Do bilinguals only speak differently or do they also think differently?

In order to investigate this issue I observed some Hebrew-English bilinguals. I wanted to see if they looked at things differently from monolinguals. This experiment was telling, because the two languages have certain overt differences.

English is written from left to right, whereas Hebrew, and certain other languages, is written from right to left.

Without their knowledge, I observed the way with different language backgrounds people watered plants. I wanted to see which way their hands moved. Would they start with the crops on the left and then move to the right, or would they start on the right side and move to the left? I wanted to determine whether the direction of their written Hebrew and English influenced or corresponded with other issues in their life.

Findings: There was no real tendency towards any specific direction. True, more people whose primary language was English watered plants from left to right, and more people whose primary language was Hebrew watered plants from right to left.

However, this finding should take into consideration other issues as well.

• Some of those observed were lefthanded, and that was likely to affect the direction in which they water the plants.
• Since this observation was not carried out under laboratory conditions, people sometimes suspected that I was observing them

I do not know whether these facts affected the direction in which they watered the plants. I do know that they were circumspect, self-conscious, and questioning about their actions, and these factors may have impacted on the results.

Furthermore, since the study was not carried out in a scientific manner, I may have expected English speakers to move from right to left or Hebrew speakers to move from left to right. I may have given less weight to situations that did not meet my expectations.

However, the very fact that the issue arose may mean that language directionality can impact on the way that people think, and possibly on other issues of life.

Disclaimer: This observation was not performed as empirical research.