Hello there , I am Jacob Alexander Roper
And I would like to read a poem I wrote for you
Your eyes are like sapphires, your hair is like cooked spaghetti
And your smile is like teeth hanging out of your mouth
That is called the language of Love
In this episode of DONG we're gonna talk all about language
not specifically of love, we just did that, but
of linguistic DONGs, things you can do online now guys.
Vulgarlang.com is a site that allows you to construct your own fantasy fiction language.
It makes use of the international phonetic alphabet which helps us correctly pronounce
words across languages.
In this language generator you can just simply click “generate new language” and it’ll
output a list of words.
There’s a translator but it can only be used if you type words from the list.
If you want to have a little more control you can decide which phonemes will exist in
your language and you have to make sure you select enough that one can even be generated.
Let’s try one out.
Select some consonants, a couple vowels and generate it.
This site is cool because of how in depth it goes into phonemes and how sound is created
based on things like tongue placement.
for example a bilabial nasal sound is where both lips (bilabial) touch
and nasal means your voice comes out through your nose
so bilabial nasal is mmmmmmmmm
Alright let’s create a language. This is my made up language. The language of kuchawian
if I say you are cháfowugo ogudzho, it means... well you can find out for yourself
because ever language you make comes with a seed that will recreate the language later
The seed for this language is down there in the description,
but if you want to try and copy it off the screen it's right here
lotta numbers
Not all languages are widely used and it might surprise you to know that there are estimated
to be over 7,000 today.
It seems like a lot but experts actually believe that linguistic diversity peaked around 8,000
BCE when there were close to 20,000.
So what happened?
Well, howwegettonext.com features an awesome interactive experience about endangered languages.
A language is in danger if it’s at risk of no longer being used because either its
speakers die or they all shift languages.
The prior can occur because a natural disaster hits a region of a scarcely spoken language.
The latter could occur due to something like intermarriage where both parents speak a different
language and then only one is adopted by the child.
Now let’s take a look at the levels of endangerment.
Each bubble corresponds with a different one.
There are four levels and teal represents the lowest.
Most children still speak it but it might only be spoken in certain places.
And this dark pink indicates the highest level of danger in which the youngest speakers are
grandparents or older.
The larger the size of the dot the more people there are speaking that language.
The size of the clumps don’t indicate much about the diversity of languages but the color
of the dots that comprise it do.
So with that we can see Asia has the most endangered languages spoken.
And although Europe’s clump is closest in size to Asia’s it actually contains the
fewest endangered languages.
And here’s what’s crazy about all of this; these dying languages we’re talking about
in the abstract may be much closer to you than you think.
If you allow the site access to your location you can see the one nearest to you.
Kawaiisu is the one nearest to me and it says here it’s only spoken
by ten people.
Kawaiisu is also the name of the group of Native Americans living in Southern California
that speak it.
With such a low number of speakers, and given the old age of the speakers,
it’s not a huge surprise that change is drastic in a short amount of time.
Since 2011, the year this site’s data is from to 2018 Kawaiisu has become increasingly
endangered.
There are now only two fluent speakers.
And with different languages come different accents and what is more charming than an
accent?
Nothing.
And ya know what that means?
Everyone is charming because everyone has an accent.
How can that be Jake? Good question.
Well a group defines a standard pronunciation and any speaker who deviates from that is
said to “speak with an accent.”
So somewhere out there you will have an accent according to the native people.
And locallingual is a neat site to show just this.
The creator of this site was inspired by his trip to the Ukraine where he claims to have
butchered their simple greeting of “Good day.”
He was unable to find Ukrainian vocals online so he recorded some locals speaking the language
and this set in motion his plan for the whole site.
But accents aren’t always the product of different languages.
These maps show how they can differ among English-speaking regions of the United States.
For example, how would you pronounce lawyer?
If you’re one of the few who pronounce it LAW-er then there’s a high chance you live
in this region right here.
It’s interesting to go through the maps and see how other people pronounce every day
words.
This site also includes dialect maps.
While accent refers mainly to pronunciation, dialect includes which words and grammar are
used.
When talking to a group of people do you say you guys?
You?
Ya’ll?
Or you all?
I’m never gonna tell you guys which one I use so let’s move on to the dialect quiz.
This quiz is simple to follow.
Just answer each question as honestly as you can.
For some of them you may not even have a word and that’s okay because there’s an option
for that too.
When you finish the quiz it’ll try to guess where you’re from.
And once you have your answer you can see which regional dialects are the most similar
to yours and which are the least.
Now of course these words and phrases all had to be made up at some point but we don’t
refer to languages like English as fictional.
Instead, we associate fictional language with movies or tv shows and they’re created to
add a richness to the worlds within them.
Probably the most famous of them is Klingon from Star Trek.
It was developed into a full fledged language by linguist Marc Okrand and you can find full
adaptations of masterpieces in Klingon.
Hamlet, Greek Fables.
This website is full of them so go ahead and have a nice read if you’re one of the few
who are fully conversational in Klingon.
To achieve this alien-sounding language Okrand chose sound combinations not usually found
in human languages.
There are also translators so let’s go ahead and see how to say this: I am Jake and I love
Michael Stevens. Now watch me butcher Kilngon
Jih am Jake 'ej jih parmaq Michael Stevens. Ah that's really the language of love.
So go out there into the big scary world and make your own language.
And then just say it all the time.
People might think you're crazy, but you know what? I think you're crazy...
Beautiful.
Links to all the DONGs are in the description below. If you want a playlist of DONGs, they're right here.
I'm gonna go cry
And as always, thanks for watching