WEBVTT - The Unlanguaged Mind: A World Built With Words 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.000 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:13.720 Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:16.160 your Mind. My name is Robert lamp and I'm Christian Seger, 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:18.119 and we're picking up where we left off in the 0:00:18.200 --> 0:00:22.840 last episode talking about farerald children, wild children, the acquisition 0:00:22.880 --> 0:00:26.239 of language, and what language really is. Yeah, if you 0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:28.880 didn't listen to the first episode yet, I suggests that 0:00:28.920 --> 0:00:31.400 you go back and check it out. We talked about, 0:00:31.520 --> 0:00:34.320 you know, what exactly a feral child is, the differences 0:00:34.360 --> 0:00:38.000 between wild children and abused children throughout history, but how 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:42.320 they show similar you know, cognitive difficulties, and then we 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:46.240 gave examples of both you know, mythical stories of ferald children, 0:00:46.280 --> 0:00:49.479 but then also documented cases of feral children throughout history, 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:52.479 leading us into this section where we're going to talk 0:00:52.520 --> 0:00:56.760 about the brain, language, child development, how it all works, 0:00:56.800 --> 0:01:00.360 and why feral children have been so important to a 0:01:00.360 --> 0:01:03.120 lot of intellectuals throughout history. Yeah, I think it's really 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:05.360 important to it to realize what's at stake with language 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:11.039 and uh in any lapse in the ability to acquire language. Um, 0:01:11.080 --> 0:01:13.280 because of course it's as we've discussed already, it's more 0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:16.000 than a means of communicating ideas to one another. It's 0:01:16.160 --> 0:01:19.600 it's an operating system for the brain, a key aspect 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:22.080 of what makes us human. Uh. And we can better 0:01:22.120 --> 0:01:25.840 glimpse some of the wonders this involves. But and we 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:27.840 can better go in some of the wonders that are 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:30.640 involved in this by looking at the subtle differences among 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:34.000 the languages, differences that impact the way that we process 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:38.160 the passage of time, the nature of reality. Absolutely. Uh. 0:01:38.200 --> 0:01:40.880 If you're a regular Radio Lab listener, and I know 0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:44.360 a number of our listeners also listen to that show, 0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:48.120 then you've probably heard why Isn't the Sky blue? Uh? 0:01:48.320 --> 0:01:52.720 An episode in which linguist Guy Deuscher discusses the case 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:55.800 for a gray sky world, you know, asking that question, 0:01:56.120 --> 0:01:59.320 do we only come to see the sky as blue? 0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:02.280 And of course blue is a quite rare color in 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:05.480 the natural world, and we see very few examples of 0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:10.160 a really truly blue organisms. So do we see the 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:13.960 sky is blue only because we use our language to 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:16.720 describe it as such? Or is it truly blue? And 0:02:16.760 --> 0:02:19.040 he makes a compelling case that it's not really blue, 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:22.320 it's more of a gray, and just by using the 0:02:22.360 --> 0:02:25.359 words to describe it, thus we see it does we 0:02:25.560 --> 0:02:27.919 change it. Yeah, Well, I was talking to you a 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:31.280 little bit about this before we recorded the podcast. I 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:34.880 grew up overseas, and when I was a teenager, I 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:39.200 learned Mandarin. I've since forgotten a huge chunk of it. Um, 0:02:39.280 --> 0:02:43.720 but my experience as a kid growing up knowing English 0:02:43.720 --> 0:02:46.320 and then also learning Mandarin side by side was that 0:02:47.120 --> 0:02:51.840 it very much. There's a very different thought process that 0:02:51.919 --> 0:02:56.680 goes on with Mandarin thinking compared to English thinking. And 0:02:57.360 --> 0:02:59.519 I think that this is a perfect example. I don't 0:02:59.560 --> 0:03:02.480 know that necessarily that that that, um, those who speak 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:04.760 Mandarin see the sky any differently than we do, but 0:03:04.800 --> 0:03:07.720 I'm sure that there are certain cultural aspects that go 0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:11.680 along with that difference in language, that difference in understanding. Yeah, 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:13.840 there's a compelling argument to be made. I think that 0:03:14.639 --> 0:03:18.000 the language isn't just about communicating, but it's also it's 0:03:18.000 --> 0:03:20.880 about how we use the brain. It's how we Again, 0:03:20.919 --> 0:03:23.400 it comes back to that that software hardware analogy. That 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:26.040 language is the way in which we use our brains 0:03:26.080 --> 0:03:30.239 to think. Yeah and yeah, especially like you hear, often 0:03:30.280 --> 0:03:33.359 people who are learning a second language sort of describe 0:03:33.800 --> 0:03:37.840 feel that they are fluent in the language itself. Once 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:41.280 they've started thinking in that language, right, once they've been 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:43.880 exposed to it enough and immersed in it that they're 0:03:43.920 --> 0:03:48.800 thinking thoughts in that language. M one one easy area 0:03:48.840 --> 0:03:50.800 to look at here again just to really, you know, 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:52.840 bring up, bring home what's at stake with language and 0:03:52.880 --> 0:03:56.680 languge acquisition and how important it is. UM. Language is 0:03:56.800 --> 0:04:00.040 different wildly in the way that they encode time, and 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:02.200 this has an effect on the manner in which we 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:04.480 process and think about the passage of time, and really 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:08.160 on the very nature of history, be it larger history 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:12.320 or personal history. UM. In two thousand thirteen, Yale Universities 0:04:12.480 --> 0:04:17.800 M Keith chin He presented an hypothesis that languages UH 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:21.240 that grammatically associate the future and the present tend to 0:04:21.320 --> 0:04:25.680 foster future oriented behavior and UH. I found this to 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:29.599 be a rather rather rather interesting theory UH and involves 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:33.640 what linguists call future time reference or f TR. And 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:37.280 it turns out there's quite a lot of variety. Yeah, 0:04:37.320 --> 0:04:41.679 I know from my experience studying communications in school that 0:04:41.760 --> 0:04:44.919 there is a lot of attention paid to how we 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:49.840 understand time and different cultures, regardless of language, even UM 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:55.080 in in defining how those cultures exist together and apart 0:04:55.480 --> 0:04:59.200 and how cross cultural communication works. So you may be 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:02.520 speaking the same language, we could all be speaking English, 0:05:02.520 --> 0:05:05.719 but we'd have a different understanding of what near means 0:05:05.880 --> 0:05:10.920 or future means, past means. Like European tongues alone tend 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:15.720 to have a range from a tendency to rarely distinguish 0:05:15.920 --> 0:05:19.680 present and future time, such as Finnish apparently too languages 0:05:19.760 --> 0:05:24.080 like French which have uh separate and obligatory future forms 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:27.320 of verbs. So you have weak FDR again future time 0:05:27.360 --> 0:05:32.240 reference and strong FTR languages. And according to Chin, weak 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:37.200 FTR speakers may perceive future events as less distance less 0:05:37.240 --> 0:05:40.960 distant um. The example that he ends up using is 0:05:41.000 --> 0:05:44.000 that if a German speaker tells you that it's going 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:48.400 to rain tomorrow, essentially he or she is saying tomorrow 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:52.080 it is raining, as opposed to just in English, where 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:55.679 we say tomorrow it will rain. So in a sense, 0:05:55.720 --> 0:05:59.040 the future is already happening to the German language speaker. Yeah, 0:05:59.080 --> 0:06:03.680 and in effect you're again you get cross cultural communication 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:07.240 confusion from this, right, like like what is the definition 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:13.120 of raining? Or when? Linguistic distinctions may also lead to 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:17.000 more precise beliefs UH and studies have found that languages 0:06:17.040 --> 0:06:20.719 with more precise basic color terms caused the speaker to 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:24.400 hold more precise color beliefs. So languages tend to process 0:06:24.400 --> 0:06:28.640 anywhere from from two to eleven basic colors. UM. Black, white, 0:06:28.640 --> 0:06:32.520 and red are pretty much a given, but several languages 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:36.839 refer to yellow, green, and blue with one basic color term. Uh. 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:40.760 In many languages lack a basic word for purple, pink, orange, 0:06:40.839 --> 0:06:43.080 or gray. I wonder how much that has to do 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:48.440 with different types of color blindness throughout cultures. I know 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:50.760 that we did an episode on color blindness and how 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:53.560 it works for brain Stuff video show here at how 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:56.960 Stuff works, and there's different types of color blindness. I 0:06:57.040 --> 0:06:58.680 learned from that. You know, you can have I think 0:06:58.680 --> 0:07:00.760 it's like red, green, color blind this, and then there's 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:03.359 other distinctions. So I wonder if that has something to 0:07:03.400 --> 0:07:05.880 do with it. It might there. Um, I don't believe 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:09.159 this is actually the same Radio Lab episode referred to earlier. 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:13.320 They talked about the Odyssey, about some of the colors 0:07:13.360 --> 0:07:16.680 that are lacking from descriptions in Homer's the Odyssey, meaning 0:07:16.800 --> 0:07:22.560 some to theorize that that interesting. Um, Now with the 0:07:22.880 --> 0:07:25.080 blue example we were talking, I mean the color example 0:07:25.080 --> 0:07:29.280 we were talking about earlier when in linguistics, Um, the 0:07:29.560 --> 0:07:31.760 take home here seems to be that it means that 0:07:31.920 --> 0:07:35.440 language influences our ability to comprehend the world around us, 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:38.440 to organize it, and to define us. And one curious 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:42.000 example here is that in Russian there's a strong distinction 0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:46.160 between light blue, which is glow boy, I believe, in 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:50.200 dark blue, which is sin in sinny. I'm saying that wrong, 0:07:50.280 --> 0:07:54.680 but sinny, I believe. And Russian speakers therefore tend to 0:07:54.720 --> 0:07:58.680 perform better in tests distinguishing different shades of blue. So 0:07:59.000 --> 0:08:01.880 the language is more specific, and therefore they're understanding the 0:08:01.920 --> 0:08:04.480 ability to to see it is more specific as well. 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:08.320 I wonder if you can then see a difference in uh, 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:12.720 the aesthetics or possibly like graphic design of those different 0:08:12.760 --> 0:08:16.320 cultures based on like, you know, like, for instance, if 0:08:16.440 --> 0:08:21.000 blues or so important in Russia, I wonder if you 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:24.400 tend to see a lot more mixtures of different shades 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:27.920 or hues of blue. Uh, it's like that, Um, oh God, 0:08:27.960 --> 0:08:31.480 what is it? What is it? Alaskan Inuit that they 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:36.920 have different words right, Um, when you go to like 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:40.400 home depot or whatever to buy the paints for your home, 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:44.040 there's like, you know, twenty different types of white basically 0:08:44.440 --> 0:08:47.240 or off white or egg shell or whatever. They they 0:08:47.240 --> 0:08:49.400 have all kinds of bizarre names that they come up 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:51.920 with for them having done graphic design before. I mean, 0:08:51.960 --> 0:08:54.840 I used to reference the Pantone color booklet all the time. 0:08:54.880 --> 0:08:57.240 There's like a five hundred different colors in there alone. 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:00.280 It definitely makes me want to pay more to the 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:04.080 next time I'm looking at any kind of Russian visual media, 0:09:04.160 --> 0:09:06.120 be it a movie or art, to see if if 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:08.760 they're more blue, is they're more blue or maybe I 0:09:08.800 --> 0:09:11.360 won't even be able to appreciate it as well as 0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:15.000 a Russian language speaker based on my ability to distinguish 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:18.560 the blue. Yeah, absolutely, So okay, let's use that as 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:20.880 a basis. Then to step back for a second and 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:24.480 bring this back to feral children. Okay, So consider like 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:30.440 that we're using this example of that Russian has so 0:09:30.480 --> 0:09:34.800 many distinctions between blues that we as English speakers may 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:37.960 not even be able to comprehend them. Right, That's a simple, 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:40.760 small thing that is probably small enough that we could 0:09:40.800 --> 0:09:45.360 get past it an intercultural communication. If you're a feral child, however, 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:48.400 and you haven't learned any language, and you haven't been 0:09:48.400 --> 0:09:50.600 able to comprehend any of these things. You have no 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:56.240 comprehension of blue at all, what blue is, what color is? Even? Right? Then, 0:09:56.280 --> 0:10:01.200 imagine how difficult it is to process cognitively the world 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:05.120 around you. Like you said before, language how we organize 0:10:05.160 --> 0:10:07.920 and define the world around us. Our culture is how 0:10:07.960 --> 0:10:11.200 we understand the world in a way. The world is 0:10:11.240 --> 0:10:14.439 so complex and there's so much coming at us at 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:18.280 all times, right sensory wise, that we need that we 0:10:18.360 --> 0:10:20.240 need to be able to define that and put it 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:23.480 into boxes or else we go crazy. Yeah, I mean, 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:25.360 we'll come back to this one in a minute. But 0:10:25.440 --> 0:10:29.000 just imagine perceiving the world around you and not knowing 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:31.880 there are names for things, like not knowing the names 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:36.280 of anything. You know. It's at times we kind of 0:10:37.120 --> 0:10:42.040 is language bearing individuals. We kind of like to experiment 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:44.520 with that. We kind of like to occasionally like steer 0:10:44.559 --> 0:10:47.600 out in the forest and not categorize everything. And there 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:50.440 could be something refreshing in that. But imagine, and it's 0:10:50.440 --> 0:10:53.880 so difficult to do it. Imagine just not knowing the 0:10:54.000 --> 0:10:57.480 names of anything you're looking at. I would even go 0:10:57.840 --> 0:11:01.840 a step further. I I would hypothesize that it's possible 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:05.880 that some feral children possibly don't know the difference between 0:11:05.920 --> 0:11:11.080 themselves and the external world. Imagine that. Yeah, because language 0:11:11.160 --> 0:11:13.839 enables us to play with all these different concepts, and 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:17.240 any of them are crucial concepts to knowing what we 0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:21.800 are on a very basic existential level. Yeah. H Now 0:11:21.800 --> 0:11:23.880 another example that comes up, and perhaps you can speak 0:11:23.880 --> 0:11:26.080 to this one a little bit. Since um, we've given 0:11:26.120 --> 0:11:29.600 your background with the Mandarin, but the concept of time 0:11:29.760 --> 0:11:32.920 in Chinese languages, not not only Mandarin, but other other 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:36.440 dialects as well. I understand, um and their use of 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:39.320 their or their their the lack of tents, right. Yeah, 0:11:39.440 --> 0:11:43.680 I remember that that was a difficult part in learning 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:45.520 Mandarin when I because I came to it when I 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:48.760 was probably fourteen years old. Um. And I think like 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:51.520 the optimal time for learning a new language is something 0:11:51.520 --> 0:11:54.640 like before your ten or something like that. Um, but yeah, 0:11:54.840 --> 0:11:58.800 I do remember this. It's it's significantly different. Yeah. And 0:11:58.840 --> 0:12:02.120 I've seen some linguists argue that it may contribute to 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:05.960 the importance of ancestors and kept Chinese culture because it 0:12:05.960 --> 0:12:09.600 it on on on one level, it means that your 0:12:09.640 --> 0:12:13.240 ancestors are still in the present because of the tents 0:12:13.280 --> 0:12:15.560 that is used to refer to them again in the 0:12:15.600 --> 0:12:18.800 same way that for the German it's already raining even 0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:24.160 though it's raining tomorrow. For the Chinese language speaker, the 0:12:24.160 --> 0:12:27.440 the ancestor is not dead. The ancestor is still alive 0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:31.840 in the past. Yeah, that's interesting. I never considered that. 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:35.360 I guess when I was living overseas and speaking Chinese, 0:12:35.440 --> 0:12:39.120 I wasn't. I wasn't interacting with religious culture all that much, 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:42.160 especially in terms of like how they regarded their ancestors. 0:12:42.200 --> 0:12:43.760 It was more like, you know, I was at the 0:12:43.800 --> 0:12:46.280 level where they were teaching us, like here's how to 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:50.360 buy things in a star or something like that. But um, yeah, 0:12:50.559 --> 0:12:53.320 I think that that has some plausibility to it. Now 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:58.040 here's another aspect of language that that I tend not 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:00.080 to think think about all that much either of But 0:13:00.320 --> 0:13:04.600 it was explored in a piece for Ian magazine titled 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:08.920 The Sun Does Not Rise by Andrew Crummy, and the 0:13:09.040 --> 0:13:12.240 pointed out that we have a lot of magical notions 0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:16.640 about how the world works, uh, and they're essentially fossilized 0:13:16.640 --> 0:13:21.440 within our own language. Explained further. Yes, So, um, I'll 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:23.240 just read a quote from this article. But because I 0:13:23.240 --> 0:13:27.280 believe this, uh, this strives at home the principle of 0:13:27.280 --> 0:13:30.840 eternal folly offers a somewhat different picture. In place of 0:13:31.000 --> 0:13:33.840 history scene is a progression of steps on a ladder. 0:13:34.240 --> 0:13:38.120 We could instead imagine something more stratified, rather like the 0:13:38.280 --> 0:13:42.480 escarpments of the Wield of Kent that Charles Darwin wrote 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:47.000 about so eloquently. We envisage a cliff face exposed by erosion. 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:50.000 Our own age is the topmost layer, but presented to 0:13:50.120 --> 0:13:52.960 us are the remains of every preceding age, and we 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:56.120 are at liberty to pluck out buried fossils if we 0:13:56.200 --> 0:14:00.920 choose so that it mainly brings up two keys amples. Here, 0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:03.920 we still say that the sun rises, though of course 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:06.840 it doesn't rise. The earth rotates. But we're well, we're 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:12.079 linguistically shackled to this outdated model of solar mechanics. Likewise, 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:14.400 do you still might someone say talk about how they 0:14:14.440 --> 0:14:18.040 cast their gaze over something or or some various uh 0:14:18.080 --> 0:14:20.920 you know, turn of phrase that means the same thing, 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:23.640 when in fact we know that rays enter our eyes. 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:26.840 There's not like this magic laser beam that shoots of 0:14:27.040 --> 0:14:29.840 cyclops wise and bounces off the thing we're looking to 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:34.040 add and then come comes back. Yeah, that's interesting. I'd 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:36.080 take this a step further. I wonder if he's slought 0:14:36.120 --> 0:14:40.760 about this before. I saw a presentation on UM software 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:45.240 and desktop design before, and basically the person presenting was like, 0:14:45.320 --> 0:14:49.520 why do we still pretend that our computers are desks. 0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:54.400 You've got folders and trash cans and and there's even 0:14:54.600 --> 0:14:57.480 pencils and note pads and all of that, right, Like, 0:14:57.520 --> 0:15:00.480 we're acting like it's a desk. They're all metaphors. And 0:15:00.520 --> 0:15:03.240 we're so far along now that and so used to 0:15:03.880 --> 0:15:07.320 digital technology that shouldn't we be using something else other 0:15:07.360 --> 0:15:10.480 than these tangible metaphors. Yeah. I think that's a great example, 0:15:10.680 --> 0:15:12.680 and it does drive down to the fact that, you know, 0:15:12.840 --> 0:15:16.400 the language we used to describe something, even even though 0:15:16.520 --> 0:15:20.680 our our understanding of that thing has updated significantly, we're 0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:23.400 still describing it in an all outdated way, and in 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:25.960 a sense, we're processing in it in that way too. 0:15:26.000 --> 0:15:28.880 So even if you say the sun rises, like you 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:31.880 still kind of you kind of have this this dual 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:34.440 belief system in play, where on one level it is 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:37.360 literally rising, and then while you still know in the 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:40.160 back of your head that there's a more complicated orbital 0:15:40.600 --> 0:15:44.000 situation going on there. It's it's This is another perfect 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:46.520 example of culture making the world easier to understand for 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:51.040 the human mind. Right, Like, if you try to comprehend 0:15:51.080 --> 0:15:54.280 what's actually going on with the sun on the scale 0:15:54.320 --> 0:15:56.640 that it's going on with, you can't do it. Our 0:15:56.760 --> 0:15:59.960 human brain just can't do it processing all those things 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:02.880 that are happening with it and our relative we were 0:16:02.880 --> 0:16:07.120 talking earlier about, uh, your son and and uh, you know, 0:16:07.520 --> 0:16:11.240 understanding as a child the differences in space and time. Right, 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:16.040 imagine trying to understand your human existence on this huge 0:16:16.160 --> 0:16:20.240 rock in relationship to this even huger ball of fire 0:16:20.680 --> 0:16:24.520 and how they're rotating all around in this vast space. Right, 0:16:25.440 --> 0:16:27.840 we can't do it. So it's much easier for us 0:16:27.880 --> 0:16:30.520 to say it rises. Yeah. And I found myself in 0:16:30.560 --> 0:16:34.320 the exact situation with him, um, months and months ago 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:36.520 and maybe a year ago. I'm standing on the beach, 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:38.640 you know, where you can clearly see the sun come 0:16:38.680 --> 0:16:40.160 up and then later you can see it go down, 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:42.840 and he's asking, how what's going on? How is it working? 0:16:43.360 --> 0:16:46.360 And I want to be able to explain something more 0:16:46.480 --> 0:16:48.640 nuanced to him, but I end up saying, well, you know, 0:16:48.680 --> 0:16:50.400 the sun comes up and then it goes down, and 0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:53.400 then it goes under. Yeah, And that's like you have 0:16:53.480 --> 0:16:56.000 to have a starting point exactly. Yeah. And and then 0:16:56.040 --> 0:16:58.160 from there on out maybe you know you can you 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:02.360 can as he acquired more language skills and syntax to 0:17:02.400 --> 0:17:05.560 be able to you know, use it to form new 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:09.040 ideas for new words, transform his understanding than you can. 0:17:09.200 --> 0:17:12.080 And I say that thing I said earlier, Daddy was lying, 0:17:13.640 --> 0:17:20.240 U men to protect you from the crushing insignificance human 0:17:20.359 --> 0:17:23.440 life faces when we stare at the sun and understand 0:17:23.520 --> 0:17:30.040 it the cosmic unimportant. So obviously language does does more 0:17:30.040 --> 0:17:32.520 than that. Which a couple of examples here just to 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:35.879 show you a little more the little complicated nuances that 0:17:35.920 --> 0:17:39.919 are going on under the surface. Um, but you know 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:44.080 everything I mean, human culture, technology, the the advance of science, 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:47.040 like all of these things stem from language. Yeah. And 0:17:47.080 --> 0:17:51.399 at the end of the day, the language and culture 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:55.200 also they not only define what we know, but they 0:17:55.240 --> 0:17:57.840 define how we know what we know. And I know 0:17:58.560 --> 0:18:01.080 that's this is way too deep of a topic for 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:03.520 us to go down into now. But like ideas of 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:10.479 post structuralism and language and uh postmodernism combined together, you know, basically. 0:18:10.520 --> 0:18:12.800 And I think it was like the late seventies, especially 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:16.479 in France, that these ideas were coming about. That just 0:18:16.520 --> 0:18:21.400 our very understanding of knowledge itself is dependent on language 0:18:21.560 --> 0:18:26.439 and dependent on that is constructing limits into our understanding again, 0:18:26.640 --> 0:18:29.800 or else we'd go mad. All Right, we're gonna take 0:18:29.800 --> 0:18:32.160 a quick break and when we come back, we're gonna 0:18:32.200 --> 0:18:35.359 look at a couple of other examples that they give 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:38.480 us a some some more to chew on here with language, 0:18:38.560 --> 0:18:41.480 or we're gonna look at at at a very primitive 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:46.320 language that lacks abstraction, fiction and myth um and uh 0:18:46.400 --> 0:18:50.600 in a possible view at what adult life might consist 0:18:50.680 --> 0:19:04.600 of without language. All Right, we're back. You know. I 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:08.879 read a book a few years back, China m Elvil's novels. 0:19:09.800 --> 0:19:12.680 I have read this bookuse a huge China miel fan, 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:15.600 and that's a great book that I was really impressed 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:18.880 with it. It was very very serious for the most part, 0:19:18.960 --> 0:19:24.119 but but it explored some linguistic themes. Yeah, he's a 0:19:24.280 --> 0:19:29.879 really smart science fiction fantasy writer in how he plays 0:19:29.920 --> 0:19:33.920 around with how language defines things for us. Yeah, that's 0:19:33.960 --> 0:19:37.520 a very meta book. Yeah, that one in particular dealt 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:42.240 with interactions between humans and an alien species with severe 0:19:42.400 --> 0:19:46.560 cognitive and linguistic limitations on its ability to lie. So 0:19:46.600 --> 0:19:50.520 it's it's kind of like that Ricky Gervais movie about 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:55.359 the invention of lying um, except played seriously in a 0:19:55.400 --> 0:19:57.679 sci fi environment where you know, what, what does it 0:19:57.720 --> 0:20:01.359 mean when you know you're a bill reality to communicate 0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:04.679 with this other being? Uh, And it's the ability to 0:20:04.720 --> 0:20:07.520 process the world with its language, like it doesn't understand 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:10.240 the concept of lying. There's some other sci fi ideas 0:20:10.240 --> 0:20:11.960 that are thrown around and there about like there's one 0:20:12.200 --> 0:20:15.920 alien species that's just mentioned that it like communicates through vomiting, 0:20:16.000 --> 0:20:18.280 I think, And and there's a you know, one of 0:20:18.320 --> 0:20:22.119 the central species in the book. For humans to communicate, 0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:24.400 you have to have like two individuals that are kind 0:20:24.400 --> 0:20:27.600 of like nearly sinked so that they can seeing a 0:20:27.680 --> 0:20:31.120 chorus of their communication in a way that the alien 0:20:31.119 --> 0:20:35.880 can understand it. But when I read it, it got 0:20:35.880 --> 0:20:39.120 me to wondering, you know, is it possible within human 0:20:39.200 --> 0:20:41.880 language that there there are any human language systems where 0:20:42.000 --> 0:20:47.000 lying doesn't exist? And as far as I can tell, 0:20:47.240 --> 0:20:50.879 the lying is pretty much everywhere in some form. But 0:20:50.920 --> 0:20:53.879 there is this interesting tongue known as Paraha, uh that 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:58.280 the Faraha people of the Amazon speak, and it provides 0:20:58.440 --> 0:21:00.880 uh some interesting food for thought on you know, on 0:21:01.040 --> 0:21:04.520 the what what is it like to have a language 0:21:04.520 --> 0:21:08.399 that is a little more limited. A lot of this 0:21:08.440 --> 0:21:11.560 comes from a two thousand seven New Yorker article titled 0:21:11.720 --> 0:21:15.440 the interpreter Um. We can just do a quick rundown 0:21:15.440 --> 0:21:18.879 of some of the more astounding attributes of the language. Okay, 0:21:19.119 --> 0:21:22.399 so in this definition of Paraha, one of the first 0:21:22.400 --> 0:21:24.959 things that we know is that it's based on merely 0:21:25.200 --> 0:21:31.399 eight consonants and three vowels. There's a complex array of tones, stresses, 0:21:31.480 --> 0:21:35.280 and syllable lengths, and the speakers can drop the vowels 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:40.640 and consonants and instead use singing, humming, and whistling. That's interesting. Yeah, 0:21:40.680 --> 0:21:43.159 that reminds there's a recent thing that came out about 0:21:43.840 --> 0:21:47.840 whistling Turkish. Yeah, there's like a version of Turkish that 0:21:47.960 --> 0:21:52.159 is whistled for long distance communication. But it's it's different 0:21:52.280 --> 0:21:55.240 enough from Turkish to wherever you're a Turkish language speaking, 0:21:55.240 --> 0:21:58.840 even a native Turkish speaker, if you're unfamiliar with whistled Turkish. 0:21:58.880 --> 0:22:02.720 You're not going to understand it. Yeah, huh, okay uh. 0:22:02.760 --> 0:22:06.240 And this paraha also contains no numbers or a system 0:22:06.280 --> 0:22:08.399 of counting. So imagine what we were talking about earlier 0:22:08.440 --> 0:22:12.520 with regards to time. Probably impacts their culture significantly. Yeah, 0:22:12.600 --> 0:22:17.240 they used the simplest pronoun inventory known and they have 0:22:17.960 --> 0:22:21.480 a lack of any relative tenses or any individual or 0:22:21.680 --> 0:22:25.640 collective memory more than two generations past. So again, look 0:22:25.640 --> 0:22:28.880 at that. That's just alone. How not using numbers can 0:22:28.920 --> 0:22:31.880 impact you. Yeah, they have that. They can't understand anything 0:22:31.920 --> 0:22:34.639 that they didn't actually experience, probably right. Yeah, they have 0:22:34.720 --> 0:22:38.520 no drawings or art, they lack they lack color words, 0:22:39.080 --> 0:22:42.080 and this one's interesting. They lack creation, myths and fiction, 0:22:42.720 --> 0:22:47.240 which is kind of close to the inability to lie. Mhmm. Interesting. 0:22:47.920 --> 0:22:51.240 So in the in this this particular New Yorker piece, 0:22:51.720 --> 0:22:54.760 they they draw out that you know that there's an 0:22:54.800 --> 0:22:57.680 isolated people and they within a hunter gatherer world of 0:22:57.760 --> 0:23:00.560 the here and now. So it's a it's a world 0:23:00.560 --> 0:23:04.080 without abstraction. If they're talking about something, or if they're 0:23:04.119 --> 0:23:06.359 paying it much heed, then that thing is right in 0:23:06.440 --> 0:23:09.080 front of them to see, to smell, to taste, to touch, 0:23:09.680 --> 0:23:11.800 you know, there's there's no hey guys, they just saw 0:23:11.880 --> 0:23:14.640 five flowers. Uh, they must have been created by a god, 0:23:14.680 --> 0:23:17.560 and so they merely say, hey, check out these flowers. Here. 0:23:17.560 --> 0:23:20.600 They are right before us. There's no worrying about where 0:23:20.600 --> 0:23:22.920 they are in time and space because they are right here. 0:23:23.320 --> 0:23:26.479 So I'm really curious. Did this piece in The New 0:23:26.560 --> 0:23:30.719 Yorker get into how the interaction with the Western world 0:23:30.880 --> 0:23:33.640 affected them or their language or their culture, Like just 0:23:33.720 --> 0:23:40.320 by being there the journalist was influencing their language. Yeah, 0:23:40.359 --> 0:23:41.760 I mean they I don't think they got into it 0:23:41.880 --> 0:23:44.880 much in that piece. Uh, but I mean they're gonna 0:23:44.880 --> 0:23:47.680