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Category: language (page 16 of 22)

The War on Writing Systems suffers a setback

9 January 2009 / / 8 Comments

How are we going to defend ourselves against terrorism if we’re not allowed to discriminate against different-looking people with weird writing on their shirts?

An air passenger forced to cover his T-shirt because it displayed Arabic script has been awarded a payout of $240,000 (£163,000), his lawyers say.

Two Transportation Security Authority officials and JetBlue Airways will be forced to make the payout.

Raed Jarrar, a US resident, had accused them of illegally discriminating against him based on his ethnicity and the Arabic writing on his T-shirt.

The payout is the largest of its kind since the 9/11 terror attacks.

Here’s the shirt.


Okay, I have to admit that this is not the least threatening t-shirt I have ever seen in an airport. Vaguely militant slogan plus Arabic script. I would probably think twice about wearing that for a flight.

And yet, isn’t that the lesson of this whole thing? These officials are in the business of creating a security state. It’s hard to monitor everyone all the time, so it’s useful to them if they can get individuals to do a lot of self-monitoring — to make lots of little decisions not to wear this, or not to say that, to censor themselves in a hundred ways just so they won’t fall afoul of some arbitrary and unwritten code of conduct.

And so Raed’s question that day was very appropriate:

I once again asked the three of them : “How come you are asking me to change my t-shirt? Isn’t this my constitutional right to wear it? I am ready to change it if you tell me why I should. Do you have an order against Arabic t-shirts? Is there such a law against Arabic script?”

No, there is not. The good guys won this time.

Quick links

5 January 2009 / / Comments Off on Quick links

Blind people use facial expressions in the same way as sighted people do, including those strained smiles you use when you’re not really happy. This provides more evidence that facial expressions are innate and not learned.

Where do you think love comes from, Mr Atheist? Can’t see love in your microscope, can you? Actually, you can, if you’re doing brain scans. And what they find is that some people still feel twittery about each other after 20 years, instead of the 18 months most of us get. They call these couples ‘swans’, but that’s not a good name. Swans are cranky critters. But I think Ms Perfect and I will still be swanning about, still coursing with dopamine in each other’s presence, even after 20 blissful years.

Fear the hammer of Thor! A man dressed as the God of War after a costume party frightened off a burglar. Maybe the burglar was a philosophical theist who realised that you can’t discriminate between two supernatural claims — it doesn’t matter whether the god is Christian or Norse, you’d better book. Personally, I’d be much more frightened of Thor than of Jesus. People in sandals are easier to outrun. On the other hand, if Jesus has come as that psychopathic Old Testament god, then all bets are off. Best to run first and ask theological questions later.

The whistling orangutan

29 December 2008 / / Comments Off on The whistling orangutan

Bonnie is an orangutan who has learned how to whistle from humans. Article plus video here.

The 140-pound (63.5-kilometer) orangutan at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., has been whistling for about two decades.

Now a new study suggests that the sounds she makes could hold clues about the origins of human language.

“The assumption is that someone was whistling and she probably picked it up from them,” said animal keeper and study co-auther Erin Stromberg.

Lisa Stevens, the zoo’s curator for great apes and giant pandas, said the key point is that the orangutan was not trained to whistle.

While orangutans can be taught new sounds with extensive training, Bonnie is the first indication that the animals can independently pick up the sounds from other species.

“It’s something she spontaneously developed,” Stevens said. “It wasn’t a trick.”

How does this relate to human language? Some linguists are interested in how language might have arisen in primates. In particular, Michael Arbib’s ‘Mirror Hypothesis‘ suggests that the ability to recognise and imitate the actions of others (both gestures and vocalisation) may have played a key role. Communication prepared the evolving brain for more complex cognition, and more complex cognition led to more involved communication.

With that in mind, it’s interesting that an ape would be able to imitate such an oral (if not vocal) behaviour. I was kind of surprised, however, that an orangutan was doing the imitating. As I remember, orangutans are rather solitary, and communication is social behaviour. Evidently the wiring for this kind of imitation goes pretty deep.

Hungarian language police

10 December 2008 / / Comments Off on Hungarian language police

Another government tries in vain to stop language change.

Slovakia’s Ministry of Culture has proposed an amendment that would give it the right to impose fines of up to EUR 100 for poor use of the national language. The move has been prompted by a rise in bad grammar and the increasing number of English words in common use even when native alternatives exist.

‘Bad grammar’? What does that mean? Native speakers, being native speakers, have a perfect command of the grammar of their language. All right, so some dialects may deviate from the perceived standard. But why punish them? It’s going on all the time. Much of the syntax of a language goes on below the level of conscious awareness anyway.

How are they going to enforce this? Are they going to fine individuals? No, just like Iran’s recent attempt, it’s all going to fall onto the media and sign-makers.

Jozef Bednar, a spokesman for the ministry, confirmed that the proposed punishment would not apply to individuals who stumble over their language but would punish advertising copy, billboards and public signs. Representatives of the country’s large Hungarian minority have already condemned the proposal.

There’s the rub. This is an attempt to punish speakers of minority dialects, but dressed up in the guise of pedantry. Not a very attractive guise, but there you are.

Hungarian media: they’re coming down on you. You have the tools to fight back, if you want. It should be simple to find linguistic skeletons in the closets of the leaders responsible for this action. Surely some of them have used loanwords or less-desirable syntax in speeches before. To the archives! Find those quotes and demand that those leaders be fined.

Sine-wave speech

17 November 2008 / / 2 Comments

This is very cool. Listen to the first clip. Sounds like twitters and blips.

Then listen to the second clip.

Now go back and listen to the first. It becomes comprehensible once you know what you’re looking for.

This is called ‘sine-wave speech’. When a linguist records your speech using a spectrometer, there are dark patches of high intensity, called formants. Draw the formants using sine waves, and you get the twittery sound that resembles somewhat-but-not-quite speech.

I guess this is yet another example of how perception depends on the knowledge and expectations of the perceiver. Something to remember when I try and understand the voting habits of others.

Sarah Palin sings!

23 October 2008 / / Comments Off on Sarah Palin sings!

I had no idea she was such a gifted jazz improvisationalist.

Palin goes nucular

3 October 2008 / / 14 Comments

Everyone’s hanging crap on Sarah Palin for saying ‘nucular’.

Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly:

9:57: It’s a minor point, but did she say “nucular”?

The folks at Think Progress

9:50: Palin keep pronouncing “nuclear” as “nuculur” — perhaps because she doesn’t have her phonetic notes in front of her.

georgia10 at DKos:

And now we know that without the word spelled out phonetically for her, Palin loves the word “nukyular”, just like President Bush. The prospect of another eight years of that? Joy.

Much as I hate to defend the indefensible, as a linguist I have to step in.

What people don’t often realise is — once again — language changes in ways we’re not aware of. Sure, you may not like ‘nucular’ now. But in 100 years, if that’s what everyone says, that’ll be right.

Horrors! you scream. But this kind of thing has been going on for a long time. Take the word ‘iron’. I don’t know anyone that says it like it’s spelled, but the spelling suggests that its pronunciation has changed. ‘Iron’ has undergone the process of metathesis. Emphasis on the ‘ta’ (for now at least).

In Old English, ‘bird’ was ‘bryd’ and ‘horse’ was ‘hros’. You might look askance if someone wants to ‘ax’ you a question, but it turns out that ‘aks’ was once perfectly good English. It changed to ‘ask’, and it’s just changing back.

So the lesson for the day is: metathesis is a normal process of sound change in human languages, and not just something people do when they’re trying to say a word properly and not succeeding. So if you want to go after Palin, be my guest, but go after her for doing something idiotic. That isn’t too hard.

Emails I get

2 October 2008 / / 2 Comments

Here’s an email from a well-meaning relative. Sorry about the caps; they’re in the original. At least it wasn’t in PowerPoint this time.

What does it mean to give MORE than 100%?

Ever wonder about those people who say they are giving more than 100%?

We have all been in situations where someone wants you to GIVE OVER 100%.

How about ACHIEVING 101%?

What equals 100% in life?

Here’s a little mathematical formula that might help
answer these questions:

If:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Is represented as:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26.

If:

H-A-R-D-W-O- R- K

8+1+18+4+23+ 15+18+11 = 98%

And:

K-N-O-W-L-E- D-G-E

11+14+15+23+ 12+5+4+7+ 5 = 96%

But:

A-T-T-I-T-U- D-E

1+20+20+9+20+ 21+4+5 = 100%

THEN, look how far the love of God will take you:

L-O-V-E-O-F- G-O-D

12+15+22+5+15+ 6+7+15+4 = 101%

Therefore, one can conclude with mathematical certainty that:

While Hard Work and Knowledge will get you close, and Attitude will get you there, It’s the Love of God that will put you over the top!

Well, there you have it, proof positive.

So I decided to try it myself.

WATCH TV = 97%

Well, shoot. Watching TV’s almost as good as hard work, and easier besides. It’s a mathematical certainty!

VEGETARIAN = 102%

Wow, who would have thought that being veg would take you 1 percent farther than the love of God? Truly amazing.

TURN GAY = 106%

Better still! Give it all you’ve got.

Which is better, church or museum?

CHURCH = 61%
MUSEUM = 92%

Neither puts you over the line, but ‘museum’ plus ‘gift shop’ would probably do it.

And if you encode

I DON’T ACCEPT THE EXISTENCE OF ANY SUPERNATURAL BEINGS WHATSOEVER

you get 666… percent.

Uh-oh.

In what respect, computer?

28 September 2008 / / Comments Off on In what respect, computer?

Someone’s invented the Palin interview generator, so I don’t have to.

It works by Markov chaining, which I’ve had some fun with before (see here and here).

Basically, you pick — let’s say — two words from a corpus (in this case, Palin’s interviews), and use them to choose a likely third word (also from your corpus). Then pick a fourth word using words two and three. Word by word, you assemble whole sentences. Which I think might be how Palin constructs sentences herself, so bonus points for psychological reality.

Here’s a snippet.

Q: What is the role of the US in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Afghanistan will lead to war and it doesn’t have to lead, as I said, to a position like we are at a point, here, seven years later, on the side of the United States. I want you to not lose sight of the earth. That’s not a part of, I guess, that culture. The way that I have understood the world is through education, through books, through mediums that have provided me a lot of perspective on the side of the message that Americans are getting sick and tired of politics as usual, that embracing of the status quo, the politics as usual, that embracing of the status quo, going with the Bush administration that we have to stand for that.

Cut to shot of Katie Couric, brow furrowed.

Hangin’s too good fer ’em.

23 September 2008 / / 3 Comments

Linguistic prescriptivists. They’re a clever bunch of swine, aren’t they? At least they think so. It’s not easy to correct people’s usage while looking down your nose at them and patting yourself on the back at the same time. It takes talent and coordination. Oh, sorry: ‘coördination’.

We have a joke about them.

I was walking across campus with a friend and we came upon half a dozen theoretical linguists committing unprovoked physical assault on a defenseless prescriptivist. My friend was shocked. She said: “Aren’t you going to help?”

I said, “No; six should be enough.”

All in fun, but these irritating self-satisfied vermin don’t just waste your time on the Net. Sometimes they’re capable of damage.

Two obsessive grammarians who changed a historical handpainted sign at the Grand Canyon national park have been sentenced to probation for vandalism.
…
Using a marker, [one of them] replaced an erroneous apostrophe and added a comma to the yellow lettering on a black fibreboard sign.

However, the pair did not realise the sign had been made by Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter, the architect who built the watchtower and other landmarks in the Grand Canyon area.

They pleaded guilty to conspiracy to vandalise government property and were sentenced to a year’s probation during which they cannot enter a national park or change any public signs.

They were also told to pay £1,500 to repair the sign.

One of the things I try to beat into my first year linguistics students is that language is always changing, and this is neither good nor bad. The language we think of as ‘correct’ has been going through this same process, and would horrify earlier speakers of English.

But in private moments, I consider shenanigans such as we see from these two nincompoops as a sign of a pathological superiority complex and/or an age over 60.

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