Archive for the ‘language’ Category
Brains, man, brains.
April 16th, 2010
A Croatian girl apparently awoke from her coma speaking German.
The girl, from the southern town of Knin, had only just started studying German at school and had been reading German books and watching German TV to become better, but was by no means fluent, according to her parents.
Since waking up from her 24 hour coma however, she has been unable to speak Croatian, but is able to communicate perfectly in German.
Assuming this isn’t just an awesome hoax, we need to figure out how to induce this kind of state artificially.
The Nietzsche Family Circus
April 7th, 2010
Move over Garfield Minus Garfield, I’ve got a new favorite surreal mash-up webcomic thing. The Nietzsche Family Circus matches random Family Circus panels with quotes from the German philosopher, often generating surprisingly appropriate juxtapositions. So by reading them, we’re applying the random quote to the random picture and still ascribing meaning to the result. Minds are awesome.
art+design, books, language, old dead white guys | No Comments »
Numbers Are New
April 1st, 2010
You’ve probably heard of bands of people in Australia or Amazonia whose concept of number is limited to, “1, 2, 3, 4, many.” Here’s a really good article describing that phenomenon in a lot more detail.
One especially interesting result was the notion that people intuitively distribute numbers on a logarithmic scale rather than a linear one. As it turns out, children do this, too.
It is Pica’s belief that understanding quantities in terms of estimating ratios is a universal human intuition, due to the fact that ratios are much more important for survival in the wild. Historically, faced with a group of adversaries, we needed to know instantly whether there were more of them than us. When we saw two trees, we needed to know instantly which had more fruit hanging from it. In neither case was it necessary to enumerate every enemy or every fruit individually. The crucial thing was to be able to make quick estimates of the relevant amounts and compare them; in other words to make approximations and judge their ratios.
Hamlet
March 28th, 2010
The Royal Shakespeare Company put their latest production of Hamlet online. Patrick Stewart plays Claudius & the Ghost.
It’s in modern-day dress, but if that’s enough to make you refuse to watch one of the greatest marvels of the English language then I don’t know what to tell you.
What English Sounds Like
December 15th, 2009
To quote:
An Italian singer wrote this song with gibberish to sound like English. If you’ve ever wondered what other people think Americans sound like, this is it.
No comment on the music, but the imitation’s spot-on. OLL RAIGTH!
Behemoth
December 14th, 2009
While reading through Borges’ Seven Nights, I came across a reference in his discussion of the Kabbalah in which he mentions that Behemoth is actually plural, meaning “the animals.” Looking this up in the ever-reliable Wiktionary, I learned that
It may be an example of pluralis excellentiae, a Hebrew method of expressing greatness by pluralizing a noun; it thus indicates that Behemoth is the largest and most powerful animal.
Behemoth is so big that it has to be plural. Language is great.
Monkey Syntax
December 9th, 2009
It seems that the Campbell’s Mona Monkey of the Ivory Coast uses syntax in its communication:
If the Zuberbühler team’s observations are correct, the Campbell’s monkeys can both vary the meaning of specific calls by adding suffixes and combine calls to generate a different meaning. Their call system, the researchers write, “may be the most complex example of ‘proto-syntax’ in animal communication known to date.”
I’m sure these little guys couldn’t learn sign language, and that’s a shame.
Philosopheme
December 8th, 2009
philosopheme phi·los·o·pheme
n.
A philosophical proposition, doctrine, or principle of reasoning.
Lalochezia
November 23rd, 2009
lalochezia lal·o·che·zi·a (lāl’ō-kē’zē-ə)
n.
Emotional relief gained by using indecent or vulgar language.
Interview with Umberto Eco
November 16th, 2009
Der Spiegel has an interesting interview with scholar and author Umberto Eco, in which he discusses the merits of lists:
SPIEGEL: But why does Homer list all of those warriors and their ships if he knows that he can never name them all?
Eco: Homer’s work hits again and again on the topos of the inexpressible. People will always do that. We have always been fascinated by infinite space, by the endless stars and by galaxies upon galaxies. How does a person feel when looking at the sky? He thinks that he doesn’t have enough tongues to describe what he sees. Nevertheless, people have never stopping describing the sky, simply listing what they see. Lovers are in the same position. They experience a deficiency of language, a lack of words to express their feelings. But do lovers ever stop trying to do so? They create lists: Your eyes are so beautiful, and so is your mouth, and your collarbone … One could go into great detail.
Another good one:
Eco: … Culture isn’t knowing when Napoleon died. Culture means knowing how I can find out in two minutes.
Also, hearing the author of Foucault’s Pendulum say, “I felt like a character in a Dan Brown novel,” is a little bizarre.