Archive for the ‘Language’ Category

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Gender is a continuum, gayness is not gaiety and language has to catch up

March 30, 2014

Gender as a binodal continuum

The view that human gender is strictly dimorphic is giving way to the view that gender must be seen as a binodal continuum. How many people are “transgender” at birth  is uncertain both in number and in definition, but estimates range from 1 in 2000 all the way up to 10%. In addition to this modified view of genetic, gender variations in humans, the range  of socially “acceptable” behaviours is expanding. More countries are legalising “gay marriage”. LGBT (for  Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) is becoming an accepted term.

Changes are happening faster than language can keep up with. Old terms are being used in new ways and new words will need to be found. Elljibeetee is almost a word. I find the term LGBT itself somewhat illogical since I take “gay” in its modern usage to mean “homosexual” and would have thought that “gay” would then encompass “lesbian”. There is no word for just male homosexuality. Also L, G and B are primarily behavioural traits whereas T is genetic and fixed by the time of birth. There are those who claim that sexual preference is also genetic but there is little evidence for that. What evidence there is speaks more to sexual preference being a behavioural trait acquired and developed largely after birth.

Unlike mathematics, the usage of most languages always trumps “correctness” or logic (and I like to think of mathematics as that special sub-set of language where logic prevails over usage). The spelling or even meaning of a word can be changed by weight of usage but 2+2 will not be 5 even if all 7 billion humans believe it is.

We now have the situation where monogamy refers not to one but to two people while bisexuality cannot be implemented without at least three people involved. Monosexual is taken to be a sexual preference for only one gender with a sub-set of homosexual (a preference for persons of the same gender) and a sub-set of heterosexual (a preference for persons of the opposite gender). Bisexual – in common usage – is taken to be a preference for any gender. The illogicality comes in that heterosexual is linguistically a sub-set of monosexual but is actually bisexual. Polysexual or pansexual would make more sense than bisexual if gender is now to be seen as a continuum but they are rarely used. Having a gender continuum is going to get even more confusing for language.

Gaiety can still be used for the state of being gay (in the cheerful sense) and carries no connotations of sexual preferences. Gay however can no longer be used just to mean merry and cheerful since usage overwhelmingly means homosexual. Gayness is now presumably the state of being gay.

Currently monogamy is then the state where there is a permanent or semi-permanent partnership between a male and a female. If formalised by civil contract the state is called marriage. The male is termed the husband and the female the wife. Even if gender is a continuum and not dimorphic, these terms can continue to be used since societies expect these roles to be fulfilled. Perhaps we have to consider using grades of manliness and womanliness? In the diagram above a very manly man will be just as far from the “normal” (abnormal)  as a very womanly man or a very manly woman! The very manly man and the very womanly woman would be the most lonely.

A part of such a civil contract is the mutual exclusivity of sexual relations promised between the two individuals involved. Where a male breaks such exclusivity by having sexual relations with other females, such other females are called his mistresses. Where a female breaks such exclusivity by having sexual relationships with other males they are not her masters but are known as her lovers or paramours. Lovers and paramours can equally apply as the illicit partners of  errant husbands. If either a male or a female breaks the exclusivity provisions by entering into another “exclusive” arrangement then it is called bigamy and the violator is called a bigamist. The term bigamist also applies in the case of multiple “exclusive” contracts being entered into by an individual (and using the more logical polygamist for such a person would go against current usage of polygamy).

When marriage is extended to include a new category of gay marriage, terms for the partners themselves and for any illicit partners are undefined. Husband, wife and mistress can no longer be used. New words will no doubt evolve. Language already lags behind socially accepted behaviour. Lover and paramour could still be used and I suppose that bigamy and bigamist would still apply. A conventional marriage would still need to be distinguished from a gay marriage. All marriage involving just two individuals should then be monogamy with conventional marriage being a bisexual monogamy and a gay marriage would be a monosexual monogamy. And with the continuum in mind some partnerships could be pansexual monogamies.

When there are more than two people involved things get complex. The possibilities that language must cope with increase in a geometric progression. Some societies permit a husband to have several wives simultaneously and this is termed polygyny whereas a wife having several husbands is polyandry. They are both forms of polygamy (or more logically both are bisexual polygamies assuming of course that sexual relationships in the group are always heterosexual or do I mean bisexual?). Group marriage has no special term and exists when several husbands are allied to several wives but any husband only has sexual relations with any wife (a poly-bisexual polygamy?) What should we then call a group consisting of a man with several husbands or a female with several wives? A poly-monosexual polygamy? And a group of people with no restrictions on sexual partners could then be a  poly–pansexual polygamy?

If gender were truly a continuum then the male/female distinctions could be dispensed with and many of the prefixes could be discarded. Misogyny and misandry would become obsolete. Misanthropy would still remain. But the gender continuum is weak  – even if real – and the fact remains that the distribution of gender characteristics among humans is very strongly binodal. “Binodal with a significant overlap” is probably the best description. As long as the clear nodal distribution exists then gender differences will also exist and legislating for gender equality will not remove those differences.

Prefixes from the Greek

  • mono = “one, only, single”
  • bi = “twice, two”
  • homo = “same”
  • hetero = “different, other”
  • pan =  “all, of everything”
  • poly = “much, many”

There are “keepers of language” who would like to guide its evolution and there others who are concerned about the “correctness” of usage. Both are futile exercises and actual usage will always prevail.

Tags:, , , , , ,
Posted in Behaviour, Evolution, Genetics, Language | Comments Off on Gender is a continuum, gayness is not gaiety and language has to catch up

On when speech may have originated

March 3, 2014

A new paper suggests that the Kebara 2 Neanderthals, some 60,000 years ago, not only had the capability but also used speech. The capability for speech itself has now been pushed back to the common ancestors of Anatomically Modern Humans, Neanderthals and Denisovans to about 500,000 years ago. The picture we have of Neanderthals is now of a fairly sophisticated and complex species:

  1. Neanderthals may have spoken in a similar way to modern humans.
  2. Neanderthals are our closest extinct human relatives.
  3. Neanderthal DNA is over 99% identical to modern human DNA.
  4. Several theories for Neanderthal extinction exist, including impacts of climate change, competition with human beings, and the possibility that Neanderthals and humans interbred and were ‘absorbed’ into the human species.
  5. Neanderthals lived in Eurasia 200,000 – 30,000 years ago in the Pleistocene Epoch
  6. Neanderthals and our human ancestors lived on Earth at the same time.
  7. Neanderthals lived in family groups and looked after their sick and infirm. 
  8. Neanderthals used tools made from bone, stone, antlers and other materials. 
  9. Neanderthals used fire, and even ate cooked vegetables. 

Moreover it is clear that all non-Africans carry some 3% of Neanderthal genes. And so – in my speculation – it would be perfectly consistent with not only the Neanderthals of the Kebara 2 study having speech, but also with all Neanderthals from about 200,000 years ago, having some form of – at least – rudimentary speech.

I have no doubt that speech originated from an intense need to communicate and developed in complexity and sophistication as the complex needs of the societies that developed required more nuanced communication. And if this happened 500,000 years ago then I find it not implausible that there are connections between the controlled use of fire, the growth of complex social interactions, the need for nuanced communications and the development of speech.

Visions arise of camp fires and a society with time for gatherings and then – inevitably – for story-telling! And for tall tales. Lying after all is a construct of language!

But speech was probably invented many times and only became language when some critical mass of people shared the same sounds for the same meanings. Within a single tribe or troop this critical mass for the beginnings of a rudimentary language was probably no more than a handful of individuals. What the first words ever spoken were can only be a matter of speculation. A case can be made for the “ma”, “ba” and “pa” sounds being the first to be repeated but also among the earliest ever words for communication would have been danger, here, there, up, down, you, me, stop, come and go.

Tags:, , ,
Posted in Anthropology, Development, Evolution, Humans, Language | Comments Off on On when speech may have originated

The first word(s) ever spoken

January 11, 2014

A recent conversation at a bar where – in the noise – I was served a whiskey instead of a beer led to a discussion of how sounds and/or gestures became words. Before the bar closed we came to the following conclusions:

  1. A sound becomes a  word only when at least two people use (both make and hear) the same sound for the same meaning.
  2. Probably many such words were “invented” by pairs of people but these never developed any further – either by spreading to others or becoming incorporated with other words to develop into language.
  3. Hand gestures are a consequence – indirectly – of human bipedalism.
  4. First came sounds. Then came sounds/gestures which became gestures/words.Words probably developed from sounds and hand gestures being used together with the words later coming to dominate.
  5. Fundamental hand gestures are almost universally understood today and probably have had similar meanings in antiquity and with the earliest humans.
  6. Fundamental gestures do not need sound for their basic meaning but cannot convey nuances and detail in themselves. Moreover the gestures were invisible in the dark or when out of sight but still within earshot.
  7. The sounds associated with these gestures were most likely among the earliest group of words. But we felt they must have been preceded by a sound – later a word – meaning “danger”. There may well have been a number of sounds describing different kinds of danger.
  8. These fundamental meanings that are readily communicated by gesture alone include: Here, there, up, down, you, me, stop, come and go.

So our considered opinion was that the earliest ever word was danger closely followed by here, there, up, down, you, me, stop, come and go.

But if man had not come down from the trees and freed his hands , sounds would not have become words and words would not have become language.

In Vino Veritas!

Tags:, ,
Posted in Anthropology, Behaviour, Humans, Language | 3 Comments »

Greetings for the In-between days

December 27, 2013

A God Fortsättning, a God Slut and a Gott Nytt År to you all!

In most instances English has a much richer vocabulary than Swedish does – but when it comes to greetings during the festive season, Swedish wins hands down. The nuances of available greetings are just not available in English. Perhaps because there was a greater need for nuance during the long and cold and dark winters.

In Sweden the days between Christmas and the New Year are called the In-between days (mellandagarna) and immediately after Christmas it is no longer appropriate to use Merry Christmas (God Jul) as the greeting. It shifts to God Fortsättning which can only be translated as A Good Continuation. But it is also quite common to wish people a God Slut during this time. But this is also a nuance of greeting that Swedish has which does not appear in English. The literal translation of God Slut in English would be Have a good ending which may be taken to be somewhat morbid or an invitation to take hemlock!  Have a good ending to the Year is a little too long and doesn’t trip of the tongue as well and as succinctly as God Slut. Of course it is perfectly permissible to use Gott Nytt År – Good New Year – during the In-between days.

The In-between days run from December 26th to December 30th.

Clearly God Jul cannot be used after 25th December and God Slut cannot be used after 31st December but God fortsättning can. In theory God fortsättning can be used at any time. I have even heard it used at Advent and during the vacation period in July (when Sweden is closed). But I have heard it most often during the In-between days and then for the first 2 or 3 weeks of January. Gott Nytt År can be used well into February – especially if it is the first meeting of the Year.

And so during these In-between days,

God fortsättning! followed by a

God Slut! and a

Gott Nytt År!

Tags:, , , , , ,
Posted in Behaviour, Language, Sweden | Comments Off on Greetings for the In-between days

Numeracy and language

December 2, 2013

I tend towards considering mathematics a language rather than a science. In fact mathematics is more like a family of languages each with a rigorous grammar. I like this quote:

R. L. E. Schwarzenberger, The Language of Geometry, in A Mathematical Spectrum Miscellany, Applied Probability Trust, 2000, p. 112:

My own attitude, which I share with many of my colleagues, is simply that mathematics is a language. Like English, or Latin, or Chinese, there are certain concepts for which mathematics is particularly well suited: it would be as foolish to attempt to write a love poem in the language of mathematics as to prove the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra using the English language.

Just as conventional languages enable culture and provide a tool for social communication, the various languages of mathematics, I think, enable science and provide a tool for scientific discourse. I take “science” here to be analaogous to a “culture”. To follow that thought then, just as science is embedded within a “larger” culture, so is mathematics embedded within conventional languages. This embedding shows up as the ability of a language to deal with numeracy and numerical concepts.

And that means then the value judgement of what is “primitive” when applied to language can depend upon the extent to which mathematics and therefore numeracy is embedded within that language.

GeoCurrents examines numeracy embedded within languages:

According to a recent article by Mike Vuolo in Slate.com, Pirahã is among “only a few documented cases” of languages that almost completely lack of numbers. Dan Everett, a renowned expert in the Pirahã language, further claims that the lack of numeracy is just one of many linguistic deficiencies of this language, which he relates to gaps in the Pirahã culture. ….. 

The various types of number systems are considered in the WALS.info article on Numeral Bases, written by Bernard Comrie. Of the 196 languages in the sample, 88% can handle an infinite set of numerals. To do so, languages use some arithmetic base to construct numeral expressions. According to Comrie, “we live in a decimal world”: two thirds of the world’s languages use base 10 and such languages are spoken “in nearly every part of the world”. English, Russian, and Mandarin are three examples of such languages. ….. 

Around 20% of the world’s languages use either purely vigesimal (or base 20) or a hybrid vigesimal-decimal system. In a purely vigesimal system, the base is consistently 20, yielding the general formula for constructing numerals as x20 + y. For example, in Diola-Fogny, a Niger-Congo language spoken in Senegal, 51 is expressed as bukan ku-gaba di uɲɛn di b-əkɔn ‘two twenties and eleven’. Other languages with a purely vigesimal system include Arawak spoken in Suriname, Chukchi spoken in the Russian Far East, Yimas in Papua New Guinea, and Tamang in Nepal. In a hybrid vigesimal-decimal system, numbers up to 99 use base 20, but the system then shifts to being decimal for the expression of the hundreds, so that one ends up with expressions of the type x100 + y20 + z. A good example of such a system is Basque, where 256 is expressed as berr-eun eta berr-ogei-ta-hama-sei ‘two hundred and two-twenty-and-ten-six’. Other hybrid vigesimal-decimal systems are found in Abkhaz in the Caucasus, Burushaski in northern Pakistan, Fulfulde in West Africa, Jakaltek in Guatemala, and Greenlandic. In a few mostly decimal languages, moreover, a small proportion of the overall numerical system is vigesimal. In French, for example, numerals in the range 80-99 have a vigesimal structure: 97 is thus expressed as quatre-vingt-dix-sept ‘four-twenty-ten-seven’. Only five languages in the WALS sample use a base that is neither 10 nor 20. For instance, Ekari, a Trans-New Guinean language spoken in Indonesian Papua uses base of 60, as did the ancient Near Eastern language Sumerian, which has bequeathed to us our system of counting seconds and minutes. Besides Ekari, non-10-non-20-base languages include Embera Chami in Colombia, Ngiti in Democratic Republic of Congo, Supyire in Mali, and Tommo So in Mali. …… 

Going back to the various types of counting, some languages use a restricted system that does not effectively go above around 20, and some languages are even more limited, as is the case in Pirahã. The WALS sample contains 20 such languages, all but one of which are spoken in either Australia, highland New Guinea, or Amazonia. The one such language found outside these areas is !Xóõ, a Khoisan language spoken in Botswana. ……. 

Read the whole article. 

Counting monkey?

In some societies in the ancient past, numeracy did not contribute significantly to survival as probably with isolated tribes like the Pirahã. But in most human societies, numeracy was of significant benefit especially for cooperation between different bands of humans. I suspect that it was the need for social cooperation which fed the need for communication within a tribe and among tribes, which in turn was the spur to the development of language, perhaps over 100,000 years ago. What instigated the need to count is in the realm of speculation. The need for a calendar would only have developed with the development of agriculture. But the need for counting herds probably came earlier in a semi-nomadic phase. Even earlier than that would have come the need to trade with other hunter gatherer groups and that  probably gave rise to counting 50,000 years ago or even earlier. The tribes who learned to trade and developed the ability and concepts of trading were probably the tribes that had the best prospects of surviving while moving from one territory to another. It could be that the ability to trade was an indicator of how far a group could move.

And so I am inclined to think that numeracy in language became a critical factor which 30,000 to 50,000 years ago determined the groups which survived and prospered. It may well be that it is these tribes which developed numbers, and learned to count, and learned to trade that eventually populated most of the globe. It may be a little far-fetched but not impossible that numeracy in language may have been one of the features distinguishing Anatomically Modern Humans from Neanderthals. Even though the Neanderthals had larger brains and that we are all Neanderthals to some extent!

Tags:, , , , , , , ,
Posted in Anthropology, Evolution, Humans, Language, Mathematics | Comments Off on Numeracy and language

How to write good!

October 21, 2013

Oh, very good. (via This Got My Attention)

Tags:,
Posted in Language, Trivia | Comments Off on How to write good!

Europe increasingly adopting English for higher education

October 11, 2013

Competition for international students is leading to Universities in continental Europe increasingly offering higher education courses in English. There has been a ten-fold increase in the number of English courses offered since 2002.

Times Higher Education reports:

Thousands of international students may be shunning the UK in favour of continental Europe, where a growing number of courses are being offered in English, a study suggests.

A total of 6,407 taught master’s programmes in the language were offered on the Continent in June this year – a 38 per cent rise on the 4,644 courses available just 18 months earlier, according to a report by the New York-based not-for-profit organisation the Institute of International Education.

That total was 10 times higher than the overall number offered in 2002, says the report, titled English-Taught Master’s Programs in Europe: A 2013 Update.

The new briefing paper published by IIE’s Center for Academic Mobility Research suggests that the number of English-taught Master’s Programs in Europe has increased significantly since 2011. The paper, English-Taught Master’s Programs in Europe: A 2013 Update”, is an update of a report published by IIE in June 2011, and provides a data-driven look at the continued growth of master’s programs in Europe taught entirely or partially in English.

Growth of English courses in Europe

Growth of English courses in Europe

In recent years, European countries in which English is not the primary language of instruction have developed an increasing number of programs taught either fully or partly in English in order to serve domestic demand for higher education in English and to attract students from around the world. …..  The authors examine the growth of English-taught master’s programs in Europe, including the total number of programs offered by country and academic discipline, their duration, and data on prospective students.

According to the report, as of June 2013 the total number of English-taught programs in Europe was 6,609, a 42 percent increase since 2011. The top host countries for English-taught Master’s programs are: Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, France, and Spain.

Growth of English courses by country and year

Growth of English courses by country and year

Tags:, , , ,
Posted in Education, Europe, Language | Comments Off on Europe increasingly adopting English for higher education

THE exam howlers

August 10, 2013

From this years submissions to the THE (not in any order of rank):

  1. “Sex has puzzled biologists ever since it was discovered by Darwin and Mendel.” (winning submission)
  2. “Eugenics was created by Charles Darwin’s cousin Gollum.”
  3. “Britain under the Cromwellian Protectorate was a piranha state.”
  4. “General Franco was supported by right-wing panties.”
  5. “Extremophiles can be defined as those that tolerate extremes of temperature, extremes of pH and extremes of pleasure.” 
  6. “Nigella seeds can cure all disease except death.”
  7. “Ebola could lead to death, in some cases fatal.”
  8. An Egyptian king,”was a pharaoh, not a common pheasant.”
  9. ..“depression rates are higher in areas of high social depravity.” 

  10. In a paper on HIV/AIDS transmission, as an example of “risky” behaviour likely to spread infection, a student listed “sharing a condom”.

  11. “Hadrian’s Wall’s heritage assets include a complex system of forts and earthworms.”
  12. “Stalin was extremely surprised when he was taken from behind by Hitler.”

Some rather interesting exam howlers can be found here.

Tags:,
Posted in Behaviour, Language, Trivia | Comments Off on THE exam howlers

What’s in a number? Defining a Mamillion

August 10, 2013

The New York Times reports today that the Japanese debt has reached one Quadrillion Yen (1015 Yen).

Japan’s soaring national debt, already more than twice the size of its economy, has reached a new milestone, surpassing one quadrillion yen.

A paltry million is the numeral one followed by six zeros. A billion? Nine zeros. A trillion is getting up there: 12 zeros. But the mighty quadrillion has 15 of them. … 

A quadrillion is a million billion, putting it into the kind of language used by middle schoolers to describe really humongous sums, along with gazillion and bazillion.

Measuring any currency in quadrillions brings to mind the hyperinflation of Germany between the wars, or Zimbabwe in the last decade. But a country with a real currency?

It is such a big and unusual word, describing such a big and unusual number, that its use is inconsistent: Bloomberg News used quadrillion in the headline of an early story on Friday about Japan’s debt, but later in the day the stories and headlines referred to a “thousand trillion,” which is not nearly as much fun.

…  How much is a quadrillion? The entire human body is said to have just 100 trillion cells; it takes 10 of us to make a quadrillion. Jeff Bezos has a personal fortune of some $25 billion, allowing him to plunk down $250 million for The Washington Post, which is essentially how much money he might find by looking behind his sofa cushions. To get to a quadrillion dollars, however, we would have to have 40,000 Bezoses, or as many people as live in Prescott, Ariz.

Neil deGrasse Tyson, the astrophysicist and director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History, helpfully offered a few other ways to think about a quadrillion. “It would take you 31 million years to count to a quadrillion — one number per second, never sleeping,” he said in an e-mail, adding that “a quadrillion yen, stacked in 1,000-yen notes, would ascend 70,000 miles high.”

He also wrote, though it is not clear how he would know such a thing, that “the total number of all sounds and words ever uttered by all humans who have ever lived is about 100 quadrillion.”

Numbers from 103 (Thousand) to 10123 (Quadragintillion) with the exponent increasing in steps of 3 and then upto 10603 (Ducentillion) in exponent steps of 30 and then upto 103003 (Milillion) in exponent steps of 300 have been named.

10100 is a Googol and 10Googol is a Googolplex.

But I cannot find a name for the relatively simple concept of one million raised to the power of one million.

A Zillion is undefined but language still needs such a word for a very large indeterminate number. Gazillion is often used instead of Zillion. The word “Million” itself is thought to have come about to represent a “Large Thousand” (from mille = thousand). A million raised to the power of itself would quite definitely be a Large Million.

So I propose a word to represent a “Large Million”, the mother of all millions,  a Ma Million

Mamillion = Millionmillion = 1,000,0001,000,000

Considering the magnitude of the current Japanese debt, it will be some time before the debt of the whole world reaches a Mamillion in whatever currency one cares to choose!.

Tags:, ,
Posted in Language, Mathematics | Comments Off on What’s in a number? Defining a Mamillion

Dolphins have unique whistle-names for each other

July 23, 2013
Mother and juvenile bottlenose dolphins head t...

Mother and juvenile bottlenose dolphins – Wikipedia

Dolphins it seems are not just self-aware but identify specific individuals with specific whistles. And that would mean not just having a sense of self-identity but also of having a “naming” convention and of communication. And if whistle-names exist then whistle-words and language are also already present or certainly not very far away. Researchers from the Sea Mammal Research Unit, School of Biology at the University of St. Andrews have just published a study of bottle-nosed dolphins.

Stephanie L. King and Vincent M. Janik, Bottlenose dolphins can use learned vocal labels to address each other, Published online before print July 22, 2013, doi:10.1073/pnas.1304459110 , PNAS July 22, 2013

Abstract: In animal communication research, vocal labeling refers to incidents in which an animal consistently uses a specific acoustic signal when presented with a specific object or class of objects. Labeling with learned signals is a foundation of human language but is notably rare in nonhuman communication systems. In natural animal systems, labeling often occurs with signals that are not influenced by learning, such as in alarm and food calling. There is a suggestion, however, that some species use learned signals to label conspecific individuals in their own communication system when mimicking individually distinctive calls. Bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) are a promising animal for exploration in this area because they are capable of vocal production learning and can learn to use arbitrary signals to report the presence or absence of objects. Bottlenose dolphins develop their own unique identity signal, the signature whistle. This whistle encodes individual identity independently of voice features. The copying of signature whistles may therefore allow animals to label or address one another. Here, we show that wild bottlenose dolphins respond to hearing a copy of their own signature whistle by calling back. Animals did not respond to whistles that were not their own signature. This study provides compelling evidence that a dolphin’s learned identity signal is used as a label when addressing conspecifics. Bottlenose dolphins therefore appear to be unique as nonhuman mammals to use learned signals as individually specific labels for different social companions in their own natural communication system.

Tags:, , , ,
Posted in Language, Science, Wildlife | Comments Off on Dolphins have unique whistle-names for each other

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »