Judy: The planet word museum in
Washington, D.C., described as
the place that brings language
to life, recently opened a new
exhibit focused on wordplay.
Jeffrey brown takes a look at
the many ways words make the
world go round.
It is part of our arts and
culture series, canvas.
>> About a third of the English
words are germanic.
Reporter: Words, words, words,
popping from the pages of books
and revealing secrets in some 30
languages.
Through a speaking willow.
Even clean-cut only on bathroom
walls.
>> How to make reading, words
and language cool again and make
them awesome.
And my idea was, well, try a
museum.
Reporter: Ann Friedman is the
founder and CEO of planet word,
now occupying an historic
building from 1869 appropriately
enough, a former school.
Friedman may emphasize the fun
side of the experience here.
But she is a former elementary
school reading instructor.
And the idea for the museum
began in response to a problem.
>> Statistics show reading test
scores at schools, they're
stagnating at best, perhaps
declining because of covid.
Surveys that showed that young
people don't read a single book
for pleasure during the year.
So that's why I was despairing,
because to my mind, if you don't
have a literate, well-read
population, it affects the
strength of your democracy.
Reporter: The focus here, she
says, is on 10 to 12-year-olds,
the age when many stop choosing
to read.
The way to reach them, through
immersive experiences and themed
rooms.
Joking around with language
tricks and humor.
Lend me your ears, where
visitors can see what goes into
giving a speech.
Inevitably perhaps, a karaoke
lounge, to make some noise and,
hopefully, learn what goes into
songwriting.
>> Everything you see here is
there for a reason.
Reporter: The recently opened
lexicon lane is a kind of word
puzzle come to life, with clues
spread throughout the room.
>> This is the lure. (Yeah). How
-- this is the lure.
How do you think about it?
>> I love that word.
Lure.
Use technology to suck people in
and give them an opportunity to
try writing something.
Try reading something.
>> My name is Logan grace.
My pronouns are they and then.
Reporter: Or in a more serious
vein as in the words matter
gallery, show how words can help
people define themselves.
Or resist definition by others.
>> You may think that it is
ignorant to speak broken
English, but I am here to tell
you that even articulate
Americans sound foolish to the
British.
Reporter: Or resist definition
by others.
How to reach young people and
instill a love of words and
language?
That's also the goal of Jason
Reynolds, best-selling author of
16 books.
He serves as the library of
congress' national ambassador
for young people's literature
and as an advisor to planet
word.
>> Planet word is a space that
does feel magical in certain
ways, right?
So it mystifies language in a
-- it turns it into something
that is just ours, that feels
familiar, that feels like it is
part of our everyday lives.
>> It's immersive, it's fun in
the moment.
But does it really engage and
lead, especially young people,
to words and reading beyond that
experience?
>> I think it can.
I think it can.
I think what I would I hope it
does is that the adults of these
young people, when they when
they bring the young folks, but
hopefully what they will witness
is when a young person is with
-- is witnessing immersive
experiences, perhaps they will
have multiple stimuli working
simultaneously to engage a young
person whose attention span is
-- has grown to be so short
these days.
I think planet word makes a case
for all of those other forms of
literature.
Reporter: What am I looking at?
>> You are looking at the word
wall.
Another advisor, Colin Phillips,
professor of linguistics at the
university of Maryland.
He was happy to play at the word
wall, which demonstrates the
origins of words and how they
change over time.
But also concerned about the
ways technology and our
political culture have made
understanding language and how
words work, more critical than
ever.
>> Language is a critical part
of everything we do as humans,
but we often don't give it much
thought.
We take it for granted.
And I think that what we have
seen in the last few years is
more and more, the ways in which
language has had a profound and
sometimes damaging impact on the
things we do.
[] The way in which technology
has evolved and the way in which
automatic analysis of language
has developed in recent years is
much more powerful than it was
even 10 years ago.
Getting people to reflect more
on how language is important to
how we use it, how it can be
used against us, is more and
more important.
Reporter: Along with colleagues
at the university of Maryland
and Howard university's,
Phillips is part of a team
creating a new science lab at
the museum to study language in
a variety of projects.
One new, big question, the
impact of the pandemic.
>> It's been very interesting
for us as language learners,
seeing how the pandemic has
changed the research.
It has put people in different
situations, lead them to
interact in different ways.
They have been talking more
through screens.
Scientists are interested, does
that change the way in which we
interact?
Children have been exposed to a
narrow range of voices.
Does that make a difference to
how they learn?
Reporter: Ken planet word have
the impact its creators and
advisors hoped for?
That answer, of course, is still
to be written.
For the pbs newshour, I am