“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world” — meaning, who said it, and the source

Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote it as proposition 5.6 of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (German 1921; English translation 1922, credited to C. K. Ogden; most of the translating was done by the young F. P. Ramsey). In German: “Die Grenzen meiner Sprache bedeuten die Grenzen meiner Welt.” It means that what you can put into language marks the boundary of the world you can think about.

What it means

Whatever lies beyond what language can express is, for you, beyond the world you can describe or reason about. In the Tractatus this is a claim about logic and meaning, not about vocabulary size — though it is now widely quoted as a reason to learn more words and more languages.

Where it comes from

The Tractatus is written as numbered propositions. 5.6 sits in a run of remarks about the self and the world; the next one, 5.61, says that logic “fills the world”, and that the limits of the world are also its limits.

Wittgenstein's own view is technical: language pictures possible facts, so what cannot be pictured cannot be meaningfully said. The popular reading — that more words let you see more of the world — is a looser, later use of his line.

Questions

Who said “the limits of my language mean the limits of my world”?

Ludwig Wittgenstein, in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, proposition 5.6 (1921; English 1922).

What is the original German?

“Die Grenzen meiner Sprache bedeuten die Grenzen meiner Welt.”

Is it about learning languages?

Not originally. Wittgenstein was writing about logic and what language can meaningfully express. It is often quoted today about learning languages, which is a later use of the line.