The Strange Weirdness Of Language

Summary

In "The Strange Weirdness Of Language" by The Art Of Storytelling, the video delves into the fascinating complexities of how language intertwines with human cognition. From the musicality of intonation in questions to the unspoken order of adjectives, our brains follow linguistic patterns unconsciously. The video explores intriguing hypotheses like the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which suggests language shapes perception. Unique examples, like the spatial reality of the Amara people, challenge our linguistic assumptions. The video also discusses philosophical challenges related to language, such as the paradox of definition and logical fallacies. With a humorous touch, it points out how baby's words offer stronger linguistic grounding than philosophical jargon. The narrative closes reflecting on language's inherent ambiguity and its comparison to consciousness, concluding that language remains mysterious and elusive.

Highlights

• Discover how our brains naturally follow a hidden intonation pattern in questions! 🎵
• The 'Royal order of adjectives' isn't a rule you learned, but you follow it without thinking. 🤯
• People think and speak differently; the Amara's past-future concept is mind-bending! 🌌
• Philosophy hits a wall with language; words lack self-evident meanings, leading to recursive loops. 🔄
• Babies' first words might provide more linguistic insight than complex theories! 🤷‍♂️
• Insurance claims and politics reveal the intricate precision required in language to avoid ambiguity. ⚖️

Key Takeaways

• Language quirks exist beneath our consciousness, like intonation rising in yes/no questions. 🤔
• The 'Royal order of adjectives' feels natural despite no formal grammar rules. 👑
• Languages shape our world perception, as seen with the Amara's spatial concepts. 🌎
• Philosophy struggles with language's recursive nature, questioning absolute meaning. 🌀
• Babies potentially coined 'mama' and 'papa' based on ease of sound. 👶
• Legal and philosophical debates sometimes hinge on simple words like 'is' or 'occurrence'. 📚

Overview

Isn't it fascinating how language operates beneath our awareness? That rising intonation in yes/no questions like 'Is it raining?' is just the beginning. The video explores the mysterious 'Royal order of adjectives,' an unspoken rule your brain follows effortlessly. This order isn't taught but forms naturally, reflecting how language shapes and is shaped by our thoughts.

We journey into how language might shape our reality, featuring the Amara people's distinct concept of the past and future. This dives into the depths of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, illustrating the profound impact language has on perception. The video ties in philosophical debates about the infinite recursion of definitions, presenting language as a challenging paradox for thinkers.

Even with sophisticated jargon, philosophers haven't quite nailed down language's essence, yet babies innocently uttering 'mama' might have. The complexity of language can trip up even legal minds, as seen in insurance claims and political loopholes where definitions hold immense power. In all its glory, language remains an enigmatic entity, comparable to the vast unknowns of consciousness.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Intonation in Language The chapter explores the concept of intonation in language, illustrating how it functions subconsciously in our speech patterns. Specifically, it highlights the typical pattern of rising intonation at the end of yes or no questions (e.g., 'Is it raining? Is your dog friendly?') and falling intonation at the end of questions seeking information (e.g., 'What time is it? What's 2+2?'). This phenomenon serves as an example of the underlying processes in language that often go unnoticed, reflecting the complex interplay between thought and linguistic expression.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Royal Order of Adjectives The chapter discusses the unwritten rule of the 'Royal order of adjectives' in the English language. It emphasizes how native speakers naturally follow this order, often without realizing it. The example given is the difference between saying 'a cute black poodle' versus 'a black cute poodle,' highlighting the correct sequence. Additionally, a simplified version with more adjectives is presented: 'my one beautiful big old round black Canadian plastic racing poodle' to illustrate the proper placement and order of adjectives.
• 01:00 - 01:30: Cognitive Structure of Language This chapter explores the cognitive structure of language, examining how the brain processes and structures adjectives within sentences. The discussion highlights an innate logical sequence our minds follow, which starts with the most general or subjective information and progresses toward more specific details. The order in which adjectives are naturally organized in our minds is not a formal grammatical rule, but rather an intuitive structure driven by cognitive processes. This highlights the interplay between language and cognition in shaping how we articulate and comprehend descriptive information.
• 01:30 - 02:00: Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis and Amara People The chapter titled 'Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis and Amara People' explores the intricate relationship between language and thought. It begins by examining the cognitive load differences in sentence structure, using examples like 'a beautiful blue sky' versus 'a blue beautiful sky'. The chapter highlights that knowing the speaker's feelings initially aids in creating a mental image efficiently. This observation suggests that language structure mirrors human cognitive patterns. Furthermore, it raises the question of causality: does language shape thought or does thought shape language? The chapter concludes by mentioning varying opinions among linguists on this topic.
• 02:00 - 02:30: Paradox of Definition in Philosophy The chapter explores how language shapes perception, citing the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis as a key concept. It highlights languages that use cardinal directions instead of left and right, suggesting this could alter spatial perception. The Amara people are mentioned as an example, illustrating different cultural views on time orientation, where the past is seen ahead and the future behind.
• 02:30 - 03:00: Wittgenstein's Philosophy on Language The chapter explores Wittgenstein’s philosophy regarding language. It presents the example of a conceptual metaphor used by the Amara people, who view the future as behind them and the past in front, which contrasts with common Western metaphors. This perspective is rooted in the understanding that the past, being known, is visible and can provide wisdom, whereas the future is unknown and unseen. This underscores Wittgenstein's view on how language and seemingly obvious assumptions can be arbitrary, influenced by cultural perspectives.
• 03:00 - 03:30: Phonosemantics and Linguistic Sounds This chapter explores the inherent challenges in defining words within language, focusing on the Paradox of Definition. It illustrates how definitions often lead to an infinite regress. Language, while being a fundamental tool to comprehend the world and convey thoughts, lacks words with absolute meanings. The chapter touches on foundational philosophical questions, such as 'What is reality?' and 'What does it mean to exist?' These inquiries further emphasize the complexity and interdependence of linguistic definitions.
• 03:30 - 04:00: Unstressed Vowels in English The chapter delves into the concept of unstressed vowels in the English language. It discusses how language can often seem recursive, particularly in the realm of philosophy, where definitions can become circular. This circular nature of language creates boundaries on human understanding, contributing to the dense and obscure nature of philosophical writing, as there often isn't a foundation of objective meaning.
• 04:00 - 04:30: Paradoxes and Logical Fallacies This chapter explores the limits of language in expressing certain philosophical concepts, highlighting philosopher Ludc Wienstein's formulation: "whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." It questions whether some concepts, such as the mystery of existence, can truly be expressed in any language or if they require a more abstract representation. It also touches on the pursuit of objective meaning within language.
• 04:30 - 05:00: Deductive Reasoning and Logical Structure The chapter titled 'Deductive Reasoning and Logical Structure' explores the concept of phonosemantics, which suggests that the meaning of some words is derived from their sound and the physical sensation in the mouth when spoken. It highlights how words associated with nasal sensations often start with 'SN,' such as sniff, snort, sneeze, snore, snout, and snarl. The text suggests trying to say a word that starts with 'SN' and notice how the tongue movement creates a nasal consonant.
• 05:00 - 05:30: Bill Clinton's Deposition on 'Is' The chapter delves into the intricacies of phonetics, exploring how the sounds of letters can influence the meaning and feeling of words. Specifically, it focuses on the 'GL' sound, which is associated with smoothness and lightness, as seen in words like 'glide,' 'gloss,' 'gleam,' and 'glitter.' Additionally, the chapter touches upon the concept that some words, such as 'Mama' and 'Baba,' may have been invented by babies due to the ease of pronouncing certain consonant and vowel sounds. The chapter provides a linguistic perspective on how sounds can shape language.
• 05:30 - 06:00: Insurance Language and Legal Implications The chapter 'Insurance Language and Legal Implications' begins with an exploration into the fundamental sounds that babies produce, highlighting how 'mama' is commonly associated with mothers due to its simplicity to vocalize. The chapter discusses how 'baba' or 'papa' follows as terms for father, suggesting a hierarchy in language development influenced by ease of articulation. Additionally, the chapter points out that the sound 'M' appears in the word for mother across various unrelated languages, emphasizing the universal nature of linguistic development. This serves as a reminder of how language is not just an intellectual exercise but also a deeply ingrained physical capability. The chapter ends on a humorous note about how infants have inadvertently contributed to our linguistic constructs by prioritizing simpler sounds.
• 06:00 - 06:30: Conclusion on Language and Meaning The chapter examines the concept of objective meaning in language and questions some traditional philosophical perspectives on the topic. It introduces the idea that in English, vowels are not pronounced as distinctly as one might expect. For instance, when pronouncing the word 'America,' rather than distinctly articulating the vowel sounds like 'A' or 'i,' a neutral vowel sound, called the 'schwa' or 'awah,' is often used. This sound is prevalent in unstressed syllables and highlights a particular aspect of English pronunciation.

The Strange Weirdness Of Language Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 have you ever noticed that anytime you ask a yes or no question your intonation goes up is it raining is your dog friendly and for any other question your intonation goes down what time is it what's 2+ 2 you generally wouldn't say What's 2 plus two or is your dog friendly it's just one of my favorite illustrations of how language operates beneath the surface of conscious thought and that's what this video is about the weird relationship between how we think and how we use language
• 00:30 - 01:00 another rule that you were never taught but always follow is the Royal order of adjectives if I told you I saw a black cute poodle your brain would recognize my mistake immediately what I should say is a cute black poodle but why exactly well it's because adjectives need to go in this very specific order so in a sentence that would be my one beautiful big old round black Canadian plastic racing poodle even though you'd never
• 01:00 - 01:30 hear this many adjectives in a row it still intuitively feels correct whereas if I said racing plastic Canadian black round old big beautiful one my poodle you'd just be hearing a list of words the interesting thing about this rule is that it's not a prescribed grammatical rule nobody decided this should be the correct order it's actually our brains that want to put things in this order and there is a logic to it we naturally want a description to start with the most Degen or subjective information and
• 01:30 - 02:00 move towards more specific and objective information a beautiful blue sky is slightly less work for our brains than a blue beautiful sky simply because knowing the speaker's feelings upfront helps us to paint a mental picture so it would seem that the structure of language reflects the innate structure of human cognition which makes sense but there's a chicken and egg question here do we speak a certain way because we think a certain way or do we think a certain way because we speak a certain way some linguists argue that the
• 02:00 - 02:30 structure and vocabulary of a language shape how its speakers actually perceive the world this is called the sapir warf hypothesis some languages actually don't have words for left and right instead they use cardinal directions North South East and West so it just makes you wonder if the people who speak this language have a fundamentally different concept of spatial reality I think the coolest example of this is the Amara people indigenous to the Andes whereas most languages look forward to the future with the past behind the do the
• 02:30 - 03:00 reverse the future is behind them and the past is in front of them and if you're thinking this conceptual metaphor makes less sense than the one you're used to consider the fact that the past is known and therefore can be seen and understood whereas the future is unknown and therefore unseen and this reflects the general worldview of the Amara that the past is an important source of knowledge and wisdom it's just a nice example of how even the Apparently obvious assumptions made by language are kind of arbitrary if you really think about it Western philosophy has always
• 03:00 - 03:30 been interested in language because it's the primary tool that we use to understand the world and to express thought but one of the big challenges for philosophy is the Paradox of definition the fact that there are no words that have an absolute self-evident meaning if you try to define something you inevitably end up relying on other definitions and this becomes an infinite regress so what is reality well it's everything that exists okay what does it mean to exist well it means to have objective being what does being mean it
• 03:30 - 04:00 refers to something that's real not imaginary or elusory all right what does imaginary mean something that exists in the mind not in reality so it just kind of takes you in circles because there's no Foundation of objective meaning if you've ever been frustrated reading philosophy it's not only because the writing is dense and obscure it's also because language itself is recursive in this way language seems to delimit the boundaries of human understanding and this means a lot of philosophy is just kind of circular this led the
• 04:00 - 04:30 philosopher ludc wienstein to his famous formulation whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent in other words some things are simply beyond the ability of language to express so the real question is if somebody ever did discover the answer to the great mystery of existence would it even be possible to express that answer in English or any other language or would it have to be expressed using some more abstract system of representation actually the closest thing we have to objective meaning in language can be found in
• 04:30 - 05:00 phonosemantics the idea that some words might ultimately derive their meaning from sound and how they feel in your mouth when you say them words that express ideas relating to nasal sensation often start with the letters SN so you get sniff snort sneeze snore snout snarl try saying a word that starts with SN and pay attention to how your tongue blocks the air in your mouth to produce a nasal consonant s you actually have to kind of snar to say the
• 05:00 - 05:30 word snarl you can also try this with words that start with G and L the GL sound is much lighter and more delicate so it gives you words about smoothness like glass Glide gloss glaze or words about light glow gleam glitter glisten and so on some linguists believe that the words Mama and Baba were actually invented by babies the easiest consonant sounds to make are MBP and the easiest vowel sound to make is just uh so naturally m is one of the
• 05:30 - 06:00 first sounds babies tend to make and they tend to vocalize when they want their mothers so we've come to interpret the utterance ma ma as a word for mother so then fathers get second place with the slightly more strenuous Baba or Papa not the mama and this theory is supported by the fact that the M sound is found in the word for mother in many unrelated languages around the world it's a good reminder that language is an embodied process as well as an intellectual one it's also kind of funny that babies have given us a stronger
• 06:00 - 06:30 foundation for objective meaning than any of the philosophers ever did while we're here did you know that we don't really pronounce vowels in English at least not as often as you might think so check it out try pronouncing America you're not actually making an A or an i sound when you pronounce these syllables the sound you're making is called awah a neutral vowel sound and it's the most common vowel sound in English now you generally do this on unstressed syllables so when your tone goes up to
• 06:30 - 07:00 stress the second syllable you do articulate the letter E in this case America Kat B you can really hear this difference in how you pronounce photograph as compared to photography the irony here is that non-native speakers tend to pronounce English words with the correct vowel articulation which to native English ears sounds like a foreign accent and it just shows that letters and sounds don't
• 07:00 - 07:30 even correspond as neatly as we tend to assume as if this wasn't confusing enough there's also the problem of paradoxes the simplest one being the Liar's Paradox this statement is false the philosopher bertran Russell was very interested in this kind of paradox he came up with one of his own called the Barber's Paradox the barber shaves all those who do not shave themselves but who shaves the barber if the barber shaves himself then he shouldn't but if he doesn't then he should now you can actually break down the logic of
• 07:30 - 08:00 language into formulas and this does to some degree eliminate some of the ambiguity of language consider this straightforward looking statement the present King of France is bald seems totally fine except there is no present King of France so you could ask is the statement true is it false is it meaningless and beron Russell would reformulate this as there exists an X such that X is the present King of France and for all individuals y if Y is the present King of France
• 08:00 - 08:30 then Y is identical to x and x is bald and yeah despite sounding more complex it actually does clarify the logic of the statement and makes it easier to discern its falseness this hearkens all the way back to Aristotle friend of the channel an inventor of the syllogism in which a logical conclusion is deduced from two premises so the classic example goes all men are mortal Socrates is a man therefore Socrates is Mortal so long as you keep the structure of the syllogism in act you can swap the terms
• 08:30 - 09:00 out and the statement will always be logically valid so all dogs are animals poodles are dogs therefore poodles are animals and so long as the premises are both true then the conclusion will necessarily also be true this is called deductive reasoning now some syllogisms are logically invalid consider this one all cats are mammals all dogs are mammals therefore all cats are dogs this syllogism illustrates a logical fallacy just because two things share a common cat category that does not mean that
• 09:00 - 09:30 they are the same thing and Aristotle's Point here is to show that an argument can be illogical even if its conclusion is true so if I take this invalid syllogism and swap out the terms I could say all poodles are mammals all dogs are mammals therefore all poodles are dogs and I do end up with a true conclusion but that does not mean that my logic is valid if you think all of this is a bunch of intellectual Babble with no real world consequences take a listen to what bill Clinton had to say back in
• 09:30 - 10:00 1998 when he was asked during a legal deposition about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky and his famous reply was it depends upon what the meaning of the word is oh yes and if you're thinking hey that's just slick Willie up to his usual tricks you're not wrong but also he kind of has a point is does not have a precise meaning I mean yeah you can say it's the present tense of the verb to be but does it refer to this precise moment like it is 4:00 or does it refer to to an eternal state of being like the
• 10:00 - 10:30 sky is blue I mean is can even indicate a future State like the meeting is at 3 P.M so the word is does actually pose a problem for lawyers who might want to make an absolute determination about a state of being and it provides a convenient linguistic escape hatch for politicians caught lying under oath maybe if berran Russell was at the deposition he could have asked Bill to confirm that there existed an ex such that there was a relationship between Clinton and Lewinsky an X occurred in
• 10:30 - 11:00 the past yeah try getting out of that one slick Wily another group of people that cares a lot about the Precision of language is insurers who try their best to describe reality in such a way that minimizes their vulnerability to risk and in one famous case billions of dollars depended on the interpretation of one word occurrence the World Trade Center was insured for $3.5 billion per the occurrence of some catastrophe so the tower lease holders argued that each
• 11:00 - 11:30 plane crash was a separate occurrence warranting two separate insurance claims while the insurer argued that it was one occurrence because it was a single coordinated attack an English language unfortunately could not supply an absolute definition of the word occurrence that would have provided Clarity on this question so in the end some insurers paid once and some paid twice and despite the immense financial and legal consequences of this dispute there was never any resolution on the definition of the Apparently simple word
• 11:30 - 12:00 occurrence and I think that's a fitting conclusion to this video because for all our efforts to understand language and map it onto our experience of reality and to derive meaning from it the bottom line is that language is as elusive as Consciousness itself and it probably always will be I do have a patreon if you enjoyed this video and you want to support my work thanks for watching and I'll see you on the next one