Sentence:  It seems to the editors that this is somehow curiously reminiscent of Whorf's defense of Native American languages and cultures in the face of <WSD>narrow-gauge</WSD> views on language and culture at the time, without going so far as to take a strict Sapir-Whorfian stance that might posit unbridgeable gaps in translation theory and practice from one culture to the next. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  Limited or petty.