Group items tagged

This article first begins by talking about how in times of polarization and partisan conflict people turn to tired slogans, buzzwords, and recycled thoughts. It argues, I think correctly, that when these "second-hand thoughts" take the place of our actual ones, much is lost. Thoughtful debate and discussion becomes a mud-slinging fest where each side launches their own rhetorical salvos and is met with opposing ones in return. Later, the article breaks down the purpose of language into two purposes. The referential function helps describe concrete objects--the article uses an apple as an example. Everyone understands that, literally, an apple is a fruit. The metalingual function helps to describe the meanings behind the metaphors, cultural connotations, and etymology that accompany a word. In this case, apple could hint at the original sin of Eve or the association with teachers and their pupils. It points out that when debate turns metalingual, people have different associations so, in effect, they argue using words that carry different meanings. Thus, the overuse of metalingual language can actually obscure the truth instead of uncovering it.

"Christian missionaries have become strangely vital to conserving endangered languages... In 1951 Pittman had started interviewing missionaries and linguists about the languages that were spoken in the parts of the world where they worked. The result was a language catalogue called Ethnologue... For example, the Spanish priests who followed the conquistadors into South America documented indigenous languages as they went."

Why does "left" mean liberal and "right" mean conservative? To answer this question, the article probes into how this political terminology originated from the physical location of politicians in the 1789 French National Assembly, which was the parliament France formed after the French Revolution.

This article outlines who and what trolls are, and what they do. It also shows some extreme examples of trolls, and how language can be abused and used as a weapon.

"One promising answer comes from the computer scientist Jon Postel, now known as "god of the Internet" for the influence he exercised over the emerging network. In 1981, he formulated what's known as Postel's Law: "Be conservative in what you do; be liberal in what you accept from others." Originally intended to foster "interoperability," the ability of multiple computer systems to understand one another, Postel's Law is now recognized as having wider applications. To build a robust global network with no central authority, engineers were encouraged to write code that could "speak" as clearly as possible yet "listen" to the widest possible range of other speakers, including those who do not conform perfectly to the rules of the road. The human equivalent of this robustness is a combination of eloquence and tolerance - the spirit of good conversation. Trolls embody the opposite principle. They are liberal in what they do and conservative in what they construe as acceptable behavior from others. You, the troll says, are not worthy of my understanding; I, therefore, will do everything I can to confound you."

Mark Pagel, at the University of Reading, talks about ultra-conserved words--words that have survived 10K years: I, ashes, woman, even possibly spit. He theorizes that such words derive from a common protolanguage.

"You, hear me! Give this fire to that old man. Pull the black worm off the bark and give it to the mother. And no spitting in the ashes!" It's an odd little speech. But if you went back 15,000 years and spoke these words to hunter-gatherers in Asia in any one of hundreds of modern languages, there is a chance they would understand at least some of what you were saying. That's because all of the nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs in the four sentences are words that have descended largely unchanged from a language that died out as the glaciers retreated at the end of the last Ice Age. Those few words mean the same thing, and sound almost the same, as they did then. While traditionally, it's been thought that words can't survive for more than 8,000 to 9,000 years, a team of researchers from the University of Reading has come up with a list of two dozen "ultraconserved words" that have survived 150 centuries. It includes some predictable entries: "mother," "not," "what," "to hear" and "man." It also contains surprises: "to flow," "ashes" and "worm." The existence of the long-lived words suggests there was a "proto-Eurasiatic" language that was the common ancestor to about 700 contemporary languages that are the native tongues of more than half the world's people.

Lakoff cognitive linguistics

British researchers say they have found 23 words that have persisted for a staggering 15,000 years. These "ultraconserved words" include some that you might expect (you, me, mother, man), others you might not (spit, worm, bark), and at least one somewhat heartwarming entry (give). Over the centuries, the words have retained the same meaning and almost the same sound. The team claims that's because they all come from an ancient "mother tongue" that was used toward the end of the last ice age, the Guardian reports. They assert that the ancient language eventually formed seven language families, which in turn formed the 700 modern languages used by more than half of the planet today. To find the ultraconserved words, linguists looked for cognates-words that have similar meanings and sounds in different languages, like "father" (padre, pere, pater, pitar)-shared by all seven of the aforementioned language families. They then translated the cognates into what they believed the cognates' ancestral words (known as proto-words) would be, then compared those. They ultimately found 23 that were shared by at least four of the language families, including one (thou) that was shared by all seven. Here are all 23 "ultraconserved words", listed by the number of language families in which they have cognates. 7 - thou 6 - I 5 - not, that, we, to give, who 4 - this, what, man/male, ye, old, mother, to hear, hand, fire ,to pull, black, to flow, bark, ashes, to spit, worm