Interactive data exploration tool:
Language log blog post where I learned about it:
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Huh, I wonder if the linguists and philosophers have had a chat about Sapir-Whorf and Hermeneutical Injustice. (The latter being the situation where not having the words or concepts to make sense of an experience means you can’t process it or deal with it effectively.)
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They One linguist seems to want some distance from that line of thinking:
[…] “[Any] language should be able to talk about anything.” We may not have the Marshallese word jatbo , but four words of English do the trick—“smell of damp clothing.” It’s not that having many precise words for smell reveals mind-blowing cognitive abilities for processing smell; it’s simply that single words are more efficient than phrases, so they tend to represent common subjects of discussion, highlighting areas of cultural significance.
Also consider: technical disciplines originate new jargon words for new concepts quite quickly. Of course they have to communicate these to their peers with existing language.
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TBH I dont know enough about linguistics to understand the second link (although the interactive tool in the first link is fun to use).
But hermeneutical injustice is something I experienced a lot of as an autistic teenager who didn’t yet know about concepts like ableism. Not knowing the word didn’t make the ableism I faced any less real or harmful; it just meant I couldn’t name it or or talk about it, and blamed myself for it.
And now I know there’s a term for that experience too, so thanks. 
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The question is whether the concept can be referred to with a single unique word. We can learn a new concept without learning a new word, but perhaps we can’t always do the reverse.
Is it easier to talk about autism than it is attention deficit hyperactivity disorder? The abbreviation ADHD so well known that perhaps it is moot.
“Smell of damp clothing” is entirely self-explanatory in a way that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is not. One must still learn the concept.
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IIRC, this is a major theme of Suzette Haden Elgin’s Native Tongue trilogy. It’s set in an oppressively patriarchal society, where women don’t find the ability to push back until they develop a language among themselves that expresses what they’re experiencing.
I remember one of the characters invents a word for “that feeling of dread at an approaching holiday because you know that for you it will be more work than rest but you can’t really talk about that because everyone else is excited and it’s your job to facilitate their excitement.” That stuck with me because yes, I know that feeling.
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