World Languages: Crash Course Linguistics #14 - Free Educational videos for Students in K-12

World Languages: Crash Course Linguistics #14 - By Math and Science

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00:0-1	Hi , I'm Taylor and welcome to crash Chris Linguistics
00:02	. If you ask how many languages there are in
00:04	the world , the answer you'll most likely hear from
00:07	linguists is around 7000 . That's certainly more than you'll
00:11	find on any language learning at the reason that the
00:13	around is in there is because it's really difficult to
00:16	give a specific number . There are three big reasons
00:19	why . One , it can be hard to know
00:21	where language stops and a dialect begins to . There
00:24	are a lot of political factors involved and three ,
00:27	there are varying degrees of resources and records about different
00:31	languages understanding these factors . Why how many languages is
00:35	a complicated question Can help us understand the diverse social
00:38	structures that human languages exist within . Mhm . Let's
00:52	start with that . First complication , the fuzzy distinction
00:55	between language and dialect . One basic way we can
00:58	tell if two people speak the same language is whether
01:01	they can understand each other . This is known as
01:03	mutual intelligibility . If you can understand me right now
01:07	, we're mutually intelligible . We can say that we
01:09	speak the same language if you can understand me ,
01:11	but you'd say some things a bit differently from me
01:14	, whether that's in terms of sounds , words or
01:16	grammar , we can say that we speak different dialects
01:19	of the same language so far , that seems pretty
01:21	easy , but all languages change over time . That's
01:24	how spanish went from a dialect of Latin to its
01:27	own language . But pinpointing the exact moment when Latin
01:30	turned into spanish is complicated at every point in this
01:33	chain , kids spoke slightly differently from their parents ,
01:36	but the generations could still essentially understand each other .
01:39	Nobody went to bed one night speaking Latin and woke
01:42	up the next morning speaking spanish . Let's go to
01:44	the thought bubble to see how this gradual change happens
01:47	across space as well as time . Let's imagine a
01:50	chain of four villages , the first village and second
01:53	village have different dialects , but good mutual intelligibility .
01:56	Now , people in village three can understand people from
01:59	village to pretty well , but they have a harder
02:01	time with people from village one who are farther away
02:04	. The fourth village can also understand people from village
02:06	three pretty well , but they can barely understand people
02:09	from village one at all . If we just look
02:12	at village one and village four who can't understand each
02:15	other , it feels like we should conclude that they're
02:17	not speaking the same language , but it's hard to
02:19	know where to make a break between villages two and
02:22	three , three and four , but they're mutually intelligible
02:26	to their neighbors . This tendency for language to change
02:28	gradually along ingredient is known as a dialect chain or
02:32	dialect continuum . Dialect chains are very , very common
02:35	and they're found all over the world , french villages
02:38	near Spain or Italy are home to varieties of french
02:40	that are closer to the spanish or italian dialects just
02:43	across the border than they are to the official version
02:46	spoken in paris Rome or Madrid . And while greenlandic
02:49	and Inuktitut in Greenland and northern Canada are sometimes considered
02:53	two languages , they're actually part of a large dialect
02:56	continuum that spans part of the arctic circle . Meanwhile
02:59	, in the Himalayan mountains , languages follow values .
03:02	People at the top and bottom of one valley might
03:04	both speak varieties of tibetan , but they might not
03:07	be able to immediately understand each other . So sometimes
03:10	geographical features that prevent people from talking to each other
03:13	can disrupt a dialect change , allowing different varieties to
03:16	change and become less like each other over time .
03:19	Thanks thought bubble . Sometimes language changes because people migrate
03:22	from their homeland and live somewhere new , creating diaspora
03:25	communities . People living within a diaspora may maintain parts
03:29	of their original culture , especially language , but a
03:32	diaspora member might learn a language from their parents and
03:35	return to their original community to find that people there
03:37	think they talk or sign like old people . They're
03:39	not up on the current slang at all . That's
03:43	because larger groups like their homeland community generally change how
03:46	they talk faster than smaller groups like the diaspora community
03:49	on a larger time scale . This is how one
03:51	language can become to another way that languages get added
03:54	to the official language counts is when they've existed for
03:57	a long time , but they started being taken more
03:59	seriously by researchers . This is the case for many
04:03	hundreds of sign languages . There are two common circumstances
04:06	where signed languages become stable across generations and add to
04:10	the count of languages in the world . The first
04:12	is deaf community signed languages , which are created when
04:14	large numbers of deaf people get together and use a
04:17	common language to talk to one another . We saw
04:19	this happen in a school for the deaf in the
04:21	case of Nicaraguan sign language , but deaf community sign
04:24	language is also often arise in cities with a sizable
04:27	death population such as french sign language . In paris
04:31	. The second way signed languages form is in small
04:33	communities with a high degree of genetic deafness and thus
04:36	a large proportion of deaf people in the population .
04:39	When both deaf and hearing members of a community develop
04:42	assigned language together , this is known as a village
04:44	sign language . Some village sign languages are Caricola and
04:48	Indonesia . Central tourist sign language in Turkey , Al
04:52	Sayyed Bedouin sign language in Israel and tomorrow be sign
04:55	language in Ghana signed languages can also form through the
04:58	combination of both deaf community and village sign languages for
05:02	example , sl created by deaf students at the american
05:05	school for the deaf in the 19th century was influenced
05:08	both by a deaf community sign language . Old french
05:11	sign language and local village sign languages , including Martha's
05:14	vineyard sign language . Now another complication in deciding what
05:18	counts as a language is identity and politics . Individuals
05:22	communities and governments might want to appear similar to each
05:24	other or establish their differences . Their decisions to alter
05:28	their image through language have had a range of consequences
05:31	from different alphabets to deliberately suppressing languages Hindi spoken in
05:36	India and written with the diva Nigari script is treated
05:39	as a separate language from Urdu spoken in Pakistan and
05:42	written with the Arabic script , but when spoken out
05:45	loud they're about as mutually intelligible as U . S
05:48	. And british english , Hindi and Urdu are counted
05:51	as distinct languages for political reasons , not linguistic .
05:54	Once dialects get split apart for political reasons , they
05:57	often keep diverging in different directions . As speakers reinforce
06:01	the political difference , hindi is more likely to borrow
06:03	new words from Sanskrit , whereas Anu is more likely
06:06	to borrow new words from Arabic . While sometimes politics
06:09	split languages apart . Other times it lumps them together
06:13	. It's standard to label the seven language groups of
06:15	china as dialects of chinese rather than languages . But
06:18	those language groups diverged at least a millennium ago and
06:21	many aren't mutually intelligible . Part of the reason that
06:24	there is a debate over where to draw the line
06:26	between these groups is that they share the same writing
06:28	system . It's basically the opposite of what's happened with
06:32	hindi and Urdu . Similarly , many governments , like
06:34	those of England France and other european countries lump their
06:38	dialect into a single standardized version of their language based
06:42	on how upper class people in the capital speed .
06:44	They establish official monolingual ism bilingualism or other limited numbers
06:49	of state sanctioned official languages To create the image of
06:52	a unified national identity . The standardized languages get taught
06:55	in schools at the expense of regional dialects , even
06:58	though the regional dialects are just as old governments might
07:01	also try to avoid counting or eradicate some languages entirely
07:06	to give the appearance of more unity . India doesn't
07:09	officially recognize any language with fewer than 10,000 speakers .
07:12	However , linguists know it's possible for a language to
07:15	be vibrant with a few 1000 speakers . In fact
07:18	, there are at least 400 such languages in India
07:21	and probably many more than that , including Tyrone ,
07:24	carby and room glow . Yet the country only officially
07:28	recognizes 121 languages in a similar main , the residential
07:32	school system in the United States and Canada was part
07:35	of a deliberate government policy to stop indigenous Children from
07:39	speaking their languages and learn english instead by forcibly removing
07:43	them from their communities and their languages , linguists aren't
07:46	generally the ones in charge , wandering around with mutual
07:48	intelligibility , yardsticks measuring what is and isn't a language
07:52	instead what counts as a language is influenced by language
07:56	ideologies , beliefs that people have about language language varieties
08:00	and what their use tells us about their speakers .
08:03	Since their beliefs , language ideologies aren't necessarily true .
08:08	Lastly , the third big complicating factor in how languages
08:11	can get counted is the fact that we know a
08:13	lot more about some languages than others . The media
08:17	resources classes and tools that we use to study and
08:20	preserve languages only show us a limited view . Let's
08:23	think about making a dictionary as an example . A
08:26	dictionary is a really big project . It takes at
08:29	minimum several trained linguists or lexicographers . Years of full
08:33	time work to create one . Throughout this process ,
08:35	these dictionary makers need to eat and sleep somehow ,
08:38	which means that someone needs to fund that dictionary funding
08:41	might come from a government or university sponsoring a dictionary
08:44	for the prestige , a private company making one for
08:47	profit or individuals taking it on as a huge project
08:51	around their day jobs . The same goes for making
08:53	other kinds of language tools and resources , whether it's
08:56	media like novels , movies and podcasts , learning resources
08:59	like textbooks and grammars or tech tools like keyboards and
09:03	apps and speech recognition . They're all made by humans
09:06	one language at a time and all require funding at
09:09	some point when it comes down to it . Some
09:11	languages have access to a lot more money than others
09:13	and this imbalance adds up . Once there's one dictionary
09:16	for a language , it becomes easier to make an
09:18	updated edition or to build a word game app or
09:21	spell check tool on top of it . So the
09:23	same few languages tend to show up again and again
09:25	in the translation dictionaries you see in a bookstore or
09:28	the list of language options you see in the drop
09:30	down menu , access to resources like politics can also
09:33	affect whether a language can exist at all . People
09:36	can be pressured to not pass on their languages to
09:39	the next generation or unable to do it if they
09:42	want to . But there's some good news . Sometimes
09:44	people revive or reconnect with their ancestral language . They
09:47	might revive their language from written records , like with
09:50	hebrew in Israel and wampanoag and massachusetts and Rhode island
09:54	. Other times , people work with elders to revitalize
09:56	and document a language where transmission has been interrupted for
09:59	a generation or two . They can create learning environments
10:02	such as language nests or immersion schools for Children and
10:04	adults , as well as resources for continue learning ,
10:07	like dictionaries and recordings of stories Maori and Hawaiian have
10:11	been revitalized through programs like these . In other cases
10:14	, there are still many speakers of a language ,
10:16	but it hasn't received official recognition yet . Members of
10:20	the community might work to get it recognised by governments
10:22	supported in schools or available on major tech platforms ,
10:26	scanning recognition and support as part of seeking linguistic justice
10:30	for people's right to speak their language . When you
10:33	get into the linguistic and political complexity of languages ,
10:36	it's no wonder there's no widely agreed upon total number
10:39	of languages in the world . We can make that
10:41	number more accurate by supporting the rights of Children to
10:44	access education in their language , fighting for the visibility
10:47	of smaller languages not discriminating against people for the way
10:50	they speak and dismantling the assumption that there's always a
10:54	1 to 1 relationship between nations and languages . We
10:57	can also think of it this way . Instead of
10:59	asking how many languages there are in the world ,
11:01	a better question to ask might be . How can
11:04	we help maintain the richness of linguistic experience ? Thanks
11:08	for watching this episode of Crash Course linguistics which is
11:10	produced by complexity and PBS . Are you craving more
11:13	humanities in your Youtube diet ? Story ? Does PBS
11:16	is home for the liberal arts geek and all of
11:18	us and features . It's like a series about our
11:21	favorite books with Lindsay , Ellis and Princess Weeks as
11:24	well as Monster . Um a show about monsters and
11:26	myths and what these stories say about us . They're
11:28	also going to launch verbatim a new linguistics show very
11:32	soon subscribe to story and tell them . Crash Course
11:35	sent you

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