The Tower of Babel

1. The Tower of Babel Prof. Julia Nee Based on Ch. 8 of The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker

2. Are languages more similar or more different? • Martin Joos: “languages could differ from each other without limit and in unpredictable ways” • Noam Chomsky: a Martian scientist would conclude that earthlings, aside from their mutually unintelligible vocabularies, speak the same language

3. Are these similarities or differences? • Isolating languages vs. Agglutinating languages • Isolating: Use fixed words to mark the players in a sentence. • The dog bit the man. • The man bit the dog. • Agglutinating: Add affixes to mark the players in a sentence. • Person.marker+base+aspect-mood.marker (Mixe) • Fixed word order vs. flexible word order

4. Word Order • What are the possible orders for Subject – Object – Verb? • SVO and SOV account for the majority of languages • A few are VSO • Less than 1% OVS • OSV?

5. Theories explaining language universals • There is a “language gene” (the capacity to learn language is a part of our brain) • Language originated only once • Language developed out of a general learning strategy in our brain

6. Are we genetically wired for language learning? • What if language originated only once? • All existing languages come from the original source • Similarities come from that original language • Counter-arguments: • Creolization • New signed languages

7. Creolization • When speakers of different languages are forced to communicate, they develop “pidgins” • Pidgin: strings of words borrowed from the component languages; variable in word order; little or no standard grammar • Hawaiian sugar plantations called for Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Philippinos, and Puerto Rican workers

8. Creolization • Ex: • Me capé buy, me check make. • He bought my coffee; he made me out a check. • I bought coffee; I made out a check • When the second generation of speakers is exposed to the pidgin, they regularize it into a language, with a standard grammar • Ex: • Da firs japani came ran away from japan come. • The first Japanese who arrived ran away from Japan to here.

9. Signed Languages • Naturally occurring languages that are found wherever there is a community of deaf people • Signed Languages are not necessarily related to one another • Nicaraguan Sign Language • 1979: Establishment of the first school for the deaf in Nicaragua • Brought together deaf students from around the country never before exposed to sign language

10. Signed Languages • First students brought their own systems of gesture or homesign • Combined to form a pidgin – Lenguaje de SignosNicaragüense • Younger deaf students were exposed to the pidgin • Created a creole – Idioma de SignosNicaragüense

11. Signed Languages • ISN was more complex and had fixed grammatical structures • Greater number of verbs with a greater number of arguments • Greater number of inflections per verb • Greater agreement on each verb • New students learn the more complex system

12. Are we genetically wired for language learning? • What if language originated only once? • Creolization • New signed languages • What if language universals reflect universals of problem solving and thought? • Why would it be easier to conceptualize things one way or another? • Rules are arbitrary in an information sense, but not in a grammatical sense

13. Language Acquisition • Hypothesis that there is a “critical period” in language acquisition (before age 7) • Our general problem solving skills increase with age, but our language learning skills decrease with age • Children are excellent at figuring out language rules subconsciously; adults are terrible at figuring them out consciously

14. Critical Period in Language Acquisition • Need to be exposed to language input during the critical period before about 7 years old in order to develop language • Evidence for a critical period: • Immigrants • Children in captivity • Deaf children of hearing parents

15. Immigrants • Studied immigrants living in the US at least 10 years • Shown sentences: • The farmer bought two pig. • The little boy is speak to a policeman. • Immigrants arriving between 3-7 performed the same as US-born individuals • 8-15 performed worse • 17-39 performed worst

16. “Wild Children” • Genie • Mike paint. • Applesauce buy store. • I like elephant eat peanut. • Isabelle • Why does the paste come out if one upsets the jar? • Do you go to Miss Mason’s school at the university?

17. Deaf Children of Hearing Parents • Deprived of language input if they are not exposed to a signed language • Develop gesture or homesign • When exposed to signed languages, they can learn, but if they are too old when they’re first exposed, they never gain fluency

18. Specific Language Impairment • Inability to inflect (plural, tense) • The boy eat three cookie. • Yesterday the girl pet a dog. • Could not pass the “wug” test • Sass  sasss • Wug  wugness • Zat  zackle • Given intensive speech and language therapy, but it didn’t solve the problem

19. Specific Language Impairment

20. Aphasia • Damage to Broca’s area  Broca’s aphasia • Understand what is said but have difficulties speaking (slow, ungrammatical) • Me…build-ing…chairs, no, no, cab-in-nets. One saw…then, cutting wood…working… • Damage to Wernicke’s area  Wernicke’s aphasia • Fluent speech, but doesn’t make sense • [“What kind of work have you done?”] “We, the kids, all of us, and I, we were working for a long time in the…you know…it’s the kind of space< I mean place rear to the spedwan…”

21. Aphasia and ASL • Speakers of ASL are affected the same way by aphasia! • Can use their hands for purposes other than signing • Can pantomime

22. Teaching Language to Apes • Allen and Beatrice Gardner taught a chimp named “Washoe” a version of sign language • Francine Patter raised gorillas “Koko” and “Michael” with signs • Herbert Terrance worked with the chimp “NimChimpsky”

23. What discovery marked the beginning of “comparative linguistics”? / ¿Cuál descubrimiento inició el campo de “lingüística comparada”? • What is the strongest factor used in defining a language as a “language” or as a “dialect”? / ¿Cuál es la consideración más decisiva en etiquetar un habla como “lengua” o “dialecto”? • Why is African American Vernacular English considered only a dialect of English? / ¿Por qué se considera que el inglés vernáculo de los africanos-americanos es nada más que un dialecto de inglés? • Identify the following rules as “prescriptive” or “descriptive”: • Double negation is used in African American Vernacular English. • You shouldn’t use double negation in English. • The second person singular past tense inflection in Spanish is –aste or –iste; these are the only acceptable forms. • In Mexican dialects of Spanish, -astes, -aste, -istes, and –istes are all used as second person singular past tense inflections. Identifiquen las siguientes reglas como “prescriptivas” o “descriptivas”: • Se usa negación doble en inglés vernáculo de los africanos-americanos. • No se debe usar negación doble en inglés. • La inflexión para la segunda persona singular, tiempo pasado, en español es –aste o –iste; no se aceptan otras formas. • En dialectos mexicanos del español, -astes, -aste, -iste, y –istes son aceptadas como inflexiones para la segunda persona singular, tiempo pasado. • Describe the process of creolization. / Describan el proceso de criollización. • Is it possible that language originated only once? Consider creolization and the presence of new signed languages in your response. / ¿Es posible que el lenguaje se originara una sola vez? Consideren criollización y las nuevas lenguas de signos en su respuesta.

24. Teaching Language to Apes • Basic signed communication • Taught explicitly • Apply signs to larger categories • Produce new strings of signs

25. Teaching Language to Apes • Apes’ use of signs suggests: • They have concepts that are structured similarly to ours • They can attach concepts to external symbols (signs) • Do they have a mental grammar? • Have basic word order (“Roger tickle Lucy” vs. “Lucy tickle Roger”) • Very redundant (“give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you”)

26. Teaching Language to Apes • Don’t acquire vocabulary the same way as human children • Ape language learning more similar to learning a written language system like Chinese • Acquisition of signs may be the result of general learning strategies; language learning is different

27. Teaching Language to Apes • Can apes communicate? • Can they acquire grammar? • Is their communication like the human use of language?

28. Why is this significant for comparative linguistics? • Look for similarities and differences that are significant • Some linguistic traits are common, so they may have arisen by chance • Traits that are more unique are more reliable for comparing related languages • If we are genetically wired for language, all languages are likely to have SOMETHING in common

29. Why do languages change? • Freeman Dyson: “it is nature’s way to make it possible for us to evolve rapidly” by creating isolated ethnic groups in which undiluted biological and cultural evolution can proceed swiftly • But linguistic evolution does not have foresight

30. Why do languages change? “The formation of different languages and of distinct species, and the proofs that both have been developed through a gradual process, are curiously parallel…we find in distinct languages striking homologies due to community of descent, and analogies due to a similar process of formation…Languages, like organic beings, can be classed in groups under groups; and they can be classed either naturally, according to descent, or artificially by other characters. Dominant languages and dialects spread widely, and lead to the gradual extinction of other tongues. A language, like a species, when extinct, never…reappears.” -Darwin

31. Factors in Language Change • Related languages are the result of evolution from a common language or proto-language • Languages change through: • Variation: linguistic innovation • Heredity: ability to learn • Isolation: migration or social barriers

32. Learning in Language Evolution • Why do we need to learn languages? Why isn’t the language innate? • Communicative – we need to share our code with our communicative partners • Generation to generation, there are changes  learning language rather than having fully innate language allows us to adapt • Takes a lot of hard wiring to have a genetic component for EVERY linguistic element

33. Variation in Language Evolution • Borrowing • Coining new words • Reanalysis: listener interprets language differently from the speaker • “naranja”  “norange”  “anorange”  “an orange”  “those oranges” • “hammer-did”  “hammered” • Syntactic Changes: optional things become obligatory • “Give him a book” and “give a book him”

34. Separation • The majority of the language is preserved each generation • Colin Renfrew: Indo-European spread as farmers began cultivating more and more territory

35. Separation

36. Separation

37. Hittite • Was spoken in present-day Turkey • Date back to 16th or 17th century BC!

38. Tocharian • Discovered in 1900 in China • Two distinct dialects • Texts that were found are incomplete

39. Indo-Iranian • Indic • Iranian

40. Indic • Oldest is Sanskrit, specifically the Vedic language of the Vedas • Panini wrote grammar in 4th century BC • Sanskrit used (like Latin) long after it was no longer spoken • Developed into languages of modern India (Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Marathi, Gujarathi, Sinahlese, Romani) • Originated in Punjab, then spread to the south

41. Hindi-Urdu • ایک • دو • تین • एक • दो • तीन

42. Iranian • Avestan – language used in the “Bible” of teachings of Zarathustra • Old Persian – language of King Darius of the Persian empire

44. Balto-Slavic • Slavic • Old Church Slavonic – oldest from c. 865 AD • First use of Cyrillic alphabet • East Slavic – Russian, Ukrainian • South Slavic – Bulgarian, Macedonian, BCS • West Slavic – Polish, Czech, Slovakian, Sorbian • Baltic • Lithuanian and Latvian • Old Prussian (now extinct)

45. Balto-Slavic Numbers

46. Celtic • Originally from Central Europe • Became extinct on the continent • Only “Insular Celtic” survived • Celtic • Welsh • Cornish • Breton

47. Italic • Latin • Italian • Spanish • Catalan • Portuguese • French • Romanian • Occitan • Extinct languages of the Italian Peninsula (Umbrian, Oscan, Faliscan, South Picene)

48. Germanic • South of Norway and Sweden, Denmark and Germany • East Germanic (Gothic)  extinct • North Germanic (Scandinavian languages) • West Germanic (English, Frisian, Dutch, German) • Angles and Saxons went to England, where they spoke “Old English” • Frisian is the closest relative of English because Angles, Saxons, and Frisians were a community in NW Germany before the migration to England

49. Conclusions • Languages of the world have profound similarities despite surface differences. • This leads us to believe that we have an underlying “language instinct” that is hard-wired into our brains. • Language evolves in a way that is similar to species evolution: innovation, heredity, and isolation contribute to new language traits.