Among the best podcast episodes from John. I always enjoy and and occasionally amazed by the liberal humanism that goes into John's work. Clean and clear thinking that is separated from the rancor of partisanism and focuses on the future by finding new ways to include the past and make it new again. Thank you John.
I second that sentiment. Linguistics is a science with strong humanistic overtones. Clear-headed logical and factual thinking help to reinforce the feeling that, in both aspects, the scientific and the humanistic, we're dealing here with a genuine Enlightenment enterprise.
Irish "is" is actually pronounced [iɕ] because the s is a "slender" consonant, which brings me to the fact that the Irish language revival isn't actually all that successful, by most people's definition of successful.
As John is undoubtedly aware (and has mentioned many times in the podcast), large numbers of second-language speakers learning a language will inevitably butcher the grammar (e.g. tá vs is) and other aspects of the language. Most easily seen, in the Irish case, its phonology.
In traditional Irish phonology, all its labial consonants are bilabial, but many Irish learners substitute English [f] and [v] in their places. Another facet of its phonology that's often ignored is the broad and slender distinction of Irish consonants. Consonants next to <e> and <i> are slender, meaning they are palatalized, or in the case of the (bi)labial consonants, pronounced with retracted lips. Some, like <s>, are further changed. Consonants next to the other vowels are broad, meaning they are velarized, or pronounced with rounded lips for labial consonants. Second language speakers (even teachers!) may not be able to tell the difference, which I'd argue is killing the language rather than reviving it.
I'm not a speaker of Irish, just an interested bystander, but these are some of the complaints I've heard.
PS My citation for Irish phonology is the chapter on Irish by Dónall P. Ó Baoill in the book The Celtic Languages.
I did not know about the bilabial and slender consonant features. Are they found in other Celtic (or other Indo-European) languages or are they unique to Celtic?
The broad-slender contrast is also found in some consonants in Scottish Gaelic, but I don’t know if the other Celtic languages have it. If I had to guess, Manx probably has it because it was also descended from Old Irish, Cornish probably doesn't because it was revived with a much more Anglicized phonology, and I genuinely don’t know how to start guessing for Breton or Welsh. I think Spanish may realize /b/ as the voiced bilabial fricative [β] in fast speech, but apparently Scottish Gaelic has labiodental consonants like English ([f], [v]) rather than Irish's bilabials. As for other Indo-European languages, I have no idea since my linguistic interests are focused elsewhere (mostly the many Chineses and Japanese).
Maybe there are deeper reasons to favor language diversity than simply people being more interesting.
This week I listened to a BBC4 In Our Time podcast episode on the Sistine Chapel, and I was thinking about Michelangelo separating the fingers of Adam and God. Then Lexicon valley episode reminded me of the Tower of Babel story in Genesis. If that story were literally true, then what was so bad about a united human language that incited God to scatter humanity? Or, if it is simply parabolic, what is the moral to learn?
I don't have a dog's-dinner in this race, but I often think that maybe a single language would not be as good and wonderful as we imagine.
The Tower is probably related to the ziggurats on the Sumerian plains. The king would ascend and come back down perceived as a god. The story as related in Genesis is a supernatural explanation for a natural fact, the diversity of languages. It's already implied a chapter earlier in the three sons of Noah. They are, roughly, stand-ins for the Semites, Indo-Europeans, and Afro-Asiatic/Hamito-Semites. An old name for the Indo-European languages is Japhetic, after Noah's second son, Japhet (Yaphet). We still use "Semitic" (after Noah's first son Shem, or Sem in Greek).
I never encountered the definition of Schadenfreude as happiness that oneself is not the recipient of some misfortune. It's more the joy at the expense of someone else (who just walked into a lamp post because they were looking at their phone, for example). It might've changed in translation if that is how English speakers use it now.
Yeah I noticed that too. Seemed like an oddly whitewashed definition with the meanness redacted. But you're right. Being happy a misfortune didn't happen to you isn't Schadenfreude unless you're glad it happened to whoever it did happen to.
Always interesting stuff. Do you think the reason why we're losing so many new languages is in part because of the internet? I've heard that the internet has fundamentally changed the English language. I'm assuming it's true of other languages as well?
This was an excellent episode. I heard in a later episode that John was aware of the role of Aramaic in "yeshivish." Indeed, it's an important aspect of Talmud, which consists of two parts. The first is the Mishnah ("repetition"), oral law first systematized and transmitted in a peculiar rabbinic dialect of late-antique Hebrew, written down in the late second century. The second is the Gemara ("completion") composed between the third and sixth centuries, in Aramaic, the lingua franca of the late-antique Near East that slowly replaced its close cousin Hebrew as the Jewish vernacular. The Gemara is composed in a compressed class-notes style from the yeshivas of that era that requires a teacher to understand. You don't just read it.
There's one Mishnah, but there are two Gemaras and thus two Talmuds, the Jerusalem (Yerushalmi) and the Babylonian (Bavli). The former was never finished, a result of the deteriorating conditions of the Holy Land in late antiquity. The latter was finished, a product of a (mostly) more prosperous and stable, self-governing diaspora under Persian rule.
Its capital in Damascus, Aram was never a big deal as a kingdom, but its language became one of the official languages of the Persian empire when they conquered the Near East in the sixth century BCE. The eastern Christians spoke and wrote a form of it (Syriac). (Here's a fascinating fact: the Persians picked Aramaic as a common-denominator Semitic language because it was already used as language for trade and other exchange. Their own language was Indo-European. They also picked Elamite, a Dravidian language, not part of the other families. I wonder if they knew.)
A further twist: the Talmud is partly in Aramaic. However, the Hebrew itself of the first exile (sixth century BCE and later) came under strong Aramaic influence (the "-in" plural, like Arabic, rather than the "-im" plural of biblical Hebrew, for example). So Aramaic enters in two ways, not one.
Finally, the Arabic of that region (al-Shams, the rising sun, like Levant in Western languages) was also strongly influenced by the Aramaic of the area when the Arabs came with Islam in the seventh century. This sets off that type of Arabic from, say, the Arabic of the Beduin of the Arabian desert or Egyptian Arabic. Arabic gradually displaced Aramaic as the main vernacular over centuries. Aramaic today is spoken only in pockets in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq -- and New Jersey.
A friend and I came across an example recently. The word "khalaf" means "sword" in al-Shams Arabic and "ritual slaughter knife" in Hebrew (sharp knife to slaughter a kosher animal). They probably share a common Aramaic source. I don't know if "khalaf" occurs that way in other types of Arabic.
As someone raised in Oklahoma who lives around the Salish tribes now, I’ve been shocked there aren’t resources for learning Skagit/Swinomish Lushootseed as there are for Muskogee or Cherokee. Thank you for sharing. I’m going to reach out to my local rez to try to get my kids to pick it up with me.
I'm catching up on old segments and particularly appreciate this great one. I want to shout out the work of master storyteller Johnny Moses, a Tulip Native American from the Pacific NW. To listen to him speak in his native language is such a treat in his storytelling, and he speaks in english too so you can follow along, but the quality of his stories is 'Tonight Show' worthy. https://johnnymoses.com
A question about Kiswahili. You've mentioned it in a few podcast episodes of an example of a "simplified" language, or at least one without unnecessary complications. As a newcomer to Tanzania and a new Kiswahili learner, I am befuddled by the multiple noun classes. As a native English speaker who has only previously learned other Romance languages, these - by some counts 18! - noun classes are a huge hurdle to get over. Yet you insist that Swahili is grammatically simple, which makes me feel a bit dense. Can you help make sense of what and why these are? Do they count as "dum-dum gender" or are they something else? Why are they there? From listening to you, I understand there are many languages with more complex grammar, but still my experience of learning it is far from the simple picture you paint on your show. Can you help me put Kiswahili grammar in context?
I am struggling with the documentation, revival not on the cards as of now, of an Indo-Portuguese Creole. Prof. McWhorter's writings on this topic have opened my eyes to the contra-view, if i may say so, to the prevalent mad-rush to "save" endangered languages. In addition, his political views lead to a sea change in the way I approach language conservation/revival and life in general.
Great Episode on 'Yeshivish'
Gorem גורם is actually Hebrew.
As well, טענה'ט is a yiddishized Hebrew word that's pronounced Tayn'aht or further anglicized into tayn'ahd not 'tined'
A plus, if you ever want to hear yeshivah we can arrange it here in NYC 😉
It's the Yiddish of our time, or like Ladino.
Among the best podcast episodes from John. I always enjoy and and occasionally amazed by the liberal humanism that goes into John's work. Clean and clear thinking that is separated from the rancor of partisanism and focuses on the future by finding new ways to include the past and make it new again. Thank you John.
I second that sentiment. Linguistics is a science with strong humanistic overtones. Clear-headed logical and factual thinking help to reinforce the feeling that, in both aspects, the scientific and the humanistic, we're dealing here with a genuine Enlightenment enterprise.
>Irish "is"
Irish "is" is actually pronounced [iɕ] because the s is a "slender" consonant, which brings me to the fact that the Irish language revival isn't actually all that successful, by most people's definition of successful.
As John is undoubtedly aware (and has mentioned many times in the podcast), large numbers of second-language speakers learning a language will inevitably butcher the grammar (e.g. tá vs is) and other aspects of the language. Most easily seen, in the Irish case, its phonology.
In traditional Irish phonology, all its labial consonants are bilabial, but many Irish learners substitute English [f] and [v] in their places. Another facet of its phonology that's often ignored is the broad and slender distinction of Irish consonants. Consonants next to <e> and <i> are slender, meaning they are palatalized, or in the case of the (bi)labial consonants, pronounced with retracted lips. Some, like <s>, are further changed. Consonants next to the other vowels are broad, meaning they are velarized, or pronounced with rounded lips for labial consonants. Second language speakers (even teachers!) may not be able to tell the difference, which I'd argue is killing the language rather than reviving it.
I'm not a speaker of Irish, just an interested bystander, but these are some of the complaints I've heard.
PS My citation for Irish phonology is the chapter on Irish by Dónall P. Ó Baoill in the book The Celtic Languages.
I did not know about the bilabial and slender consonant features. Are they found in other Celtic (or other Indo-European) languages or are they unique to Celtic?
The broad-slender contrast is also found in some consonants in Scottish Gaelic, but I don’t know if the other Celtic languages have it. If I had to guess, Manx probably has it because it was also descended from Old Irish, Cornish probably doesn't because it was revived with a much more Anglicized phonology, and I genuinely don’t know how to start guessing for Breton or Welsh. I think Spanish may realize /b/ as the voiced bilabial fricative [β] in fast speech, but apparently Scottish Gaelic has labiodental consonants like English ([f], [v]) rather than Irish's bilabials. As for other Indo-European languages, I have no idea since my linguistic interests are focused elsewhere (mostly the many Chineses and Japanese).
Maybe there are deeper reasons to favor language diversity than simply people being more interesting.
This week I listened to a BBC4 In Our Time podcast episode on the Sistine Chapel, and I was thinking about Michelangelo separating the fingers of Adam and God. Then Lexicon valley episode reminded me of the Tower of Babel story in Genesis. If that story were literally true, then what was so bad about a united human language that incited God to scatter humanity? Or, if it is simply parabolic, what is the moral to learn?
I don't have a dog's-dinner in this race, but I often think that maybe a single language would not be as good and wonderful as we imagine.
The Tower is probably related to the ziggurats on the Sumerian plains. The king would ascend and come back down perceived as a god. The story as related in Genesis is a supernatural explanation for a natural fact, the diversity of languages. It's already implied a chapter earlier in the three sons of Noah. They are, roughly, stand-ins for the Semites, Indo-Europeans, and Afro-Asiatic/Hamito-Semites. An old name for the Indo-European languages is Japhetic, after Noah's second son, Japhet (Yaphet). We still use "Semitic" (after Noah's first son Shem, or Sem in Greek).
I never encountered the definition of Schadenfreude as happiness that oneself is not the recipient of some misfortune. It's more the joy at the expense of someone else (who just walked into a lamp post because they were looking at their phone, for example). It might've changed in translation if that is how English speakers use it now.
Yeah I noticed that too. Seemed like an oddly whitewashed definition with the meanness redacted. But you're right. Being happy a misfortune didn't happen to you isn't Schadenfreude unless you're glad it happened to whoever it did happen to.
Always interesting stuff. Do you think the reason why we're losing so many new languages is in part because of the internet? I've heard that the internet has fundamentally changed the English language. I'm assuming it's true of other languages as well?
This was an excellent episode. I heard in a later episode that John was aware of the role of Aramaic in "yeshivish." Indeed, it's an important aspect of Talmud, which consists of two parts. The first is the Mishnah ("repetition"), oral law first systematized and transmitted in a peculiar rabbinic dialect of late-antique Hebrew, written down in the late second century. The second is the Gemara ("completion") composed between the third and sixth centuries, in Aramaic, the lingua franca of the late-antique Near East that slowly replaced its close cousin Hebrew as the Jewish vernacular. The Gemara is composed in a compressed class-notes style from the yeshivas of that era that requires a teacher to understand. You don't just read it.
There's one Mishnah, but there are two Gemaras and thus two Talmuds, the Jerusalem (Yerushalmi) and the Babylonian (Bavli). The former was never finished, a result of the deteriorating conditions of the Holy Land in late antiquity. The latter was finished, a product of a (mostly) more prosperous and stable, self-governing diaspora under Persian rule.
Its capital in Damascus, Aram was never a big deal as a kingdom, but its language became one of the official languages of the Persian empire when they conquered the Near East in the sixth century BCE. The eastern Christians spoke and wrote a form of it (Syriac). (Here's a fascinating fact: the Persians picked Aramaic as a common-denominator Semitic language because it was already used as language for trade and other exchange. Their own language was Indo-European. They also picked Elamite, a Dravidian language, not part of the other families. I wonder if they knew.)
A further twist: the Talmud is partly in Aramaic. However, the Hebrew itself of the first exile (sixth century BCE and later) came under strong Aramaic influence (the "-in" plural, like Arabic, rather than the "-im" plural of biblical Hebrew, for example). So Aramaic enters in two ways, not one.
Finally, the Arabic of that region (al-Shams, the rising sun, like Levant in Western languages) was also strongly influenced by the Aramaic of the area when the Arabs came with Islam in the seventh century. This sets off that type of Arabic from, say, the Arabic of the Beduin of the Arabian desert or Egyptian Arabic. Arabic gradually displaced Aramaic as the main vernacular over centuries. Aramaic today is spoken only in pockets in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq -- and New Jersey.
A friend and I came across an example recently. The word "khalaf" means "sword" in al-Shams Arabic and "ritual slaughter knife" in Hebrew (sharp knife to slaughter a kosher animal). They probably share a common Aramaic source. I don't know if "khalaf" occurs that way in other types of Arabic.
As someone raised in Oklahoma who lives around the Salish tribes now, I’ve been shocked there aren’t resources for learning Skagit/Swinomish Lushootseed as there are for Muskogee or Cherokee. Thank you for sharing. I’m going to reach out to my local rez to try to get my kids to pick it up with me.
I'm catching up on old segments and particularly appreciate this great one. I want to shout out the work of master storyteller Johnny Moses, a Tulip Native American from the Pacific NW. To listen to him speak in his native language is such a treat in his storytelling, and he speaks in english too so you can follow along, but the quality of his stories is 'Tonight Show' worthy. https://johnnymoses.com
Thank you Professor McWhorter!!
A question about Kiswahili. You've mentioned it in a few podcast episodes of an example of a "simplified" language, or at least one without unnecessary complications. As a newcomer to Tanzania and a new Kiswahili learner, I am befuddled by the multiple noun classes. As a native English speaker who has only previously learned other Romance languages, these - by some counts 18! - noun classes are a huge hurdle to get over. Yet you insist that Swahili is grammatically simple, which makes me feel a bit dense. Can you help make sense of what and why these are? Do they count as "dum-dum gender" or are they something else? Why are they there? From listening to you, I understand there are many languages with more complex grammar, but still my experience of learning it is far from the simple picture you paint on your show. Can you help me put Kiswahili grammar in context?
I am struggling with the documentation, revival not on the cards as of now, of an Indo-Portuguese Creole. Prof. McWhorter's writings on this topic have opened my eyes to the contra-view, if i may say so, to the prevalent mad-rush to "save" endangered languages. In addition, his political views lead to a sea change in the way I approach language conservation/revival and life in general.
John having some fun with music.