doesn't exist in the MarySueTopia society of the aliens; due to not having the spiritual Fall that Earth did (this is extended to the rest of the universe as well, Earth being unique in that regard). In the first book, Ransom tries to translate the villain Weston's speech into Old Solar and has to take [[CrowningMomentOfFunny an entire sentence for almost every word of Weston's.]] Eventually he just gives up and has to inform Oyarsa that there is no way to translate Weston's diatribe.
** In the second book, the hero discovers to his surprise that there ''is'' actually a word for "evil" in the unfallen language (in the first book, he had to make do with the euphemism "bent"). Apparently it's a very advanced concept, and he'd just never run across the word on Mars.
* In ''TheLordOfTheRings'', the elves use separate words for the [[WhiteMagic "magic" of the elves]] and the [[BlackMagic "magic" of Sauron]]. They seem a bit perturbed that the hobbits use the same word for both.
** It's less this, and more accurately a comment about the Hobbits viewing Elven craft as magic ''at all''. Galadriel herself even directly invokes ClarkesThirdLaw when discussing her mirror with Frodo and Sam.
* A ''Franchise/StarTrek'' novel by DianeDuane mentions that the [[SpacePirates Orion Pirates]] use the same word for "stealing" as "getting paid".
** The ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]'' novels expand on the Ferengi language, saying they have 57 words for "customer" (one of which also means "river sludge") and several words for "no" (which one you use indicates how much latinum is needed to change your mind).
* This is how the people with soft-cypher chips manage to get around [[spoiler:Korozhet]] mind control in ''TheRatsTheBatsAndVats''. The [[spoiler:Korozhet]] language has one word for every possible concept they've ever thought of, and one word only. The elasticity of the English language means that native English speakers can think of alternative terms to think of their masters by, which they are not programmed to unconditionally love.
* In RobertJSawyer's ''Literature/TheNeanderthalParallax'', the [[CantArgueWithElves Neanderthal]] word for war is a long, clunky affair, and Ponter is [[{{Anvilicious}} Anvilliciously]] horrified to learn how short and simple the English word "war" is.
* In ''[[Literature/GarrettPI Sweet Silver Blues]]'', Morley translates a phrase as either "Dawn of Night's Mercy" or "Dawn of Night's Madness". Garrett is perplexed by the disparate translations, until he's told that the phrase was Dark Elfin, in which "mercy" and "madness" are the same word.
* In the first book of ''ASongOfIceAndFire'', ''Game Of Thrones'', it is claimed that "[t]here is no word for 'thank you' in Dothraki." They do seem to understand the concept though, they just don't mess around with words and prefer more direct methods. Drogo struggles a bit trying to get it across, and ends up with "any horse in the camp is yours".
* According to one of James Clavell's novels, the Chinese have no word for love. (What he seems to be referring to is that ''ai'' means both "love" and "want".)
* Tamora Pierce played with this a few times--for example, in her [[CircleOfMagic Winding Circle]] ''Daja's Book'', when they had interactions with Traders again, it comes up that the Trader language has "a dozen words for 'thank-you,' each with its own drop of dislike." Acknowledging a debt is ''not'' pleasant.
* "Literature/TlonUqbarOrbisTertius" features a culture with a StarfishLanguage without nouns
* In ''Literature/IncarnationsOfImmortality'', it's mentioned that the Romani (Gypsies) have no words for "posession" or "ownership", meaning that the concept of "stealing" doesn't exist for them.
* ''Literature/DirkGentlysHolisticDetectiveAgency'' poked fun at this:
-->'''Dirk''': There is no such word as 'impossible' in my dictionary. (brandishing the abused book) In fact, everything between 'herring' and 'marmalade' appears to be missing.
* The historical novel ''Caribbean'' by JamesMichener has a Rastafari preaching that people should avoid saying "dead" or "sin" if these sounds are part of words which have nothing to do with death or sins. Instead of "dedicate", say "i-dicate", or "i-new" instead of "sinew".
* The title character of the novel ''So B. It'' is of limited intelligence and has a vocabulary of twenty-three words, a couple of which seem to be nonsense, further complicating the issue of understanding or communicating with her.
* In the CiaphasCain book ''The Traitor's Hand'', the residents of the tidally-locked planet Adumbria (who all live on the terminator line) have thirty-seven different dialect words for varying shades of twilight.
** The popular history of the Chaos incursion Cain's regiment dealt with is titled "Sablist[[note]]almost complete darkness with one last glimmer of light still visible[[/note]] in Skitterfall[[note]]the light level at the planet's capital, also the capital itself[[/note]]". To Adumbrians this is a witty play on words, but it just annoys off-planet readers.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* ''TheTwilightZone'' TOS episode "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby"
--> '''Frisby''': I'm the gol-darndest liar that ever hit the pike...I don't mean exaggerations, I mean lies!
--> '''Alien''': Mr. Frisby, there are terms that we cannot relate to our own language. This word "lie" that you mention...
--> '''Frisby''': You mean that anything that anybody tells you just goes without saying it's the truth? Hence that everything I've told you you believe...
* In the penultimate episode of ''[[Series/BabylonFive Babylon 5]]'', Delenn describes how when she was learning English, she had difficulty with the word "goodbye"[[note]]For values of "goodbye" more equal to "goodbye forever," or perhaps the most exacting form of "sayonara"[[/note]] because there is no corresponding word in any Minbari language:
-->'''Delenn''': All of our partings contain within them the possibility of meeting again, in other places, in other times, in other lives.
** Hebrew actually has the same "problem", if you will. Hebrew ''lehithraoth'', like Italian ''arrivederci'', literally translates more like "we will meet again", or at the very least "I hope that we will meet again."
* In the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "Loud as a Whisper", the Enterprise crew meet a famed diplomat Riva. Worf comments that Riva had negotiated treaties among the Klingon people; "Before Riva, there was no word in Klingon for 'peacemaker'."
** In one ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode, Quark mentions that the Ferengi have 178 words for 'rain' and then states which one would describe current conditions. [[AndThatsTerrible And that it's bad]]. Also, that there is no word for "crisp" on a [[SingleBiomePlanet planet as rainy]] as Ferenginar. Since Quark, who is communicating through the [[TranslatorMicrobes Universal Translator]], can actually say this, there is presumably a loan word.
** When celebrating Worf's birthday, the Enterprise bridge crew sings "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" in Klingon. Then Riker points out that they had trouble translating it, since there's no Klingon word for "jolly".
** As originally conceived, the Klingon language had no separate verb for "to be" - Klingons having no need for a concept that refers to passive existence. Then some writer decided the Klingons needed to quote Shakespeare ...
*** Which is odd, since Klingon is ergative, and ergative language transitive verbs work almost like accusative language passive verbs—that's why their objects are in the same case as intransitive verbs' subjects[[note]]That is, an ergative language doesn't actually say "I hit the ball" so much as "By me the ball is hit".[[/note]]. The old name for ergative alignment was "''passive''".
** An example that was truer to the hypothesis involved a treaty between the Federation and a more advanced species. Said species found human languages to be so crude that they required an immense document to articulate the terms of the treaty. No-one in the Federation was able to translate their language ''at all''.
** In HarlanEllison's original teleplay for "The City on the Edge of Forever", the Guardians of Forever had some difficulty explaining the danger posed by a renegade Enterprise crewman:
--->'''Guardian:''' The man Beckwith... he is a serious impediment in the Time-flow. He is scar-tissue. A clot in the bloodstream. Do you know the concept "evil"?
--->'''Kirk:''' ''(tensely)'' We do.
* In ''{{Blackadder}} Goes Forth'', Blackadder claims that the Germans have no word for "fluffy".[[note]]Germans ''do'' have a word for "fluffy". Actually two. They're ''flaumig'' and ''flauschig''. Eh, RuleOfFunny.[[/note]]
* In ''TheOffice'', Michael claims that the Jamaicans don't have a word "impossible." Jim promptly points out that they do: [[spoiler: "impossible." [[DontExplainTheJoke Jamaicans speak English]].]]
** They don't ''always'' [[spoiler:speak English, although their alternative gets most of its vocabulary from English]]—but even in pure Jamaican Creole, you can say "impossible", just with multiple words (it's something along the lines of "no can do").
* In GeorgeCarlin's special ''Doin' It Again'', he refers to this trope, claiming that "We do think in language, so the quality of our thoughts and ideas can only be as good as the quality of our ''language''."
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* RonaldReagan once claimed in a speech that Russian has no word for 'freedom'. (Needless to say, it does: ''svoboda'').
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' uses the tropes for quite a lot of languages, particularly languages of outsiders, though it's more "Thought Equals Language".
** They also have both a BlackSpeech equivalent and an inversion of it, called the Words of Creation.
** The drow have no word that really means romantic love; the closest they have is one for physical lust. From the description of their culture in the various sources, it seems like essentially, the only word in drow that can be translated by English "love" means the kind of love the Greeks call "eros". The drow don't have a word for "friend", either—that relationship is actually "an alliance for mutual benefit". Remember, their culture deliberately cultivates attitudes humans only get from mental illness; they're basically ''raised'' to be psychopaths.
** Goblins and orcs don't seem to have a word that means friendship as we understand it; the closest they have are two words, one meaning something like "willing submission to a greater power", the other "military alliance between equals". According to one source, the Orcish language does have dozens of words for disembowling somebody.
** Infernal, the language of certain LawfulEvil creatures, for example, has painfully exacting grammar and pronunciation. The strictness of devils influenced their language because being exacting is as much a part of them as their own limbs. Abyssal is used by creatures so chaotic that they didn't even have an ''alphabet'' in their language...until Infernal came along. They bastardized the Infernal alphabet, just another in a long list of grievances the baatezu hold against the tanar'ri (dominant ChaoticEvil fiends). The latter, according to one ''{{Planescape}}'' {{sourcebook}}, got a hopeless pile of inconsistent dialects, which "may well be part of the reason the tanar'ri are so angry all the time -- they're constantly and fundamentally misunderstood".
** Upto the first edtion of AD&D, you could speak your "Alignment Language" which allowed beings of the same alignment to communicate at a basic level. They attempted to dress it up as being like Black Speech etc. However, changing alignment also removes the ability to speak your alignment language.
* The closest word [[TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}} Orks]] have for "best friend" means "[[WorthyOpponent favorite enemy]]". [[BloodKnight This is their psyche in a nutshell]].
** Though, because Ork seems to rely heavily on compound words, something distinguishing the two could be used [[note]]combining "grod" (best friend or favourite enemy) with either "skum" (the enemy) or "nar" (family, unit, command, crew) to give "skumgrod" or "nargrod" (though grodskum and grodnar would be equally valid)[[/note]].
** They are also said to have no word for "equal". The only reason why the Orks haven't yet conquered the entire galaxy is that they determine social status by bashing in each others' heads (when no other heads are available). Or simply because it's fun.
* The Dwarfs of ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'' have no word for "forgiveness", but many for subtle variations of recompense, revenge, and retribution. This [[RevengeBeforeReason explains a lot]] about why they're going extinct.
** Almost every word in the [[LizardFolk Saurus]] language relates to battle. Since their purpose is to fight the enemies of the Lizardmen, they apparently never need any other words. (They're also not all that bright, and their language is very small.)
*** That's not fully true, Saurus are very smart and know most of the Lizardmen language (they can't take orders from the other Lizardmen races if they can't understand them) it's just that their intelligence is entirely focused on war and the tactics and strategies involved in waging it.
* ''MagicTheGathering'' has some fun in this regard with its flavor texts. Some examples:
** [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=130384 Bloodrock Cyclops]]:
-->"There are only fifty words in the cyclops language, and ten of them mean 'kill.'"
** [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=48592 Goblin Striker]]:
-->There's no word in the goblin language for "strategy." Then again, there's no word in the goblin language for "word."
* ''TabletopGame/InNomine'' has the Angelic language of Celestial, which cannot be used to tell a lie. (It's uncertain how this is accomplished.) When Lucifer and his followers Fell, they created a bastardised version capable of lies. Incidentally, this means that Demons understand Celestial, but very few Angels understand Demonic.
* The magical High Speech in ''TabletopGame/MageTheAwakening'' is said to be the only language which can accurately describe magic and magical processes. Using High Speech while casting a spell makes it more powerful since it aids the mage in conceptualizing the magic in a way which his human mind is not fully capable of. The fact that High Speech is primarily taught as a language to describe magic also makes it quite difficult to come up with ways of using it to communicate mundanely; the way a word in the High Speech would describe something (and the grammatical structure that would tie such words together) is too far removed from how a mage generally understands such things. This is part of the reason that [[{{Muggles}} sleepers]] cannot so much as ''hear'' the High Speech, let alone understand it; you could say the same thing in High Speech to a sleeper over and over, and they would only hear random gibberish.
* In the Palladium game, the Wolfen language uses different tenses depending on whether the speaker is dominant to whomever they're addressing, or submissive to them. Equality of status does not exist in wolf society, or in theirs.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Theater]]
* ''Theatre/AvenueQ'' [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] this trope in their song "{{Schadenfreude}}":
--> '''Nicky''': Oh, Schadenfreude, huh? What's that, some kinda [[GodwinsLaw Nazi word]]?
--> '''Gary''': Yup! It's German for "happiness at the misfortune of others!"
--> '''Nicky''': "Happiness at the misfortune of others"? That ''is'' German!
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Videogames]]
* House Ordos in ''VideoGame/DuneII'' and its sequels are the source of the current page quote.
* The Morrigi from ''VideoGame/SwordOfTheStars'' have no word for 'rank'; their society is a meritocracy based on rule by the one with the highest degree of 'merit', and every Morrigi knows more or less instinctively which Morrigi in any given group has the most merit, who would replace him if the most worthy was killed, and so on. The closest thing they have is the word "aanigi'dha", "worthiness-to-lead-people".
** The Zuul word for "pirate" is simply "Zuul", they're a species of scavengers, slavers, and well, pirates.
* Every cult language in ''VideoGame/NexusWar''. The language of the god of society and cooperation is easy to learn, the god of law's is extremely specific and long-winded, the god governing the physical laws of the universe has a language better suited for concepts than actions, and so forth.
* The Dragons in ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'' have no words in their language for [[spoiler:Mortal, Finite, and Temporary. As immortal Aedric beings that partially exist outside of time, they cannot comprehend the idea of mortality (for themselves at least). The "Dragonrend" Shout that uses words created by mortals that mean "Mortal, Finite, Temporary" forces Dragons to briefly understand what it means to truly die, metaphorically and literally bringing them down to earth.]]
** Technically that isn't true. They have the words, and the ones you speak to use the word for [[spoiler: mortal (joor)]] rather frequently in casual conversation to refer to [[spoiler: you.]] What they ''don't'' have is a firm grasp of the concepts those words represent, in the same way we don't really understand what [[spoiler: "immortal", "infinite", or "eternal"]] mean. Without understanding the concepts the word represents on an instinctual level, it is impossible for dragons to weaponize them into a Shout.
** More fitting this trope is that apparently, there is no difference in the dragon language between "debating" and "fighting", relating to how their very voices are their greatest weapon.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* In ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'', the Troll language word for 'friend' is the same as the word for 'enemy.' [[WithFriendsLikeThese Considering the general nature of Troll relationships]], this is quite fitting.
** The Troll language is also [[http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004292 much more complex]] than the human language when it comes to the subject of romance. Human culture would, for example, have difficulty diagnosing kismesis - but would also have trouble with moirallegiance (and would be likely to consider it extremely unhealthy). Troll culture, on the other hand, has no term for homosexuality, since troll reproduction works so that any pairing can produce progeny (it's complex, and it involves birth by proxy). This disconnect was only [[http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004528 recently learned]]:
--->'''CG''': HUMANS HAVE A WORD FOR THAT?
--->'''EB''': yes.
--->'''CG''': HOW IS THAT EVEN A THING?
--->'''EB''': shrug. it just is.
--->'''CG''': HUMAN ROMANCE SURE IS WEIRD.
--->'''EB''': i am just as confused by your troll shenanigans
** Karkat also claims that Trolls [[http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=003807 have no word for "dare"]].
** [[UnreliableNarrator You gotta take these remarks with a grain of salt]], however: the one about "friend" and "enemy" being the same word was said ''by'' a troll, ''to'' a troll. There's obviously a difference, or else it would come across as "The troll word for blarg is the same as the troll word for blarg", and make no sense.
*** Especially since, due to the trolls having created the human universe, and presumably not having the time or imagination to create a fully-fledged Con Lang, the Troll language is almost EXACTLY THE SAME as English, but written right-to-left, in upside-down Daedric script.
* In ''Webcomic/EightBitTheater'', [[http://www.nuklearpower.com/2003/12/16/episode-364-the-economics-of-pride/ Princess Sara comments]] that there is no word for the degree of stupid for the Dark Warriors.
-->'''Sara:''' There aren't words for it. There can't be. A language is built on the experience of its speakers. It's like [[LanguageEqualsThought how the eskimoes have a hundred words for snow]]. A language couldn't have words to describe how stupid this is. Its speakers would had to have been [[TooDumbToLive too stupid to survive]] long enough to develop enough forebrain to have a language in the first place!
** In another comic, Black Mage says that no word can accurately describe his hatred for Fighter, so he asks Red Mage to help him invent one. RM suggests several good candidates, but BM goes with "[[{{Neologism}} Omniloathe]]". Fighter, [[TheDitz as usual]], [[CompletelyMissingThePoint misinterprets this]] and [[InsultBackfire spends the next few minutes inventing new words to describe what good buddies he and BM are]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Originals]]
* From ThingsMrWelchIsNoLongerAllowedToDoInAnRPG:
-->1849: There is too an elven word for "[[TheCasanova monogamy]]".
-->1850: There is also an elven word for "[[CastFullOfGay heterosexual]]".
* Inverted with the Wiki/SCPFoundation's [[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-444 SCP-444]]: A memetic virus which, once heard by a human, starts to alter their brain and simplify the language. The more they speak it, the more docile and less individualized they become. It's virulent ''and'' hereditary in infants -- the Foundation considers it a precursor to an alien invasion.
* Tylansian in ''OrionsArm'' uses the same words for "truth teller" and "complaining child" while the word for "liar" also means "successful man". It has often been stated as a cause for their ruling class' ChronicBackstabbingDisorder and Tylansia's general [[MedievalStasis stagnation]] (and ludicrous propaganda films that are strangely popular in the civilized galaxy)
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''TheSimpsons'' parodied this in an episode about Joan of Arc. Lisa (playing Joan of Arc) tells her family that she got a vision from God to lead the French to victory. Homer then whines "We're French! [[CheeseEatingSurrenderMonkeys We don't have a word for "victory"!]] [[note]]The French word for "victory" is "victoire", for those of you who were wondering.[[/note]]
* In the ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'' WholeEpisodeFlashback EveryoneMeetsEveryone episode, "Go!", Starfire, who hails from a warrior planet, is chewed out by the others for attacking them when they try to help her:
-->'''Robin:''' We were just trying to be nice!
-->'''Starfire:''' Nice? We do not have this word on my planet. The closest is ''rutha''...'''weak'''.
** Note that in this case "being nice" was being used to mean "doing something for no gain to myself, possibly causing harm to myself, in order for another to gain." Which could come across as weak.
** Played for some laughs in the same episode when another group of war-like aliens show up to claim her as a trophy, she describes them as "not nice".
* In ''Ben10UltimateAlien'', Galapagus repeats many times in his premier episode that his people do not have words for "prison", "war", etc, to show that they not engage in violent acts. It makes a great drinking game because of everytime he talks about how his people are peaceful.
[[/folder]]

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%% The RealLife section was cut for Natter and non-examples. It was fully a quarter of the page length. Do not restore it or start it again. This is an admin ruling.