Para Whorf esta diferencia en la organización de los eventos, tenía que tener consecuencias cognitivas o hábitos mentales diferentes (aunque posteriormente el análisis de Whorf del tiempo Hopi fue cuestionado por otros autores).
Martin Haspelmath (2001) ha defendido la tesis de que el europeo promedio estándar es un caso de Sprachbund caracterizado por las siguientes características, a veces llamadas "euroversales lingüísticos" por analogía con los universales lingüísticos:[3]
It also became evident that even the grammar of Hopi bore a relation to Hopi culture, and the grammar of European tongues to our own "Western" or "European" culture.
And it appeared that the interrelation brought in those large subsummations of experience by language, such as our own terms "time," "space," "substance," and "matter."
Since, with respect to the traits compared, there is little difference between English, French, German, or other European languages with the 'possible' (but doubtful) exception of Balto-Slavic and non-Indo-European, I have lumped these languages into one group called SAE, or "Standard Average European."