0:00:00.000,0:00:07.300 [intro music] 0:00:07.300,0:00:11.160 JENNY: Hi! and welcome to Linguistics After Dark. I'm Jenny, 0:00:11.160,0:00:13.240 SARAH: I'm Sarah, ELI: and I'm Eli. 0:00:13.240,0:00:19.240 ELI: If you've got a question about language, and you want experts to answer it without having done any research whatsoever, 0:00:19.240,0:00:20.840 ELI: we're your podcast. 0:00:20.840,0:00:24.080 JENNY: Settle in, grab a snack or a drink, and enjoy! 0:00:24.080,0:00:27.160 ELI: I like to think of us as Car Talk for linguistics, 0:00:27.380,0:00:30.860 ELI: like if your language is making a funny noise and you don't know what it is, 0:00:30.860,0:00:33.220 ELI: you can call us up and ask. SARAH: [laughs] 0:00:33.220,0:00:38.680 SARAH: So, apparently, the first episode, my family listened to in the car 0:00:38.680,0:00:45.880 as they were driving to our family Christmas thing, and my dad, who raised me on Car Talk, 0:00:45.880,0:00:52.480 was just like "Oh, yes. This." And then we got to the puzzler segment, and they were like, 0:00:52.480,0:00:55.180 "You are straight-up ripping off Car Talk," JENNY: [laughs] 0:00:55.180,0:00:57.860 and he told me that when we got together, and I was like, "Yes!" 0:00:57.860,0:00:59.420 ELI: Yes. SARAH: "Yes, we straight-up are." 0:00:59.420,0:01:02.840 ELI: We 100% are ripping off Car Talk, and it's great! 0:01:02.840,0:01:07.840 SARAH: Also, fun fact, when I was in college and I was taking my intro linguistics class, 0:01:07.840,0:01:14.030 one of our extra credit homework assignments was to listen to Car Talk and analyze the— 0:01:14.030,0:01:16.280 analyze the Klick and Klack accents. 0:01:16.280,0:01:19.740 ELI: Oh my gosh. SARAH: Um, and I was like, "Are you kidding, 0:01:19.740,0:01:23.640 you're gonna give me points in class for doing something I do anyway?" 0:01:23.640,0:01:26.380 SARAH and JENNY: Amazing! JENNY: [laughs] SARAH: It was so good. 0:01:26.380,0:01:31.880 ELI: I mean, that's all of intro ling for people who know that they're gonna be linguists SARAH: That's true. 0:01:31.880,0:01:35.600 JENNY: [laughs] ELI: Cool! Shall we all learn a language thing? 0:01:35.610,0:01:37.040 JENNY: Let's! Yes! 0:01:37.040,0:01:41.620 SARAH: All right, I'm so excited about this language thing. ELI: Yeahhhh! 0:01:41.620,0:01:43.280 SARAH: So, did you know 0:01:43.280,0:01:49.360 that there's a gummy candy that you can use to compare the sounds available in different languages, 0:01:49.360,0:01:54.523 and also study languages' potential historic connection to one another? 0:01:54.523,0:01:58.600 ELI: No? This feels— SARAH: It's the Swadesh fish. 0:01:58.600,0:02:00.860 [ELI and JENNY laugh, confused] 0:02:00.860,0:02:02.680 [SARAH laughs] 0:02:02.680,0:02:07.280 ELI: I don't—I don't—I feel like I learned a thing but it's not the thing you wanted me to learn. 0:02:07.280,0:02:09.640 [laughter] 0:02:09.640,0:02:13.960 SARAH: Okay, so, I've been sitting on that pun for like a year, 0:02:13.960,0:02:22.180 SARAH: So, a Swadesh list, which is not the same thing as Swedish fish, is a list of words 0:02:22.180,0:02:26.570 SARAH: developed by… somebody whose last name was Swadesh, I forget his first name— 0:02:26.570,0:02:31.660 ELI: —and we don't do research. SARAH: —and we don't do research— ELI: Look—look to the show notes to find out. 0:02:31.660,0:02:32.460 SARAH: Yeah. 0:02:32.460,0:02:35.020 SARAH: Or just imagine that he never had a first name. Either way. 0:02:35.020,0:02:37.060 ELI: [laughs] SARAH: So—[laughs] 0:02:37.060,0:02:42.360 SARAH: So, this guy, Swadesh, wrote a list of like 250-something words, that 0:02:42.360,0:02:46.220 has been revised a few times and replaced by other people's lists and whatever, 0:02:46.220,0:02:51.400 but it was like, "culturally stable," quote-unquote, words 0:02:51.400,0:02:55.540 that you could ask speakers of any language to produce, 0:02:55.540,0:03:01.940 and then you could write down what they say, and compare the words or the sounds 0:03:01.940,0:03:05.900 across several languages, to see if those languages are related. 0:03:05.900,0:03:09.700 ELI: So this is like kinship terms and that kind of thing, SARAH: Yeah, like kinship— 0:03:09.709,0:03:12.260 ELI: Like, "what's your name for 'mom' and 'dad' and—" SARAH: Right. 0:03:12.260,0:03:15.720 SARAH: Basic pronouns, basic animals, basic body parts, 0:03:15.720,0:03:24.720 things like the sky, the ground, water… things that are not very much culturally dependent. 0:03:24.720,0:03:29.600 SARAH: So the list has been revised a few times, based on, like, 0:03:29.600,0:03:34.680 things that they discovered in the process of using it actually *are* kind of culturally dependent, 0:03:34.680,0:03:37.080 so they either replaced a word or knocked it off. 0:03:37.080,0:03:40.940 SARAH: And then, like, other people later on wrote better lists that people use now, but 0:03:40.940,0:03:47.100 this was the first one that was really used to do this kind of cross-linguistic historical analysis? 0:03:47.100,0:03:54.280 SARAH: But I also used it for a project where I was pretending to do linguistic fieldwork, 0:03:54.280,0:04:00.680 because it was for class, and I was studying Romanian, which is a language we do know about, 0:04:00.680,0:04:06.900 it has been documented, but I was forbidden from— ELI: I thought you were gonna say, "I was studying Romanian, which is a language." 0:04:06.900,0:04:09.020 [laughter] 0:04:09.020,0:04:12.430 SARAH: It is, that's true. 0:04:12.430,0:04:17.200 SARAH: No, I—so I got a friend of mine who speaks Romanian, 0:04:17.200,0:04:21.580 and I was not allowed to look up anything about Romanian, 0:04:21.580,0:04:25.600 I just had to ask her to produce these words, 0:04:25.600,0:04:27.260 SARAH: so I would be like "how do you say 'mom'," 0:04:27.260,0:04:32.220 and she would say whatever is the Romanian word for "mom," and I went through this list of like 200 words, 0:04:32.220,0:04:38.820 and as she said them, I wrote down the phonetic transcription of the word, 0:04:38.820,0:04:40.340 and sometimes asked her, 0:04:40.340,0:04:46.280 "oh, so," y'know, "'mom' is a word; is… 'pom' also a word?" 0:04:46.280,0:04:52.920 SARAH: and if she said "yes, that's a different word," or "no, that's not a word," or "oh, that's the same word," 0:04:52.920,0:05:01.200 then based on her reaction to my question I could decide whether, like, [m] and [p] were both sounds that existed, 0:05:01.200,0:05:05.770 or sounds that didn't exist, or the same sound, to a Romanian speaker. 0:05:05.770,0:05:11.280 SARAH: And so I did this for a phonetics class, and I had to pretend to be like, a linguistic field worker 0:05:11.280,0:05:15.740 figuring out what the different sounds available in Romanian are. 0:05:15.740,0:05:20.730 Which was really fun! And I would love to do it again sometime. 0:05:20.730,0:05:28.440 ELI: Yeah, I agree, I found that—we did a field methods class when I was studying linguistics in college, 0:05:28.440,0:05:33.840 and that is one of my favorite things that I have done, when I was studying linguistics. 0:05:33.840,0:05:34.660 SARAH: Mm-hm. 0:05:34.660,0:05:40.540 ELI: We specifically picked a language that nobody in the class knew and then we broke up, like, 0:05:40.548,0:05:44.440 different aspects of the grammar, or the morphology, or the phonology, 0:05:44.440,0:05:47.780 ELI: so—I mean, we had a whole semester, it wasn't intro, 0:05:47.780,0:05:53.320 and we, like—we constructed a grammar of siSwati. 0:05:53.320,0:05:55.080 SARAH (hushed): That's so cool. ELI: Yeah. 0:05:55.080,0:06:00.750 ELI: So do you have an example of a word on a Swadesh list that 0:06:00.750,0:06:04.680 was found to be culturally dependent, and so was removed? 0:06:04.680,0:06:06.830 SARAH (slowly, thinking): Um… yes. 0:06:06.830,0:06:13.640 SARAH: Oh, so they originally had the word for "claw," like an animal claw, ELI: Mm-hm. 0:06:13.640,0:06:16.260 SARAH: but it turns out there's several languages 0:06:16.260,0:06:21.060 where "claws" for animal and "fingernails" for humans are not distinguished? 0:06:21.060,0:06:22.840 ELI: Oh, interesting. SARAH: And so… 0:06:22.840,0:06:26.080 SARAH: But like, the underlying concept was "fingernail," 0:06:26.080,0:06:31.920 and then I guess "claw" is a more specific word in more languages than "fingernail," 0:06:31.920,0:06:34.320 SARAH: so they replaced "claw" with "fingernail" JENNY: Cool 0:06:34.320,0:06:37.540 SARAH: so that you'd be getting the more general word in each language 0:06:37.540,0:06:40.720 SARAH: so that it was easier to see the historical connections. 0:06:40.720,0:06:44.140 ELI: That's really cool! and it sounds like a useful thing to have, 0:06:44.140,0:06:51.280 and probably something that linguists are still hammering out how exactly we can best use them, and what words should be on them. 0:06:51.280,0:06:52.940 SARAH: Mm-hm. 0:06:52.940,0:06:59.860 ELI: Okay, let's head to the main part of the show, with real language questions from real listeners. 0:06:59.860,0:07:04.690 ELI: As a reminder, if you want to send us a question, you can email it in text to 0:07:04.690,0:07:07.600 questions@linguisticsafterdark.com 0:07:07.600,0:07:11.900 Or you can send us an audio recording of you speaking your question aloud. 0:07:11.900,0:07:15.260 ELI: Especially for those phonology and accent questions, 0:07:15.260,0:07:19.460 ELI: it's really good to hear the accent that you're trying to talk about, 0:07:19.460,0:07:24.080 or the words that you're trying to talk about, so definitely email that audio in. 0:07:24.080,0:07:25.520 JENNY: Okay! 0:07:25.520,0:07:33.460 JENNY: Bex asks via Slack, "What composes an accent? Popularly it's sound production and word order, 0:07:33.460,0:07:38.020 but if I recall correctly, word choice is also a factor, so what else?" 0:07:38.020,0:07:44.240 and galadryels asks via Slack, "Also, little-kid speak: is it its own dialect?" 0:07:44.240,0:07:51.100 ELI: So we put these two questions together because they are phonetics-y things, 0:07:51.100,0:07:54.100 ELI: which also means that I'm going to throw this question at Sarah. 0:07:54.100,0:08:00.420 SARAH: Yeah, so, the first thing I thought about from Bex's question was that, yeah, accent is basically sound production. 0:08:00.420,0:08:06.180 SARAH: I tend to think of word order and word choice as being dialect. 0:08:06.180,0:08:08.480 JENNY: Mm-hm. ELI: Yeah, I would agree with that. 0:08:08.480,0:08:13.120 SARAH: So accent is typically, yeah, how you produce the sounds— 0:08:13.120,0:08:20.140 what vowels you use, what consonants you use, and in what contexts you use them. 0:08:20.140,0:08:23.500 SARAH: Because—I guess—one of my favorite examples, 0:08:23.500,0:08:29.000 which I feel like I might have talked about on a previous episode? but I also might not have, I don't know. 0:08:29.000,0:08:36.440 SARAH: I had two friends growing up that used the sound [eɪ] in words that I didn't, 0:08:36.440,0:08:39.180 but they used them in two different sets of words. 0:08:39.180,0:08:43.580 SARAH: So, one of them would eat scrambled [eɪ]ggs for breakfast, 0:08:43.580,0:08:47.360 and he had l[eɪ]gs that he walked with, 0:08:47.360,0:08:51.900 and I was like, "What are you doing, the sound in those words is [ε]!" 0:08:51.900,0:08:53.740 SARAH: And he was like, "You're wrong." 0:08:53.740,0:08:58.720 SARAH: And then, I also had a friend who carried her books to school in a b[eɪ]g, 0:08:58.720,0:09:02.080 and dogs, like, w[eɪ]gged their tails, 0:09:02.080,0:09:04.880 and I was like, "What are you doing, that sound is [æ]!" 0:09:04.880,0:09:07.820 SARAH: And she was like, "No, you're wrong." JENNY: [laughs] SARAH: And so, it's like, 0:09:07.820,0:09:12.440 SARAH: what sounds you have, but also what contexts you put them in. 0:09:12.440,0:09:15.920 ELI: Yeah, I mean, I think that there's a point to be made here 0:09:15.920,0:09:19.660 for people who haven't gone through a phonology class, 0:09:19.660,0:09:24.200 that sounds are not just the sound itself, 0:09:24.200,0:09:26.880 like the vowel itself or the consonant itself. 0:09:26.880,0:09:33.520 ELI: Sounds are a production of the environment, meaning the sounds that are on either side of them, 0:09:33.520,0:09:38.840 and occasionally, sometimes, supposedly, some sounds that are, like, even a little bit further away. 0:09:38.840,0:09:43.320 ELI: Or like the—whether that part of the word is stressed or not, 0:09:43.320,0:09:47.810 that that can affect what sound actually comes out of your mouth, 0:09:47.810,0:09:52.200 as opposed to what sound is in your brain that belongs to that word. 0:09:52.200,0:10:00.800 ELI: Which also sometimes is why you don't hear if somebody else has an accent, if it's slightly different than yours, 0:10:00.800,0:10:05.720 or if it's close enough, right, if you're not consciously focusing on that. 0:10:05.720,0:10:08.340 ELI: Or if somebody tells you that *you* have an accent, 0:10:08.340,0:10:12.260 you're gonna say no, not just because it's the way that you've always spoken, 0:10:12.260,0:10:18.720 but also because you don't hear the word that comes out of your mouth and throat, 0:10:18.720,0:10:22.620 ELI: you hear the word as the set of sounds that exists in your head. 0:10:22.620,0:10:23.680 SARAH: Yeah. 0:10:23.680,0:10:28.300 ELI: And your accent is kind of like a filter that goes on top of what's in your head, 0:10:28.300,0:10:33.040 to in between your brain and your throat and mouth. 0:10:33.040,0:10:34.660 SARAH: Yes. 0:10:34.660,0:10:38.120 SARAH: One of my other favorite things having to do with that was— 0:10:38.120,0:10:42.180 SARAH: I think, in the same class where we had the Car Talk assignment? 0:10:42.180,0:10:45.360 SARAH: Shout-out Professor Barnes, great human being. 0:10:45.360,0:10:54.540 SARAH: Um, he played us a clip of someone saying the sound—or word, I guess—[blak], 0:10:54.540,0:10:56.940 and asked us what word it was. 0:10:56.940,0:11:00.400 SARAH: I'm gonna say it again, and then I want to hear what each of you thinks what word I'm saying. 0:11:00.400,0:11:02.520 SARAH: And listeners, play along! 0:11:02.520,0:11:04.020 SARAH: [blak] 0:11:04.020,0:11:05.980 SARAH: Jenny, what did you hear? 0:11:05.980,0:11:08.770 JENNY: I definitely heard ⟨black⟩ like the color. 0:11:08.770,0:11:10.700 SARAH: Okay. Eli, what did you hear? 0:11:10.700,0:11:13.630 ELI: I also heard ⟨black⟩ as in the color. SARAH: Okay. 0:11:13.630,0:11:19.080 SARAH: So then, he played us the longer clip with the speaker saying the whole sentence, 0:11:19.080,0:11:22.360 where the speaker said, "around the [blak]." 0:11:22.360,0:11:24.140 JENNY: Ah. SARAH: What is it? 0:11:24.140,0:11:32.840 JENNY: So I heard around the ⟨block⟩ that time, with a like fairly strong accent… Wow, yeah, that's really cool. 0:11:32.840,0:11:34.420 SARAH: Eli, what do you think? 0:11:34.420,0:11:42.830 ELI: I mean obviously we were primed for it, but yeah, that word is definitely ⟨block⟩ as in a city block. SARAH: Yes. 0:11:42.830,0:11:48.080 SARAH: And I'm particularly interested, Eli, does that sound familiar to you, that like accent? 0:11:48.080,0:11:50.270 ELI: Yeah, I have no problem with that. 0:11:50.270,0:11:53.240 SARAH: It is the Chicago /ɑ/. ELI: Yes. 0:11:53.240,0:11:56.620 SARAH: Which, obviously you live in Chicago, that should not be surprising. 0:11:56.620,0:12:02.300 ELI: No, and I don't quite have that. I have final devoicing, but I don't quite have that. 0:12:02.300,0:12:07.320 SARAH: Um, but it's really interesting, because when you hear the word in isolation, 0:12:07.320,0:12:12.760 you hear it as, like, whatever it is to you? 0:12:12.760,0:12:16.080 but as soon as you get it into a context— 0:12:16.080,0:12:21.300 SARAH: and he probably did a better job giving us an entire sentence, where you also heard more of the speaker's voice, 0:12:21.300,0:12:27.220 but I don't remember the sentence and I'm not good enough at imitating the accent to do it off the top of my head— 0:12:27.220,0:12:31.260 SARAH: but as soon as you realize that that's what's happening, like, 0:12:31.260,0:12:34.900 the entire vowel space in your head just adjusts itself, 0:12:34.900,0:12:41.080 and you stop noticing or caring that the other person is saying slightly different vowels from what you're saying, 0:12:41.080,0:12:45.920 because you're like, "Oh, well, they say [æ] for [ɑ] and they say [eə] for [æ]," 0:12:45.920,0:12:50.120 SARAH: and it just like cycles around, and your brain is totally cool with it. 0:12:50.120,0:12:54.780 ELI: This is the thing that happened to me when I was a kid and we went on a trip to London 0:12:54.780,0:12:56.200 SARAH: Mm-hm? 0:12:56.200,0:13:01.600 ELI: I had the hardest time understanding people, for about the first 12 hours. 0:13:01.600,0:13:06.720 SARAH: Mm-hm. ELI: —and then something happened, and I was totally fine. 0:13:06.720,0:13:13.540 ELI: and I remember realizing it about a day into the trip and just being like, "Oh, okay!" 0:13:13.540,0:13:19.120 ELI: I was having to ask people to repeat themselves a lot, and all of a sudden I didn't have to. 0:13:19.120,0:13:21.580 ELI: Which is really cool! Brains are cool! 0:13:21.580,0:13:24.420 JENNY: They really are. SARAH: Brains are amazing. 0:13:24.420,0:13:28.120 ELI: But I think that this also—this plugs back into Bex's question, 0:13:28.120,0:13:32.140 ELI: about word choice SARAH: Mm-hm ELI: and word order? 0:13:32.140,0:13:36.640 ELI: Which—I'm interested to know what they're referring to, with "word order." 0:13:36.640,0:13:44.620 ELI: Word choice comes with dialect things, which often also comes with an accent, but they're two different things, 0:13:44.620,0:13:52.400 and that word choice is going to be part of the dialect, which you would use with whatever accent you're gonna use. 0:13:52.400,0:13:55.590 SARAH: Right. JENNY: Mm-hm. ELI: But sometimes this is where you get, like, 0:13:55.590,0:14:03.060 "Oh, the lilt" or "the brogue" or that kind of thing, where people kind of just lump it all in together. 0:14:03.060,0:14:08.200 SARAH: Yeah, I think word order—again, I don't know exactly what Bex was intending by that, 0:14:08.200,0:14:14.560 SARAH: but I—the thing that comes to my mind for it is whether you say, like, 0:14:14.560,0:14:17.580 "plug in something" or "plug something in", 0:14:17.580,0:14:25.140 SARAH: or how flexible you can be with raising—Is it called "raising" with parts of the sentence? 0:14:25.140,0:14:28.100 ELI: Uh... SARAH: Topicalization kind of stuff? ELI: Yeah. 0:14:28.100,0:14:33.580 SARAH: Yeah, so how flexible you can be with raising a later part of the sentence earlier 0:14:33.580,0:14:38.580 to emphasize things, or whether you can just raise it up and it's not emphatic necessarily. 0:14:38.580,0:14:43.760 SARAH: So, I can say, like, "The car, I bought." 0:14:43.760,0:14:49.960 SARAH: And if you just mean that to be "I bought the car," for most people that's weird. 0:14:49.960,0:14:54.500 SARAH: I can imagine there are some dialects where that's less weird. I don't know. 0:14:54.500,0:15:00.800 ELI: I mean there's a pretty solid—like if you grew up in a family where 0:15:00.800,0:15:06.980 your parents or grandparents were Yiddish or German, like, spoke Yiddish or German, 0:15:06.980,0:15:13.640 ELI: then you will really often get that kind of thing, and sometimes it's emphatic and sometimes it's not. 0:15:13.640,0:15:16.260 SARAH: Yeah, actually the example I had in mind 0:15:16.260,0:15:21.800 was an English teacher I had who did, she—her family spoke Yiddish, 0:15:21.800,0:15:26.760 and she apologized to us on, like, the first or second day of school and said, "Look, 0:15:26.760,0:15:31.020 I'm gonna say some weird things, like, 'throw me up the stairs the hat,' 0:15:31.020,0:15:34.480 instead of 'throw the hat up the stairs to me'. 0:15:34.480,0:15:42.380 Just like, that's just how my parents talk, so it's how I talk, and if I say something that you don't understand, just tell me to re-say it." 0:15:42.380,0:15:45.700 SARAH: And so I've had that sentence, like, in my brain as an example. 0:15:45.700,0:15:47.960 ELI: I like that. JENNY: That's fun, yeah. 0:15:47.960,0:15:51.760 ELI: So let's move on to galadryels' part of this question, 0:15:51.760,0:15:57.560 which is about little-kid speak, and whether that's a dialect or an accent, or what is going on there. 0:15:57.560,0:15:58.800 SARAH: Mm-hm. 0:15:58.800,0:16:04.500 SARAH: That's a really good question because it then gets to, like, "Well, what is a dialect?" 0:16:04.500,0:16:08.680 SARAH: And as we were talking about the whole accent thing and, like Eli was saying, 0:16:08.680,0:16:15.080 word choice moves into the concept of a dialect that accent kind of overlays with, 0:16:15.080,0:16:20.060 there's also, like, that spectrum of dialect to language. 0:16:20.060,0:16:25.440 SARAH: So there's that famous quip that's like, "A language is just a dialect with an army and a navy," 0:16:25.440,0:16:29.020 which I think is cool and, like, definitely true, 0:16:29.020,0:16:33.880 because we associate languages with geopolitical entities, usually? 0:16:33.880,0:16:39.620 But like, if you go to Germany and if you go to the Netherlands, 0:16:39.620,0:16:41.820 you expect to hear German and Dutch, 0:16:41.820,0:16:49.660 but actually in the region on either side of the political border between Germany and the Netherlands, 0:16:49.660,0:16:58.600 those speakers of Dutch and those speakers of German—I think, if I recall correctly—are more mutually intelligible to each other, 0:16:58.600,0:17:06.800 or *are* mutually intelligible to each other, in a way that they are not with other speakers in their own country, 0:17:06.800,0:17:15.260 or the speakers farther away from each other in Germany and the Netherlands would be. 0:17:15.260,0:17:19.660 SARAH: And so, if you had just drawn those political borders slightly differently, 0:17:19.660,0:17:22.800 you could have three different "languages," quote-unquote. 0:17:22.800,0:17:29.620 SARAH: Or just one language! And you would just be like, "Oh, these are dialects of… Germanodutch. 0:17:29.620,0:17:33.480 SARAH: Or whatever. Deutschdutch. 0:17:33.480,0:17:35.160 ELI: Yeah, exactly. 0:17:35.160,0:17:41.260 ELI: You can see some similar stuff with like the northern Midwest and Canada, SARAH: Mm-hm. 0:17:41.260,0:17:46.480 ELI: Where you've got a lot of similar things happening phonologically and, I think, 0:17:46.480,0:17:49.800 like, morphologically and syntactically, 0:17:49.800,0:17:54.860 ELI: where American English and Canadian English start to overlap, 0:17:54.860,0:17:59.600 ELI: but those are, like, two well-established dialects that we talk about. 0:17:59.600,0:18:01.032 SARAH and JENNY: Mm-hm. 0:18:01.032,0:18:05.280 JENNY: I was also thinking about—I don't remember which countries it is, 0:18:05.280,0:18:10.940 but you've got situations in Scandinavia, I think, where 0:18:10.940,0:18:17.400 you'll have, like, a mutual intelligibility thing, and if they weren't two different countries 0:18:17.400,0:18:25.240 then they would be considered different dialects, because there's so much overlap, and so much, like, 0:18:25.240,0:18:31.280 so much of the language is mutually intelligible—er, the—of the languages are mutually intelligible. 0:18:31.280,0:18:38.160 JENNY: Versus, like, Italy, where you have all these different quote-unquote "dialects," 0:18:38.160,0:18:46.840 that are so completely mutually unintelligible that if they weren't all in Italy, 0:18:46.840,0:18:52.200 they would be considered different languages, but they get talked about as being dialects of Italian. 0:18:52.200,0:18:55.740 SARAH: I was about to say the same thing about China. JENNY: Ooohhh, uh-huh. 0:18:55.740,0:19:00.100 SARAH: 'Cause people always describe Mandarin and Cantonese as being dialects. 0:19:00.100,0:19:06.520 SARAH: And like, they share a writing system and they share some historical roots, 0:19:06.520,0:19:11.440 like there's a lot of phrases that you can see how they are similar to each other, like— 0:19:11.440,0:19:16.060 SARAH: I suck at Cantonese, but nǐ hǎo (你好) in Mandarin 0:19:16.060,0:19:21.460 and like nei hou (你好)—except with better tones—in Cantonese are both "hello," 0:19:21.460,0:19:25.560 but then a lot of other phrases aren't even that close to the same, 0:19:25.560,0:19:32.320 SARAH: let alone all of the other, uh... I'm gonna say *languages* that are spoken in China. 0:19:32.320,0:19:37.700 SARAH: But people just say, "oh, it's a dialect of Chinese," and I feel like we really should be calling them Chinese languages. 0:19:37.700,0:19:42.880 ELI: Yeah, Victor Mair from Language Log usually uses the word "topolects"— 0:19:42.880,0:19:45.580 SARAH: Oooh! ELI: —to kind of sidestep the whole 0:19:45.580,0:19:50.500 ELI: language/dialect thing, I think especially because there's some political considerations there. JENNY: Mm-hm. 0:19:50.500,0:19:52.480 Sarah: Yeah. That's a good word. 0:19:52.480,0:19:55.080 ELI: That makes it really clear that it's— 0:19:55.080,0:19:58.980 ELI: that those, like, those languages or those topolects, I guess, 0:19:58.980,0:20:03.760 are really specifically languages that belong to a specific place. 0:20:03.760,0:20:05.120 SARAH: Mm-hm. 0:20:05.120,0:20:07.820 ELI: I think it also sidesteps the idea that 0:20:07.820,0:20:11.820 there are some languages that are within the Chinese borders, that 0:20:11.820,0:20:17.620 are definitely not Sinitic languages, that kind of get lumped in with Chinese. 0:20:17.620,0:20:20.060 JENNY: Yeah, that's a good point. 0:20:20.300,0:20:26.360 ELI: Yeah, so topolect goes into this whole thing where you have dialect, 0:20:26.360,0:20:30.700 there's topolect, there's famililect, which is, like, within your own family, 0:20:30.700,0:20:35.780 and there's idiolect, which is like, the dialect that is just you! SARAH: Yeah! 0:20:35.780,0:20:38.480 ELI: You're the only speaker of that dialect! 0:20:38.480,0:20:43.360 ELI: And then language just gets to be special because it has this 0:20:43.360,0:20:51.480 political affiliation, which is also why there's a lot of like separatist regions or claims for independence 0:20:51.480,0:20:56.210 that are based around, "Well, we have our own language." You know, you've got— 0:20:56.210,0:21:02.040 ELI: in Spain, you've got the Basque region and you've got Catalonia speaking Catalan, right? JENNY: Mm-hmm. 0:21:02.040,0:21:08.920 ELI: Not that Linguistics After Dark takes any particular political stances on the geopolitical stage. JENNY: Right. 0:21:08.920,0:21:11.560 ELI: So what do we think about this little-kid speak thing? 0:21:11.570,0:21:16.940 ELI: I mean, I think there's a question, is this the language of small children, 0:21:16.940,0:21:21.800 or is this the language that adults tend to speak to babies? 0:21:21.800,0:21:22.680 SARAH: True. 0:21:22.680,0:21:28.520 ELI: I think we should approach this from the idea of what adults say to little kids, because 0:21:28.520,0:21:31.160 little kids learning to talk is acquisition. 0:21:31.160,0:21:33.500 ELI: We've been talking about dialect and accent. 0:21:33.500,0:21:38.580 ELI: If y'all want to learn about acquisition, send us a question about acquisition and we'll talk about that. 0:21:38.580,0:21:41.380 ELI: But for this, what do we think about baby talk? 0:21:41.380,0:21:47.180 JENNY: I would have said that's less a dialect and more a register. 0:21:47.180,0:21:49.380 ELI: Oh! SARAH: Yeah! ELI: I like that. 0:21:49.380,0:21:51.480 ELI: What's—can you explain what a register is? 0:21:51.480,0:21:57.980 JENNY: So a register is like the style or mode of speaking. 0:21:57.980,0:22:03.220 JENNY: Like, one person with one dialect can have multiple registers. 0:22:03.220,0:22:07.680 JENNY: So I have a register for academic English for when I'm writing an essay, 0:22:07.680,0:22:16.180 and I have a formal register for, like, talking to a professor but face-to-face or talking to a supervisor at work, 0:22:16.180,0:22:18.380 where I'm being formal and professional, 0:22:18.380,0:22:23.840 but I'm not going to be using the same types of sentence constructions and word choices 0:22:23.840,0:22:27.280 as in, like, an essay or my senior thesis or whatever. 0:22:27.280,0:22:33.380 JENNY: And then I've got a different register from both of those for, you know, texting my friends, 0:22:33.380,0:22:37.029 or talking to my friends face-to-face. 0:22:37.029,0:22:42.660 JENNY: And where the lines between your different registers are drawn is going to depend on 0:22:42.660,0:22:47.100 the social contexts in which you use them, 0:22:47.100,0:22:53.100 and so that can be kind of flexible, and vary from person to person. 0:22:53.100,0:22:56.400 JENNY: But everyone has different registers that they use, 0:22:56.400,0:23:04.120 and code switches between them, usually without, or often without realizing, that that's what they're doing. 0:23:04.120,0:23:08.000 SARAH: Mm-hm. JENNY: So I think that I would consider baby talk 0:23:08.000,0:23:10.560 (or parentese, or whatever you want to call that,) 0:23:10.560,0:23:15.920 a register that a lot of people use for talking to little kids. 0:23:15.920,0:23:18.700 ELI: I dig this explanation. SARAH: Definitely. 0:23:18.700,0:23:24.700 ELI: And I tell you why I dig this explanation, and it's because of how people speak to their pets. 0:23:24.700,0:23:31.340 SARAH: Mm-hm. ELI: So, there are some people who baby talk to their pets, and there are some people who talk to their pets 0:23:31.340,0:23:35.500 ELI: as though they are fully-formed adults who also inhabit the house. 0:23:35.500,0:23:40.780 JENNY: Uh-huh. ELI: And when I have, like, tried to baby talk to a pet and it's felt weird, 0:23:40.780,0:23:47.860 it's felt weird in the way that speaking to an adult like talking to a baby, 0:23:47.860,0:23:54.140 or like speaking formally in an informal situation, would feel weird. 0:23:54.140,0:23:59.800 ELI: So, it's the exact same feeling for me, and to me that's like, 0:23:59.800,0:24:03.200 you hit the nail right on the head with this being a register thing, 0:24:03.200,0:24:05.220 not a dialect or an accent thing. 0:24:05.220,0:24:11.180 SARAH: Yeah. JENNY: Yeah, I hadn't thought about the pets part but I think you're right, and I think that makes a lot of sense. 0:24:11.180,0:24:14.660 SARAH and ELI: Cool . ELI: Are we ready to move on to another question? 0:24:14.660,0:24:16.200 SARAH: Yeah. JENNY: I'm good. 0:24:16.200,0:24:19.500 SARAH: All right, so our next question is from Georgia, via email, 0:24:19.500,0:24:25.300 and Georgia asks, "What's the most valuable way you believe that linguistics can improve society?" 0:24:25.300,0:24:28.920 ELI: Oooh, um, there are so many ways. 0:24:28.920,0:24:34.280 ELI: I think that we're really starting to see the way that springs to mind for me, 0:24:34.280,0:24:40.340 which is letting go of peevishness. 0:24:40.340,0:24:44.060 ELI: We're starting to see this happen a little bit, 0:24:44.060,0:24:48.740 as people start to understand the relationship between prescriptivism and descriptivism, 0:24:48.740,0:24:49.880 SARAH: Mm-hm. JENNY: Mm-hm. 0:24:49.880,0:24:53.460 ELI: and this also just calls back to the register thing, because 0:24:53.460,0:24:58.840 there are places where you're going to want to be a little more conservative about how you speak, 0:24:58.840,0:25:02.620 and there are places where it's not going to matter so much. 0:25:02.620,0:25:10.100 ELI: The idea of prescriptivism, or linguistic peevery, is that there *aren't* different registers, 0:25:10.100,0:25:13.620 and I think people are really starting to realize that, no, 0:25:13.620,0:25:17.620 this is how people have always varied their speech, 0:25:17.620,0:25:21.980 ELI: and I think that that will open us to a point where 0:25:21.980,0:25:28.220 we stop judging people because of the register or dialect that they're using, 0:25:28.220,0:25:33.320 and understand it as a linguistic function of that person interacting with society 0:25:33.320,0:25:38.820 ELI: in a way that might have been unexpected to us, but isn't wrong or bad or evil. 0:25:38.820,0:25:40.460 SARAH: Mm-hm. JENNY: Right. 0:25:40.460,0:25:47.420 ELI: Another outgrowth of that is starting to look at things like comparison between so-called "standard" American English 0:25:47.420,0:25:50.150 ELI: and African American Vernacular English, 0:25:50.150,0:25:57.740 SARAH: Mm-hm. ELI: where I think the general awareness of African American Vernacular English 0:25:57.740,0:26:05.720 as a solid alternate dialect of English, and also a disestablishment of so-called "standard" English 0:26:05.720,0:26:08.140 as having some kind of prestige, 0:26:08.140,0:26:15.320 would be a really valuable way to start breaking down an unconscious barrier in society. 0:26:15.320,0:26:16.840 SARAH: Mm-hm, yes. 0:26:16.840,0:26:23.320 SARAH: That's something I talk about with my students a lot. Not necessarily in that level of formality, 0:26:23.320,0:26:29.320 but when I talk about writing or I talk about formal usage of language for school purposes, 0:26:29.320,0:26:36.559 I try to impress on them that when we talk about grammar rules that you're learning in school, 0:26:36.559,0:26:42.540 it's not about "this is the only way to speak" but "this is a style that you should learn, 0:26:42.540,0:26:47.140 and that you should be able to use in an academic setting, or a formal setting, 0:26:47.140,0:26:51.480 because you convey not only the content of your words, 0:26:51.480,0:26:59.440 but also some emotion and some, like, information about your level of seriousness and whatever, 0:26:59.440,0:27:02.310 with the way that you get your content across." 0:27:02.310,0:27:11.980 SARAH: And so definitely black students, and also white students, or second language English users, 0:27:11.980,0:27:20.780 whatever English you're using in your free time, in your downtime, whatever your casual social register is, 0:27:20.780,0:27:23.920 it's probably going to be different from most of the other kids in the class. 0:27:23.920,0:27:31.000 SARAH: Probably in a group of twenty kids, I have like twelve different kinds of downtime social registers. 0:27:31.000,0:27:38.300 SARAH: What we're aiming for is like a single academic register that everyone can kind of agree on, so to speak, 0:27:38.300,0:27:43.180 and I think, Eli, you were saying that we run into trouble when people are like, 0:27:43.180,0:27:48.820 "Well, how come you're not using that very particular 'standard' register all the time? 0:27:48.820,0:27:52.400 Because I use it all the time, so how come everybody else doesn't use it all the time?" 0:27:52.400,0:27:57.700 SARAH: And yeah, I think we definitely are seeing that sort of deteriorate. 0:27:57.700,0:28:01.420 SARAH: Slowly, but we definitely are. 0:28:01.420,0:28:06.780 ELI: And more linguistic awareness of that, I think, would be a net positive on society. 0:28:06.780,0:28:07.600 SARAH: Yes. 0:28:07.600,0:28:11.200 JENNY: I think you could also draw a connection to 0:28:11.200,0:28:15.680 recognition of language evolution and language change, like the idea that 0:28:15.680,0:28:20.340 language changes, language always has changed, that's not a bad thing. 0:28:20.340,0:28:23.880 JENNY: The kids today aren't "ruining language," 0:28:23.880,0:28:29.480 any more than they were when people talked about that fifty years ago, or two thousand years ago. 0:28:29.480,0:28:35.100 JENNY: Language changes, and that's fine. 0:28:35.100,0:28:42.680 JENNY: And I think that that has—like, people have also been kind of growing more aware of that, 0:28:42.680,0:28:44.540 JENNY: and talking about that more. ELI: mmhmm 0:28:44.540,0:28:51.960 JENNY: And I think that can go hand-in hand with the "there are different versions of language already right now, 0:28:51.960,0:28:57.240 and that's also fine and the way language has always been," yeah? 0:28:57.240,0:29:05.240 SARAH: Yeah. I think it's interesting, too, because a lot of that, like, "there is one right way of talking," 0:29:05.240,0:29:12.620 I feel like the recent problem, and—I have absolutely no evidence to back this up, 0:29:12.620,0:29:16.640 and I'm not looking for any because we don't do research, but… 0:29:16.640,0:29:22.540 SARAH: I would posit that that has a lot to do with the rise of mass communication, 0:29:22.540,0:29:25.820 such as radio and television, and now the internet, 0:29:25.820,0:29:32.780 where people are hearing the standard broadcast accent, the standard broadcast register, 0:29:32.780,0:29:41.180 and the people for whom that is their, like, native accent, native register of casual speech, 0:29:41.180,0:29:42.900 SARAH: they're like, "Oh, I'm doing it right, 0:29:42.900,0:29:47.760 I hear it validated," and even if it's subconscious, they're like, "Oh, this is the way things are." 0:29:47.760,0:29:52.160 SARAH: And then to hear other people not doing that, they're like, 0:29:52.160,0:29:58.240 "Why are they not doing that? That's just the way it is!" And they don't realize that not everyone has that. 0:29:58.240,0:30:05.220 SARAH: Which, I think about that a lot when I think about Great Britain, because every time I hear of a new accent, 0:30:05.220,0:30:11.120 or a new, like, regionalism, or like, "oh yeah, I can tell you're from this particular area of Great Britain, 0:30:11.120,0:30:13.240 because of you said this thing or whatever," 0:30:13.240,0:30:20.680 it blows my mind, because I think about the same reactions I have to American and Canadian speakers, 0:30:20.680,0:30:26.560 and how much geographical space we have in North America, 0:30:26.560,0:30:33.320 and then comparatively how little geographical space there is in Great Britain. 0:30:33.320,0:30:36.680 SARAH: Like, as a country, it is not a big place. 0:30:36.680,0:30:43.040 JENNY: [laughs] No, it is not. SARAH: And they have so many very distinct accents that are so small and so regional, 0:30:43.040,0:30:50.600 and like, there's no way that they are sitting there going, "oh, this is the Right Way to speak English." 0:30:50.600,0:30:53.480 SARAH: I mean, they probably are, because I'm sure there are people like that everywhere, 0:30:53.480,0:31:00.000 but you can't live in a country that small, and with the travel possibilities that we have now— 0:31:00.000,0:31:03.720 SARAH: like, you can go to all the cities in England if you want to, 0:31:03.720,0:31:07.020 and Scotland and Wales and Ireland and like in that area, 0:31:07.020,0:31:09.680 and hear so many different kinds of English, 0:31:09.680,0:31:13.260 SARAH: and you might like some of them better, you might, like, 0:31:13.260,0:31:16.720 dislike a certain group of people who speak a certain variety and therefore 0:31:16.720,0:31:20.800 be like, "Well the people I hate speak that way, so I hate that way of speaking," 0:31:20.800,0:31:27.280 but you can't have that, like, weird underlying thought, that "Oh, there's one way of doing this." 0:31:27.280,0:31:33.260 SARAH: And I think a lot of the variation in North America, 0:31:33.260,0:31:37.920 there is still a ton of variation, but I think it's more… gradual? 0:31:37.920,0:31:42.820 SARAH: Like the difference between different parts of the Midwest, 0:31:42.820,0:31:45.920 and the different parts of New England, are subtler? 0:31:45.920,0:31:52.740 SARAH: And so—and even the transition from the Northeast into like the Mid-Atlantic into the Midwest, 0:31:52.740,0:31:56.040 there are hallmarks of each of those regions, 0:31:56.040,0:32:01.200 but they're not like a full-on, "Oh my god, I—you're not from here, you're so different," 0:32:01.200,0:32:03.320 SARAH: and so... I don't know. 0:32:03.320,0:32:05.600 SARAH: I don't know where I was going with that, I'm sorry. 0:32:05.600,0:32:10.680 ELI: Well, I have a place to go with that, which is to talk about Received Pronunciation, or RP— 0:32:10.680,0:32:16.720 SARAH: Right. ELI: —which is the BBC's—or actually *was* the BBC's—standard required accent 0:32:16.720,0:32:21.780 for all of its radio announcers and television announcers until very recently. 0:32:21.780,0:32:24.140 ELI: I think in the last ten or fifteen years, 0:32:24.140,0:32:30.940 the BBC allowed its anchors to not speak in RP, and instead speak in their native accent, 0:32:30.940,0:32:37.800 and now all of a sudden you hear Scottish accents and Northern accents and Welsh accents 0:32:37.800,0:32:40.480 all over the BBC, and it's fantastic, 0:32:40.480,0:32:47.320 but they used to have this standard, required, 0:32:47.320,0:32:53.080 ELI: one-size-fits-all thing for the entire country, which was then given prestige. 0:32:53.080,0:32:56.520 SARAH: Right. ELI: And people considered that to— 0:32:56.520,0:33:00.340 ELI: I don't know if people considered it to be the one true way for everyday speech, 0:33:00.340,0:33:06.500 but it certainly was like a government-endorsed, "here is the accent that we think is right." 0:33:06.500,0:33:13.820 ELI: I wonder if your thing about regional differences in America being much more gradual, 0:33:13.820,0:33:22.500 despite the fact that we have much more area to cover, has to do with differing ideas of regional identity? 0:33:22.500,0:33:26.680 SARAH: Yeah, I feel like our regional identities are much bigger. ELI: Yes. 0:33:26.680,0:33:30.780 SARAH: Like, we don't have a lot of stock in "I'm from this town," 0:33:30.780,0:33:33.160 we have a lot of stock in "I'm from this state," 0:33:33.160,0:33:36.020 SARAH: or even "I'm from this group of five states." 0:33:36.020,0:33:39.420 ELI: Yeah, exactly, I think, like—for example, my— 0:33:39.420,0:33:45.760 ELI: If somebody were to ask me like my core sub-American locative identity I would say, 0:33:45.760,0:33:50.720 ELI: like, I would first say Midwestern, before I would say Illinois or Chicago. 0:33:50.720,0:33:51.460 SARAH: Yeah. 0:33:51.460,0:33:53.180 SARAH: Yeah, and I guess that's what really gets me, 0:33:53.180,0:33:57.540 because I'm like, "We have these regions that are several states big," 0:33:57.540,0:34:02.540 and then I look at the UK and I'm like, "You are *a* state. 0:34:02.540,0:34:07.240 I mean not really, you're like four states, but you're the size of some American states." 0:34:07.240,0:34:11.060 SARAH: And so to be like, "Oh, this region is like six of you," 0:34:11.060,0:34:18.940 SARAH: but then you have SO many really distinct varieties in that small area, it's just baffling. 0:34:18.940,0:34:26.060 ELI: Yeah, you get people who are like, "Excuse you, I'm from Stratford EAST of Avon, not Stratford WEST of Avon." 0:34:26.060,0:34:27.660 SARAH: Right. [JENNY laughs] 0:34:27.660,0:34:31.220 JENNY: I will say, coming at this as someone who has spent 0:34:31.220,0:34:35.660 most of the last decade-and-then-some in California 0:34:35.660,0:34:41.700 throws things off a little bit, because I think I would say "Southern California" or "San Diego" 0:34:41.700,0:34:45.060 about as frequently as I would say "I'm from California"? 0:34:45.060,0:34:54.720 JENNY: Because Southern California and Northern California are very different regions in some ways. SARAH: Yeah. 0:34:54.720,0:34:59.580 JENNY: But at the same time, like, California also definitely has 0:34:59.580,0:35:03.700 JENNY: an identity unto itself. ELI: I mean, California's huge. JENNY: California's really big. 0:35:03.700,0:35:14.140 JENNY: California's *really* big. SARAH: It's really big and it spans some continental, and, like, national United States region breaks, 0:35:14.140,0:35:18.680 SARAH: in a way that other big states like Alaska and Texas don't. JENNY: Yep. 0:35:18.680,0:35:22.480 SARAH: So like— JENNY: Because it's not just big, it's long. 0:35:22.480,0:35:25.260 ELI: Yeah. SARAH: Right, it's long and it's along the coast, 0:35:25.260,0:35:31.340 SARAH: and so—like, Texas is enormous, but it's surrounded by other southern states only. 0:35:31.340,0:35:37.180 JENNY: Yep. SARAH: Whereas California is surrounded by, like, southwestern states, on one end, 0:35:37.180,0:35:41.760 SARAH: and the Pacific Northwest on the other, and if you think about those regionally, 0:35:41.760,0:35:50.160 JENNY: Mm-hm. SARAH: I don't—I cannot fathom a cultural or regional similarity between, like, Oregon and Arizona. 0:35:50.160,0:35:57.200 JENNY: So yeah, so that throws off the "I would say region first", because I think I would say 0:35:57.200,0:36:03.000 California sometimes and Southern California other times, depending on the context 0:36:03.000,0:36:07.640 JENNY: in which I'm being asked to explain where I'm from? but— 0:36:07.640,0:36:11.160 SARAH: Well in some ways, Southern California *is* the region level for you. 0:36:11.160,0:36:19.140 JENNY: Yeah. But regardless, the point is that like, the idea of having that many different regional identities 0:36:19.140,0:36:28.060 in one tiny, tiny geographical area is kind of all the more mind-boggling, because it's like, 0:36:28.060,0:36:38.640 JENNY: California is weird in terms of size and identity in like the exact opposite way, somehow. SARAH: Yeah. 0:36:38.640,0:36:45.240 ELI: Switching gears a little bit, I also want to answer this question in a different way, which is that I think 0:36:45.240,0:36:54.380 contact with linguistics in general makes one more likely to be a polyglot, or learn a second language 0:36:54.380,0:36:58.640 SARAH: Mm-hm. ELI: And I think America is a really interesting place 0:36:58.640,0:37:02.660 because many people here do speak more than one language fluently, 0:37:02.660,0:37:07.060 but the majority of Americans speak only one language fluently, 0:37:07.060,0:37:12.280 ELI: and that is not true basically anywhere else in the world. 0:37:12.280,0:37:16.340 SARAH: Mm-hm. ELI: Everywhere else in the world, people are polyglots by default, 0:37:16.340,0:37:21.860 and not even necessarily just because oh, they have to learn English in school for business, 0:37:21.860,0:37:26.820 but because they're living in a place where they do actually have to use 0:37:26.820,0:37:31.300 both or all three of the languages that they know on a daily basis. 0:37:31.300,0:37:34.820 SARAH: Yeah. ELI: And I think that knowing more than one language 0:37:34.820,0:37:42.400 expands your capacity to imagine different cultures, but I think it also probably promotes a little bit of wanderlust 0:37:42.400,0:37:47.500 ELI: to go learn about the people who speak that language, if it's not one that you're using every day. 0:37:47.500,0:37:52.060 SARAH: Yeah. JENNY: That makes sense. SARAH: It also, like— 0:37:52.060,0:38:00.340 SARAH: Even studying languages that you don't use on a daily basis or that you are unlikely to go visit, 0:38:00.340,0:38:07.120 for whatever reason—whether you are like me and studying historical languages that are not actively used anymore, 0:38:07.120,0:38:11.600 or you're studying a language from somewhere so far away that you don't have the funds 0:38:11.600,0:38:14.340 SARAH: or don't foresee ever having the funds to get there— 0:38:14.340,0:38:23.420 SARAH: I just think that studying a language, learning new words, learning new ways that concepts can be delineated— 0:38:23.420,0:38:27.720 like the thing with the Swadesh list about, like, what words are culturally dependent? 0:38:27.720,0:38:32.540 SARAH: Why do we say claw and fingernail and then some people just use fingernail? 0:38:32.560,0:38:38.700 SARAH: Or, you know, where do we draw the lines between different types of family members or different colors? 0:38:38.700,0:38:43.140 SARAH: It just—it makes you think about the world, and makes you think about how brains work. 0:38:43.140,0:38:50.160 SARAH: And like, learning other languages has improved my English, I think, 0:38:50.160,0:38:54.240 because I've been exposed to different sentence patterns 0:38:54.240,0:38:58.820 and different, like, ways of emphasizing or caring about things 0:38:58.820,0:39:01.980 SARAH: in terms of how you express yourself, 0:39:01.980,0:39:09.100 and it kind of gives me more options. Like obviously not every sentence pattern from Chinese 0:39:09.100,0:39:13.740 is a valid sentence pattern in English—and there I go saying "Chinese"; 0:39:13.740,0:39:15.800 I should say "Mandarin" 'cause that's what I know— 0:39:15.800,0:39:20.560 SARAH: but like, it makes you think and gives you a little bit of flexibility. 0:39:20.560,0:39:28.920 ELI: I think an interesting outgrowth of this is that different languages have different obligatory parts to them, 0:39:28.920,0:39:35.740 and a big example of this is evidentials, which I won't go super deep into, but basically, in some languages, 0:39:35.740,0:39:42.620 you can't just assert a fact, you have to also state implicitly in the way that you're asserting that fact 0:39:42.620,0:39:48.080 how you know that fact, whether you saw it or heard it from somebody, or it's common knowledge, 0:39:48.080,0:39:52.600 ELI: or you don't know it but you think that it's true, or something like that. 0:39:52.600,0:40:00.140 ELI: And some languages have no way for you to just assert a fact without having the evidential on it, 0:40:00.140,0:40:04.880 SARAH: Mm-hm. ELI: but in English, for example, and and many other common languages, 0:40:04.880,0:40:11.160 you don't have to obligatorily say how you know something. But you can! 0:40:11.160,0:40:17.500 ELI: There's nothing in English that stops you from saying, you know, "The sky is blue and that's common knowledge," 0:40:17.500,0:40:26.740 ELI: right— SARAH: Right. ELI: —or "Oh, my friend has an appointment this afternoon, I saw it in her agenda" or whatever. 0:40:26.740,0:40:32.980 ELI: And so that's a different, you know—It's not just word order for sentence pattern and that kind of thing, 0:40:32.980,0:40:38.500 it's also these kinds of obligatory things or different ways that tenses are broken up, 0:40:38.500,0:40:41.700 different ways of thinking about patterns in time, 0:40:41.700,0:40:44.720 and then you also mentioned kinship stuff, right, 0:40:44.720,0:40:52.430 where it's like, "Oh, are the uncles that are my mom's brothers different than the uncles that are my dad's brothers?" 0:40:52.430,0:41:00.640 Or like, "Are all of the people who are, you know, not directly in my immediate family 0:41:00.640,0:41:05.460 but at my generation, do I just have one name for them?" right, 0:41:05.460,0:41:11.620 ELI: which, there are some languages that do that. English doesn't. We have several different kinds of cousins for that. 0:41:11.620,0:41:15.660 SARAH: Yes, if we bother. JENNY: Mm-hm. ELI: If we bother, right. 0:41:15.660,0:41:22.220 ELI: So I—yeah, I think that it's a really great point, that it's not just 0:41:22.220,0:41:26.900 directly related to the language that you might be learning, but just the idea that 0:41:26.900,0:41:33.180 so many people tie ability to think and ability to express with the way that language happens, 0:41:33.180,0:41:39.040 ELI: that having your eyes opened to other options probably correlates—we don't do research— 0:41:39.040,0:41:43.980 ELI: it probably correlates with being able to more quickly understand 0:41:43.980,0:41:48.420 ELI: that somebody that you're talking with may not have that same frame of reference. SARAH: Mm-hm. 0:41:48.420,0:41:56.700 JENNY: Right. SARAH: So you two both definitely said what I think of maybe the top two most valuable ways, 0:41:56.700,0:42:04.329 but a third valuable thing that I thought about when Eli said "general contact with linguistics" is 0:42:04.329,0:42:15.360 realizing how influential language is and the study of language in virtually every other domain. 0:42:15.360,0:42:20.700 ELI: Oh, yeah. JENNY: Yeah. SARAH: There is a fantastic infographic— 0:42:20.700,0:42:24.540 I'm sure there's many of them; I will find one of them and put it in the show notes— 0:42:24.540,0:42:27.600 ELI: I know exactly the infographic that you're thinking of, though. 0:42:27.600,0:42:31.640 SARAH: Yeah. Yeah, it's like a giant circle, and some versions of it 0:42:31.640,0:42:36.560 is like, a circle in the middle and then a bunch of circles overlapping it like a giant Venn diagram, 0:42:36.560,0:42:42.660 and then some of them it's just a circle in the middle with like an outer circle and pie slices, 0:42:42.660,0:42:45.060 but it's like, okay here's linguistics in the middle, 0:42:45.060,0:42:51.880 and then on the outside there's like biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, 0:42:51.880,0:43:00.800 sociology, psychology, economics, blah blah blah blah blah, like, so many different domains of knowledge and work and stuff, 0:43:00.800,0:43:08.640 and then between those two rings there's "how does linguistics help the study of that thing." 0:43:08.640,0:43:15.020 SARAH: And I challenge you all to think of a domain—go to the show notes, look at the one I put there, 0:43:15.020,0:43:18.280 think of something that's NOT on the outside of this diagram, 0:43:18.280,0:43:24.760 and if you can't—or if you ask us and we can't—come up with a way that linguistics is involved with, 0:43:24.760,0:43:27.600 or could help, the study of that thing… 0:43:27.600,0:43:32.460 [pause] I will be absolutely amazed. Like— 0:43:32.460,0:43:36.980 ELI: I think—linguistics is such a young discipline, at least modern linguistics, SARAH: Yes. 0:43:36.980,0:43:43.580 ELI: Right, like linguistics goes back literally thousands of years, but linguistics as an academic discipline 0:43:43.580,0:43:51.480 is so young that I think A) it has all of these really great overlaps, but B) they're not recognized yet, 0:43:51.480,0:43:55.160 and they're not recognized that way in larger society, either. 0:43:55.160,0:44:04.760 ELI: Like every time that a podcast or radio programmer or a TV show needs to know something about language, and they go and talk to a literature professor— 0:44:04.760,0:44:12.340 JENNY: Uh-huh! ELI: —or like a journalist or a psychology professor who isn't doing linguistic psychology, 0:44:12.340,0:44:18.440 you know, it's like, I'm not sure that they know that linguistics exists and that there are people who specialize in these. 0:44:18.440,0:44:27.100 ELI: Which is not to say that journalists and literature professors and psychologists don't know about language—they do! Because there's such big overlap, 0:44:27.100,0:44:35.760 but also there is an entire discipline that is all about language, and you could go just to the source, but I think people don't know that yet. 0:44:35.760,0:44:43.680 SARAH: Right, not to mention every linguist's least favorite question: "Oh, you're a linguist? How many languages do you speak?" 0:44:43.680,0:44:48.900 SARAH: Because yeah, a lot of us speak a lot of languages, but that's not actually what we're doing with our time. 0:44:48.900,0:44:56.520 ELI: Exactly. SARAH: A lot of us speak a lot of languages because in order to learn *about* languages, you have to know what they are. 0:44:56.520,0:45:00.160 JENNY: [laughs] ELI: Well, and all three hosts of this podcast, 0:45:00.160,0:45:07.500 we are all linguists and none of us is in a higher education academic setting. 0:45:07.500,0:45:15.160 ELI: None of us are doing professional linguistics, but I think all of us use linguistics in the things that we do. 0:45:15.160,0:45:16.660 SARAH: Yes. JENNY: Mm-hm. 0:45:16.660,0:45:23.580 SARAH: so that's my thing. I think linguistics as a field can improve society just by existing 0:45:23.580,0:45:30.520 and by contributing in all of those overlapping ways, and I think that society recognizing that 0:45:30.520,0:45:36.680 would double that impact, because they would be able to go intentionally reach out 0:45:36.680,0:45:42.600 in those ways that they maybe don't realize they can now, and get the support that they're looking for! 0:45:42.620,0:45:44.440 JENNY: Yeah, that's a really good point. 0:45:44.440,0:45:51.520 ELI: Okay, so that was a lot of serious discussion. Now let's move on to a little bit more of a silly question. 0:45:51.520,0:45:56.500 Masha asks via Twitter: "What's your favorite ridiculous etymology? 0:45:56.500,0:46:03.240 What's the etymology that when you tell people, they respond with 'fuck you, that's not where that word comes from!'?" 0:46:03.240,0:46:14.220 SARAH: Um, okay, so I have several. I'm pretty sure I'm known in my friend group for not having a swear jar but having the unsolicited etymology jar. 0:46:14.220,0:46:16.540 ELI: Oh, I'm so sorry for your wallet. 0:46:16.540,0:46:21.300 SARAH: I know, it's pretty rough, but uh. It's cool. 0:46:21.300,0:46:27.060 SARAH: Anyway, so there's the fact that "canary" is derived from the word for dog, 0:46:27.060,0:46:30.600 "easel" is derived from the word for donkey, 0:46:30.600,0:46:34.000 and "lettuce" is derived from the word for milk. 0:46:34.000,0:46:39.460 ELI: [laughs] Okay? SARAH: So there's that! But my favorite one, 0:46:39.460,0:46:45.460 and the one with the best story attached, is that the word "money"—as in the stuff that you pay 0:46:45.460,0:46:53.240 in order to receive goods and services—comes from the verb "to warn," as in to, like, "admonish," which also comes from that word. 0:46:53.240,0:46:58.120 ELI and JENNY: Oooh... SARAH: And I was explaining this to some students, 0:46:58.120,0:47:04.660 and they were like, "Oh, is it because you warn someone with money?" 0:47:04.660,0:47:10.560 or like, "something something bank loans and paying back things?" 0:47:10.560,0:47:15.260 SARAH: and I was like, "Wow, you guys are really creative! and no. It is none of those things." 0:47:15.260,0:47:20.000 ELI: [laughs] SARAH: [laughs] They were really impressive guesses! They just, none of them were right. 0:47:20.000,0:47:24.140 SARAH: Um, no, so what happened was, the ancient Romans, 0:47:24.140,0:47:28.960 in, like—oh, this is embarrassing, that I don't know the year, 0:47:28.960,0:47:32.840 but I'll put it in the show notes—it was like… something BC. 0:47:32.840,0:47:36.260 SARAH: I want to say 356. We'll find out how close I was. 0:47:36.260,0:47:44.940 SARAH: Anyway, in something BC that might have been 356, the Romans were having a battle-slash-war 0:47:44.940,0:47:55.060 with a tribe of Gauls—so, people from modern-day France—and they went and, like, hid or kind of like took cover, 0:47:55.060,0:48:03.580 in this temple in Rome, because the Gauls had come to, like, attack the city and so the Roman fighters were hiding out in this temple. 0:48:03.580,0:48:14.740 SARAH: And they assumed (stupidly) that the Gauls were going to kind of adhere to the ancient kind of rules of war, which were, 0:48:14.740,0:48:22.140 you fight during the day and at night everybody goes to sleep and then gets up to stab each other in the morning. 0:48:22.140,0:48:27.100 SARAH: And so the Romans are in this temple—it was a temple to Juno, 0:48:27.100,0:48:37.120 and she was the, like, queen of the Olympian gods, Hera, called Juno in Latin, and so it was a temple to her— 0:48:37.120,0:48:41.900 and they're hiding out in there. They have some scouts who are supposed to be keeping watch overnight while everyone else is sleeping, 0:48:41.900,0:48:46.640 and I don't know if the scouts fell asleep, or were distracted, or like what happened, 0:48:46.640,0:48:51.980 but they didn't notice the Gauls climbing up the hill toward the temple in the middle of the night. 0:48:51.980,0:48:58.100 SARAH: But the ones who did notice that happening were the geese who lived on that hill, 0:48:58.100,0:49:06.040 SARAH: and if you know one thing about geese— ELI: [laughs] SARAH: —it's that they are mean, and they are loud. 0:49:06.040,0:49:12.920 SARAH: And so these geese notice that there are some strange humans climbing their hill in the dark, 0:49:12.920,0:49:15.700 and the geese are not pleased with this, 0:49:15.700,0:49:19.500 so they go and attack the Gauls, very loudly, 0:49:19.500,0:49:25.840 SARAH: and the Gauls, I'm sure, loudly go, "What the fuck, *geese*!!", as you do. ELI: [laughs] 0:49:25.840,0:49:31.560 And the Romans wake up because they're like, "What the fuck, *geese*!!", and— ELI: As you do. SARAH: As you do. 0:49:31.560,0:49:36.800 SARAH: And they look out and they see the geese attacking the Gauls and they're like, "Oh crap, Gauls." 0:49:36.800,0:49:41.940 SARAH: So they, you know, get up, grab their stuff, go in the middle of the night, manage to defend themselves, 0:49:41.940,0:49:45.260 drive the Gauls off, however this battle and war wind up. 0:49:45.260,0:49:49.420 JENNY: All while presumably avoiding the geese? SARAH: Presumably avoiding the geese, yes. 0:49:49.420,0:49:53.200 SARAH: And so the battle winds up, the war winds up, 0:49:53.200,0:50:01.680 and the Romans say, "Juno, thank you! You have saved our butts, we are going to rename this temple—" 0:50:01.680,0:50:08.400 SARAH: or not *rename* it, but a lot of the temples were, like, the temple of God Name the Somebody. 0:50:08.400,0:50:11.960 SARAH: They had all these epithets with them, so there were temples to different aspects of the gods. 0:50:11.960,0:50:14.800 SARAH: So this became the temple to Juno Moneta: 0:50:14.800,0:50:21.680 Juno the Warner, Juno who gave us this warning about the Gauls, via her now sacred geese. 0:50:21.680,0:50:28.000 ELI: Okay, that all makes sense. Where does the currency bit come in? SARAH: Yup. So over time, 0:50:28.000,0:50:37.060 a lot of the temples in the city of Rome also began to serve other, like, governmental administrative purposes. 0:50:37.060,0:50:44.760 The temple of Saturn was like the Treasury, the temple of Castor and Pollux held all of the census records, if I recall correctly, 0:50:44.760,0:50:50.360 and the temple of Juno Moneta became the mint, where they actually produced coins. 0:50:50.360,0:50:57.060 ELI: Oh! SARAH: And so, I don't know exactly how it happened, but at some point "Moneta" turned into "money," 0:50:57.060,0:50:58.900 SARAH: and so that's where we got that from. 0:50:58.900,0:51:04.000 JENNY: Huh! ELI: I mean, I bet it's through "mint," because that sort of—I've always wondered 0:51:04.000,0:51:08.720 about where the word "mint", as in a thing that prints money, comes from. 0:51:08.720,0:51:12.140 ELI: Pretty clearly comes directly from Moneta. 0:51:12.140,0:51:16.040 SARAH: Hmm, I never thought about that! ELI: And so probably "money" comes in through "mint." 0:51:16.040,0:51:19.580 SARAH: Yeah, I'll have to look that one up. Check the show notes, friends! 0:51:19.580,0:51:29.180 ELI: I wonder—this is totally unsubstantiated—but I wonder if "mint" was reanalyzed as some sort of nominal past thing, 0:51:29.180,0:51:37.160 ELI: where you had, like, money… mint… I'm just trying to figure out how that "t" was dropped. SARAH: Oh, yeah, like "moneyed", "minted", yeah. 0:51:37.160,0:51:41.000 ELI: Yeah, that's probably entirely false. SARAH: Cool idea, though! 0:51:41.000,0:51:50.400 ELI: Okay, that is super cool. Now there is no epic war story to go with my favorite fuck-you etymology. 0:51:50.400,0:52:03.240 ELI: I, I do—there are some false friends that I like, so like the fact that "island" and "isle" come from two different things? SARAH: Oh! 0:52:03.240,0:52:08.320 JENNY: Huh! ELI: So that's another one where ⟨island⟩ just comes from a Germanic ⟨iland⟩, 0:52:08.320,0:52:12.040 and the ⟨s⟩ was put in there because people liked Latin. 0:52:12.040,0:52:19.100 SARAH: [laughs] Okay! ELI: And ⟨isle⟩ actually comes from ⟨isla⟩. SARAH: And then ⟨insula⟩. Yeah, okay. ELI: Right. 0:52:19.100,0:52:24.700 ELI: There's also ⟨OK⟩, which is the only acronym etymology that's actually correct. 0:52:24.700,0:52:32.880 SARAH AND JENNY: [laugh] SARAH: Or you might say "oll korrect"? ELI: Yes, exactly. JENNY: [laughs] 0:52:32.880,0:52:43.180 ELI: But the one that I want to talk about is actually the word ⟨lox⟩. So lox, which, at least in American English, means smoked salmon. 0:52:43.180,0:52:51.980 ELI: So you take salmon and you cure it and then you cold smoke it and then you slice it up and then you put it on a bagel that has a lot of cream cheese on it. 0:52:51.980,0:53:02.780 ELI: That's lox. SARAH: And it's spelled L-O-X, right? ELI: It's spelled L-O-X in English. In a lot of other languages it's spelled L-A-X. SARAH: Okay. 0:53:02.780,0:53:10.560 ELI: But I like lox's etymology because "lox," the word, has not changed. 0:53:10.560,0:53:19.720 ELI: It has not changed for as far back as we can trace it, using the comparative method and other types of historical linguistic analysis. 0:53:19.720,0:53:26.500 ELI: If you go all the way back as far as you can, you still get this word "lax," 0:53:26.500,0:53:32.160 which might mean salmon specifically but also might mean fish kind of in general, 0:53:32.160,0:53:34.540 ELI: or like a fish that we eat. SARAH: Cool. 0:53:34.540,0:53:41.780 ELI: But that's my favorite etymology, not because it's, like, unexpected where it comes from, but it's kind of unexpected where it went. 0:53:41.780,0:53:44.670 SARAH and JENNY: Yeah. SARAH: What language did it originate in? 0:53:44.670,0:53:48.020 ELI: I'm pretty sure it's proto-Germanic. SARAH: That's so cool. 0:53:48.020,0:53:51.540 ELI: Also, lox is delicious. SARAH: True facts. JENNY: Fair. 0:53:51.540,0:53:56.820 ELI: So it deserves to have not changed. SARAH: [laughs] ELI: The collective wisdom of humanity 0:53:56.820,0:54:02.569 deems that this fish was so delicious we should not have changed the word for it. 0:54:02.569,0:54:12.120 ELI: I also think that in some Scandinavian languages, "lox" just means salmon, it doesn't specifically mean smoked salmon, or like cured and smoked salmon. 0:54:12.120,0:54:21.080 SARAH: mm-hmm ELI: I think that it's just what you call lox or what you call salmon. But it shows up in things like gravlax and that kind of thing as well. 0:54:21.080,0:54:23.820 ELI: Jenny, do you have a favorite etymology? 0:54:23.820,0:54:30.420 JENNY: My favorite is contextual. My favorite is whichever one I'm getting to explain to one of my siblings. SARAH: [laughs] Good answer. 0:54:30.420,0:54:34.339 JENNY: So, on every podcast we have a puzzler. 0:54:34.339,0:54:41.840 JENNY: Last time our puzzler was "what's an English word spelled with three double letters in a row?" 0:54:41.840,0:54:48.260 JENNY: The answer is "bookkeeper"—double-O, double-K, double-E, 0:54:48.260,0:54:52.140 or "woolen—" 'double-U', double-O, double-L. 0:54:52.140,0:54:55.840 JENNY: If that was your answer, either of them, good job! 0:54:55.840,0:55:00.280 JENNY: So for a new puzzler, what do we have this time? ELI: We have another word puzzle. 0:55:00.280,0:55:09.560 ELI: It's short and sweet, just like last episode's. I'm gonna spell three words and your task is to figure out what they have in common. 0:55:09.560,0:55:21.060 ELI: The three words are J-O-B, P-O-L-I-S-H, and H-E-R-B. 0:55:21.060,0:55:27.240 ELI: Now there's a reason that I'm spelling them. It has to do with what they have in common. That's the only hint you're gonna get. 0:55:27.240,0:55:35.300 ELI: I'm sure it's pretty easy to look this one up on the internet, but again that's cheating, and if you cheat you should feel bad about yourself. [outro music begins] 0:55:35.300,0:55:37.940 JENNY: That’s it for this episode! Thanks for listening. 0:55:37.940,0:55:41.820 ELI: Linguistics After Dark is produced by Emfozzing Enterprises. 0:55:41.820,0:55:49.380 ELI: Audio editing is done by me, question wrangling and transcriptions are done by Jenny, and show notes are done by Sarah. 0:55:49.380,0:55:52.580 ELI: Our music is “Covert Affair” by Kevin MacLeod. 0:55:52.580,0:56:00.940 SARAH: Our show is entirely listener-supported. You can help us by visiting patreon.com/emfozzing, E-M-F-O-Z-Z-I-N-G, 0:56:00.940,0:56:04.540 and by telling your friends about us. Ratings on iTunes help as well. 0:56:04.540,0:56:11.460 JENNY: Today we want to say thanks to these awesome patrons: Bryton, Inga, Geoff, Dre, Bex, and Mitch. 0:56:11.480,0:56:18.960 ELI: Find all our episodes and show notes online at LinguisticsAfterDark.com or on all your favorite podcast directories. 0:56:18.960,0:56:25.660 SARAH: And remember that the show notes actually do have the answers. And some research in them. 0:56:25.660,0:56:27.520 SARAH: I'm gonna go do a lot of research right now. 0:56:27.520,0:56:34.620 SARAH: And send us your questions! Text—or audio, if you have a sound question—to questions@linguisticsafterdark.com. 0:56:34.620,0:56:43.200 SARAH: Or tweet us @LXADpodcast. And you can also follow us on facebook and instagram, also @LXAD podcast. 0:56:43.200,0:56:50.000 JENNY: And until next time… if you weren’t consciously aware of your tongue in your mouth, now you are. 0:56:56.180,0:56:59.420 [beep] SARAH: [hums melody] SARAH: that's not our music, but whatever. 0:56:59.420,0:57:04.600 [beep] ELI: which is really cool, brains are cool! JENNY: they really are! SARAH: brains are amazing. 0:57:04.600,0:57:11.700 [beep] SARAH: yeah… i'm just actually cheating a little bit and looking at a map of germany. ELI: ah, how dare you, that's research. 0:57:11.700,0:57:17.640 SARAH: i know, but it's not research about language, it's research about how i should know geography and i don't. JENNY: oh, mood 0:57:17.640,0:57:19.900 [beep] SARAH: it's the milky vegetable!