Languages & Linguistics

For this weekend's special, we feature articles that discuss languages and linguistics. Please comment if you have any other articles you would like to share.

The Interpreter

The New Yorker • 9 Apr 2007 • ~11800 words • Archive Link

This story delves into Dan Everett's groundbreaking work with the Pirahã tribe in the Amazon, a hunter-gatherer tribe with a unique language that challenges established linguistic theories. It explores the difficulties faced by linguists and missionaries in learning and understanding the Pirahã language and culture, which appears to lack many features considered universal in human cognition and communication. The article also delves into the background and work of the American linguist Dan Everett, who has spent decades studying the Pirahã and made controversial claims about the implications of their language for linguistic theory.

Unrelated to any other extant tongue, and based on just eight consonants and three vowels, Pirahã has one of the simplest sound systems known. Yet it possesses such a complex array of tones, stresses, and syllable lengths that its speakers can dispense with their vowels and consonants altogether and sing, hum, or whistle conversations.

English is not normal

Aeon • 13 Nov 2015 • ~3300 words

The article explores why the English language is so different from other languages, both in its spoken and written forms. It delves into the historical influences and linguistic transformations that have made English an "odd" language, with unique features such as its lack of grammatical gender, its use of the word "do" in questions and negations, and its diverse vocabulary drawn from various sources.

There is no other language, for example, that is close enough to English that we can get about half of what people are saying without training and the rest with only modest effort. German and Dutch are like that, as are Spanish and Portuguese, or Thai and Lao. The closest an Anglophone can get is with the obscure Northern European language called Frisian.

Writing IRL

Slate Magazine • 24 Jul 2019 • ~2550 words • Archive Link

Have you ever wondered why emojis have become such a staple in our digital conversations? This piece from Slate explores how emojis bridge the gap between writing and speaking, revealing the complexities behind their popularity and usage. It’s an interesting look at how these tiny images have transformed our communication style in unexpected ways.

But emoji are clearly doing *something* important for communication. When they first emerged, I considered whether emoji might be the perfect missing link between writing and the body.

Utopian for Beginners

The New Yorker • 16 Dec 2012 • ~8950 words • Archive Link

What happens when an amateur linguist’s ambitious invention—a language called Ithkuil—takes on a life of its own? This piece explores the journey of its creator, Quijada, who aimed to craft a language that balances precision and brevity. As he navigates the complexities of his creation, we see how Ithkuil reflects both his intellectual aspirations and the unexpected paths of linguistic exploration.

Ithkuil has two seemingly incompatible ambitions: to be maximally precise but also maximally concise, capable of capturing nearly every thought that a human being could have while doing so in as few sounds as possible.

This Ancient Language Has the Only Grammar Based Entirely on the Human Body

Scientific American • 1 Jun 2023 • ~3750 words • Archive Link

The article discusses the Great Andamanese, an ancient language spoken by the Indigenous people of the Andaman Islands. It describes how this language is unique in that its grammar is entirely based on the human body, with morphemes derived from different body parts used to convey spatial orientation, relations between objects, and other abstract concepts. The article also explores the cultural worldview and beliefs of the Great Andamanese people, as reflected in their language.

Great Andamanese, it turns out, is exceptional among the world's languages in its anthropocentrism. It uses categories derived from the human body to describe abstract concepts such as spatial orientation and relations between objects. To be sure, in English we might say things like “the room faces the bay,” “the chair leg broke” and “she heads the firm.” But in Great Andamanese such descriptions take an extreme form.

The Secret Lives of Words

New York Times • 10 Jan 2023 • ~2050 words • Archive Link

Have you ever wondered how the meanings of words can shift over time? This piece explores the fascinating evolution of language, using Henry James's works as a lens to reveal how words we take for granted today once held very different meanings. This look at the fluid nature of language might just change how you think about the words you use every day.

The fit between words and meanings is much fuzzier and unstable than we are led to suppose by the static majesty of the dictionary and its tidy definitions. What a word means today is a Polaroid snapshot of its lexical life, long-lived and frequently under transformation.

How Did a Self-Taught Linguist Come to Own an Indigenous Language?

The New Yorker • 12 Apr 2021 • ~6600 words • Archive Link

With this piece, we explore the complex journey of Frank Siebert, a self-taught linguist who took it upon himself to preserve the nearly lost Penobscot language. Through the eyes of Dana, one of the few remaining speakers, we uncover the challenges and nuances of language revitalization, the impact of outsider involvement, and the deep cultural connections that bind a community to its words. It's a fascinating look at identity, heritage, and the ongoing efforts to reclaim a language that carries the weight of history.

Dana was moved by what she learned. There is no word in Penobscot for “goodbye, ” only the more optimistic “I’ll see you again.” Verbs of motion almost always have prefixes. People don’t just walk or jump. They walk from here or to there; they jump across or out or up.

Inside the OED: can the world’s biggest dictionary survive the internet?

The Guardian • 23 Feb 2018 • ~4950 words

What does it take to document the ever-evolving English language? This piece explores the monumental task lexicographers face at the Oxford English Dictionary as they strive to keep up with a living language that constantly shifts and grows. From the historical challenges to the modern digital age, it's a fascinating look at the quest to capture the essence of words in our fast-paced world.

Speaking to lexicographers makes one wary of using the word “literally”, but a definitive dictionary is, literally, impossible. No sooner have you reached the summit of the mountain than it has expanded another hundred feet. Then you realise it’s not even one mountain, but an interlocking series of ranges marching across the Earth

Much of linguistic theory is so abstract and dependent on theoretical apparatus that it might be impossible to explain

Aeon • 17 Jul 2017 • ~3500 words

What does it mean for linguistics to be considered a science? This piece dives into the debate surrounding Noam Chomsky's idea of universal grammar and its implications for our understanding of language. With insights from key figures like Everett, the article challenges us to think deeply about the nature of linguistic theory and what it reveals about our own cognitive processes.

. . . the object of study in linguistics is not words, sentences or human communicative behaviour, the things we can see and hear – it’s an underlying system, an abstraction. The abstraction makes predictions, not necessarily about what people will say, but about what their intuitive judgments should be.

Emergency Dialect

Real Life • 12 Jan 2017 • ~3200 words

This story explores the fictional language of the heptapods in the film "Arrival" and how it relates to the unique properties of human language. It delves into the theory of universal grammar, the distinction between phonetic and logical forms of language, and the evolutionary significance of the human language faculty.

linguistic and cognitive science research increasingly suggests that there is only a single human language — the language of thought, of which every other language is simply a type of dialect.

Does Your Language Shape How You Think?

New York Times • 26 Aug 2010 • ~4300 words • Archive Link

This article explores how the language we speak can shape our thoughts, perceptions, and experiences of the world. It examines how differences in language, such as the presence or absence of grammatical gender or spatial orientation systems, can lead to distinct cognitive habits and perspectives among speakers of different languages.

. . . if different languages influence our minds in different ways, this is not because of what our language allows us to think but rather because of what it habitually obliges us to think about.

The race to save a dying language

The Guardian • 10 Aug 2016 • ~4750 words

The article discusses the discovery and efforts to document and revive Hawaii Sign Language (HSL), a previously unknown sign language on the brink of extinction. It explores the challenges of preserving HSL in the face of the global dominance of American Sign Language (ASL), as well as the divisions within the Deaf community in Hawaii over the value and status of HSL. The article also raises broader questions about the threats facing the world's many local sign languages as larger, more common sign languages increasingly overshadow them.

Though they parallel spoken languages in certain ways, sign languages represent a fundamentally different way of communicating. They neither derive from, nor correspond to, spoken languages. Nor are all sign languages mutually intelligible, as hearing people often assume – they are as various as spoken languages.

How Immigration Changes Language

The Atlantic • 14 Dec 2015 • ~1400 words • Archive Link

As migration reshapes Europe's cultural landscape, it’s also giving rise to new ways of speaking. This piece from The Atlantic explores how young people, particularly the children of immigrants, are crafting unique dialects like Kiezdeutsch in Germany, blending elements of their heritage with the local language. It’s an interesting look at how language evolves and reflects identity in a rapidly changing world.

The result is something called Kiezdeutsch, which is the same whether the speaker’s parents communicate in Turkish, Arabic, Somali, or another language—the new dialect has gelled into something of its own.

A Linguistic Big Bang

New York Times • 24 Oct 1999 • ~4750 words • Archive Link

In a remarkable story of linguistic evolution, deaf children in Nicaragua have created a language from scratch, demonstrating the innate human capacity for communication. This piece explores how these young innovators built a complex sign system among themselves, revealing not just the emergence of Nicaraguan Sign Language, but also deeper insights into how language develops in children.

With all of these idiosyncrasies, it is easy to forget that Nicaraguan Sign Language is but the accidental creation of children. Indeed, adult-engineered idioms like Esperanto seem pallid by comparison. As Kegl marvels, "No linguist could create a language with half the complexity or richness that a 4-year-old could give birth to."

The Museification of Language

Thoughtfox • 15 Jul 2024 • ~3650 words

This post explores the complexities of language preservation and the implications of linguistic homogenization. It questions whether the efforts to preserve endangered languages are genuinely effective or whether they end up further diminishing the very qualities they aim to protect.

When we demand that language be preserved, unlike a statue, this isn’t just a matter of putting a material object behind some glass, but entire cultures and groups of people. If we want someone to speak some obscure indigeneous language . . . we’re more or less asking them to cut themselves off completely from economic opportunity for the sake of our subjective, far-removed tastes. At the same time, the global civilisation that desperately works (through bodies like UNESCO) to maintain “endangered” languages, is itself responsible for their decline in the first place.