I’m so happy you decided do an episode on written language. I have a copy of David Sacks’ wonderful book, Letter Perfect fka Language Visible, on the history of the Latin alphabet. Recommend to anyone looking to learn more about this. I’m reminded also of a story I read a couple of years ago about a couple of guys who created a written alphabet for an African language that had never had one. That made my day for weeks. It makes my day to think about it today. I tend to think that spoken languages are born, and written languages are created.
Alphabets were actually invented at least twice: Korean is written in Hangul, which is an alphabet arranged in syllablic blocks. It was invented, as far as anyone could tell, by King Sejong the Great alone, who really deserves that titlevfor 1. inventing an alphabet, and 2. making the letters featural. Many consonants have a base shape resembling that of the tongue while making the sound, for example.
Kvinna/kvinne for woman persists in Swedish/Norwegian, sort of trapped in the ice while language evolved.
French chanson and Spanish canción (with varying Iberian and Latin American pronunciations) is an interesting case. I’ve heard of a Great Vowel Shift. Is the evolution of consonants more ore less easily summarized?
I’m still curious about ‘c’ in Milosevic and in Celtic.
People who thought C referred to a programming language? Your language is as valid and complex as any other. But you need to take a step back, and look at where your language came from.
How do linguistics nerds get made? Well, maybe they’re born to families where their mothers write dissertations dedicated to them, entitled, In Remembrance of Me: Sacramental Theology and Practice in Colonial New England.
Maybe they grew up reading Beowulf comic books. Yes, they exist. It’s not the same as translating the poems to modern English, which my mother had to do, to graduate her program.
I read Superman. And Batman. I got in huge trouble for reading them . Because my mom’s boyfriend stored them in my room, and he was super pissed that a child would read those. Batman. Beowulf. Not very different. And then you grow up looking at thousands of books. You grow up thinking, I should read Bleak House, but you shouldn’t; it’s awful. And the first movie your mother ever takes you to is Olivier’s Hamlet. The second is The Sound of Music, and the third is Star Wars. I guess a person could do worse.
And then you’re like, who is George Eliot, and TS Eliot? Years later, you read the most beautiful translations of Pablo Neruda, and you think, who is James Wright? And then you try to learn Spanish, and John McWhorter tells you you’re doomed, trying to learn this language as an adult. Well, he’s probably right. Fourteen verb tenses are a lot, for a native English speaker. I’m still going to try, though.
Bad language in any language is still bad language. One would think you could set a higher standard. It is a debasement of the language as well as just being ugly.
Aha! This would explain why the name Catherine (from the French) can also be spelled with a K in English, which I understand is a later variant of the name - presumably to prevent it from being pronounced as 'Satherine' or similar. But the same spelling change wasn't seen in the French-speaking world.
From the subject line, I expected a history of the C programming language.
I could listen to content about the Phoenicians for hours
I’m so happy you decided do an episode on written language. I have a copy of David Sacks’ wonderful book, Letter Perfect fka Language Visible, on the history of the Latin alphabet. Recommend to anyone looking to learn more about this. I’m reminded also of a story I read a couple of years ago about a couple of guys who created a written alphabet for an African language that had never had one. That made my day for weeks. It makes my day to think about it today. I tend to think that spoken languages are born, and written languages are created.
Isn’t there a bonus segment for this episode? If so, where do I find it? I really wanted to learn more about K. That’s why I subscribed :-/
Fascinating stuff as always. Being a writer, the idea of learning why we created the sounds we did and how they work is beyond fascinating.
I like Ethel too
Ever thought of having a show on Sirius XM’a show tunes channel or curating a channel on Apple Music?
I hope I’m remembering this quote mostly right. From Margaret Atwood,, in The Handmaid’s Tale:
“…the moon is a stone, and the sky is full of deadly hardware, but oh, god, how beautiful anyway.”
Alphabets were actually invented at least twice: Korean is written in Hangul, which is an alphabet arranged in syllablic blocks. It was invented, as far as anyone could tell, by King Sejong the Great alone, who really deserves that titlevfor 1. inventing an alphabet, and 2. making the letters featural. Many consonants have a base shape resembling that of the tongue while making the sound, for example.
Kvinna/kvinne for woman persists in Swedish/Norwegian, sort of trapped in the ice while language evolved.
French chanson and Spanish canción (with varying Iberian and Latin American pronunciations) is an interesting case. I’ve heard of a Great Vowel Shift. Is the evolution of consonants more ore less easily summarized?
I’m still curious about ‘c’ in Milosevic and in Celtic.
This topic gains prominence and significance from the current popularity of the word “cuck”.
People who thought C referred to a programming language? Your language is as valid and complex as any other. But you need to take a step back, and look at where your language came from.
How do linguistics nerds get made? Well, maybe they’re born to families where their mothers write dissertations dedicated to them, entitled, In Remembrance of Me: Sacramental Theology and Practice in Colonial New England.
Maybe they grew up reading Beowulf comic books. Yes, they exist. It’s not the same as translating the poems to modern English, which my mother had to do, to graduate her program.
I read Superman. And Batman. I got in huge trouble for reading them . Because my mom’s boyfriend stored them in my room, and he was super pissed that a child would read those. Batman. Beowulf. Not very different. And then you grow up looking at thousands of books. You grow up thinking, I should read Bleak House, but you shouldn’t; it’s awful. And the first movie your mother ever takes you to is Olivier’s Hamlet. The second is The Sound of Music, and the third is Star Wars. I guess a person could do worse.
And then you’re like, who is George Eliot, and TS Eliot? Years later, you read the most beautiful translations of Pablo Neruda, and you think, who is James Wright? And then you try to learn Spanish, and John McWhorter tells you you’re doomed, trying to learn this language as an adult. Well, he’s probably right. Fourteen verb tenses are a lot, for a native English speaker. I’m still going to try, though.
Bad language in any language is still bad language. One would think you could set a higher standard. It is a debasement of the language as well as just being ugly.
Your impression of “gimmel” alone was worth the subscription $! (And what a wet blanket, that Gimmel, huh?)
Please note: I won’t be sending Gimmel an invitation to my next party.
— Mary B.
PS: JK! I don’t throw parties. :-)
Aha! This would explain why the name Catherine (from the French) can also be spelled with a K in English, which I understand is a later variant of the name - presumably to prevent it from being pronounced as 'Satherine' or similar. But the same spelling change wasn't seen in the French-speaking world.
For just a hot second I thought I was finally going to get a Lexicon Valley episode about a programming language!!!... :(