1. Formulierungen des sprachlichen Relativitätsprinzips:

We are thus introduced to a new principle of relativity, which holds that all observers are not led by the same physical evidence to the same picture of the universe, unless their linguistic backgrounds are similar, or can in some way be calibrated. (Whorf 1956: 214)

The phenomena of language are background phenomena, of which the talkers are unaware or, at the most, very dimly aware [...]. These automatic, involuntary patterns are not the same for all men but are specific for each language and constitute the formalized side of the language, or its "grammar" - a term that includes much more than the grammar we learned in the textbooks of our school days. From this fact proceeds what I have called the "linguistic relativity principle," which means, in informal terms, that users of markedly different grammars are pointed by their grammars toward different types of observations and different evaluations of externally similar acts of observation, and hence are not equivalent as observers but must arrive at somewhat different views of the world. (Whorf 1956: 221)

2. Zur Nichthintergehbarkeit dieses Prinzips:

[…] no individual is free to describe nature with absolute impartiality but is constrained to certain modes of interpretation even while he thinks himself most free. The person most nearly free in such respects would be a linguist familiar with very many widely different linguistic systems. As yet no linguist is in any such position. (Whorf 1956: 214)

I don't wish to imply that language is the sole or even the leading factor in the types of behavior mentioned such as the fire-causing carelessness through misunderstandings induced by language, but that this is simply a coordinate factor along with others. (Aus einem Brief von Whorf, zitiert nach Lee (1996): 153)

3. Evidenz aus dem Hopi:

After long and careful study and analysis, the Hopi language is seen to contain no words, grammatical forms, constructions or expressions that refer directly to what we call "time", or to past, present or future [...].Hence, the Hopi language contains no reference to "time", either explicit or implicit. (Whorf 1956: 57f.)

Verbs have no “tenses” like ours, but have validity-forms (“assertions”), aspects, and clause-linkage forms (modes), that yield even greater precision of speech. The validity-forms denote that the speaker (not the subject) reports the situation (answering to our past and present) or that he expects it (answering to our future) or that he makes a nomic statement (answering to our nomic present). (Whorf 1956: 144f.)

To fit discourse to manifold actual situations, all languages need to express durations, intensities, and tendencies. It is characteristic of SAE [= Standard Average European] and perhaps of many other language types to express them metaphorically. The metaphors are those of spatial extension, i.e. of size, number (plurality), position, shape and motion. […] The absence of such metaphor from Hopi speech is striking. Use of space terms when there is no space involved is NOT THERE – as if on it had been laid the taboo teetotal!

Plurals and cardinals are used only for entities that form or can form an objective group. There are no imaginary plurals, but instead ordinals used with singulars. Such an expression as ‘ten days’ is not used. The equivalent statement is an operational one that reaches one day by a suitable count. ‘They stayed ten days’ becomes ‘they stayed until the eleventh day’ or they left after the tenth day’. (Whorf 1956: 140)