Linguistic determinism is really popular in academic circles at the moment, but it has been disproven. For example, there is a South American tribe, the Pirahã, who have no words for colors, but they have the cognitive ability to perceive them and draw analogies to objects of similar colors.
I don't think that is about linguistic determinism in the sense of the Sappir-Whorf hypothesis, it seems to be more about Chomsky's theory that language is an internal thought mechanism first, and a communication mechanism second. That is, all thought is internally represented in langauge-like structures - not in Chinese or French, but in internal language trees which can, if you decide to externalize it, be translated to an external langauge phrase that you know.
I'm pretty sure that some of the more outlandish claims of Everett (the big Piraha guy) have been cut down to size by his peers. Especially that boo-ha-ha over the Piraha's lack of recursion. If you're interested I have a few articles saved.
As for the popularity of linguistic determinism, who knows. I wouldn't trust a linguist who took the strong Sapir-Wharf hypothesis seriously.
Your assertion of disproof isn't valid with the example you've provided? Please explain further because in no way does not having words for colours mean the tribe isn't substituting some other properties of linguistic determinism in the place of the words we use for colours.
