The latest research changes the framework, perhaps the language of the debate, suggesting that language clearly affects some thinking as a special device added to an ancient mental skill set. Just as adding features to a cellphone or camera can backfire, language is not always helpful. For the most part, it enhances thinking. But it can trip us up, too.

My native langage is Spanish. I once read a novel in English (Flying to Nowhere), whose front cover depicted a bird kept in a cage which was made of ribs. At the time I thought it was a very powerful image, because the novel spoke about the nature of the soul. Then I realised that the word rib cage stands for "caja torácica" in English, so the graphic concept of a cage would come immediately to an English speaking cover designer but not necessarily to a person who spoke Spanish, for example.

It is true that language leads us in unexpected ways.

A language presupposes that all the individual users possess the organs.
Ferdinand de Saussure