WEBVTT - Sci-fi and Speech 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.200 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:14.800 Forward Thinking, maybe everyone, and welcome forward Thinking. The podcast 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:16.520 looks at the future and says, I'll stop the world 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:18.840 and not with you. I'm John and strictly I'm Lauren 0:00:18.880 --> 0:00:24.160 foc Obama, and I'm Joe McCormick. Today we are launching 0:00:24.200 --> 0:00:27.640 what is hopefully going to become a series of podcasts 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:31.000 within the Forward Thinking podcast. I think Full of Hope 0:00:31.080 --> 0:00:35.160 is fine because we're the ones who decide so well, 0:00:35.200 --> 0:00:38.960 odds are good. We'll just see if it keeps happening, right, 0:00:39.040 --> 0:00:42.320 that's fair. But here's the basic concept. It's you don't 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:44.879 see that in sci fi because there are a lot 0:00:44.920 --> 0:00:47.840 of times when we're sitting around having conversations about things 0:00:47.920 --> 0:00:50.839 that seem to us very likely to happen in the future, 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:54.680 but the majority of science fiction depictions of the future 0:00:55.040 --> 0:00:59.040 don't realize these events. And you guys sort of touched 0:00:59.080 --> 0:01:01.840 on this with the anti gravity or the artificial gravity 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:03.680 episode rather or the idea that you know in the 0:01:03.680 --> 0:01:06.280 future the sci fi you always see people walking around 0:01:06.319 --> 0:01:09.560 on spacecraft, but really, wouldn't you see a lot of 0:01:09.560 --> 0:01:12.160 people floating around most of the time We talked about 0:01:12.160 --> 0:01:13.880 this a lot on the show. Actually, I mean usually 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:16.959 are our entrance into any given topic is science fiction, 0:01:16.959 --> 0:01:20.319 because that's where most of us experienced the future. Yeah yeah, well, 0:01:20.360 --> 0:01:22.480 I mean I I often experienced the future, but by 0:01:22.480 --> 0:01:24.720 the time I can talk about it, it's over. Yeah, 0:01:24.720 --> 0:01:27.920 but if you use the example of artificial gravity, there 0:01:27.959 --> 0:01:30.680 at least there are some technologies we can talk about 0:01:30.680 --> 0:01:33.520 where we'd say, okay, there's some things we have in 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:37.759 mind that could probably solve the artificial gravity problem just 0:01:37.800 --> 0:01:41.320 by simulating it with centripetal force or something like that. 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:45.200 But there are other things that we think are are 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:50.160 pretty sure bets for the future, and you rarely see 0:01:50.200 --> 0:01:52.040 them in sci fi, or at least the majority of 0:01:52.040 --> 0:01:53.880 the time you've don't. And the one we wanted to 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:59.880 talk about today is the consistency of modern speech and lying, 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:03.800 which so I want to start y'all out with a quote. Okay, 0:02:03.840 --> 0:02:07.320 so this is a quote I grabbed from the internet 0:02:07.440 --> 0:02:12.520 by Jean Luke Picard one Captain Jean luc Picard, second 0:02:12.520 --> 0:02:17.760 best Captain of the Enterprise ever. Time to start a fight? Alright, already, 0:02:17.919 --> 0:02:21.200 Pike was the purpose obviously, so the captain of the 0:02:21.320 --> 0:02:25.600 enterprise in the next generation. Once said this, the prime 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:28.160 directive is not just a set of rules. It is 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:31.920 a philosophy, and a very correct one. History has proven 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:35.560 again and again that whenever mankind interferes with a less 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:40.079 developed civilization, no matter how well intentioned that interference, maybe 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:45.520 the results are invariably disastrous. What's wrong with that? Well, 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:48.560 on one hand, he's advocating the prime directive, which I 0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:51.800 think is debatable. Well, fine, but that's a different that's 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:55.799 a whole other nerd fight. But taking it completely aside, 0:02:55.960 --> 0:03:00.000 the uh, the opinion of the prime directive as advocated 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:02.799 in Star Trek. You notice how he sounds pretty much 0:03:02.919 --> 0:03:07.760 like how we talk today, except you know, more English. Right, Well, okay, 0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:11.239 so he has his own literary style, his own style, 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:14.800 but he's three years in the future and he's speaking 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:17.640 like we speak. That's true. That's true. He's using the 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:21.239 same same terminology that we use. He's using the same 0:03:21.240 --> 0:03:24.280 sentence structure, the same syntax, everything along those lines. Yeah, 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:27.600 I see, that's highly intelligible to us. It sounds exactly 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:31.200 like someone like Picard would talk today. Sure, you picked 0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:33.560 one of the Star Trek episodes that was highly intelligible. 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:35.680 I kind appointed you to a few that aren't. But 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:38.560 there there are some things that go even farther into 0:03:38.640 --> 0:03:42.560 the future, where you know, they've depicted far future civilizations 0:03:42.600 --> 0:03:46.240 that basically just speak twentieth century English. Or the example 0:03:46.280 --> 0:03:48.800 I polled was Planet of the Apes, very you know, 0:03:49.000 --> 0:03:53.240 classic science fiction film. I'm talking about the Charlton Heston one. Obviously, 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:57.559 so in the the movie the year that the astronaut 0:03:57.600 --> 0:04:00.680 travels to he's in he's in suspended animation, is traveling 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:02.680 near the speed of light for I think a year 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:05.320 and a half and lands on a um what he 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:07.720 believes it to be an alien planet in what is 0:04:07.760 --> 0:04:12.400 the year three thousand nine eight, but it's actually spoiler 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:17.120 alert Earth. And you have this whole's cast system of 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:19.960 apes that have evolved over time. And the guerrillas are 0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:23.200 like the military police, and the orangutans are the politicians, 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:27.520 chimpanzees with the scientists, and they all speak English. Uh, 0:04:27.560 --> 0:04:31.360 they speak English that they the astronaut can understand even 0:04:31.400 --> 0:04:33.920 if it's not English. Let's assume for a moment that 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:37.080 it's whatever other language it happens to be, but it 0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:39.560 has been translated for us. The audience so we can 0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:42.800 understand it. The fact is, the astronaut can still understand 0:04:42.839 --> 0:04:45.640 what the apes are saying. The language itself has not 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:48.479 changed in his journey. So even if you give it 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:50.599 the opportunity of saying, oh, well, it's just so that 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:53.960 you can understand the story, the characters within it can 0:04:54.040 --> 0:04:57.000 understand each other. So the divine spark exists only in 0:04:57.120 --> 0:05:00.360 Simian brain. Yeah, so, so what what you get there? 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:04.880 Is this crazy idea that these characters are able to 0:05:04.920 --> 0:05:09.480 communicate despite hundreds of years of separation between them. So 0:05:09.480 --> 0:05:14.800 here's did you grab a doctor? I had to here 0:05:14.800 --> 0:05:17.280 he goes. You are right. I have always known about 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:20.040 man from the evidence. I believe his wisdom must walk 0:05:20.080 --> 0:05:23.240 hand in hand with his idiocy. His emotions must rule 0:05:23.320 --> 0:05:25.920 his brain. He must be a warlike creature who gives 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:30.760 battle to everything around him, even himself. Touche Doctor's as 0:05:31.520 --> 0:05:35.679 sounds like a particularly eloquent twentieth century English Charlton Heston 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:42.560 flies with dirty. Uh. Do we have anything even farther 0:05:42.600 --> 0:05:44.360 ahead than oh? Sure? Yeah? If you want to look 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:47.200 at the time Machine by H. G. Wells, Do you 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:50.279 want to talk about super into the future. So, the 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:52.840 protagonist of the time machine travels to the year eight 0:05:52.880 --> 0:05:57.239 hundred two thousand seven d one. That's crazy, now, flag 0:05:57.480 --> 0:05:59.320 I read that book. I thought that in the book 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:01.320 they did speak a different line they do in the book, 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:04.080 in the original in the film from the nineteen sixties, 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:06.920 right in the book version. The eloy, which are the 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:12.200 the sort of docile um cattle, spoil her alert in 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:15.120 the time machine. But they are they are descended from humans. 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:19.720 Are are great great grandchildren. Ain't too bright? Right, right, Well, 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:22.039 half of them aren't. The other half of the Morlocks, 0:06:22.080 --> 0:06:24.039 who are all the ones who do all the work, 0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:27.159 and they have been using the eloy as cattle. Essentially 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:30.360 they eat the eloy. So the Morlocks are the bad 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:32.360 guys and the Elois are the good guys more or less. 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:35.480 Kind of Actually, there's a lot of socialist commentary in 0:06:35.480 --> 0:06:39.320 that book. But anyway, so H. G. Wells in his story, 0:06:39.800 --> 0:06:44.320 the Eloi spoke their own language that was unintelligible to 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:47.000 the protagonist. But in the film, again you have the 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:50.320 eloy and the protagonists being able to speak to one 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:56.000 another fluently. So, but you're talking about eight hundred thousand 0:06:56.080 --> 0:07:00.240 years of the future and people are still speaking um. 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:03.720 Well Es era English. Now, the reason why we're finding 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:06.560 this so amusing is because all you have to do 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:10.960 is look backward, look back over time and see the 0:07:11.040 --> 0:07:15.720 historical evolution of English and see how it has changed 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:19.200 dramatically just in the last thousand years or so, let 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:23.320 alone eight hundred thousand years into the future. Yeah, okay, 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:27.400 So we plotted a little journey, a little literary journey 0:07:27.440 --> 0:07:30.480 for you through quotations. Through quotations, so we've started with 0:07:30.600 --> 0:07:34.920 opening lines from literary works uh A hundred, two hundred, 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:37.760 four hundred years ago. The main thing to keep in mind, 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:40.200 which we hinted at earlier, is that each of these 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:43.000 is a different writer with their own literary style. So 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:45.720 even two writers today aren't going to sound exactly alike. 0:07:46.720 --> 0:07:49.760 But even with that in mind, you're going to really 0:07:49.840 --> 0:07:52.600 notice the differences in a minute here, sure, Okay. So 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:55.720 the first work that we have was published. It's called 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:59.360 Unlucky thirteen. It's by James Patterson and Maxine petro Um, 0:07:59.400 --> 0:08:02.040 and we we chose it because it is the at 0:08:02.040 --> 0:08:04.400 the top of the New York Times bestseller list this 0:08:04.440 --> 0:08:07.000 week combined digital and printing one thee list. So so, 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:10.040 I mean, we didn't choose it because it's your favorite book. No, 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:13.280 but it's but it's a popular work within the culture, 0:08:13.280 --> 0:08:14.880 and so we thought that it would be a good one. 0:08:14.920 --> 0:08:17.560 So so I'm going to quote the first two paragraphs 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:20.840 their short So I chose too. It was an ugly Monday, 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:23.720 just afternoon. There had been no sign of sun so far, 0:08:23.880 --> 0:08:25.760 just a thick fog that had put the blocks to 0:08:25.800 --> 0:08:28.239 traffic around the Golden Gate. I was behind the wheel 0:08:28.240 --> 0:08:31.160 of the squad car, and Inspector rich Conklin, my partner 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:33.080 of many years, was in the seat beside me when 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:36.040 Claire called my cell phone. Claire Washburn is my closest 0:08:36.080 --> 0:08:39.440 friend and also San Francisco's chief medical examiner. The call 0:08:39.600 --> 0:08:45.200 was strictly business. Alright, alright, so that's that's obviously modern English. Yeah, 0:08:45.520 --> 0:08:48.160 uh nothing, I've got no qualms about it. Obviously he 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:51.000 was published this year, so clearly we would have a 0:08:51.080 --> 0:08:55.439 very similar style. Well, what's next. I pulled a quote 0:08:55.559 --> 0:08:59.040 from exactly one hundred years ago, not to this day, 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:02.200 but to the year nine fourteen, from the short story 0:09:02.320 --> 0:09:05.480 Dracula's Guest by Bram Stoker, which actually do this in 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:07.839 an English accent. Was No, I'm not going to do it. 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:10.520 Wouldn't it be an Irish accent? Well, I guess technically 0:09:10.520 --> 0:09:12.520 I could deny yoursh accent. That would be just fine. 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:15.000 Why don't you read it, Jonathan. This is from the 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:17.640 short story Dracula's Guest. I think it was originally a 0:09:17.880 --> 0:09:21.640 chapter of Dracula that was removed. Right, well, I'll do this. 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:24.040 I'll do this in English, because most of the characters 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:27.560 and in Dracula were actually English, with the exception of 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:30.199 the title. The character from the title, I hope you 0:09:30.240 --> 0:09:33.800 can pronounce all these words. When we started for our drive, 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:36.200 the sun was shining brightly on Munich, and the air 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:38.480 was full of joyousness of early summer. Just as we 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:40.800 were about to depart here, Dell Brook, the major de 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:44.360 hotel of the Quatras where I was staying, came down 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:47.080 bareheaded to the carriage, and, after wishing me a pleasant drive, 0:09:47.440 --> 0:09:49.480 said to the coachman, still holding his hand on the 0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:52.840 handle of the carriage door, Remember you were back by nightfall. 0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:55.040 The sky looks bright, but there is a shiver in 0:09:55.080 --> 0:09:57.760 the north wind, and it says there may be a 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:00.600 sudden storm. But I'm sure you will not be late here, 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:03.720 he smiled, and added, well you know what night it is, which, 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:09.520 of course everybody knows is Walpurchase knocked. Well, obviously night 0:10:10.600 --> 0:10:16.520 all the banners that were up in town. Okay, okay, 0:10:16.559 --> 0:10:19.840 so already this is pretty similar, sure, but I mean 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:22.199 there are a few cultural markers. Like in that first 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:24.600 passage we were talking about cell phones. There was there 0:10:24.720 --> 0:10:28.520 was the golden gate bridge popped up. It was very clipped. 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:30.480 This is a little bit more, um, a little bit 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:33.400 more elaborate in its structure. Yeah, you can also, I 0:10:33.400 --> 0:10:36.840 mean one easy marker is the technological differences. They mentioned 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:41.000 carriages and coachman and stuff. At The cultural difference that 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:44.120 I thought was interesting was it says bareheaded, like that's 0:10:44.160 --> 0:10:47.959 a thing worth observing. Specifically, a dude wasn't wearing a hat, right, 0:10:48.120 --> 0:10:50.160 I mean that that would be weird back then but 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:53.840 normal now. And there's just this, even though it sounds 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:56.440 pretty similar to modern English, there's a little bit less 0:10:56.520 --> 0:10:59.520 than modern cadence to the pros. It's actually a little 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:06.239 closer to Sean Lupaccard spoke more like you know, nineteenth 0:11:06.240 --> 0:11:10.080 maybe late eighteenth century character, but with terminology that was 0:11:10.160 --> 0:11:14.719 obviously updated. The sentence structure was much more formal than 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:18.280 you would find a normal speech. Okay today, Okay, I 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:20.840 want to go back a hundred years before that, to 0:11:21.000 --> 0:11:24.920 eighteen fourteen, where I pulled the beginning paragraph part of 0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:28.439 the beginning paragraph of Mansfield Park by Jane Austen. Now 0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:32.120 keep in mind again this is Austin's particular literary style. 0:11:32.240 --> 0:11:35.840 But we're definitely going to start getting into some strange 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:39.280 lands here. Oh, I'll do this one is Jane Austen. 0:11:39.559 --> 0:11:46.680 Um is pretty cool and I'm a lady. About thirty 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:49.280 years ago, Miss Maria Ward of Huntingdon, with only seven 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:51.760 thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:54.880 Spectrum of Mansfield Park in the County of Northampton, and 0:11:54.880 --> 0:11:57.280 to be thereby raised to the rank of a baronet's lady, 0:11:57.320 --> 0:11:59.800 with all the comforts and consequences of a handsome house 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:03.080 and large income. All Huntingdon's exclaimed on the greatness of 0:12:03.080 --> 0:12:05.520 the match, and her uncle the lawyer himself, allowed her 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:07.480 to be at least three thousand pounds short of any 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:10.160 equitable claim to it. She had two sisters to be 0:12:10.160 --> 0:12:13.520 benefited by her elevation, and such of their acquaintance as thought, 0:12:13.520 --> 0:12:16.040 Miss Ward and Miss Frances quite as handsome as Miss Maria, 0:12:16.240 --> 0:12:19.760 did not scruple to predict their marrying with almost equal advantage. 0:12:20.400 --> 0:12:24.720 What there's fancy talk. It is fancy talk, but it's 0:12:24.720 --> 0:12:28.240 also I mean people, I don't know. Something was happening 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:32.959 differently back then. Sentences were happening in a different way. Yeah, yeah, 0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:36.640 well yes, and and syntax and structure and just uh, 0:12:37.400 --> 0:12:40.400 just the culture itself changes over time. That's really what 0:12:40.400 --> 0:12:42.679 we're getting at here. But you know, I don't think 0:12:42.679 --> 0:12:45.320 we've gone back far enough. Ye did not scruple to 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:48.800 predict their marrying with almost equal advantage. Well, that seems 0:12:48.800 --> 0:12:52.280 pretty normal to me. We gotta go further back, Joe, 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:53.920 we gotta go further back. You're gonna are you gonna 0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:57.440 make me read? So? The next one I grabbed was 0:12:57.480 --> 0:13:00.800 from six fourteen, that's four hundred years ago this year. 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:05.319 This is Ben Johnson's comedic play Bartholomew Fair. I did 0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:07.880 a play here because I I couldn't find the full 0:13:07.920 --> 0:13:12.600 text of a good prose work. Well didn't really exist 0:13:12.720 --> 0:13:17.520 as such at that point, well okay, but certainly not 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:20.400 prominent in the way right. They weren't popularized the way 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:23.560 that plays were at the time plays were more likely 0:13:23.640 --> 0:13:25.480 where you're going to get a lot of pros. Right. 0:13:25.520 --> 0:13:29.760 So this is Johnson's Bartholomew Fair, which if a y 0:13:29.800 --> 0:13:35.599 are e, yeah, it certainly is. It opens with the 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:39.599 character called the stage keeper kind of giving this meta dialogue, 0:13:39.679 --> 0:13:43.240 like talking about the play that's about to happen. So 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:47.040 here we get gentlemen have a little patience. They are 0:13:47.280 --> 0:13:51.360 in upon coming instantly he that should begin the play, 0:13:51.520 --> 0:13:54.959 master little wit. The proctor has a stitch new fallen 0:13:55.200 --> 0:13:58.560 in his black silk stucking twill be drawn up area 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:02.360 you can tell twenty He plays one of the arches 0:14:02.440 --> 0:14:05.319 that dwells about the hospital, and he has a very 0:14:05.360 --> 0:14:08.400 pretty part. But for the whole play, will you have 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:16.480 the truth? On on it? On on it? I am 0:14:16.520 --> 0:14:19.200 looking less to the poet here me or his man 0:14:19.280 --> 0:14:22.360 master broom behind the rs. It is like to be 0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:29.040 a very conceited scurvy one in plain English English. That's 0:14:29.040 --> 0:14:32.520 why I picked that part, which this to me sounds 0:14:32.600 --> 0:14:36.800 like a bizarre mix of modern English and nonsense. It does, 0:14:36.920 --> 0:14:39.000 it does. And then of course we wanted to go 0:14:39.080 --> 0:14:42.240 back further, and Joe and Lauren wanted to challenge me 0:14:42.360 --> 0:14:45.120 with a little Middle English, Right, so by the time 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:48.200 you get to like the thirteen hundreds, you are fully 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:52.120 into Middle English, which is basically a different language. I 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:57.080 mean it's the predecessor to English. Yeah, and without scholarly 0:14:57.160 --> 0:14:59.960 knowledge of how to like I Joe or I could 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:04.600 not read this aloud, but Jonathan specific it turns out education. Yeah, 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:07.720 my my degree was in medieval and Renaissance English literature. 0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:12.520 So please do forgive me if I do stumble at all. 0:15:12.600 --> 0:15:15.360 It has been about twenty years since I've done this. 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:18.480 This is the beginning of Jeffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, 0:15:18.600 --> 0:15:22.760 the prologue one that appeared with a short s the 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:26.520 draftsro march had passata, rota and bad ditch vain sweetly cool, 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:29.960 which vetu and ginrich is the floor when zaforas eat 0:15:30.000 --> 0:15:33.560 with a sweeter breath inspired. Hath actually should be in 0:15:33.600 --> 0:15:36.880 spirit hath in every holt, and heath the tinder cropas 0:15:36.880 --> 0:15:38.920 on the younger zona. Hath in the rams have the 0:15:39.000 --> 0:15:43.560 coasta rouna and smaller fool is marking Melodia that's sleeping 0:15:43.640 --> 0:15:46.360 on the with open ear, so pricketh him not pure 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:48.800 in here karage is don long and Folke to go 0:15:48.880 --> 0:15:53.280 on on pilgrimages, and Palmeres vought the second strongest rounders 0:15:53.680 --> 0:15:57.600 to fair in the hallways, cool thin Saundri Landa's especially 0:15:57.640 --> 0:16:01.560 from every sharers Inda of Engleland. The Candoberry they weaned 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:05.640 the holy blissful mata that them hath hope and one 0:16:05.720 --> 0:16:14.280 that they were sick. And yeah, so so I did 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:16.480 one day. It should have been thy th h e 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:19.480 y was pronounced thy, not they. So I realized that 0:16:19.480 --> 0:16:21.600 after I said, well, we'll give it to you this time, 0:16:21.600 --> 0:16:24.280 I got it right the second time. So that is 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:29.320 not easy to do. And and a lot of the 0:16:29.360 --> 0:16:33.360 words are spelled in a way that's similar to modern English, 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:35.480 but they are pronounced in a very different and we'll 0:16:35.480 --> 0:16:37.360 get into the reason for that and just a little bit. 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:39.760 But if you go even further back, yeah, say you 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:43.160 go back from the Canterbury Tales to something like Bayo Wall. Yeah, 0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:46.800 if you go to pre Norman invasion England. So the 0:16:47.640 --> 0:16:51.040 Middle English is that was that that French influence that 0:16:51.120 --> 0:16:54.800 came in and mixed with Old English to form Middle English. Right, 0:16:55.240 --> 0:16:59.200 so before the Normans decided to visit England and stay 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:03.680 awhile the language was Old English, which comes from Old Frisian, 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:06.680 which is also the root for Old Germans. So if 0:17:06.680 --> 0:17:08.800 you look at Old English and you start looking at words, 0:17:09.160 --> 0:17:11.159 the words and sent structure look a lot more like 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:14.399 German than they do Modern English. Um. So one of 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:17.080 the phrases that my favorite phrase from Beowulf is, and 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:20.720 it's repeated a few times, is fatwas god kinek, which 0:17:20.760 --> 0:17:24.560 means which means he was a good king. So obviously, 0:17:24.600 --> 0:17:27.400 like it's like it's said quite a few times. Um, 0:17:27.440 --> 0:17:31.680 but yes, fatwas god kinek does not sound at all 0:17:31.760 --> 0:17:36.120 like English. But this is all technically English. And we've 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:40.240 just seen how from say, I don't know, around seven 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:44.960 hundred a d. All the way up to modern day 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:48.920 it has changed dramatically, So why would we not assume 0:17:49.119 --> 0:17:51.640 it would continue to do so. Yeah, if Jean Luc 0:17:51.640 --> 0:17:54.880 Picard is born in twenty three oh five, according to 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:58.240 the Star Trek lore, if he's speaking in the middle 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:01.080 of the of the undreds, should be like the difference 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:05.360 between us and somewhere between Jane Austin and Ben Johnson. 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:07.800 All Right, so here's the question. Now that we know 0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:11.480 that language changes over time, how is it How can 0:18:11.520 --> 0:18:13.320 we predict what language is going to sound like in 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:15.760 the future. I mean, how does language itself actually change? 0:18:16.359 --> 0:18:20.800 The short answers that nobody knows. Hey, um well, okay, 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:22.600 it's a really big question, is the thing. And it 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:26.479 involves genetics and the development of multiple brain structures and 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:29.920 plasticity of the brain. Also development of speech structures from 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:31.760 the tongue to the vocal cords, the palette, all that 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:34.800 kind of stuff, um and then after that the growth 0:18:34.840 --> 0:18:38.240 of systems of vocabulary and grammar. But there are a 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:41.080 bunch of really cool theories out there, um like like. 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:43.280 Research out of the University of Reading in two thousand 0:18:43.280 --> 0:18:45.359 and eight, which was done with statistical tools that are 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:48.879 usually used in biology, indicated that the languages often evolved 0:18:48.920 --> 0:18:52.359 in sudden spurts rather than steadily over time. And okay, 0:18:52.359 --> 0:18:54.320 note that those sudden spurts can take a hundred years 0:18:54.400 --> 0:18:56.400 or more. But but still, this is this is an 0:18:56.400 --> 0:18:59.280 interesting finding. They they analyzed three of the world's major 0:18:59.400 --> 0:19:03.560 language group, those being bent to Austronesian and Indo European. 0:19:03.880 --> 0:19:07.520 In all three, some third of historical language changes came 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:11.240 on suddenly when a subculture split off from a larger population. Okay, 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:13.199 and so that thing you said when they came on 0:19:13.320 --> 0:19:15.240 suddenly though it could take like a hundred years, that 0:19:15.240 --> 0:19:17.800 doesn't mean they happened immediately. It just means the rate 0:19:17.880 --> 0:19:22.399 of change is not constant, so they can slowly change 0:19:22.440 --> 0:19:25.360 and then quickly change. And even so, I mean, when 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:27.520 you think about it, I mean, languages is one of 0:19:27.560 --> 0:19:32.680 those things that unites the people, right, Yeah, that's yeah. 0:19:32.800 --> 0:19:36.360 Without that common language, obviously you can't have any kind 0:19:36.359 --> 0:19:39.960 of communication whatsoever. And when you can communicate with someone, 0:19:40.320 --> 0:19:43.960 you start to psychologically identify with that person. You think 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:46.639 this person belongs, at least in some part to a 0:19:46.640 --> 0:19:49.520 group that I also belong to. And when you encounter 0:19:49.600 --> 0:19:52.760 someone who cannot communicate with you and they are not 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:56.080 able to have that kind of meaningful conversation in any way, 0:19:56.200 --> 0:19:59.280 then you start to think, at least on a psychological level, 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:01.960 this per and does not belong to the group to 0:20:02.000 --> 0:20:04.720 which I belong. So there are a lot of complicated 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:09.200 issues here that kind of guide a a language forming 0:20:09.320 --> 0:20:11.800 and then evolving over time. Oh sure. And and part 0:20:11.800 --> 0:20:15.040 of it is that when when a group breaks off 0:20:15.160 --> 0:20:20.000 from a larger group, they maybe not intentionally, but but 0:20:20.080 --> 0:20:25.119 certainly in a way purposefully distinguished themselves by certain language markers. 0:20:25.359 --> 0:20:27.399 You can see that in teenagers who are trying to 0:20:27.440 --> 0:20:30.800 be different from their parents are from when when um 0:20:31.000 --> 0:20:33.400 segments of the British came over to America, they began 0:20:33.480 --> 0:20:37.800 speaking differently, right, And then in some areas, some populations 0:20:37.800 --> 0:20:40.880 of the British coming over to America ended up preserving 0:20:40.920 --> 0:20:44.199 their way of speech a lot more faithfully than others. 0:20:44.440 --> 0:20:47.720 So you will often hear interesting stories about how there 0:20:47.760 --> 0:20:51.760 are pockets of populations in Appalachia, for example, that have 0:20:52.000 --> 0:20:57.320 speech patterns that are more akin to the Elizabethan patterns 0:20:57.320 --> 0:20:59.920 of speech way back when, which to me is fast 0:21:00.280 --> 0:21:03.080 the idea that the proper English we are used to 0:21:03.280 --> 0:21:07.359 hearing from television and movies is not really indicative of 0:21:07.400 --> 0:21:09.880 what you would have heard in Shakespeare's time to hear 0:21:09.920 --> 0:21:11.560 that it might be better for you to take a 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:15.160 trip to the to the mountains, the Ridge mountains. Yeah, 0:21:15.280 --> 0:21:17.760 and even if it's not such a such a large 0:21:17.760 --> 0:21:22.280 scale populational kind of thing, I mean, okay, So so 0:21:22.320 --> 0:21:25.320 the exact role of all of these components of speech 0:21:25.359 --> 0:21:28.639 are definitely in debate among among linguists and biologists and 0:21:28.640 --> 0:21:32.320 psychologists and anthropologists and lots of other fields of study. 0:21:32.359 --> 0:21:35.600 But you know, it's obvious to even the casual observer 0:21:35.720 --> 0:21:39.520 that that vocab and grammar do change over time and 0:21:39.520 --> 0:21:42.240 and are prompted by by cultural events. Even if they're 0:21:42.280 --> 0:21:44.359 not this kind of break off event, it could be 0:21:44.400 --> 0:21:47.480 a change in technology, wherein new words come into the 0:21:47.560 --> 0:21:52.160 vocabulary and um, you know, new new sentence structures happen 0:21:52.320 --> 0:21:56.800 because internet. Um, because internet is a good way of 0:21:57.000 --> 0:22:00.159 putting that or or or just just locational and just 0:22:00.280 --> 0:22:03.680 stuff like that. And um so, I mean, the generalized 0:22:03.760 --> 0:22:06.640 theory is is that the you know, any current generation 0:22:06.640 --> 0:22:09.399 of speakers will internalize the language that they were taught 0:22:09.440 --> 0:22:12.480 and perhaps differently than the previous generation expects them to, 0:22:12.880 --> 0:22:15.800 and also adopt new words, new structures, new sounds, and 0:22:15.840 --> 0:22:19.680 then transmit them, perhaps shoddily, to the next generation. And 0:22:19.760 --> 0:22:24.720 it's interesting in English, the way we generally see acceptance 0:22:24.840 --> 0:22:28.640 on a larger scale is when we have certain institutions 0:22:29.000 --> 0:22:32.600 acknowledge words as being actual words. Oh yeah, you always 0:22:32.600 --> 0:22:35.600 see these news stories they you know, websters add so 0:22:35.640 --> 0:22:38.560 and so to the dictionary. Although that's Oxford, that's that's 0:22:38.600 --> 0:22:42.320 that's really more pr ploy than than the physical indicator 0:22:42.400 --> 0:22:47.000 that the language is Yeah, exactly, remove you remove that 0:22:47.160 --> 0:22:49.840