0:00

Linguistics. Gretchen

0:02

McCulloch. Welcome

0:05

to Lingthusiasm,

0:20

a podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics.

0:22

I'm Gretchen McCulloch. Lauren Gawne. And

0:24

I'm Lauren Gawne. Today, we're getting

0:26

enthusiastic about old languages. But

0:28

first, our most recent bonus episode was deleted

0:30

scenes with three of our interviews from this

0:33

year. Gretchen McCulloch. We had deleted scenes

0:35

from our live show Q&A with

0:37

Kirby Conrad about language and gender.

0:39

We talked about reflexive pronouns, multiple

0:41

pronouns in fiction, and talking about

0:43

people who use multiple pronoun sets.

0:45

Lauren Gawne. We also have an

0:47

excerpt from our interview with Tshaso

0:49

Rodriguez-Ordonez about Basque because it's famous

0:51

among linguists for having ergativity. Gretchen

0:53

McCulloch. We wanted to know

0:56

what do Basque people themselves think about ergativity?

0:58

It turns out there are jokes and cartoons

1:00

about it, which Tshaso was able to share

1:02

with us. Lauren Gawne. Amazing and charming.

1:04

Gretchen McCulloch. Finally, we have an excerpt

1:07

from my conversation with authors Ada Palmer

1:09

and Joe Walton about swearing in science

1:11

fiction fantasy. This excerpt talks

1:13

about acronyms, both of the sweary and

1:15

non-sweary kind. Lauren Gawne. You can

1:17

get this bonus episode as well

1:20

as a whole bunch more at

1:22

patreon.com/lingthusiasm. Gretchen McCulloch. Also, maybe this is a

1:24

good time to remember that we have over 80 bonus

1:27

episodes. Lauren Gawne. We have bonus

1:29

episodes about the time a researcher smuggled a

1:31

bunny into a classroom to do linguistics on

1:33

children. Gretchen McCulloch. We also have

1:36

a bonus episode about the quick brown fox

1:38

jumps over the lazy dog and more phrases

1:40

that contain all the letters of the alphabet

1:42

plus what people do with phrases

1:44

like this in languages that don't have alphabets. Lauren

1:46

Gawne. We also have an entire bonus

1:49

episode that's just about the linguistics of

1:51

numbers. If you wish you had more

1:53

Lingthusiasm episodes to listen to right now, or

1:55

if you just wanna help us keep making

1:57

this podcast long into the future, we really

1:59

appreciate it everyone who becomes a patron. Lae-Lauren,

2:08

I've got big

2:10

news. Lae-Lauren

2:15

Yes? Lae-Lauren Did

2:17

you know I'm from the oldest family

2:19

lineage in the world? Lae-Lauren

2:22

Wow. You sound like you are

2:24

part of some prestigious, ancient,

2:27

royal – I can only assume royal with

2:30

that level of knowledge about your

2:32

family lineage. Lae-Lauren Well, you

2:34

know, I'll have some family members who are

2:36

really into genealogy, I've been looking at some

2:38

family trees, and I have come to the

2:40

conclusion that my family is the oldest

2:42

family in the world. Lae-Lauren

2:45

You know, I have grandparents,

2:47

and they have grandparents, and

2:49

I assume they had grandparents, and

2:51

I guess my family goes all

2:53

the way back as well.

2:55

We didn't come out of nowhere. I might not know

2:57

all their names, and I don't think

2:59

we were ever rulers of any

3:02

nation state as far as I'm

3:04

aware, but I don't know if you are

3:06

from the oldest family lineage because I think everyone is. Lae-Lauren

3:09

Well, this is not a mutually exclusive statement. I

3:12

can be from the oldest family lineage, and you can

3:14

be from the oldest family lineage, and everyone listening to

3:16

this podcast can be all from the oldest family lineage

3:19

in the world because we're all descended from

3:21

the earliest humans. Lae-Lauren This is a good

3:23

point. Lae-Lauren Psych! Lae-Lauren

3:25

And I think it's definitely worth remembering

3:27

the difference between the very

3:30

fact that we are all from the

3:32

same humans, and the difference between that

3:34

and knowing names of specific

3:36

individuals back to a certain point. Lae-Lauren

3:39

I should clarify, I am not royalty.

3:41

I do not actually know the names

3:44

all the way back because at a

3:46

certain point, writing stops existing, and at

3:48

some point before that, people stopped recording

3:50

my ancestor, and I don't know what

3:52

it stops. Lae-Lauren But there's definitely

3:54

a tradition in certain royal families and stuff

3:56

of being able to claim that

3:58

you can trace your family. The back to

4:00

you know? Maybe. Like Apollo

4:02

or something. Oh gosh, like mythical characters. Okay,

4:05

yeah, I was thinking of just like tracing

4:07

them back a thousand years. but I I

4:09

get back to Adam and. Eve of his

4:11

me back to you know, like Helen of

4:13

Troy or Apollo? Really? So today. I feel

4:16

like at least I've I've heard

4:18

of this and I think that

4:20

talking about human ancestor lineages, how

4:22

to make sense of the types

4:24

of claims that people also make

4:26

about language as being the oldest

4:28

language Whom I feel like have

4:30

had this before, Different languages making

4:33

claim to being the oldest language.

4:35

I've heard a click of a lot. I did

4:37

a bit of research my looked up a list

4:39

of some languages that people have claimed to be

4:42

the oldest. Okay, what did you find? a lot

4:44

of things that can't all be true at the

4:46

same time? Or. Panel be true,

4:48

because all languages are descended from

4:51

some early human capacity for human

4:53

language. right? So

4:55

they're sort. of different geographical

4:57

hot spots them to. People became

5:00

claims about Egyptian. About Sanskrit

5:02

Greek Cheney is aromatic. Far

5:04

seat Hamill Korean the ask

5:07

your past episodes. Oh

5:09

yes, sometimes people look at

5:11

reconstructed languages like proto Indo

5:14

European which. Is you know?

5:16

the. Old. Saying that the

5:18

modern day Indo European languages are

5:20

descended from him. But

5:22

portals, The issue here is that

5:25

at least for spoken languages and

5:27

we're gonna get to say my

5:29

goodness, yeah, but at least for

5:31

spoken languages like babies can't raise

5:34

themselves. Unfortunately I thought.

5:37

of delighted he immediately yeah

5:40

for adults sleep schedule so.

5:42

If you have a baby with typical hearing

5:45

and they are being raised. It out.

5:47

You know community are rated by one

5:49

person. they're gonna require a from with

5:51

the people that are raising it. Absolutely.

5:54

And yet in much the same

5:56

way we'll have people giving us

5:58

genetic input. We also have people

6:00

giving us link the input and.continuing

6:02

on that that transmission of human

6:04

language. right? Exactly. And

6:07

so when the languages claims

6:09

to be old, that's often

6:11

more of sort of a

6:13

political claim or a religious

6:16

claim, or a heritage claim

6:18

that it is. A

6:20

linguistic claim. Because.

6:22

We think that languages probably have a common

6:24

ancestor. Certainly, all languages are learn a little

6:26

by all humans if you raise a baby.

6:29

In a given environment, they'll grow up with

6:31

the language that surround. Them. So the

6:33

human capacity for language seems to

6:35

be common across all of us,

6:37

and we just don't know what

6:39

that. Tens of thousands. Year old

6:42

early. Languages looks like. In. Much

6:44

the same way we lose track of

6:46

early ancestors on we get. Earlier

6:48

than written records. There's also we talked

6:51

about this in the Deconstructing Old Languages

6:53

episode that there's just a point where

6:55

you can't go back. Further,

6:57

because this is not enough

6:59

information to say exactly how

7:02

proto Indo European might have

7:04

some early a paint. Seen.

7:06

Related to say the finer Tibet

7:08

languages old the night his hunger

7:11

family. right? And you know

7:13

we also talked about this in the Writing

7:15

Systems episode where writing systems have been Invented.

7:18

You know about. Four. Thousand

7:20

And Five Thousand. Six hundred thousand years ago.

7:22

But human language. Probably emerged some

7:24

time between fifty thousand and one

7:26

hundred and fifty thousand. Years ago

7:28

which is so much older. They

7:31

get like ten times to

7:33

thirty times older than that.

7:35

And we don't know because

7:37

sounds and signs leave impressions

7:40

on the airwaves, but vanish

7:42

very quickly and don't. Leave

7:44

Fulfils until writing sensing twelve

7:46

months later. Very. Inconvenience.

7:48

Yeah, absolutely. The. First thing I would do that

7:50

Hydrazine. All. Those languages that you

7:52

mentioned as people laying claim to them being

7:55

the oldest. They come from all kinds of

7:57

different language families. other have to say a

7:59

very. Like Indo European Weston Skew

8:01

there was probably reflects the corners of

8:03

the internet that you have access to.

8:06

right? So this reflects the people

8:08

that are making claims like this

8:10

on the English speaking internet that

8:13

I'm looking at a and be

8:15

sort of modern day nation states

8:17

and religious traditions and cultural traditions

8:19

that are making claims a certain

8:21

types of legitimacy. It's vs having

8:23

access. To old tax or. Having

8:26

access to uninterrupted transmission of stories and

8:28

legends and mythologies that give them those

8:31

sorts of claims, there's no reason to

8:33

think that you know a whole bunch

8:35

of like or development. You know North

8:38

or South American continents are not also

8:40

equally old is all the other languages,

8:42

but people aren't doing nation state building

8:44

with them and. So. They don't tend to show

8:47

up on those lists. Yeah. A

8:49

lot of nation state building. A lot

8:51

of like religion happening there as well.

8:53

yeah I think about how you know

8:56

yoga areas. With. A little bit

8:58

of yoga and I think it's

9:00

really lovely that all the yoga

9:02

terms are still given to you

9:04

in this kind of older sense

9:06

critique language, but it definitely is

9:09

done sometimes with this like claim

9:11

to legitimacy and kind of prestige

9:13

in the same way that. You.

9:15

Know having. Something. In latin

9:17

for the Catholic Church give that

9:20

same her divide. I think about

9:22

the scene. From the movie My Big Fat

9:24

Greek Wedding Ah where you have the daughter

9:26

who's the one that that getting married and

9:29

she's in. The car as a teen with

9:31

her parents. And it's this sort of scene

9:33

where the parents. Are being a bit cringe

9:35

in the way that edo teams offered experience

9:37

their parents to be. And

9:39

their dad is saying you know his name A

9:41

word I will tell you. How it comes from

9:44

Greek. Because he's got this big Greek.

9:46

Pride thing going. and is

9:48

is is like classic greek american migrants pride

9:50

happening lights and so he says oregano phobia

9:52

he is explaining you know how the roots

9:55

com a read about one's true and then

9:57

the daughter's friend is in the back seat

9:59

is sort of rolling her eyes and saying,

10:01

well, what about kimono? Lae-

10:03

The Japanese robe. Gae- Yes. Gae-

10:06

Mm-hmm. Gae- And the dad's like, oh

10:08

no, it's from Greek, here's this connection that I have found.

10:11

Lae- I like his linguistic

10:14

ad-libbing skills. Gae- Right. It's

10:16

certainly a great improvisational performance

10:18

skills. And the movie is clearly

10:21

designed to put the viewer

10:23

in sympathy with the young girls in the back

10:25

seat who are sort of teasing him and the daughters

10:27

that are face-palming, you know, at this claim, which is

10:29

one of the reasons why it's like one of my

10:31

favorite examples of people making up fake etymologies

10:33

in the media because you don't leave the

10:36

movie thinking, oh, I never realized kimono was

10:38

from Greek, you leave that movie being like,

10:42

ah, here's this dad who has sort

10:44

of over exaggerated pride in his heritage

10:46

that doesn't allow for other people's heritage

10:48

to also have, you know, words that

10:50

come from them. Lae- Yeah.

10:53

Gae- But it's a claim that he's

10:55

making for, you know, personal reasons and

10:57

for heritage reasons that doesn't have linguistic

11:00

founding, but none of these claims have

11:02

linguistic founding. Lae- The dad

11:04

has come kind of close to a

11:06

linguistic truth though, which is that linguists

11:08

talk about languages having features that can

11:11

be either conservative or

11:13

innovative. And modern

11:15

Greek has a lot of the

11:18

same sound features as ancient

11:21

Greek, which is probably helped by

11:23

that consistent writing system. A writing

11:25

system definitely helps transmission stay stable

11:27

because you can point back to

11:29

older texts. English has probably

11:31

slowed down a lot in its change

11:33

because of the writing system

11:35

as well. Gae- And genuinely, English has

11:38

borrowed a lot of words from Greek as

11:40

well as a lot of other languages that are not

11:42

Greek. And this sort of

11:44

gets to both Greek and Sanskrit and

11:46

Chinese having these eras that are talked

11:48

about as classical or

11:51

as old, which is an

11:54

era that the present day people

11:56

or some, you know, slightly earlier

11:58

group people looked back. phone and thought, yeah,

12:00

those people were doing some cool stuff. We're going to

12:02

call it classical because we liked it in history. Lae-Anne

12:05

I do love the idea that Chaucer

12:07

had no idea that he was moving

12:10

on from Old English to Middle English

12:12

because there wasn't a Modern English yet.

12:15

JLF. Yeah. How could you

12:17

describe yourself as Middle English? That's sort

12:19

of like the late stage capitalism, you

12:23

know, that implies that we're towards the end

12:25

of something. Like, we don't know, folks. Lae-Anne

12:27

I don't think English always does self-deprecating

12:30

well. Like, English has a lot of

12:32

belief in its superiority as a language.

12:34

I think we could say that about

12:37

the kind of ideology behind English. But

12:39

I do love that English didn't go

12:41

for classical English. Like, imagine if we

12:44

said Bales was written in classical English.

12:46

JLF. We could have. Yeah. You could have. Lae-Anne

12:49

We just went with, like, oh, that's old. I

12:51

don't understand it. It's got

12:53

cases. It's got all these extra affixes.

12:55

It's old. It's a

12:57

bit stuffy. JLF. And that may have been because

12:59

they were comparing it already to classical

13:01

Latin and classical Greek, which was

13:03

sort of even more antique

13:06

and this sort of the English speakers were

13:08

looking elsewhere for their golden age. And

13:10

so I don't think people often claim that English

13:12

is the oldest language because English speakers are

13:15

seeing the history of

13:17

their society located

13:20

in this Greco-Latin tradition. Lae-Anne

13:22

Yeah. I think that's a good explanation for it. I

13:24

do wonder if, like, maybe, you know,

13:26

the attitudes that we now have towards, like,

13:28

Shakespearean English, if maybe that will become, like,

13:31

classical English when we're a bit further on

13:33

and Shakespeare becomes even less accessible. JLF. Right.

13:36

Well, and if Shakespeare becomes the kind of text

13:38

that everyone is, like, referring to because it's this

13:41

quote-unquote classic text, but

13:43

calling something a classical era reflects

13:45

on the subsequent era and what

13:48

they thought about the older one more

13:50

so than the era itself. Lae-Anne

13:52

Yeah. And having this ability to distinguish

13:54

between, like, an old or a classical

13:56

and a modern version of a language

13:59

requires that writing tradition,

14:01

whereas the majority of human languages, so

14:03

the majority of human history, have happily

14:05

existed and transmitted knowledge without a writing

14:07

system. These writing

14:09

systems make us very focused

14:11

on pinning down. I

14:14

super appreciate the website Glottalog,

14:16

which catalogues languages and all the

14:19

names they're known by. So we

14:21

have a lot of languages that are classical,

14:24

like classical Chinese or classical

14:27

Quechua. We have some

14:29

early, so early Irish. I think I've

14:31

also heard of old Irish. Yeah, we

14:33

have old Chinese and old Japanese in

14:35

Glottalog, but I've definitely also heard them

14:37

referred to as classical. So

14:39

different, slightly different, vibes there. And

14:42

of course you have things

14:44

like ancient Hebrew, which are ancient.

14:47

Older than old, very prestigious.

14:50

I particularly like the precision

14:53

with which some names get

14:55

given to different languages over

14:57

time. So Glottalog has an

14:59

old modern Welsh, which is

15:01

nice and specific. And I particularly

15:03

appreciate the imperial middle modern Aramaic.

15:06

Imperial middle modern Aramaic.

15:09

Well, that also gets to languages

15:12

being named and being spread

15:14

through empire and conquest

15:16

and wars, which is also

15:18

part of that historical tradition that people look

15:20

back to. For sure. And that's part

15:23

of the narrative building

15:25

around languages. A lot of

15:27

what is maintained about a

15:30

language is religious documents or

15:32

documents of imperial rule. And

15:34

that means that, you know,

15:36

that imperial form might have been a

15:39

particular register. Imagine if all that

15:41

we had about English was the tax forms that

15:43

we have. Oh, God,

15:45

that'd be really boring. You would have

15:47

a very different idea of what English

15:49

is compared to how it's spoken day

15:51

to day. And that's what makes this

15:53

kind of understanding of older languages just

15:56

from a written record really challenging. When

15:58

I think about trying... Q Understand the

16:01

history of languages just from the

16:03

written record. I'm reminded of

16:05

this: A classic. Joke. I don't know if you've

16:07

heard this one where you know you're walking down the street.

16:09

What? I didn't? You see someone? Standing under a

16:11

streetlight, sort of looking at their feet and

16:13

like trying to search for something and you

16:15

go oh what are you looking for and

16:17

the person says oh by contact lens that

16:20

sell. Out and try to find it and he said,

16:22

oh, did you lose it under the street light on the

16:24

bicycle? Know, I lost it. You know, like a block over

16:26

that way. but there's no streetlight there's it's much easier to

16:28

search. Here ssssss. See.

16:33

I. Guess this is a job that doesn't work so

16:35

well that would or wouldn't phones of flashlights on the A

16:37

Foods. And contact lenses have improved technology.

16:39

Don't pop out spontaneously. Like that. But

16:42

when we're looking for the history of

16:44

language, it's like looking under the street

16:46

light because that's where it's easy to

16:48

look. Yeah, it's not actually. Doing said

16:50

a random sample of all of the bits of history,

16:52

many of which are just lost to us. Indeed,

16:55

I like thinking about the imperial

16:58

languages and the classical languages because

17:00

sometimes we do get written records.

17:02

That helped give us a glimpse

17:04

into just how. Ordinary. People

17:06

were going about living their lives. Oh

17:09

oh oh, Can we talk about

17:11

the clay tablet? We. Can absolutely

17:13

talk about the clay tablet that

17:15

I know what you mean because

17:17

you're talking about the complaint to

17:19

the and a sale which is

17:21

a clay tablet this written in

17:23

Arcadian soon a a form and

17:25

it's considered stay the world's oldest

17:27

known written consent. And this is

17:29

from a customer named know niece. Who's complaining

17:32

about the quality of the copper ingots

17:34

that was received? The. Things I

17:36

love about this is that there is this

17:38

complaint but also they're pretty so they found

17:40

in se as house. Ah,

17:42

but. There are other complaints about the

17:44

quality of the Capa The sinners residents.

17:48

We really think we know. like who's at

17:50

fault here. Yeah, It seems like he was

17:52

just a provider of adequate quality copper and people

17:54

really need is to car to a better place

17:56

to get a better quality of copper. And

17:59

to nail form. Also with interesting sample

18:01

of sort of searching under the street

18:03

light for the contact lens season because

18:05

they language sumerian was written can a

18:07

a form and then later Akkadian which.

18:09

Is a Semitic language related to modern

18:12

day Arabic and Hebrew and Hittite which

18:14

is and into European language related to

18:16

English in Sanskrit and a bunch of

18:18

other languages and they were all using

18:20

this system of stamping the ends of.

18:22

Reads in these sort of pointy triangle

18:24

seeps on to claim blocks. Yet.

18:27

You. Know what happens to clay blocks?

18:29

When they were in a house

18:32

and the house burns down, they

18:34

just get fired and made more

18:37

resilience. They they have been incredibly

18:39

durable if people were riding on

18:41

you know, parchment or in textiles

18:44

like. In get a fabrics or chords

18:46

are strings or on. Leather or

18:48

would. Most of those don't.

18:51

Get. Preserve the same way because you expose them

18:53

to water and they start rotting. Yeah

18:55

and. They don't a great with file.

18:57

They don't really don't agree with fires.

18:59

animals will eat some clay has

19:01

none. Of these problems. So yeah, we

19:04

don't even know if we know what all

19:06

of the ancient writing systems are because the

19:08

ones that have survived for. The ones on

19:10

players don't. Either, So charmed

19:12

when I learnt about Lesson Cause

19:14

tablets which are very similar to

19:17

the complaints to and as see

19:19

all these are small bits of

19:21

lead that people could scratch. A

19:24

purse or wish on to. Another

19:26

would throw them into some kind

19:28

of sacred well They found like

19:30

a hundred and thirty of these

19:32

at false in Britain. That.

19:35

They peto popped up all over the Roman empire.

19:37

And at Ces like these tiny insights

19:39

into the pettiness of humanity as opposed

19:42

to the kind of great works of

19:44

literature or we talked about how the

19:46

roads at stored. Within these

19:49

like three official languages and

19:51

was all about like a

19:53

declaration about taxation. But.

19:55

Instead you can have this like curses and guy

19:57

us because he stole my dog sort of thing.

20:00

I have given to the Goddess Solas the six

20:02

silver coins which I have lost it. It's a

20:04

the goddess to extract them from the names written

20:07

below. I know like and lists people who are

20:09

the thousand. Cash? No. Yup,

20:11

that's penny. I like

20:13

it. Yeah, so annoyed.

20:16

I actually read a romance

20:18

novel called Mortal. Follies by

20:20

Alexis Whole. Which was

20:23

set in Bath and used the

20:25

ancient past curse tablets as upon

20:27

point. so charming the one wants

20:30

to read Chris tablets and also

20:32

sort of romanticism. I think is what we're

20:34

calling the genre. Know. I feel like saying

20:36

often would have included cause tablets if

20:38

you knew about them. I think she

20:40

was no stranger to pettiness. It's

20:45

very convenient that they wrote their

20:47

curses on. Lead Tablets which is such

20:49

an incredibly durable format. Imagine if they'd written

20:51

them on cloth and that we'd never have

20:53

them for posterity. I feel sad for all

20:55

the human pettiness that with most access to.

20:59

at to other. Old. Writing

21:01

systems that we have access to because

21:04

of the durability of the materials. They

21:06

were written on our oracle bones

21:08

script. Oh yeah, The ancestor to

21:10

Chinese. Yet another writing system with that we

21:12

think developed from scratch because we can sort of

21:15

see it's developing thousands of years ago. Oracle

21:17

Barnes written on a plane Like

21:19

Total Barnes and Total Cel Shells

21:21

Yes, I am I the hence

21:23

the bone part Also very durable

21:26

material and also used for religious

21:28

purposes. My sympathy and thanks to

21:30

The Turtles. Indeed,

21:32

And then the early

21:35

Mesoamerican. Writing systems of which

21:37

the oldest one is the omit

21:40

writing system which were written on

21:42

ceramics and they show representations of

21:44

drawings of things that looks sort

21:47

of like a codex shape book

21:49

made out of park which obviously

21:52

we don't have. we just have

21:54

all ramic drawings of the park.

21:56

I don't know. How

21:59

cool the point out that were missing information. Would

22:02

you thought you were mad about the Library of

22:04

Alexandria burning down? Be to these you will be

22:06

over one hundred. Yup, Ah,

22:08

that really gets you and as is a

22:10

reminder of how much we can't say about

22:12

the history of human language because of what

22:14

we don't. Have a record of. Well.

22:17

You know before we do a whole episode

22:19

about things that we don't know because you

22:21

know much as we can. sort of makes

22:23

lot of searching for the contact lens under

22:25

the streetlights. We don't know what we don't

22:27

know. Indeed, What?

22:29

Something else that. People sometimes mean

22:31

when they say a languages

22:34

old. I'll. This goes back

22:36

to that conservatives idea that some

22:38

languages just has conservative states has

22:40

that haven't changed as much and

22:43

a language that. Has. A

22:45

lot of sounds changes. We.

22:47

Might call a very innovative or they've

22:49

innovated a new way of doing the

22:52

tents on the verbs and so you

22:54

can trace it back to an older

22:56

form the language, but it looks very

22:58

different at this point in time. So.

23:01

I think the example that I'm

23:03

most familiar with this is Icelandic.

23:05

Vs. English is an abuser so English has

23:08

had a lot of contract from things like

23:10

the Norman Conquest would introduce lot of friends.

23:12

With English compared to Icelandic which has had

23:14

less of that. So I.

23:16

Slanders have an easier time reading something

23:18

like they're sodas which are. Eight

23:20

hundred and more years old then English

23:23

speakers have reading tax like tosser which

23:25

are about the same age but have

23:27

had a lot more linguistic changes happening

23:29

because of more contacted in goes over

23:32

the years. And. That's one of

23:34

the things that linguists who will

23:36

cat you know when a language

23:38

tends to be more innovative and

23:40

chains and tends to be during

23:42

these periods of contact attend to

23:44

be during periods of invasion and

23:46

English it. I had the friends

23:48

come up from the south, repeated

23:50

Viking incursions from all around the

23:52

car east and they all had

23:54

an impact on the language and

23:56

I find it really interesting. You

23:58

know I sanders. Are really proud

24:01

of how conservatives the languages and that

24:03

they still can read these all

24:05

the stories I think inner in some

24:07

ways. English has. Created. The

24:09

story for itself or it's really proud of. The.

24:12

Fact that it is. This language that

24:14

continues to take influences from places and is

24:16

really innovative. You know these as part of

24:18

the story that a language can tell about

24:20

itself and the state has can tell about

24:22

it. right? I

24:24

think that there are reasons to be

24:27

proud of any language that don't have

24:29

to rely on a huge as the

24:31

sole arbiter of legitimacy and in some

24:33

cases. He. It's that rupture

24:35

with the past that. People.

24:38

Use as a point of pride. I'm thinking

24:40

of Haitian Creole, for example, which is descended

24:42

from France and you can sort of here

24:44

that French influence. Like when I've heard people

24:46

speaking Haitian Creole, it almost sounds like they're

24:48

speaking. Just like a badge dialect.

24:50

I don't quite know, right? Okay, But.

24:53

The writing system is very different and

24:55

it's much more fanatic that french's so the

24:57

word for me. In Haitian Creole

24:59

is more. And it's written

25:01

M W Way. And the

25:04

word for me in modern French

25:06

is was pronounced. The same way

25:08

but written M O I. Write.

25:11

And. Used to be pronounced moyes this

25:13

is why you get like roy and was

25:15

for king and stuff like this hence the

25:18

spelling. But the sound trade has happened

25:20

in French and when they hasten seekers were

25:22

deciding how to write their language down. There

25:24

were like know we're gonna have a phonetic

25:26

system. We don't need to be beholden to

25:29

the French systems. Were going to have something

25:31

that establishes our identity or something it's distinct

25:33

from French. For. Anyone who's tried

25:35

to learn their friends selling especially those

25:37

endings that a still in the writing

25:39

system that not in the pronunciation system.

25:41

I think it's fair to say friends

25:43

had gone through a number of sound

25:45

innovations, even if it might be more

25:47

conservative in all the features of the

25:49

grammar. It's very conservative in the writing

25:51

system, but the sounds of his lot. Yeah.

25:54

It's interesting you bring up the Haitian

25:56

Creole, because krills are the result of

25:58

this. Intense. between two

26:00

or more languages and they often get

26:03

labeled as being new, which is kind

26:05

of the flip side of this discourse

26:07

around old languages. G-

26:10

Yeah, and that's sort of controversial

26:12

in linguistics whether to consider Creoles

26:15

new or to consider them older. What

26:18

they definitely have is, you know,

26:21

children being raised by people who also

26:23

already had somewhere out of language and, you

26:25

know, babies can't raise themselves, but

26:28

they do have this situation where their speakers

26:30

were prevented from learning how to read and

26:32

write or learning how to access the formal

26:34

varieties of language. Often

26:36

very violently and through horrible circumstances, a

26:39

lot of Creoles came about because of slave

26:41

trade, because of, you know, historical positions of

26:43

oppression. So the language transition was not the

26:45

same as if you were learning

26:47

it from parents who'd been educated in the language,

26:50

but they were still learning from people who had

26:52

access to the language. And so there's been a

26:54

bit of a swing in Creole studies more recently

26:56

to say, what if we don't consider

26:58

these completely new? What if we think about the

27:01

ancestral features that they have in

27:03

common with the languages they're descended

27:06

from, which you can readily

27:08

trace as well? L- And thinking in

27:10

terms of like which features are innovative

27:12

rather than the whole language is being

27:14

new. Like maybe it has a very

27:17

innovative way of doing like the noun

27:19

structure, but it still has

27:21

a lot of the features of the

27:23

two different, of multiple different languages

27:26

in terms of sounds. And so taking

27:28

apart the different linguistic elements and not

27:30

just focusing on the whole thing as

27:32

being new or old and trying to

27:34

apply these labels that don't actually account

27:36

for what's happening. G- Right, and it

27:38

can be kind of exoticizing to Creoles to

27:41

say, oh, these are completely different

27:43

from all of the other ways that languages

27:45

have gotten transmitted when what's

27:47

also going on is kids

27:49

in a community who are exposed to a

27:52

bunch of languages or a bunch of different

27:54

linguistic inputs at a time, kind of making

27:56

sense of that and coming up with collaboratively

27:58

something with the other their kids in the community

28:01

that is different from what

28:04

people were speaking before, but it still has

28:06

that ancestral link. L There are

28:08

contexts in which children are raised

28:11

without that access to language transmission.

28:14

That is when a deaf

28:16

child is born into a

28:18

hearing and spoken language family

28:20

context, which means that they're

28:22

not getting that language. L

28:25

Right. And generally, the child and

28:27

the parents and the family and

28:29

community members do end up with some

28:32

amount of ways of communicating, sort of

28:34

based on the existing gestures that people

28:36

do alongside of spoken language and elaborating

28:38

on them, making them more complex because

28:41

you are trying to communicate somehow. There

28:44

are linguists who study this, right? L Yeah.

28:46

I mean, ideally, in an ideal

28:48

world, if you're a deaf child,

28:50

you would want to have access

28:52

to signed language input through, ideally,

28:55

your family, but also like your

28:57

wider educational context. Some

28:59

deaf children do get hearing aids. They

29:01

are useful, but not

29:03

a perfect replication of the hearing

29:05

child experience. And so

29:07

that's a possibility. But there are

29:10

some contexts where children have just

29:12

developed this communication system with their

29:14

hearing family in their own

29:16

home context. And these are known as home

29:18

sign, and there have been examples of this,

29:20

and they have been studied. One

29:22

of the most famous examples that has been

29:25

described in a lot of detail is the

29:27

example of David and his family. And

29:29

Susan Golde-Medo and her collaborators over

29:32

the years have done a lot of work looking

29:34

at the way David and especially his mother communicate

29:36

with each other. L This is

29:38

a really tough situation. And I think these

29:41

studies started in like the early 90s, and

29:43

hopefully people know better now and can give

29:46

their deaf kids access to a sign language.

29:48

But given that this happened, what

29:51

can we learn from the situation? L Golde-Medo

29:54

definitely started publishing about this in the early 80s. G

29:57

OK. Even earlier. L a

30:00

seven to ten-year-old child is

30:02

actually like a Genexer who, if

30:04

he had kids himself, they're like

30:07

undergraduates. G What

30:32

was really interesting from

30:34

a thinking about this

30:36

human capacity for language

30:38

and communication perspective is

30:41

that his mother and the family kind

30:43

of developed this way of communicating with

30:45

him that kind of grew out of

30:47

their typical gestures and kind of context,

30:49

a lot of showing each other stuff. G

30:52

Like pointing to things and so on. G So

30:55

useful in all languages and all

30:57

contexts. But what they found was

30:59

that David was

31:02

creating systematic order out

31:04

of the gestures that he was getting. So

31:06

he had more systematic structure

31:08

in terms of the hand shape that he

31:10

was using. He created these kind of hand

31:13

shape structures and

31:16

these individual signs that

31:18

his mum would also use, but

31:21

not as consistently as him. So

31:24

it's actually the child taking

31:26

this really idiosyncratic, raw

31:29

gesture material from his mum and

31:32

gestures in spoken language context tend

31:34

to be a bit more freeform

31:36

and unstructured than a

31:40

signed language which uses the same hands but in

31:42

a very different way. And he wasn't

31:44

doing something that was like a fully structured language,

31:47

but it had more structure than what he was

31:49

being given. L So his

31:51

brain was really sort of starved for

31:53

linguistic input and he was trying to

31:55

extract as many linguistic vitamins and minerals

31:57

as he could from this sort of

31:59

issue. incomplete doctoral system that he was

32:01

being given as the closest approximation of language. And

32:03

obviously we do wish that David, who was

32:06

raised in the US, I think, had

32:08

just been given access to ASL, which

32:10

lots of people already were using in the US

32:12

and could have happened, where

32:14

he would have gotten sort of the

32:16

fully fledged, healthy, balanced diet of lots

32:18

of linguistic input from lots of people.

32:21

But the child brain seems to want to

32:24

reconstruct language out of whatever is available to

32:26

it. And this type of system,

32:28

which is often called home sign, is

32:30

not the same as a fully fledged

32:33

sign language. And children often don't have

32:35

the same level of linguistic structure. They

32:37

obviously can't communicate with people outside of

32:39

the home context who don't know the

32:42

signs that they've created with the family.

32:45

But I think it's also worth pointing out

32:47

that it is more structured than you would expect it

32:49

to be from the input. And

32:51

we've seen when you take children

32:53

from these emerging structures, and

32:56

you bring enough deaf people together,

32:59

you actually get a real blossoming

33:01

of a full linguistic system. And

33:04

the most famous example of this is in

33:06

Nicaragua in the 1980s, where a bunch of deaf children

33:11

were brought together at a school for the first time. And

33:14

the school wasn't trying to teach them a

33:16

signed language, they were trying to do sort

33:19

of an oralist method of education, which is

33:21

meh. But about

33:23

which the less said the better. But

33:25

the kids themselves were coming in with their home

33:28

sign systems, and developing them

33:30

further in contact with each other. And

33:32

when the next generation of kids showed

33:34

up, and they had access to this

33:37

sort of combined home sign system, they really

33:39

turned it into a full

33:41

fledged sign language, which is now Nicaraguan sign

33:43

language, this is the national sign language of

33:45

Nicaragua. So these types of

33:47

languages are some good candidates for youngest language,

33:50

even if we don't know what the oldest

33:52

language looks like. The amazing

33:54

thing about Nicaraguan sign language is

33:56

that word linguists on the ground,

33:59

pretty much from the beginning of the school in the 1980s.

34:02

And there is a documentation of how

34:05

this language has evolved. And it was

34:08

the older signers coming in, communicating with

34:10

the younger children coming to

34:12

the school, who then created more of

34:14

the structure. So being a

34:16

bit like David, but in this

34:19

really rich communicative and linguistic environment,

34:21

and building this structure into the language.

34:25

So it seems to sort of take those two

34:27

generations of linguistic input. But that

34:29

feels very reassuring to me, which is that language

34:32

is so robust that even if we lose all

34:34

of our writing systems, and we lose all of our memory

34:36

of writing systems, and we lose access

34:38

to memory of what language looks like, suddenly we all

34:41

wake up with amnesia or something, we would

34:43

rediscover this. Even

34:45

though they wouldn't be the same languages, we'd put something back

34:47

together and still be able to talk to each other. And

34:50

we know this because Nicaraguan Sign Language is

34:53

not the only example we have

34:56

of a recently developed language that

34:58

has emerged. Nicaraguan Sign Language

35:00

is a school based sign.

35:03

But we also have what are known as

35:05

village based sign systems, which

35:07

is where there might be a deaf

35:09

family or a number of deaf families

35:12

in the village or a very high

35:14

percentage of deaf population. And

35:16

a sign language emerges that

35:18

the whole village, deaf and hearing use

35:20

to communicate. And it's usually village because

35:22

it is these smaller

35:25

communities where people gather

35:27

and live together and have to communicate with

35:29

each other all the time. And

35:31

where it's if you have like an island

35:33

or a you know, somewhere in a in

35:35

the mountains or somewhere where there's a high

35:38

degree of genetic deafness, because there's a relatively

35:40

high degree of isolation. And so you can

35:42

have like a third of the village be

35:44

deaf, in which case, everybody in that village

35:46

is learning signs from each other at a

35:48

young age. I think the famous example that

35:50

I've heard of relatively nearby is Martha's Vineyard

35:52

in the US. Oh, yeah. Which is an

35:54

island, I think, and it has a village sign language. Lin

35:57

Ho talked about Al Thede Bedouin Sign

35:59

Language. in the interview she did with us, which

36:02

is in a tribal group

36:04

in a desert in southern

36:06

Israel. G Grade

36:55

And one of the main characters is a deaf

36:57

girl whose cochlear implants have been malfunctioning. And

37:00

so she hasn't been raised with access to

37:02

a sign language, but suddenly she's in

37:04

this school now and is learning ASL and

37:06

trying to get her cochlear implants to still

37:08

work, but in the meantime

37:10

is suddenly immersed in this environment

37:12

where she has full access to language instead

37:15

of this sort of piecemeal access via attempting

37:17

to lip read or attempting to use these

37:19

implants that have been working very well for

37:21

her. The author is deaf and talks

37:24

about a variety of different types of experiences that

37:26

people can have in that context. Lae

37:28

I really appreciated how this book

37:30

made the most of the written

37:32

format to occasionally just not give

37:34

you what another character was saying.

37:37

And so you get this experience of being

37:39

the young protagonist in the book suddenly like,

37:41

I'm only getting half of this sentence. I

37:43

don't know what's happening. It's very stressful. Grade Because

37:45

there's just a bunch of blank spaces. And there

37:47

were also some places where there were drawings of

37:50

words that were being talked about or sort of

37:52

worksheets that she was seeing with

37:54

line diagrams and different signs. So despite the

37:56

fact that it's sort of a book that's in written English

37:58

trying to convey ASL. Which is

38:00

not English and doesn't have a certain

38:02

way of being written. I think it's

38:04

doing a really interesting job of trying

38:06

to convey that experience. And

38:08

that like of writing systems a sign

38:11

languages mean that a lot of the

38:13

history assigning in human language history has

38:15

kind of been lost to us and

38:17

there have been different signing communities at

38:20

different times in history as hell even

38:22

of aren't common way of human doing

38:24

language. Thought. We'd start know

38:26

because it's not in the street light

38:28

of the written record. right? And

38:30

we don't even know if the first. Language: The

38:32

oldest language was a spoken language or

38:34

a sign language people. Have come up

38:36

with arguments for both things and we

38:39

just don't know. Which. In some

38:41

ways I find very relaxing him instead of

38:43

kind of constantly trying to make cases for

38:45

which language is the oldest. oh, which is

38:47

the newest, you can kind of slick though

38:49

of those debates because they are all at

38:51

the end of the day unprovable and you

38:54

can just enjoy the variety of human language

38:56

without it being a competition. Yeah, like a

38:58

language doesn't have to be the it was

39:00

language or even the newest language. In order

39:02

to be cool, languages are great, all languages

39:04

are interesting and valid, and people for the

39:06

have the right to have access to them

39:09

when they want them. And by

39:11

listening to this episode, you

39:13

are participating in part of

39:15

that chain of human language

39:17

transmission that stretches beyond any.

39:20

Ones written, record or recorded, record

39:22

or video record you're still part

39:24

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