The strong Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (language determines thought) is almost certainly false. Prelinguistic infants and non-human animals solve spatial and numerical problems without language.
The weak version — that language influences thought — has better evidence. Speakers of languages with grammatical gender show subtly different associations with gendered nouns. Languages with absolute spatial frames ("the cup is north of the plate") produce better navigators than relative-frame languages ("the cup is to the left").
The implication for note-taking: the vocabulary you use to organize ideas subtly shapes what connections you can make. ↗ @carol / on-music-theory-as-a-language makes this point about music theory as vocabulary.