> The idea that all non-western practices, language included, have a deep and amazing and metaphysical quality that westerners simply couldn't understand is so tiresome.
The author did not say this; this is your unnecessarily negative take. However the author is comparing Chinese with English where this is somewhat true and well studied; eg. A Comparison of Chinese and English Language Processing - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/chapter/bookseries/abs... Google will give you lots more info. on this.
> No language is more expressive than another,
Objectively false. This is the same meaningless logic that since almost all programming languages are Turing Complete and can simulate any Turing Machine therefore they are equivalent. In a abstract sense they are but for all practical purposes the notion is useless as anybody trying to program in C++ vs. Haskell vs. Prolog will tell you. This is why you have the concept of "Paradigms" and "Worldviews".
Every culture imposes a "Philosophical Worldview" on the Languages it invents.
An ancient Indian Philosopher named Bhartṛhari (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhart%E1%B9%9Bhari) actually founded a school of philosophy where language is linked to cognition-by-itself with cognition-of-content i.e. subject+object+communication as a "whole understanding". He called this Sphota (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spho%E1%B9%ADa) defined as "bursting forth" of meaning or idea on the mind as language is uttered. This is the reason why in ancient Sanskrit literature there is so much emphasis on oral tradition i.e. using right words, right utterances, right tones etc.
Previous discussion Words for the Heart: A treasury of emotions from classical India - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43249766
Also see the book The Word and the World: India's Contribution to the Study of Language by Bimal Krishna Matilal which gives an overview of Bhartrhari's (and others) ideas - https://archive.org/details/wordandtheworldindiascontributio...