June 16, 2026 • 36 mins
Why is Z the last letter of the English alphabet (and why do British people insist on calling it zed)? Who stuck a tail on C and called it G? And is there a reason why the I in ‘child’ and ‘children’ sounds different? (Spoiler alert: Yes!) Linguist Danny Bate stops by to unpack the mysteries of the alphabet and discuss his delightful new book, Why Q Needs U: A History of Our Letters and How We Use Them.
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Speaker 1 (00:14):
You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio. Hey their podcast listeners, Mango here, and today
we have something so special for you. It is a
conversation with linguist and author Danny Bate, whose new book
y Q Needs You, A History of Our Letters and
(00:35):
How We Use Them is out now. Producer Mary actually
caught up with Danny to talk about how a Roman
slave invented the letter G. I had no idea about that.
Also why something called the great vowel shift can explain
some of the weirdest quirks in the English language, things
like how the word child and children have totally different
eye sounds. I don't know about you. I never thought
(00:57):
about that before, but it is all in Danny's book
and now at the office we can't stop chattering about
this anyway. It is a fascinating book, a great conversation.
But before we get started, I want to let you
know that this episode is brought to you by our
friends at Sale. Now that summer, I know a lot
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(01:19):
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I went to India recently. It really is a lifesaver.
(01:40):
And when you use the code PTG at checkout, you'll
get fifteen percent off your first purchase. So go to
sale dot com slash PTG for details. The link is
in the show notes. Okay, that's all for me. Over
to you, Mary and Danny. Let's dive in.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
How does one become a linguist, or more particularly, how
did you become a linguist? And why did you choose
that path out of all the things you could have chosen.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Well, the nice thing is that it really does tend
to be quite diverse the ways in which people come
to linguistics. And I think that's partly because the discipline
is not very old. It only really goes back to say,
the late nineteenth century, as it starts to extract itself
from other older, better established disciplines, and in its modern
(02:48):
recognizable form, it's a product of the twentieth century. For me,
at least it definitely started while I was at school,
so that was very fortunate that my school offered three
modern foreign languages in addition to English. So through a
couple of very good teachers, I slowly realized that I
loved learning languages and crucially learning about languages. I signed
(03:08):
up to do a bachelor's degree at the University of
York in Northern England's best decision I ever made, because
it gave me, what is it now, eleven years of
being a linguist, and also my wife, who I met
at the University of York. So it gave me everything
and it's defined the course of my adult life ever since.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
How lovely to find your career and your wife all
in one convenient location.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Very convenient.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
So then thinking about the book Why Q Needs You,
which is such a fascinating and fun read. There's this
long tradition of nonfiction books about a very specific topic.
Mark Kurlanski does this. I don't know if you've read
his books. He did one about salt, he did one
about cod You know, it's sort of a genre. You
take a very specific subject and you write a very
(03:51):
specific book about it. And I will admit that at first,
I thought that's what I was getting into with your book,
and then I began to read it and I realized that, actually,
this is a book about the entire sweep of human history, civilization, culture, society,
yet it's told through this lens of the alphabet. Did
you know going in that you were biting off such
a huge thing, or did you actually think, well, this
(04:14):
is a nice discrete topic that I can tackle the alphabet.
You know.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
No, I did not know how much I was getting
into and how much I would learn in the process,
because my research was primarily in the field of syntax,
so that's word order and how we build our sentences.
So whireas lots of aspects of the alphabet's history were
already familiar to me, the lot of the big picture
was not familiar to me, and I really it did
(04:40):
take writing a whole book to appreciate some of these
massive themes. That the alphabet is this piece of technology.
I quite like using that term or that metaphor. It
is a kind of technology in that it's something that
we're not born with. It's something that we have created
and that allows us to do more thing. It's so
successful in that role that it often goes really unappreciated.
(05:04):
I think the alphabet is something we learn and then
don't really think about. But nonetheless these ginormous themes, these
themes of writing, and it's very complex and independent relationship
with speech, and also things like how the alphabet is
completely caught up in the circumstances of the present day,
whatever present day that happens to be.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
I was really fascinated to learn that the modern alphabet
actually traces its roots all the way back to Egyptian hieroglyphs.
I was obsessed with ancient Egypt as a kid. I
was one of those kids. I feel like little kids
they're either obsessed with ancient Greece or ancient Egypt. I
want the ancient Egypt route. So can you tell us
a bit about that connection which I had not really
been aware of.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Oh, with great pleasure, and I would say that I
was with you there on team Egypt. For me, I
think there was my local museum in England had an
Egyptian section and it just it obsessed me while I
was young. So absolutely it does go back to ancient Egypt.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
And I would.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Bracket that with a little caveat. I'd say that that's
as much as the evidence allows us to say. For
the moment, we are building a picture based on archaeological sources,
on fragments of bits of writing that we've managed to excavate,
so new finds could upset the story that I sketched
in the book. With that caveat in place, it does
(06:23):
seem that the alphabet has its ultimate origins in Egypt,
specifically in what we today call the Middle Kingdom. The
Egyptian civilization is at its height, and the majority of
the kingdom is speaking Egyptian. It's a spoken language which
has its own associated writing system, which is hieroglyphs. Right,
But during this period, about four thousand years ago, there
(06:45):
seems to have been other populations of other speakers within Egypt.
It's not surprising at all. It's an empire, right, it's
you know, conquered many people, and many people have migrated
into Egypt, and among them seem to have been very
well representedulation of Semitic speakers, speaking some kind of dialect
that's related to today's Arabic and Hebrew and Amharic and
(07:08):
great global languages like that. These speakers clearly well integrated
into Egyptian society. But probably not very high up the
social scale. Many of them soldiers or miners and things
like that. They look at hieroglyphs and say, well, that
looks great. We'd like our own, like you very much,
we like our own writing system. But I would just
(07:28):
stress the point that they clearly were inspired by hieroglyphs,
but it's not quite right to say that hieroglyphs are
the simple origin of our writing system. This was a
definite break, A kind of new tree sprouted from a
seed of hieroglyphs, because they take the written symbols, but
they repurposed them for the sounds of their Semitic speech
(07:52):
in a very simple one symbol to one consonant principle.
And that is a radical departure. That's a really new
way of using these ancient, already ancient symbols. When they
do that, the alphabet is born. But of course we
have a long long way to go, and those kind
of original hieroglyphic images that look like things like animals
(08:13):
and body parts and things like that, they will after
thousands of years, become our letters. So nothing is fixed
at this early point in time, except for that principle
that it's one symbol to one.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Sound, And as the alphabet evolved from its very earliest days,
many different people played a role in that process, and
by and large it was ordinary people making what they
probably didn't realize were such important choices to represent language.
I'm wondering if you can tell us a bit about
some of the people or groups of people who kind
of stand out to you in that story.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
With the alphabet's early innovatives. I really can't say anything
snappier than West Semitic dialect speakers, something quite long like that,
because we really don't know much about them. We don't
really know much in terms of how they saw themselves
and their identity. But later on we can speak a
little bit more precisely about who is doing the innovating.
Case in point, after the initial stage of the alphabet
(09:08):
in ancient Egypt, it seems to make its way up
the coast of the Mediterranean into what is today Lebanon,
and we have the Phoenicians. They are a group of
city states that maybe didn't get on with one another,
but Phoenicians is a pretty accurate term for this very
impressive civilization that are spreading their way of life and
doing business and trade and also spreading the alphabet across
(09:31):
the Mediterranean. They then passed the alphabet onto the Greeks,
probably lands in the hands of the Greeks, maybe around
the year eight hundred BC, but that's really contested and
not at all certain. The Greeks then passed the alphabet
onto the peoples of iron Age Italy round about the
year seven hundred BC, so one century later, and that
(09:51):
date is a little bit more certain. These people include
great cultures like the Etruscans, but of course much more
famously to the Romans. And when the alphabet finally lands
in the hands of the Romans, we are dealing with
some really quite concrete people. Yes, okay, we have some
consoles and senators and quite high up people who are
making a difference or credited with making a difference for
(10:13):
the alphabet, but also quite humble people. There is a
tradition or a story that a former slave, we don't
know his birth name, but his adopted name is Spurious
car Wilias Ruger. He's credited with inventing the letter G,
and the letter G is doing really well in our
alphabet today. So that's a series all the time, right,
(10:36):
you would so do I I guess a couple of
letters A great letters. A great letter is a couple
of g's across my screen right now. So that's an
example of a specific individual and antiquity making a lasting legacy.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
I know you get into this in the book, but
for our listeners, could you just explain why he decided
there was this need for this letter G.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Yes, absolutely, because I mean it seems so fixed and
we take it for granted. But if your listeners know,
for example, I don't know something like the Greek alphabet
or the cyrillic alphabet that's used to write down Russian
and Ukrainian, they may not some of them do.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
See, we have a lot of nerds who listen to
this show. I guarantee there are people out there who like,
of course I know it's a relic alphabet.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
That's good. I feel like this is the place for that. Okay, good, Yes, indeed,
I'm glad to hear that. And well, let's not assume
let's say, okay, think of the Greek alphabet and the
cyrillic script. No, if you think about specifically the position
of the Roman letter G as used by English, there's
kind of no equivalent. There is a G letter, but
it comes earlier. So for the Greeks it's gamma, and
(11:38):
for in Russian it's the letter gay. It looks like
a bent stick. And what's happened there is that those
the Greeks, they're not part of this innovation of g
So the Greek alphabet has gamma, and Gamma is the
origin of the cyrillic. But as the alphabet makes its
way westwards into Italy, in the hands of the Etruscans first.
(12:02):
And that's not just me being a big nerd. The
Etruscans are very important because when the alphabet lands in Italy,
the Etruscans are top dog. They're the prestigious ones. They're
the cultural ones. Romas and nobody. Romans just a collection
of villages overlooking the River Tiber. So their version of
the alphabet is how the Greek letters get eventually transmitted
to the Romans. They're like a prism through which the
(12:23):
alphabet reaches Rome. And they don't have the sound gout.
We know that because Etruscan speech points to it. So
they repurpose gamma, the third letter of the alphabet, into
a cut sound, basically the same sound but with no vibration.
In your throat and this then will become c, which
(12:44):
is obviously in English today it's still used for a
cut sound. So the letter via Etruscan goes from representing
gut to representing cut. But the thing is the Romans,
when they start to establish themselves, they start to make
their mark on Italy and make their mark on the alphabets.
They say, well, our language are spoken language does have
(13:04):
a sound. We have a cuh and a gut. So
Theatruscan system, which we've been using up until this point
because we like the Etruscans and we respect them, this
won't do. So there's a definite need for it. And
out of this need eventually somebody like Ruga, I mean,
his name includes the sound go, they decide to just
take a capital Let us see a curvacious C which
(13:27):
comes from gamma, and just add a simple upward mark
and from C you get a capital G.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
I love that idea that the alphabet. The technology is
always sort of lagging behind the pace of actual spoken language.
I mean, and this is true of any technology. It's
very easy to think of technology as racing ahead of us,
but I feel like in some ways technology is often
trying to keep up with us and the choices that
we make within our societies as we speak to each other.
(13:54):
And that's something that I had not realized had happened
to the alphabet in so many situations where where the
alphabet arrived somewhere and people were like, well, this is cool,
but it's missing something we need to add to it.
Is that process still happening. Do you feel like the
alphabet itself is kind of in its final form no
matter what, or is there a chance that it could
(14:15):
still keep changing.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
I think it'll keep changing. Yeah, for sure. I don't
think there's anything particularly definitive about it. There are many
ways in which it is a little deficient for representing
English speech. I really like your point there about technology
in general. Technology is something that needs innovation put into it.
It will not naturally self innovate. The alphabet needs to
be updated as it passes through different languages. So that's
(14:39):
true of everything I've said so far from this historical
linguistic story, that this is a piece of technology passing
through the hands of speakers of really quite different languages,
really different kinds of speech. So it's going to need
to be updated. And that's absolutely fine. That there's absolutely
no compunction to keep the alphabet exactly as it is.
(15:00):
Letters are modified, letters are dropped, new letters are created
all the way through antiquity. But additionally a lag can
creep in, not as the alphabet is jumping from language
to language, but even just staying still within one single language.
Arguably English is a good case of this, where the
English spelling system, the way in which we're using these letters,
(15:21):
the ancient alphabet is fairly fixed round about the year
fourteen fifty, because we've not really moved beyond that, let's say,
post medieval or late medieval standard the lag has really
crept in. And since then Standard English has changed in
so many ways. Non Standard English, all kinds of accents
(15:42):
and dialects have crept in very naturally in a way
that does not come naturally to our spelling system. And
now today the lag feels it's a chasm at this point.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
One of the most interesting changes that you describe, at
least to me in the book is something that you
call the Great vowel shift. And of course you can
call it the great vowel shift thanks to mister Ruga
and his invention of the letter G. Otherwise I guess
it would be the Great vowel shift, which does not
have the same ring to it in my opinion. So
what was the Great vowel shift? What made it so great?
(16:16):
How does it affect us today?
Speaker 3 (16:17):
Ah? Great, I'm always happy to be to get the mentioning.
I kind of a little preachy about the Great vowel
shifts because it's something that deserves to be better known.
It creates the sound of modern English as we know
it today, and also is a kind of dividing line
between modern English and Medieval English. I'll explain what I
mean by all that. The Great vowel Shift really does
deserve this title because it's massive in that if you
(16:41):
wind the clock back, so let's say fourteen hundred, the
time of Jeffrey Chaucer writing The County Tales and things
like that, and for Jeffrey Chaucer, the vowels of spoken English,
it's probably about six or seven. Vowels of English in
speech are quite simple, six or seven or maybe double
let's say twelve or fourteen. Because every vowel of Middle English,
(17:04):
Medieval English, that is, could be long, it can be short,
So you can have an up vowel and an R
vowel micro difference between the two, and you can spell
them easily with the same letter. But the Great vowel shift,
which starts off in southern England and it takes about
maybe three hundred years to reach its final form, as
you can hear in my English today, shifts to alters
(17:27):
the position in the mouth, the tongue position of the vowels,
of all of the long vowels, so R, the long
R becomes a E along e sound becomes I likewise
or becomes ooh. So everything is shifting up in a
sort of chain reaction in the mouth of speakers of
(17:47):
early modern English. So Shakespeare would be caught up maybe
in the middle of the Great vowel shift. That's why
Shakespeare in Reconstruction sounded a little bit different to modern
English today. But nonetheless, with the exception of some kinds
of Scottish in English, basically all English today has run
the gauntlet of the Great vowel shift. It explains so
much of our spelling because related words, where one has
(18:09):
a long vowel and one has a short valve, they
go off in different directions. So once upon a time
you would say I have one child and two children,
and now it's one child shifted and two children short
vowel unshifted. Likewise, something like a sheep that has a
shifted valve, so it would have been shape originally. And
there's a short valve in shepherd that's still there, the
(18:32):
shortened version still in the word shepherd. Toad would have
been tad once upon a time, as it is still
in tadpole. There's an a in tadpole. Another example which
I absolutely love. Even the alphabet is effective the names
of the letters abcd undo the great vowel shift and
you get our bear sair dare, And that just sounds
like the German alphabet or the Dutch or French or
(18:54):
Italian or Spanish. So English has been removed put at
a distance by the great vowel shift. And I hope
all of that somewhat makes sense. It is quite a
complicated thing, but it really does deserve to be better known.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Hey, everyone, we've got to take a quick break, but
we'll be right back with more part time genius.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
One of the really fun bits in the book is
you highlight some of these what people might call inconsistencies
or just you know, weird features of English. One of
the things you get at is that this idea that
English is an irrational language is not quite right. I
think you say something like, it's not that there's a
lack of rules, it's that there are too many rules.
(19:49):
They're just all happening at the same time. What did
you mean by that? Is it just that this evolution
sort of created different systems that never then died off,
and so we're just dealing with the aftermath of all
of them.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Is that it?
Speaker 3 (20:02):
That's nice? Yeah, that was a very important point to me.
I'm not a big fan of English bashing, nor am
I a big fan of English elevating by saying it's
some sort of perfect language. I'm just not a fan
in general of English exceptionalism, of basically raising it up
as somehow different, because I think that loses so much
of the power and the magic of what's actually gone on.
(20:23):
In short people, you know, it's all a product of
lots of different people speaking in lots of different ways.
If you say, I go back to the Middle Ages,
the High Middle Ages around about the year thirteen hundreds,
you have tremendous linguistic diversity across Europe, across the world.
But let's just stick to Europe, it almost doesn't make
(20:45):
sense to talk about English or Medieval English, because you're
dealing with lots of different dialects where each valley or
each county is having a slightly different way of speaking.
Over the course of the Late Middle Ages, nation state
start to coalesce, borders start to become a lot more important,
and when you get nations states who tend to get
(21:06):
national languages. There's one route that Europe has preferred to
go down, which is basically to raise up one standard,
to pick one kind of speech, and nine times out
of ten it is the speech of the elite, it's
the wealthy people, maybe the language of the capital city.
If you have a capital city, so standard French comes
from the area around Paris. That's very undemocratic, but it
(21:28):
works if you want one particular national language, and English
just didn't have that. It didn't have the same thorough
elevation of one particular way of speaking. There absolutely is
a basis for standard English. It's the language unsurprisingly of
London and of the East Midlands of England. But nonetheless
you've got all kinds of different ways of speaking that
(21:51):
are making contributions to Standard English. Different ways of spelling.
I think I make the point in the book that
you know, we get fox from East Midlands in English,
but vixen with a voiced the sound at the beginning
that comes from the far south of England, and that's
a kind of different dialect that's contributed the feminine vixen.
And these are all making contributions to Standard English as
(22:12):
it's emerging. And crucially, we then don't have the equivalent
of your Academy of Conseils, your individual organization that will
say it's going to be this way, we're going to
spell this sound with this letter or this arrangement of letters.
We've already had that in English. We've had some very
influential people. The United States had Noah Webster for example,
United Kingdom had Dr Johnson, one of my personal heroes.
(22:36):
But there's still they don't get to dictate the terms,
and that means that we're stuck with so many different
principles that individually make sense, but when you put them
all together it looks a bit messy.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
I remember when my son was learning to read and write.
It was really fascinating to see how he had to
kind of navigate those principles, you know, I don't remember
my own process of learning it, but watching someone else
you really notice these things. So like, I want to
read the book he'd write r Eed because that's how
it sounds. And I remember him asking, like, why can't
(23:13):
we just spell it the way that it sounds? Which
is a fair question.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Right.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Firstly, I just want to say to your son and
anybody in this position. I think most of us, let's
say Native English readers and writers, have had these thoughts
at some point or other. Why can't we, you know,
spell it this way? We can. That's the funny thing.
We have a certain way of writing. We learn it,
we do battle with it, we get to grips with
it at the early age, and once we have it,
(23:38):
we are very reluctant to make any changes. Nonetheless, that
is only one point of view. Throughout history we see
tremendous variation. But as people are spelling much closer to
how they actually pronounce. That's true of the Old English period,
so up to the year let's say, eleven hundred, that's
true of Middle English. So eleven hundred to say, I
(23:58):
don't know, fifteen hundred. It's only later that the technology
allows us to really enforce this standards. However, the standard,
as your son has noticed, is a little bit creaky.
In say, the preface to Samuel Johnson's Dictionary, he does
talk about his approach to spelling. And if we resurrected
him and we asked him, why does your dictionary, which
(24:22):
was a best seller, hugely influential book, why does it
not try to reform spelling and get rid of all
sorts of quirks and you know, sort things out, he
would say, well, I think, speaking for him, he would
say that as soon as I make those changes, speech
will just render them out of date again. And he's right,
he would be right about that. I would just add
(24:44):
to the great doctor. There are also other reasons, maybe
more practical reasons, which is, if he had attempted some
sort of updated spelling, people may not have listened to him.
It's just a bit of a shame because after Dr
Johnson's day, or indeed during his time, you have the
American Wars of Independence, and now English has gone down
(25:07):
it's become an international language. Reform seems even more unlikely.
And maybe Dr Johnson was the last chance, and for
various principles good and bad, he didn't take that chance.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Speaking of British and American English, one of the great
little details in your book has to do with the
letter Z, which famously is Z overseas. You reveal shockingly
to me that there is a third and better option
that none of us have taken. Can you tell us
what that is and what we can do to get
it back in circulation? Because I love it.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
I love it too. I do wonder what the general
English speaking population will think about it. Yes, so it
is odd. Is the alternative weirdly for some reason? In
Samuel Johnson's dictionary that's seventeen fifty five, it's first published.
It's us ard, so quite odd. It does seem to
be a variable name. Does Z and Z vary with
each other? And this I just think is great. It's
(26:05):
a window into so much alphabetical information. To be clear,
our recent let's say, war front between Z and Z
is fairly recent or it's solidified fairly recently. In that
I can find you American writers calling it zed. I
can find you British, Scottish and English writers calling it
(26:25):
Z because both makes sense. I mean Z is rhymes,
it's it's harmonious with sound in terms of B and T.
And G and Z honors the etymology or the history
of the word in that it comes from the Greek
letter zeta, which very nicely allows me to refer back
to the fact that at the letter G that we
discussed earlier, that was given the place of Z by
(26:48):
the Romans. So when the Greek alphabetic comes in sixth
the Romans don't need the letter Z to begin with,
so they eject it give the position to G instead,
and then two centuries later, having conquered Greece and getting
a lot more Greek words, they then take Zed back.
They sort of reluctantly admit it back into the alphabet
and put it at the very end because its position
(27:08):
has been occupied by G, and that is I think
it's very interesting, but it is relevant to your question
in that it does hint at the strange nature of Z.
It's this letter that historically English writers have been a
little reluctant to use. Many of its purposes have actually
could be given to something else, most notably S. So
except at the beginning of a word, often the Z
(27:31):
sound can be represented by S or S in combination
with E. So that's what you have in a word
like a nose or surprise. Because of the history of
lots of words, especially words going back to Greek, Z
has made slowly a return or a kind of a
slight resurgence. Its variation in names reflects that. So not
(27:51):
only do you have Z and Z do you also
have iszard, which is probably a corruption. I love this
of French is zed so. And as if you're singing
the whole alphabet and you go x y or I
guess ix sel or is it at the very end
right the Greek eye, which is again another window into
(28:11):
a letter's history. And this does you know, hint at
this kind of I don't want to call it marginal,
because it really is a part of English spelling today.
We've definitely taken it on board in the modern period,
but it's been a little reluctant. And this, of course
is then is reflected in spelling as well. A word
like realize, which I proudly spell with an S, whereas you,
(28:32):
I'm going to presume spell it with a Z. And
here's the thing, which one do you think in Britain
the Oxford English Dictionary recommends, well.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
It's the Oxford English Dictionary. Surely they use an s.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Oh, it's z really and this is the thing. So
this tells us so much because firstly, you have a
group of people who clearly, I mean they're writing the dictionary.
They love history and etymology, they love that these words
with eyes. The ending eyes goes back to ezine. It's
an ancient Greek ending spelt with zeta, so we today
(29:06):
should spell it with a Z. So Americans are firmly
on the side of history in this case. When Britain
it's the opposite. We spell it with an S because
of various sort of later French reasons, but we call
the letter z anyway. But the most importantly this shows
that you have the Oxford English Dictionary, the closest thing
that we can get to an academy, a standardizing institution,
(29:29):
and we just don't listen to them. And that really
reflects the times we're living in.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
I love that. I love the idea that once you
put the alphabet in people's hands, there is really no
way to tame it or control it. People are just
going to keep doing things with it, regardless of what
the rules and the institutions say. There is so much
that we know about the alphabet and the story of
English and so much of that is in your book,
(29:55):
but you alluded to this earlier. There are still mysteries,
there are still things that we don't I know, and
questions that could even change all the things that we
think we know right now. There could be some new
piece of information. So what is it that you would
like to know? What question would you like answered? If
you could?
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Wow, Oh that's a good one. I mean there's a few,
and I would say, ah, this is quite hard.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
I knew it would be hard. I knew it would
be hard, But I'm really curious.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
I suppose I do have a historian's heart, and the
older something is in history, the more I'm naturally curious
about it. So there is always this specter that haunts
our theories and discussions about the past, which is the
discovery of a new find. And this could happen at
any time. We could find, let's say, a sample of
(30:49):
old English that turns up in picking a random place India,
and we use all our scientific know how, all our
technology at our suppose all carbon data and what have you,
and do you know what it is genuine that's not
going to ruin my day, that's going to make my day.
This is going to be an explosion, because you can
start to feel slowly the story or the paradigm shifting
(31:12):
a bit, and that's very unlikely. I think the story
of English and the distribution of English speakers historically is
fairly fixed, but there are cases where that could happen.
So one is the alphabet's progression through so basically that
kind of anti clockwise journey up the Mediterranean, so from
(31:33):
Egypt to what's now Lebanon, and I think it's entirely
possible that lots of that journey is happening through sources
that have perished, so they've disintegrated, like papyrus. We have
lots of durable materials that exhibit the early alphabet, but
probably also lots of ones that have just withered away
or they've been lost to the sounds of time, and
we have to work with that. My choice is the
(31:56):
same principle, but a little bit later in the alphabetic story,
which is getting back to some kind of durable materials
that show us when the alphabet actually arrived in Greece,
because I'm very sympathetic to the idea which is currently
being explored right now in a big new project that
it actually arrived earlier than eight hundreds BC, that the
(32:17):
Greek alphabet in its Greek form is older than that
eight hundred BC starting date. When we start to get
the sources that have survived, and I would love it
if we could excavate some older materials because this view
that I'm sympathetic to could actually be verified.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
That would be incredible. Well, here's hoping, fingers crossed. Is
there anything else that you think it is important for
people to know, either about your book or about the
alphabet that we have not touched on yet today.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
That's very nice of you.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
I mean, I know we could talk for another two hours,
that's the thing. There's so much to say. But is
there anything that is essential to people's understanding of what
you're trying to do in the book and how you
see the alphabet?
Speaker 3 (33:01):
Well, I really appreciate this. It's a lovely opportunity for
me to share two things of the book that I'm
proud of, one of which you mentioned or already right
at the very outset, which is fun. If I can
just you know, blow my own trumpet. I've written a
book that I believe is well researched, scholarly, accurate, and
up to date, but also fun. I've tried to put
jokes in them and thick puns and things to lighten
(33:22):
the mood so that the reader never feels like this
is a slog, like a boring lecture, and once I've
got the reader on site, if indeed I have the
second point then is I would hate for this book
to be the final word. I'd love it if it's
the first word, if it's actually the first invitation to
consider English as it actually is, which is very complicated
(33:46):
and joyfully rich and diverse. So that would be really
important to me that after reading this book, you do
find yourself testing out, well, what are the sounds of English?
And how does my English sound different to say this
British guy, you know his English that I just listened to,
And how actually does this relate to spelling? And maybe
I ought to be a little bit more sympathetic for
(34:06):
spelling mistakes and spelling reform and altering people's view of
language in I hope a much more joyful and positive way.
So that's what I'd love it if people were to
come away with these well fairly grand perspectives on my book.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Well, Danny, having read the book, I can assure you
it is in fact fun It is in fact funny,
and I have found myself thinking more about the language
that I use and the way I engage with language
since I read it. So I'm going to say you succeeded,
and I definitely think that everyone who reads the book
will come away with that as well. So thank you
so much for taking the time to talk to Part
(34:41):
Time Genius. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
It's entirely mutual. You have just outlined exactly how I
wanted the book to come across. So thank you very
much for having me.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Thank you again to Danny Bate for talking with us.
His book, Why Q Needs You is in stores everywhere.
Be sure to pick up a coffee. There's a link
in the show notes, and you can always look for
it at the local library. If they don't have it,
ask your friendly local librarian to acquire it. Remember you
can find us on Instagram at blue Sky at part
Time Genius and send us your questions or ideas for
(35:14):
the show. You can leave us a voicemail a voicemail
at three O two four oh five five nine two five.
I want to hear your voices. You can also drop
us a note at High Geniuses at gmail dot com.
We will be back to you next week, but in
the meantime, From Will, Dylan, Gabe, Mary, and myself, thank
you so much for listening. Part Time Genius is a
(35:48):
production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. It is hosted by my
good pal Will Pearson, who I've known for almost three
decades now. That is insane to me. I'm the utter
co host, Mangeshatikular aka Mango. Our producer is Mary Phillips Sandy.
She's actually a super producer. I'm going to fix that
in post. Our writer is Gabe Lucier, who I've also
(36:11):
known for like a decade at this point, maybe more.
Dylan Fagan is in the booth. He is always dressed up,
always cheering us on, and always ready to hit record
and then mix the show after he does a great job.
I also want to shout out the executive producers from
iHeart my good pals Katrina and Norvel and Ali Perry.
We have social media support from Calypso rallis if you
(36:34):
like our videos, that is all Calypso's handiwork for more
podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
or tune in wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
That's it from us here at part Time Genius, Thank
you so much for listening.
You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio. Hey their podcast listeners, Mango here, and today
we have something so special for you. It is a
conversation with linguist and author Danny Bate, whose new book
y Q Needs You, A History of Our Letters and
(00:35):
How We Use Them is out now. Producer Mary actually
caught up with Danny to talk about how a Roman
slave invented the letter G. I had no idea about that.
Also why something called the great vowel shift can explain
some of the weirdest quirks in the English language, things
like how the word child and children have totally different
eye sounds. I don't know about you. I never thought
(00:57):
about that before, but it is all in Danny's book
and now at the office we can't stop chattering about
this anyway. It is a fascinating book, a great conversation.
But before we get started, I want to let you
know that this episode is brought to you by our
friends at Sale. Now that summer, I know a lot
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(01:19):
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And when you use the code PTG at checkout, you'll
get fifteen percent off your first purchase. So go to
sale dot com slash PTG for details. The link is
in the show notes. Okay, that's all for me. Over
to you, Mary and Danny. Let's dive in.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
How does one become a linguist, or more particularly, how
did you become a linguist? And why did you choose
that path out of all the things you could have chosen.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Well, the nice thing is that it really does tend
to be quite diverse the ways in which people come
to linguistics. And I think that's partly because the discipline
is not very old. It only really goes back to say,
the late nineteenth century, as it starts to extract itself
from other older, better established disciplines, and in its modern
(02:48):
recognizable form, it's a product of the twentieth century. For me,
at least it definitely started while I was at school,
so that was very fortunate that my school offered three
modern foreign languages in addition to English. So through a
couple of very good teachers, I slowly realized that I
loved learning languages and crucially learning about languages. I signed
(03:08):
up to do a bachelor's degree at the University of
York in Northern England's best decision I ever made, because
it gave me, what is it now, eleven years of
being a linguist, and also my wife, who I met
at the University of York. So it gave me everything
and it's defined the course of my adult life ever since.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
How lovely to find your career and your wife all
in one convenient location.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Very convenient.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
So then thinking about the book Why Q Needs You,
which is such a fascinating and fun read. There's this
long tradition of nonfiction books about a very specific topic.
Mark Kurlanski does this. I don't know if you've read
his books. He did one about salt, he did one
about cod You know, it's sort of a genre. You
take a very specific subject and you write a very
(03:51):
specific book about it. And I will admit that at first,
I thought that's what I was getting into with your book,
and then I began to read it and I realized that, actually,
this is a book about the entire sweep of human history, civilization, culture, society,
yet it's told through this lens of the alphabet. Did
you know going in that you were biting off such
a huge thing, or did you actually think, well, this
(04:14):
is a nice discrete topic that I can tackle the alphabet.
You know.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
No, I did not know how much I was getting
into and how much I would learn in the process,
because my research was primarily in the field of syntax,
so that's word order and how we build our sentences.
So whireas lots of aspects of the alphabet's history were
already familiar to me, the lot of the big picture
was not familiar to me, and I really it did
(04:40):
take writing a whole book to appreciate some of these
massive themes. That the alphabet is this piece of technology.
I quite like using that term or that metaphor. It
is a kind of technology in that it's something that
we're not born with. It's something that we have created
and that allows us to do more thing. It's so
successful in that role that it often goes really unappreciated.
(05:04):
I think the alphabet is something we learn and then
don't really think about. But nonetheless these ginormous themes, these
themes of writing, and it's very complex and independent relationship
with speech, and also things like how the alphabet is
completely caught up in the circumstances of the present day,
whatever present day that happens to be.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
I was really fascinated to learn that the modern alphabet
actually traces its roots all the way back to Egyptian hieroglyphs.
I was obsessed with ancient Egypt as a kid. I
was one of those kids. I feel like little kids
they're either obsessed with ancient Greece or ancient Egypt. I
want the ancient Egypt route. So can you tell us
a bit about that connection which I had not really
been aware of.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Oh, with great pleasure, and I would say that I
was with you there on team Egypt. For me, I
think there was my local museum in England had an
Egyptian section and it just it obsessed me while I
was young. So absolutely it does go back to ancient Egypt.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
And I would.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Bracket that with a little caveat. I'd say that that's
as much as the evidence allows us to say. For
the moment, we are building a picture based on archaeological sources,
on fragments of bits of writing that we've managed to excavate,
so new finds could upset the story that I sketched
in the book. With that caveat in place, it does
(06:23):
seem that the alphabet has its ultimate origins in Egypt,
specifically in what we today call the Middle Kingdom. The
Egyptian civilization is at its height, and the majority of
the kingdom is speaking Egyptian. It's a spoken language which
has its own associated writing system, which is hieroglyphs. Right,
But during this period, about four thousand years ago, there
(06:45):
seems to have been other populations of other speakers within Egypt.
It's not surprising at all. It's an empire, right, it's
you know, conquered many people, and many people have migrated
into Egypt, and among them seem to have been very
well representedulation of Semitic speakers, speaking some kind of dialect
that's related to today's Arabic and Hebrew and Amharic and
(07:08):
great global languages like that. These speakers clearly well integrated
into Egyptian society. But probably not very high up the
social scale. Many of them soldiers or miners and things
like that. They look at hieroglyphs and say, well, that
looks great. We'd like our own, like you very much,
we like our own writing system. But I would just
(07:28):
stress the point that they clearly were inspired by hieroglyphs,
but it's not quite right to say that hieroglyphs are
the simple origin of our writing system. This was a
definite break, A kind of new tree sprouted from a
seed of hieroglyphs, because they take the written symbols, but
they repurposed them for the sounds of their Semitic speech
(07:52):
in a very simple one symbol to one consonant principle.
And that is a radical departure. That's a really new
way of using these ancient, already ancient symbols. When they
do that, the alphabet is born. But of course we
have a long long way to go, and those kind
of original hieroglyphic images that look like things like animals
(08:13):
and body parts and things like that, they will after
thousands of years, become our letters. So nothing is fixed
at this early point in time, except for that principle
that it's one symbol to one.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Sound, And as the alphabet evolved from its very earliest days,
many different people played a role in that process, and
by and large it was ordinary people making what they
probably didn't realize were such important choices to represent language.
I'm wondering if you can tell us a bit about
some of the people or groups of people who kind
of stand out to you in that story.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
With the alphabet's early innovatives. I really can't say anything
snappier than West Semitic dialect speakers, something quite long like that,
because we really don't know much about them. We don't
really know much in terms of how they saw themselves
and their identity. But later on we can speak a
little bit more precisely about who is doing the innovating.
Case in point, after the initial stage of the alphabet
(09:08):
in ancient Egypt, it seems to make its way up
the coast of the Mediterranean into what is today Lebanon,
and we have the Phoenicians. They are a group of
city states that maybe didn't get on with one another,
but Phoenicians is a pretty accurate term for this very
impressive civilization that are spreading their way of life and
doing business and trade and also spreading the alphabet across
(09:31):
the Mediterranean. They then passed the alphabet onto the Greeks,
probably lands in the hands of the Greeks, maybe around
the year eight hundred BC, but that's really contested and
not at all certain. The Greeks then passed the alphabet
onto the peoples of iron Age Italy round about the
year seven hundred BC, so one century later, and that
(09:51):
date is a little bit more certain. These people include
great cultures like the Etruscans, but of course much more
famously to the Romans. And when the alphabet finally lands
in the hands of the Romans, we are dealing with
some really quite concrete people. Yes, okay, we have some
consoles and senators and quite high up people who are
making a difference or credited with making a difference for
(10:13):
the alphabet, but also quite humble people. There is a
tradition or a story that a former slave, we don't
know his birth name, but his adopted name is Spurious
car Wilias Ruger. He's credited with inventing the letter G,
and the letter G is doing really well in our
alphabet today. So that's a series all the time, right,
(10:36):
you would so do I I guess a couple of
letters A great letters. A great letter is a couple
of g's across my screen right now. So that's an
example of a specific individual and antiquity making a lasting legacy.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
I know you get into this in the book, but
for our listeners, could you just explain why he decided
there was this need for this letter G.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Yes, absolutely, because I mean it seems so fixed and
we take it for granted. But if your listeners know,
for example, I don't know something like the Greek alphabet
or the cyrillic alphabet that's used to write down Russian
and Ukrainian, they may not some of them do.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
See, we have a lot of nerds who listen to
this show. I guarantee there are people out there who like,
of course I know it's a relic alphabet.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
That's good. I feel like this is the place for that. Okay, good, Yes, indeed,
I'm glad to hear that. And well, let's not assume
let's say, okay, think of the Greek alphabet and the
cyrillic script. No, if you think about specifically the position
of the Roman letter G as used by English, there's
kind of no equivalent. There is a G letter, but
it comes earlier. So for the Greeks it's gamma, and
(11:38):
for in Russian it's the letter gay. It looks like
a bent stick. And what's happened there is that those
the Greeks, they're not part of this innovation of g
So the Greek alphabet has gamma, and Gamma is the
origin of the cyrillic. But as the alphabet makes its
way westwards into Italy, in the hands of the Etruscans first.
(12:02):
And that's not just me being a big nerd. The
Etruscans are very important because when the alphabet lands in Italy,
the Etruscans are top dog. They're the prestigious ones. They're
the cultural ones. Romas and nobody. Romans just a collection
of villages overlooking the River Tiber. So their version of
the alphabet is how the Greek letters get eventually transmitted
to the Romans. They're like a prism through which the
(12:23):
alphabet reaches Rome. And they don't have the sound gout.
We know that because Etruscan speech points to it. So
they repurpose gamma, the third letter of the alphabet, into
a cut sound, basically the same sound but with no vibration.
In your throat and this then will become c, which
(12:44):
is obviously in English today it's still used for a
cut sound. So the letter via Etruscan goes from representing
gut to representing cut. But the thing is the Romans,
when they start to establish themselves, they start to make
their mark on Italy and make their mark on the alphabets.
They say, well, our language are spoken language does have
(13:04):
a sound. We have a cuh and a gut. So
Theatruscan system, which we've been using up until this point
because we like the Etruscans and we respect them, this
won't do. So there's a definite need for it. And
out of this need eventually somebody like Ruga, I mean,
his name includes the sound go, they decide to just
take a capital Let us see a curvacious C which
(13:27):
comes from gamma, and just add a simple upward mark
and from C you get a capital G.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
I love that idea that the alphabet. The technology is
always sort of lagging behind the pace of actual spoken language.
I mean, and this is true of any technology. It's
very easy to think of technology as racing ahead of us,
but I feel like in some ways technology is often
trying to keep up with us and the choices that
we make within our societies as we speak to each other.
(13:54):
And that's something that I had not realized had happened
to the alphabet in so many situations where where the
alphabet arrived somewhere and people were like, well, this is cool,
but it's missing something we need to add to it.
Is that process still happening. Do you feel like the
alphabet itself is kind of in its final form no
matter what, or is there a chance that it could
(14:15):
still keep changing.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
I think it'll keep changing. Yeah, for sure. I don't
think there's anything particularly definitive about it. There are many
ways in which it is a little deficient for representing
English speech. I really like your point there about technology
in general. Technology is something that needs innovation put into it.
It will not naturally self innovate. The alphabet needs to
be updated as it passes through different languages. So that's
(14:39):
true of everything I've said so far from this historical
linguistic story, that this is a piece of technology passing
through the hands of speakers of really quite different languages,
really different kinds of speech. So it's going to need
to be updated. And that's absolutely fine. That there's absolutely
no compunction to keep the alphabet exactly as it is.
(15:00):
Letters are modified, letters are dropped, new letters are created
all the way through antiquity. But additionally a lag can
creep in, not as the alphabet is jumping from language
to language, but even just staying still within one single language.
Arguably English is a good case of this, where the
English spelling system, the way in which we're using these letters,
(15:21):
the ancient alphabet is fairly fixed round about the year
fourteen fifty, because we've not really moved beyond that, let's say,
post medieval or late medieval standard the lag has really
crept in. And since then Standard English has changed in
so many ways. Non Standard English, all kinds of accents
(15:42):
and dialects have crept in very naturally in a way
that does not come naturally to our spelling system. And
now today the lag feels it's a chasm at this point.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
One of the most interesting changes that you describe, at
least to me in the book is something that you
call the Great vowel shift. And of course you can
call it the great vowel shift thanks to mister Ruga
and his invention of the letter G. Otherwise I guess
it would be the Great vowel shift, which does not
have the same ring to it in my opinion. So
what was the Great vowel shift? What made it so great?
(16:16):
How does it affect us today?
Speaker 3 (16:17):
Ah? Great, I'm always happy to be to get the mentioning.
I kind of a little preachy about the Great vowel
shifts because it's something that deserves to be better known.
It creates the sound of modern English as we know
it today, and also is a kind of dividing line
between modern English and Medieval English. I'll explain what I
mean by all that. The Great vowel Shift really does
deserve this title because it's massive in that if you
(16:41):
wind the clock back, so let's say fourteen hundred, the
time of Jeffrey Chaucer writing The County Tales and things
like that, and for Jeffrey Chaucer, the vowels of spoken English,
it's probably about six or seven. Vowels of English in
speech are quite simple, six or seven or maybe double
let's say twelve or fourteen. Because every vowel of Middle English,
(17:04):
Medieval English, that is, could be long, it can be short,
So you can have an up vowel and an R
vowel micro difference between the two, and you can spell
them easily with the same letter. But the Great vowel shift,
which starts off in southern England and it takes about
maybe three hundred years to reach its final form, as
you can hear in my English today, shifts to alters
(17:27):
the position in the mouth, the tongue position of the vowels,
of all of the long vowels, so R, the long
R becomes a E along e sound becomes I likewise
or becomes ooh. So everything is shifting up in a
sort of chain reaction in the mouth of speakers of
(17:47):
early modern English. So Shakespeare would be caught up maybe
in the middle of the Great vowel shift. That's why
Shakespeare in Reconstruction sounded a little bit different to modern
English today. But nonetheless, with the exception of some kinds
of Scottish in English, basically all English today has run
the gauntlet of the Great vowel shift. It explains so
much of our spelling because related words, where one has
(18:09):
a long vowel and one has a short valve, they
go off in different directions. So once upon a time
you would say I have one child and two children,
and now it's one child shifted and two children short
vowel unshifted. Likewise, something like a sheep that has a
shifted valve, so it would have been shape originally. And
there's a short valve in shepherd that's still there, the
(18:32):
shortened version still in the word shepherd. Toad would have
been tad once upon a time, as it is still
in tadpole. There's an a in tadpole. Another example which
I absolutely love. Even the alphabet is effective the names
of the letters abcd undo the great vowel shift and
you get our bear sair dare, And that just sounds
like the German alphabet or the Dutch or French or
(18:54):
Italian or Spanish. So English has been removed put at
a distance by the great vowel shift. And I hope
all of that somewhat makes sense. It is quite a
complicated thing, but it really does deserve to be better known.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Hey, everyone, we've got to take a quick break, but
we'll be right back with more part time genius.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
One of the really fun bits in the book is
you highlight some of these what people might call inconsistencies
or just you know, weird features of English. One of
the things you get at is that this idea that
English is an irrational language is not quite right. I
think you say something like, it's not that there's a
lack of rules, it's that there are too many rules.
(19:49):
They're just all happening at the same time. What did
you mean by that? Is it just that this evolution
sort of created different systems that never then died off,
and so we're just dealing with the aftermath of all
of them.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Is that it?
Speaker 3 (20:02):
That's nice? Yeah, that was a very important point to me.
I'm not a big fan of English bashing, nor am
I a big fan of English elevating by saying it's
some sort of perfect language. I'm just not a fan
in general of English exceptionalism, of basically raising it up
as somehow different, because I think that loses so much
of the power and the magic of what's actually gone on.
(20:23):
In short people, you know, it's all a product of
lots of different people speaking in lots of different ways.
If you say, I go back to the Middle Ages,
the High Middle Ages around about the year thirteen hundreds,
you have tremendous linguistic diversity across Europe, across the world.
But let's just stick to Europe, it almost doesn't make
(20:45):
sense to talk about English or Medieval English, because you're
dealing with lots of different dialects where each valley or
each county is having a slightly different way of speaking.
Over the course of the Late Middle Ages, nation state
start to coalesce, borders start to become a lot more important,
and when you get nations states who tend to get
(21:06):
national languages. There's one route that Europe has preferred to
go down, which is basically to raise up one standard,
to pick one kind of speech, and nine times out
of ten it is the speech of the elite, it's
the wealthy people, maybe the language of the capital city.
If you have a capital city, so standard French comes
from the area around Paris. That's very undemocratic, but it
(21:28):
works if you want one particular national language, and English
just didn't have that. It didn't have the same thorough
elevation of one particular way of speaking. There absolutely is
a basis for standard English. It's the language unsurprisingly of
London and of the East Midlands of England. But nonetheless
you've got all kinds of different ways of speaking that
(21:51):
are making contributions to Standard English. Different ways of spelling.
I think I make the point in the book that
you know, we get fox from East Midlands in English,
but vixen with a voiced the sound at the beginning
that comes from the far south of England, and that's
a kind of different dialect that's contributed the feminine vixen.
And these are all making contributions to Standard English as
(22:12):
it's emerging. And crucially, we then don't have the equivalent
of your Academy of Conseils, your individual organization that will
say it's going to be this way, we're going to
spell this sound with this letter or this arrangement of letters.
We've already had that in English. We've had some very
influential people. The United States had Noah Webster for example,
United Kingdom had Dr Johnson, one of my personal heroes.
(22:36):
But there's still they don't get to dictate the terms,
and that means that we're stuck with so many different
principles that individually make sense, but when you put them
all together it looks a bit messy.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
I remember when my son was learning to read and write.
It was really fascinating to see how he had to
kind of navigate those principles, you know, I don't remember
my own process of learning it, but watching someone else
you really notice these things. So like, I want to
read the book he'd write r Eed because that's how
it sounds. And I remember him asking, like, why can't
(23:13):
we just spell it the way that it sounds? Which
is a fair question.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Right.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Firstly, I just want to say to your son and
anybody in this position. I think most of us, let's
say Native English readers and writers, have had these thoughts
at some point or other. Why can't we, you know,
spell it this way? We can. That's the funny thing.
We have a certain way of writing. We learn it,
we do battle with it, we get to grips with
it at the early age, and once we have it,
(23:38):
we are very reluctant to make any changes. Nonetheless, that
is only one point of view. Throughout history we see
tremendous variation. But as people are spelling much closer to
how they actually pronounce. That's true of the Old English period,
so up to the year let's say, eleven hundred, that's
true of Middle English. So eleven hundred to say, I
(23:58):
don't know, fifteen hundred. It's only later that the technology
allows us to really enforce this standards. However, the standard,
as your son has noticed, is a little bit creaky.
In say, the preface to Samuel Johnson's Dictionary, he does
talk about his approach to spelling. And if we resurrected
him and we asked him, why does your dictionary, which
(24:22):
was a best seller, hugely influential book, why does it
not try to reform spelling and get rid of all
sorts of quirks and you know, sort things out, he
would say, well, I think, speaking for him, he would
say that as soon as I make those changes, speech
will just render them out of date again. And he's right,
he would be right about that. I would just add
(24:44):
to the great doctor. There are also other reasons, maybe
more practical reasons, which is, if he had attempted some
sort of updated spelling, people may not have listened to him.
It's just a bit of a shame because after Dr
Johnson's day, or indeed during his time, you have the
American Wars of Independence, and now English has gone down
(25:07):
it's become an international language. Reform seems even more unlikely.
And maybe Dr Johnson was the last chance, and for
various principles good and bad, he didn't take that chance.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Speaking of British and American English, one of the great
little details in your book has to do with the
letter Z, which famously is Z overseas. You reveal shockingly
to me that there is a third and better option
that none of us have taken. Can you tell us
what that is and what we can do to get
it back in circulation? Because I love it.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
I love it too. I do wonder what the general
English speaking population will think about it. Yes, so it
is odd. Is the alternative weirdly for some reason? In
Samuel Johnson's dictionary that's seventeen fifty five, it's first published.
It's us ard, so quite odd. It does seem to
be a variable name. Does Z and Z vary with
each other? And this I just think is great. It's
(26:05):
a window into so much alphabetical information. To be clear,
our recent let's say, war front between Z and Z
is fairly recent or it's solidified fairly recently. In that
I can find you American writers calling it zed. I
can find you British, Scottish and English writers calling it
(26:25):
Z because both makes sense. I mean Z is rhymes,
it's it's harmonious with sound in terms of B and T.
And G and Z honors the etymology or the history
of the word in that it comes from the Greek
letter zeta, which very nicely allows me to refer back
to the fact that at the letter G that we
discussed earlier, that was given the place of Z by
(26:48):
the Romans. So when the Greek alphabetic comes in sixth
the Romans don't need the letter Z to begin with,
so they eject it give the position to G instead,
and then two centuries later, having conquered Greece and getting
a lot more Greek words, they then take Zed back.
They sort of reluctantly admit it back into the alphabet
and put it at the very end because its position
(27:08):
has been occupied by G, and that is I think
it's very interesting, but it is relevant to your question
in that it does hint at the strange nature of Z.
It's this letter that historically English writers have been a
little reluctant to use. Many of its purposes have actually
could be given to something else, most notably S. So
except at the beginning of a word, often the Z
(27:31):
sound can be represented by S or S in combination
with E. So that's what you have in a word
like a nose or surprise. Because of the history of
lots of words, especially words going back to Greek, Z
has made slowly a return or a kind of a
slight resurgence. Its variation in names reflects that. So not
(27:51):
only do you have Z and Z do you also
have iszard, which is probably a corruption. I love this
of French is zed so. And as if you're singing
the whole alphabet and you go x y or I
guess ix sel or is it at the very end
right the Greek eye, which is again another window into
(28:11):
a letter's history. And this does you know, hint at
this kind of I don't want to call it marginal,
because it really is a part of English spelling today.
We've definitely taken it on board in the modern period,
but it's been a little reluctant. And this, of course
is then is reflected in spelling as well. A word
like realize, which I proudly spell with an S, whereas you,
(28:32):
I'm going to presume spell it with a Z. And
here's the thing, which one do you think in Britain
the Oxford English Dictionary recommends, well.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
It's the Oxford English Dictionary. Surely they use an s.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Oh, it's z really and this is the thing. So
this tells us so much because firstly, you have a
group of people who clearly, I mean they're writing the dictionary.
They love history and etymology, they love that these words
with eyes. The ending eyes goes back to ezine. It's
an ancient Greek ending spelt with zeta, so we today
(29:06):
should spell it with a Z. So Americans are firmly
on the side of history in this case. When Britain
it's the opposite. We spell it with an S because
of various sort of later French reasons, but we call
the letter z anyway. But the most importantly this shows
that you have the Oxford English Dictionary, the closest thing
that we can get to an academy, a standardizing institution,
(29:29):
and we just don't listen to them. And that really
reflects the times we're living in.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
I love that. I love the idea that once you
put the alphabet in people's hands, there is really no
way to tame it or control it. People are just
going to keep doing things with it, regardless of what
the rules and the institutions say. There is so much
that we know about the alphabet and the story of
English and so much of that is in your book,
(29:55):
but you alluded to this earlier. There are still mysteries,
there are still things that we don't I know, and
questions that could even change all the things that we
think we know right now. There could be some new
piece of information. So what is it that you would
like to know? What question would you like answered? If
you could?
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Wow, Oh that's a good one. I mean there's a few,
and I would say, ah, this is quite hard.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
I knew it would be hard. I knew it would
be hard, But I'm really curious.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
I suppose I do have a historian's heart, and the
older something is in history, the more I'm naturally curious
about it. So there is always this specter that haunts
our theories and discussions about the past, which is the
discovery of a new find. And this could happen at
any time. We could find, let's say, a sample of
(30:49):
old English that turns up in picking a random place India,
and we use all our scientific know how, all our
technology at our suppose all carbon data and what have you,
and do you know what it is genuine that's not
going to ruin my day, that's going to make my day.
This is going to be an explosion, because you can
start to feel slowly the story or the paradigm shifting
(31:12):
a bit, and that's very unlikely. I think the story
of English and the distribution of English speakers historically is
fairly fixed, but there are cases where that could happen.
So one is the alphabet's progression through so basically that
kind of anti clockwise journey up the Mediterranean, so from
(31:33):
Egypt to what's now Lebanon, and I think it's entirely
possible that lots of that journey is happening through sources
that have perished, so they've disintegrated, like papyrus. We have
lots of durable materials that exhibit the early alphabet, but
probably also lots of ones that have just withered away
or they've been lost to the sounds of time, and
we have to work with that. My choice is the
(31:56):
same principle, but a little bit later in the alphabetic story,
which is getting back to some kind of durable materials
that show us when the alphabet actually arrived in Greece,
because I'm very sympathetic to the idea which is currently
being explored right now in a big new project that
it actually arrived earlier than eight hundreds BC, that the
(32:17):
Greek alphabet in its Greek form is older than that
eight hundred BC starting date. When we start to get
the sources that have survived, and I would love it
if we could excavate some older materials because this view
that I'm sympathetic to could actually be verified.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
That would be incredible. Well, here's hoping, fingers crossed. Is
there anything else that you think it is important for
people to know, either about your book or about the
alphabet that we have not touched on yet today.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
That's very nice of you.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
I mean, I know we could talk for another two hours,
that's the thing. There's so much to say. But is
there anything that is essential to people's understanding of what
you're trying to do in the book and how you
see the alphabet?
Speaker 3 (33:01):
Well, I really appreciate this. It's a lovely opportunity for
me to share two things of the book that I'm
proud of, one of which you mentioned or already right
at the very outset, which is fun. If I can
just you know, blow my own trumpet. I've written a
book that I believe is well researched, scholarly, accurate, and
up to date, but also fun. I've tried to put
jokes in them and thick puns and things to lighten
(33:22):
the mood so that the reader never feels like this
is a slog, like a boring lecture, and once I've
got the reader on site, if indeed I have the
second point then is I would hate for this book
to be the final word. I'd love it if it's
the first word, if it's actually the first invitation to
consider English as it actually is, which is very complicated
(33:46):
and joyfully rich and diverse. So that would be really
important to me that after reading this book, you do
find yourself testing out, well, what are the sounds of English?
And how does my English sound different to say this
British guy, you know his English that I just listened to,
And how actually does this relate to spelling? And maybe
I ought to be a little bit more sympathetic for
(34:06):
spelling mistakes and spelling reform and altering people's view of
language in I hope a much more joyful and positive way.
So that's what I'd love it if people were to
come away with these well fairly grand perspectives on my book.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Well, Danny, having read the book, I can assure you
it is in fact fun It is in fact funny,
and I have found myself thinking more about the language
that I use and the way I engage with language
since I read it. So I'm going to say you succeeded,
and I definitely think that everyone who reads the book
will come away with that as well. So thank you
so much for taking the time to talk to Part
(34:41):
Time Genius. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
It's entirely mutual. You have just outlined exactly how I
wanted the book to come across. So thank you very
much for having me.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Thank you again to Danny Bate for talking with us.
His book, Why Q Needs You is in stores everywhere.
Be sure to pick up a coffee. There's a link
in the show notes, and you can always look for
it at the local library. If they don't have it,
ask your friendly local librarian to acquire it. Remember you
can find us on Instagram at blue Sky at part
Time Genius and send us your questions or ideas for
(35:14):
the show. You can leave us a voicemail a voicemail
at three O two four oh five five nine two five.
I want to hear your voices. You can also drop
us a note at High Geniuses at gmail dot com.
We will be back to you next week, but in
the meantime, From Will, Dylan, Gabe, Mary, and myself, thank
you so much for listening. Part Time Genius is a
(35:48):
production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. It is hosted by my
good pal Will Pearson, who I've known for almost three
decades now. That is insane to me. I'm the utter
co host, Mangeshatikular aka Mango. Our producer is Mary Phillips Sandy.
She's actually a super producer. I'm going to fix that
in post. Our writer is Gabe Lucier, who I've also
(36:11):
known for like a decade at this point, maybe more.
Dylan Fagan is in the booth. He is always dressed up,
always cheering us on, and always ready to hit record
and then mix the show after he does a great job.
I also want to shout out the executive producers from
iHeart my good pals Katrina and Norvel and Ali Perry.
We have social media support from Calypso rallis if you
(36:34):
like our videos, that is all Calypso's handiwork for more
podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
or tune in wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
That's it from us here at part Time Genius, Thank
you so much for listening.
Part-Time Genius News
Hosts And Creators
Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
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