Truth exists when your mind is fully aware to a given circumstance. There are in total 8 different ways of knowing: Language, sense perception, emotion, reason, imagination, faith, intuition and memory. Among those 8 determining factors, I personally think language is the most significant factor that successfully contributes to truth.
Language is a very intricate yet meticulous subject of communication. Yet, language can sometimes be served more than a tool of communication because it may also determine our perception of reality and impact our particular behavior. Thus, utilizing language helps to shape our true perception of the world– people receive different understandings and interpretations from what others say or write or even from the thoughts that come from themselves. For instance, language brings the transcultural aspects within “artifacts”. In one of the experiment carried out by Lera Borodistky, professor of cognitive science in USCD, German and Spanish speakers were asked to describe bridge with a single word. While German speakers viewed a bridge with a “feminine” adjectives such as ‘pretty’, ‘elegant’ and ‘peaceful’, Spanish speakers associated typical “masculine” adjectives to describe a bridge such as ‘powerful’, ‘strong’ and ‘sturdy’. Thus, based on what people see upon certain objects, the cultural linguistic relativism may result in a grammatically opposite gender but a “true” interpretation upon the thoughts that people simply pertain to.
However, linguistic establishment may also obscure the truth. For instance, when comparing Korean and Chinese language; In China, depending on the tones (Shengdiao), it may convey different meanings and written words. For instance, “la” is applied with 2 different tones. The first tone is written with lā（拉）, meaning “to pull”. The second tone is written with là (辣)， meaning “spicy”. Similarly in Korea, a single word can convey multiple sets of meaning. For instance, 눈 can be defined as “snow” or “eyes”. Thus, the words that convey multiple sets of meaning or pronunciations literally hinders the true meaning of words or language because it does not solely stand out alone as one distinct meaning, which reduces the level of “truth” to an extent.
To conclude, language pertains to truth when people framework the subjects within their sense of perception whereas language can also obscure the truth because words may not contain “true” meaning by themselves.
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