"Standard Average European" ("SAE") is a concept introduced in 1939 by Benjamin Whorf to group the modern Indo-European languages of Europe which shared common features.Reprinted in (1956), "Language, Thought and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamins Lee Whorf." Edited by John B. Carroll. Cambridge, Mass.: The M.I.T. Press. pp. 134–159.Quotation is Whorf (1941:77–78) and (1956:138).The work began to assume the character of a comparison between Hopi and western European languages. 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." (quotation pp. 77–78) and as Whorf, B. L.</ref> Whorf argued that these languages were characterized by a number of similarities including syntax and grammar, vocabulary and its use as well as the relationship between contrasting words and their origins, idioms and word order which all made them stand out from many other language groups around the world which do not share these similarities; in essence creating a continental sprachbund. His point was to argue that the disproportionate degree of knowledge of SAE languages biased linguists towards considering grammatical forms to be highly natural or even universal, when in fact they were only peculiar to the SAE language group.