Language is a powerful tool that circumscribes reality, defines identity, and qualifies thought. Certain concepts are more difficult to express in one language verses another. The Chinese difficulty in expressing negative hypothetical led to their sociocultural values being more pragmatic, rather than principled. The ease of Anglophone to express the concept of profit resulted in their society becoming more contractual and mercantile. The Germanic grammatical idiosyncracies shaped their socioculture to be more systematic and methodical.
The first act of Qin Shi Huang was to "reform" and unify language, in order to create a new sociocultural norm divorced from the Zhou era. The humanists, and later Marxists, war centers around redefining words, and thus concepts. 2000 years after Qin unification, another emperor, Mao, changed the language standards to redefine his empire away from traditional China. In the West, Marxists work unceasingly to redefine words, erase concepts, and redifine the dominant sociocultural matrix.
He who can define propriety of words, defines propriety of thought, and ultimately defines his society.
You're right. Although we must not forget that people create languages, and their exchange is reciprocal, just as language changes thought, thought changes language.