hello i'm taylor and welcome to crash
course linguistics
language is everywhere in old books and
new words
in a long conversation with a friend and
a short chat with a stranger
the endless streams on our social media
feeds and the snippets on the back of a
cereal box
language spans our whole lives from one
of the first things that we encounter is
babies to
our famous last words language is what
i'm doing right now we can observe and
study how language works like any other
natural phenomenon
and that's linguistics linguists try to
understand the big picture
how does language work in general what's
going on in our minds
and our societies that allows every
group of humans to have language spoken
or signed
and why do each of us use language
slightly differently
linguistics is the study of language but
we're already using language right now
so let's back up a second what do we
mean by studying language
let's go to the thought bubble let's
pretend i'm on a trip to another country
the sun is shining and i'm enjoying some
time in a place where i don't know
anyone and i don't speak the language
then i meet another person walking along
and while we're both admiring the
flowers a rabbit hops interview
the person points at the hopping rabbit
and says gav a guy so i think
that must be the word in this person's
language for rabbit
if i reply with rabbit we could both
learn something but maybe that's not
exactly what the other person meant
does gaba guy mean rabbit maybe it just
means fuzzy animal
or hopping or just hey look or even as
the linguistic philosopher wv quine
proposed
whoa an undetached rabbit part or maybe
this particular rabbit's name
is galaga i could ask but i don't speak
the language yet and figuring out how to
ask these complex ideas requires us to
know some more basic
concrete words like rabbit which is what
we're trying to figure out in the first
place
we need to get out of this loop let's
start by making some tentative
assumptions
but we'll stay prepared for some of them
to be wrong i'll smile point at the
hopping bunny and say rabbit
at least i'm indicating a desire to
communicate even though neither of us
can be sure exactly what the other
person is trying to say
as i walk with my new friend pointing at
animals and sharing words
both of us can test and refine our
initial linguistic hypotheses
maybe we encounter some baby rabbits and
i learned that they're not called gaba
guy
so i can update my mental entry for gava
guy to fully grown rabbit question mark
maybe i'll realize something about
english that i hadn't noticed before
when i try to explain it like the subtle
difference between rabbit
and bunny thanks thoughtbubble as we
just saw language is a unique area to
study because we need to
use it to study it on the one hand this
means that we can do a lot of
linguistics without needing fancy
equipment
because language is right there in our
brains and in the people around us
on the other hand this also means that
we need to be really precise about
cultivating meta-linguistic awareness
we need to test and examine our
assumptions about how language works to
do this
linguists have identified a few key
features that distinguish a language
from
other ways of communicating first
language exists at two levels there's
the level of the form
like sounds or hand shapes which don't
have meaning in themselves
then there's the level of combinations
of forms that create meaning so when it
comes to speech
the sounds don't mean anything
individually
but can be combined to make bunny like
our new friend gavigan
or those same sounds can be arranged to
make nubby because
it's the combination that makes the
meaning not the individual sounds this
idea that words are made up of two
levels of structure is known as the
duality of patterning
also when we look at other languages we
can see that there's no reason why a
rabbit has to be called bunny
it could be called konejo kalinchi
gavagai or
there's no inherent connection between
the word bunny and this furry thing it
refers to
all these other sequences of sounds and
hand shapes also refer to this animal
the words we use are signs that
reference things in the world
like how a street sign labels which
street you're on but usually there's no
specific reason why a particular word
or set of smaller units of sound or
shapes are used
so we can say that the choice is
arbitrary this feature of language is
known as the arbitrariness of the sign
and distinguishes the language from
other kinds of communication now it's a
bit confusing because sign
means two things in linguistics first a
sign is anything that conveys a meaning
beyond itself
so the word rain and the smell of
moisture in the air can both be signs of
rain the word rain is an arbitrary sign
since it's unconnected to the weather a
human could have said the word rain
and pointed at a rock or a tree or a
gava guy and the sign could have stuck
but instead it's a sign that we
arbitrarily but collectively decided to
use for this kind of weather but the
smell of moisture is a non-arbitrary
sign since it's super connected to the
experience of water droplets falling
from the sky
second we use sine in a signed language
here we mean a language which is
produced using the hands
arms and face compared to a spoken
language which is produced using the
tongue
lips and throat so the signs that make
up sign languages
are a subset of the first kind of signs
as are spoken words
the kind of signs that convey a meaning
beyond themselves speaking of sign
languages it might be tempting to assume
that sign languages are
less arbitrary because in words like
rabbit in
asl the handshape looks a little bit
like a rabbit's ear but there are still
many arbitrary reasons the signal means
rabbit and not something else
for example the australian sign language
or auslan sign for rabbit
looks very different spoken languages
can have less arbitrary seeming patterns
too
in swahili chaffia means sneeze both
chaffia and sneeze have sounds that rush
out of your throat like the friction of
a sneeze in contrast
means burp and both of these words have
the burp of a serious belch
ooh belch that also kind of has that
feeling still arbitrary though anyway
once we start building up meaning from
smaller units
there are two more features that make
language different from just
any old communication system one is that
we can use language to talk about things
that happened in the past
will happen in the future or may happen
in other worlds
being able to talk about things that
aren't right here right now
is known as displacement another is that
we can use language to talk about
language
otherwise it would make doing
linguistics hard these videos
impossible the ability to get meta about
language is the feature of reflexivity
when we examine
other kinds of communication with these
four design features in mind
we can see how they stack up against
language bees do a complicated waggle
dance to show their fellow bees
where to find nectar but they can't do
it to tell a story about some great
flowers they found last week
or hope to find tomorrow their waggle
dances can't manage the full range of
the displacement feature a parrot may be
able to mimic the sound of many words in
a language
but it doesn't understand the meaning of
those sounds
parrots don't manage duality of
patterning a dog wagging its tail
always means that it's happy regardless
of what culture the dog lives in
it's not an arbitrary sign animals can
communicate
but none of the ways that animals
communicate have all the design features
of human language
beyond animals we know emojis aren't
going to become their own language
until we can use emojis to write a story
about
emojis emojis don't have a feature of
reflexivity because of the unique
features of human languages
the number of words and sentences we can
make out of our bodies is
infinite even though the human body that
we use to make them is limited with two
hands two arms and ten fingers there's
only so many distinct signs we can make
and with the tongues lips teeth and
throat there's only so many sounds with
this small set of shared ingredients
humans have created over 7 000
identified languages
and so many varieties within them for
example you may know someone who speaks
your language
but has a different word for something
than you do or pronounces the same word
differently than you do
like that thing that you might call a
water fountain i call it a bubbler
linguists are interested in
all the different varieties of languages
that people speak and sign
not just the standardized version that
gets taught in schools
that's because all language varieties
tell us interesting things about how
people use language
linguists study the variations within
languages as well as language itself
they approach the study of language by
looking at the different levels of
structure
that all languages have in common we'll
tackle each one of these in more depth
throughout crash course linguistics
but today let's start with the smallest
chunks first and move through the larger
and larger units
first there's the study of individual
sounds in spoken languages or hand
shapes and sign languages which is
called phonetics languages combine these
individual sounds or hand shapes into
words according to specific patterns
and the study of that is called
phonology next they can study how longer
words can often be broken down into an
internal structure
an area called morphology the study of
how words group together to make
sentences
is syntax and we can study and talk
about the meaning of words and sentences
or
semantics and the meaning in a larger
social context or pragmatics there are
also ways we can analyze the structure
of these different levels of language or
the meaning that they create
we can look at the language choices
people make and how this relates to
society
history or the brain linguists find
language to study in many different ways
like observing people
asking them questions or doing
experiments with them linguists can work
with existing texts
recordings video or historical documents
too and because we each know at least
one language
we can sometimes even figure certain
things out by consulting the language
knowledge
in our own heads a process called
introspection regardless of what level
of linguistic structure or perspective
we focus on
linguists and we here at crash course
are interested in language as it's
actually used
we're not talking about correct language
which is a pretty murky concept anyway
after all if we were studying birdsong
we wouldn't go around telling sparrows
that they're not singing right
because they don't sound like parrots
instead we'd want to analyze
all birds or all language varieties
regardless of where they stand in the
pecking order linguistics is relevant to
anyone who uses language but it's
especially relevant to certain people
and industries
it's directly relevant to speech
pathologists and people building speech
recognition tools like the voice
assistant on your phone
a knowledge of linguistics can also help
people who teach grammar or languages
it's also useful for lawyers writers
editors poets journalists and people who
work in jobs that require thoughtful
understanding of language as a tool and
finally
understanding linguistics and how
language works is valuable for
anyone who wants to better understand
humans and the world we live in i
studied linguistics as part of my major
in college
along with writing in spanish
linguistics has made me more aware of
how
important language is so i'm a big fan
and i'm excited to learn more with you
for the next 15 videos here in crash
course linguistics
we'll be exploring language at all of
these different levels together
and building our understanding of
language and each other so when you and
a stranger watch a rabbit hop across a
field together
your two languages might not have a
direct translation for what you want to
say about that experience
but we can learn to understand the
similarities and differences between
languages and build communication
thanks to the tools of linguistics next
time we'll be asking
what is a word and what are words made
of
see you then thanks for watching this
episode of crash course linguistics if
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