In view of the infinite variety of referents in the practical world, it is remarkable that language can prove to be an adequate instrument for talking about any and all aspects of human experience. For example, there are between seven and one-half and ten million discernibly different shades of color, but in English even specialists use only about 3,000 color terms, and people in general use only some eleven basic color words (Conklin, 1962a). This mapping of experience by language must, of course,be limited to that portion of experience of which the people in question are aware, for people do not talk about things of which they are not conscious. However, when some part of their experience rises from a covert to an overt level, they are able to speak of it just as they can describe new objects that enter into their experience.

One of the principal reasons why some persons have supposed that certain languages (never their own, of course) could not be used to speak about certain aspects of experience is that they have not understood adequately the diverse ways in which different languages segment experience. One must recognize, for example, that for certain areas of experience, (1) some languages make more distinctions than others, and (2) no two languages agree completely in types of distinctions.

The fact that in certain areas of experience some languages make more distinctions than we do in English may come as a shock to some, but it is certainly true. For example, in Totonac, spoken in Mexico, there are six basically different words for noise": (1) children yelling, (2) people talking loudly, (3) people arguing and turkeys gobbling, (4) people talking angrily, (5) a noise which increases constantly in volume, and (6) funeral noise. In Maya it is quite impossible to translate "search the Scriptures" without determining precisely what sort of "searching" is involved, for there are three words meaning to “search”: (1) selecting the good from the bad or the bad from the good, (2) searching out something in a disorderly fashion, and (3) searching out in an orderly way, and with considerable attention to detail.