August 8, 2025 • 34 mins
Where did the English language come from? Why do words have silent letters? Why do some people have accents? Why do some words sound similar? Answers to all of your questions about English and words with sociolinguist Erica Brozovsky, host of a PBS digital show called Otherwords.
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Jane (00:19):
This is But Why
Public. I'm Jane Lindholm. Onthis show, we take questions
from curious kids just like you,and we find answers. I don't
know about you, but I feel likeI learn a new word all the time,
even though I've been an Englishspeaker my whole life! Some
researchers estimate there areroughly 1 million words in the
(00:43):
English language, so there's noway I will ever be able to know
every single one of them, butit's a fun goal to have. Did you
know new words get invented allthe time? I bet there are words
you use with your friends thatdidn't exist when the adults
around you were growing up, andthere are words our grandparents
or great great grandparents usedthat you may never even hear
(01:06):
because they're no longerpopular. Lots of people describe
languages as living or alive.Now, they're not technically
alive, but they seem kind ofthat way, because they change
all the time. Our guest fortoday's show is someone who
studies words and how we usethem. Dr. Erica Brozovsky is a
(01:26):
sociolinguist, and she hosts thePBS show Otherwords, all about
words and sounds. When westarted talking to Erica for
this episode, I needed to askher for a word definition before
we even got into the interview,because I wasn't sure exactly
what a sociolinguist does.
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (01:46):
So linguistics is the study of
language, and sociolinguisticsis the study of language related
to who we are as people, so likewhere we're from, or who we
spend time with, or even whatother languages that we speak.
Jane (01:58):
Erica says there are lots of different ways to study
languages and things to studywithin the field of linguistics.
Some linguists are reallyinterested in the sounds we
make, and others study themeaning behind words. Some
linguists specialize inlanguages that used to be spoken
a long, long time ago. Ericasays she decided to pursue
(02:18):
sociolinguistics because she'sinterested in what's happening
in the world around us here andnow.
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (02:24):
I like talking to people. That's why
I'm here today, and it's cool tothink about what's actually
happening. So why is it that Ispeak differently than you based
on any number of factors, likewhere we're from, or who we
spend most of our time with, orthings like that.
Jane (02:39):
Okay, we have a lot of words questions and language
questions from kids. So I'mgonna get out of the way and
jump right in.
Maya (02:45):
My name is Maya. I'm eight years old, and I live in
Fairfield, California. Whoinvented the English language?
West (02:51):
I'm West. I'm seven years old. I live in Arcadia,
California. Where did theEnglish alphabet originally come
from?
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (02:58):
So the English language doesn't just
have one inventor, the way thatthings like popsicles or
earmuffs or trampolines do,which were all invented by kids,
by the way.
Jane (03:08):
Whoa.
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (03:08):
Yeah, it developed over thousands and
thousands of years. So whatwe're speaking right now is
called Modern English. Butbefore that, came Middle English
and Old English, which didn'treally sound like English that
we speak today at all. I took anOld English class, and it was
like learning a whole completelynew foreign language. But
language is like, it's changingall the time. So I would say, if
(03:30):
you speak English, you can be aninventor of some parts of
English.
Jane (03:33):
Yeah, I don't think of this as Modern English. I think
of what we're doing as like,super wicked cool English, no
cap.
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (03:41):
And we're like, oh, cringe.
Jane (03:45):
So where did the alphabet that we use come from?
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (03:49):
So the alphabet has its origins
actually in ancient Egyptianhieroglyphics, which were...
those were pictures. So theywould carve or draw pictures
that might be like a jar, thatwould talk about jars or there'd
be some animal, there'd be thatanimal, right? So Semitic
workers in ancient Egypt 4,000years ago came up with an
alphabetic script that was kindof adapted from hieroglyphics in
(04:11):
order to write down theirlanguage, and that then
developed into the Phoenicianalphabet, which is how we got
the name alphabet, which is fromthe first two letters. So Aleph
meant ox, and Bet meant house,and it doesn't mean ox house or
house ox now, but that's wherewe get the letters from. And
then the Phoenicians broughttheir alphabet to Greece, and
(04:33):
then it spread to Italy andinspired the Latin alphabet. So
English itself used to bewritten in a Runic alphabet
called the Futhorc until the600s, like not 1600s but 600s,
when it became replaced by theLatin alphabet. And then after
some... there's someadjustments, like removing the
letters thorn and eth, whichwere the "th" sounds. And maybe
(04:56):
you've seen stores called likeYe Olde Candy Shoppe.
Jane (04:59):
Uh huh.
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (05:00):
That that y comes from the eth. So really,
it would have been pronouncedThe Old Candy Shop.
Jane (05:04):
Oh, really? So it wasn't "Ye" old. It was "the" old.
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (05:07):
Yeah, it just, it sounds fun and cute
now, but it comes from the eth.So they, you know, they removed
those letters and they addedsome new ones, like u and j. So
beforehand, v and u were kindof... or v was used for both u
and for v, and i was used forboth j and for i. So now there's
one of each. So we ended up withour 26 letter alphabet.
Jane (05:27):
And there are other languages that use the same
alphabet as English.
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (05:32):
Correct. So Spanish, for example, uses the
same alphabet, although theyalso have an n with a little
tilde over it, called an enye.
Jane (05:38):
Right. And Welsh has a double L that's pronounced by
blowing air through the edges ofyour mouth, which is very fun.
So, so we have some differentletters, even if we're using the
same alphabets for somedifferent languages, but then
some languages use totallydifferent styles of writing and
alphabets.
name
Hugo (05:55):
My name is Hugo. I come from Hong Kong but I'm living in
London. I'm 6 years old. Why isthe words that we use now the
words that we use now?
Jane (06:04):
Why are the words we use now the words we use now? So
nobody invented the Englishlanguage. We can all be
inventors. But why do... we howdo we have the words that we all
know how to say and share?
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (06:20):
That's a really good question, and it's
kind of hard to answer, but Ihave an idea. So words are
really powerful. They can makeus feel sad or happy, hurt or
excited, bummed out or on top ofthe world, right? And we get to
choose what words we use, right?I say, use your words. So
through these choices that wemake every day with the words
(06:42):
that we decide to speak or towrite or to sign, we build
friendships and connections withthe world around us. And if
you've ever heard a baby copywhat a grown up says, you know
that we like to repeat things.So the words that we use now are
the ones that have been repeatedover and over and over and over
and over and over and over andover and over again. So some
(07:04):
words have been lost to history,and we don't even know what we
don't even know, but the wordsyou know and say now are what
you've learned or been taughtthat's been passed down from
someone else.
Jane (07:14):
Where did the words we use now mostly come from? Do they
come from other languages, orwere they sort of invented by
English speakers over time?
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (07:24):
Yes... to both of those things. So a lot
of the words in English wereborrowed from dozens of other
languages. So many of them, likethe word coffee comes from
Arabic. French influences, youhave German influences, you
have... so many ones. And alsowe invent them. So when we're
thinking of a lot of slangterms, they sometimes get
(07:47):
invented by somebody. So likethe word "okay," which may be
one of the most common words orpopular words in the world, I
don't know, lots of languagessay okay, is thought to come
from a kind of a joke. It was ina newspaper in Boston, and it
stood for all correct, but itwas like, O, L, L, correct, K,
O, R, R, E, C, T, because theywere trying to make a joke. And
(08:10):
it kind of stuck after there wasa presidential candidate who was
from, I think it's from, fromthe area of Kinderhook, and they
called him Old Kinderhook, andsaid, Old Kinderhook is okay.
There was a whole thing aboutthat becoming this big, popular
word, and now, long time later,we use the word "okay" all the
time.
Jane (08:27):
I had no idea, even though I really do say "okay" all the
time. Also, just in case itwasn't clear because you're
listening and not seeing thingswritten out, all correct would
be spelled A, L, L, C O, R, R,E, C T, not O, L, L, K, O, R, R,
(08:49):
E, C T. So the joke was thatit's obviously not all correct,
if you can't even spell"correct" correctly.
Hakeem (08:57):
Hi, my name is Hakeem. I live in Chicago, Illinois. I'm
eight years old. Why do wordsspell the way they are?
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (09:07):
Well, words in English are spelled all sorts
of wonky, different ways. Funfact, the spelling bee is an
English thing. They don'ttypically have spelling bees in
other languages because theirlanguages are not spelled so
wonky the way that ours is.
Jane (09:26):
Do you know what a spelling bee is? It's a
competition where someone says aword and you have to spell it
correctly without being able tolook at it. We did an episode A
while back with a NationalSpelling Bee competitor. We'll
link to it in our show notestoday. But if you speak a
language where it's lessconfusing how things are
spelled, there's not much needfor a spelling bee competition.
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (09:50):
Exactly, exactly. Sounded out right? But
in English, it isn't, isn'tquite so simple. So I think that
this is kind of two questions inone. So words are spelled the
way that they are becausesomeone put them in a dictionary
and claimed that is the correctway for them to be spelled. And
we all just went along withthat. So before we had reliable
dictionaries, people spelledthings any which way that fell
(10:12):
right to them, and maybe evenspelled the same word different
ways every time they wrote it.There was no right way to write
it. But now, spellings have beenstandardized thanks to the
dictionary. But I think thisquestion is also asking, how did
we get things to be the way thatthey are? So if you ask me, I
think English spelling is kindof a mess, and it's been that
way from the very beginning. Soto explain that, we'll kind of
(10:34):
need a mini alphabet historylesson. So Old English, as we
mentioned earlier, was aGermanic language spoken by
Anglo-Saxons in what is nowEngland. And like I said, it's
not anything like the English wespeak today in the 21st century.
So old English, some people say,some experts say, was spoken,
let's say in the 400s to the1100s and they used the Runic
alphabet known as the Futhorc.So in the 600s, the Latin
(10:57):
missionaries came in andreplaced the Futhorc with the
Latin alphabet. But the Latinalphabet wasn't designed for a
Germanic language, and therewere sounds that Anglo-Saxons
used that didn't exist in Latin.So they had to improvise. And
things got even more complicatedwhen the French invaded English
in 1066, and changed a lot ofEnglish spelling to make it more
(11:17):
familiar for their Frenchreaders. So English spelling was
a jumble of Germanic, Latin andFrench rules. And then came the
Great Vowel Shift, where lots ofpronunciations changed, so like
the Ooh sound became Ow, so"hoos" and "hoond" became
"house" and "hound".
Jane (11:38):
Historians are not sure exactly why or how the Great
Vowel Shift happened, but ithappened gradually between the
years of 1400 and 1700. So ittook many, many generations of
people. It wasn't like youradult said to you, "Could you
please get the "hoond" into the"hoose?" And you were like,
"Huh? What are you talkingabout? I can't even understand
(11:59):
you. Do you mean get the houndinto the house?" "Hooned" or
hound being a kind of dog, bythe way.
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (12:06):
And then there's even more. The printing
press came about right in themiddle of all these
pronunciation changes. Soprinters would spell things as
they saw fit, adding extraletters or changing spelling so
that the words would reflecttheir history. So for example,
the word "dumb" ends with a B,which you can't really hear. So
some printers started mistakenlyadding a B to the end of words
(12:28):
like "crumb" and "numb," whichis an error that we call
hyper-correction. So it's likemore than correct. It's so
correct that it's actuallywrong. And words from Latin like
"sign" and "doubt" had lettersthat were added in to remind
readers where they came from,"signum" and "dubutary."
Jane (12:44):
And then we still use that today, kind of because it got
put into dictionaries and intobooks by printing presses, which
were pretty new. And why don'twe just drop the dumb B from
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (13:01):
I think it makes a lot of sense to have
"dumb?"
things be spelled the way thatthey sound. But we are people of
convention. We just stick withthe things that we know,
apparently, when it comes towriting. It would be a big... it
would be a big shift to changethings for everybody across the
world. So we're kind of, itseems stuck where we are.
Etta (13:21):
My name is Etta, and I'm five years old, and I live in
Germany. Why is English so hardto learn?
Isaac (13:29):
Hi, my name is Isaac, and I'm nine years old, and I'm from
Kamloops, BC. Why is the Englishlanguage so complicated?
Right.
Jane (13:38):
English is difficult, I think, because there are so many
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (13:40):
So it's complicated, because English is
exceptions to every single rule.Think of the spelling rule like
I before E, except after C, orwhen sounded as A as a neighbor,
and way, that's a lot ofexceptions just for one little
not just invented
rule, and that doesn't evencover how you spell the word
"weird," right?
Grayson (14:21):
My name is Grayson. I live in St Louis, Missouri. I'm
nine years old. Why do differentcountries have different
accents?
Jane (14:29):
Why do different countries have different accents? And Jack
in Ireland notes, you know, evenpeople in the same country but
different parts of the countrycan have different accents. So
let's take English, but I thinkthis is true in many languages.
How can we speak the samelanguage but have different
(14:49):
accents and different ways wepronounce words?
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (14:51):
Well, first things first, we all have
accents, every single one of us.Some accents will make it clear
where you're from or whatlanguages you speak, or who your
friends are. Even if everybodyaround you sounds pretty
similar, you still have anaccent. You just all have the
same accent, right? So to answerthe question, if we're talking
about someone, let's say from anon-English speaking country,
(15:13):
speaking English and having aforeign accent, that's because
the sounds that make up eachlanguage are different. So for
example, in Spanish, there arefive vowels and there are five
vowel sounds (15:23):
a, e, i, o, u, which are ah, eh, e, o and oo.
In English, we have the samevowels: a, e, i, o, u and
sometimes y, but between 15 and20 different ways of pronouncing
those vowels, depending on whereyou're from. So when we're
babies, we can hear all thedifferent sounds that make up
every language in the world,hundreds of different sounds. So
(15:44):
when we're babies, we can hearall the differences. But we
learn to focus on only the onesthat are in the language that we
are learning to speak, becauseour brain doesn't have room or
time for every single sound inevery single language, right? So
if you only learned five vowelsounds growing up, you might
have a tough time not onlypronouncing a bunch of different
sounds, more sounds than you'reused to, but also hearing the
(16:06):
difference between them. Andnow, accents within the same
country or within the samegeneral area or same language
come from how you spend yourtime. Where do you live? Who do
you spend time with? Usually,accents develop when there are
separations between people. Somaybe you live in the US and you
say "tomato" and... or you livein the UK, or Australians say
(16:26):
"tomahto." There is a wholeocean of distance between those
places, and there are lots ofdifferent social groups too,
even in the same area, who candevelop different accents. So
sometimes, when you're talkingwith someone who has an accent
that's really different fromyours, you might even
accidentally start copying theiraccent, and that is called
speech accommodation, so you'reaccommodating towards what they
(16:47):
sound like.
Jane (16:48):
We just talked about differences in pronunciation,
like "tomato" and "tomahto." Butsometimes we have different
words for the same thing,depending on where we live, even
though we speak the samelanguage. You might throw things
away in the trash can in the US,but the rubbish bin in the UK!
Or enjoy soccer in the UnitedStates, but find that it's
(17:09):
called football elsewhere. Wehave an episode all about that,
too, by the way. Check out ourshow notes if you want to hear
it. Here's another example.
Natalie (17:18):
My name is Natalie. I'm 11 years old, and I live in
Rutherford, New Jersey. Why aresome people in England say
biscuits while we say cookies?
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (17:27):
So for me, English biscuits and US cookies
aren't exactly the same kind ofthing. They are very similar.
I'd say like the cookie part ofan Oreo is a biscuit. So Oreos
could be like a chocolatesandwich biscuit, but chocolate
chip cookies, like fresh out ofthe oven, those are definitely
not biscuits. So we say "cookie"because of the Dutch word
"koekje," meaning little cake.And there was a lot of Dutch
(17:49):
influence in New Amsterdam,which is now New York. So that's
where we got cookie from."Biscuit" comes from the Latin
"biscoctus" meaningtwice-cooked. So originally,
biscuits were a really, really,really hard bread. Because they
didn't go bad very easily,soldiers would carry them around
for a super long time, andthey'd dip them in water or soup
or whatever was around to softenthem up. And it was a good
(18:12):
source of fuel. But that'sreally about it. Probably didn't
taste very good, the texture...It's not a snack that I'm
excited about. Eventually, whensugar became more common, they
started to get tastier. So inthe middle of the day, before
lunch was invented -- because itwas invented, at one point --
people would have tea andbiscuits to tide them over until
supper. That's kind of a longanswer, but the short answer to
(18:35):
the question of, why do we saydifferent things in different
Jane (18:36):
Okay, I think it's time for a little cookie break. Or
places is because we havedifferent influences around us.
So like how we got cookie fromDutch, it didn't used to be as
should it be a biscuit break? Orif you're in Australia, a break
easy to communicate with peoplefar, far away, so sometimes we'd
end up with different names forthe same things.
for some bickies? When we comeback, why do we have silent
(18:58):
letters? And my favorite, ifmore than one tooth is teeth and
more than one goose is geese,what do we call more than one
the English language? Speakingof spelling, you know what makes
moose? Meese? Stay with us.
(19:40):
spelling a word extra confusing?Silent letters.
Wesley (19:46):
My name is Wesley, and I'm five years old, and I live
in Chicago. Why do words havesilent letters?
Madelief (19:54):
My name is Madelief from Brisbane, Australia. I'm
eight years old. Why do somewords like "knife" have silent
letters?
Annabelle (20:01):
My name's Annabelle. I'm eight years old, and I live
in Utah. Why does the word"island" have an S in it that is
silent?
Jane (20:11):
Wesley, Madelief and Annabelle have all noticed that
there are words in English withsilent letters. What's the deal
with silent letters?
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (20:22):
They are tricky. That's why we have those
spelling bees, right? So a lotof the silent letters are thanks
to the Great Vowel Shift, whichhappened hundreds and hundreds
of years ago. So some words usedto have two syllables, but with
the shift, they lost theirsecond half. So "name-ah" and
"lik-eh" became "name" and"like." We spell those with the
(20:42):
e still, the e at the end thatkind of represents that. That's
the silent E, right? Otherconsonant sounds faded away as
well. So "dum-b," like, with a bsound became "dumb" without the
b sound. "Ni-ght" and "li-ght"became "night" and "light."
"K-nife" and "k-night" became"knife" and "knight." And some
scholars wanted to update thespelling to match the new
(21:03):
pronunciation, but the printingpress kind of helped lock in
those outdated spellings. Andspecifically the s in "island,"
that's an example ofhypercorrection, as we mentioned
before. So the word "Isle," i,s, l, e, had the s added because
it came from the Latin word"insula," which has an s in it,
but "island" is from the OldEnglish "ieland": i with a long
(21:27):
bar over it, e, l, a, n, d, andpeople thought they were
related, so they added the s.
Jane (21:33):
So why did we get rid of those sounds, though? Why don't
we still say "name-ah?" Why dowe say "name" instead? I mean, I
see how the letter just kind ofstuck around. But why did we
change the way we say it?
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (21:46):
Hmm, I don't know if I have an exact
answer for that, but think ofwhen you're speaking quickly,
like things fall away. You mightdrop a couple syllables or
sounds here and there justbecause you're speaking quickly.
Or maybe other words will getmixed in with there. So for
example, the word "apron" usedto be "napron." So you know how,
(22:08):
when you spell things that startwith a vowel, you have to have
an "an" in the articlebeforehand, instead of just "a,"
you have "an." So it used to be"a napron," and now it's "an
apron," or the word "newt," likethe salamander kind of creature
used to be "ewt," and it was "anewt" and now it became "a newt."
Jane (22:27):
So a lot of the way we speak, it's just to make it
easier for us when we're sayingthe words, even if the spelling
then becomes more complicatedwhen we write it.
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (22:36):
Yes, exactly.
Sydney (22:37):
My name is Sydney. I'm 10. I live in Rutland, Vermont.
Why some words sound like otherwords, like "bare" and "bear."
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (22:47):
So, words that sound the same but are
spelled differently are a typeof homonym called a homophone.
So we end up with homophonesmostly through sound merging. So
for example, the words "meat"and "meet." So m, e, e, e, t
used to be pronounced like"mate," almost, and m,e,a,t was
"met." And now they'repronounced the exact same way.
(23:08):
Just "meet." And f o, u r usedto rhyme with "tour," and
f,o,r,e used to be twosyllables, so "for-e," and now
they're both pronounced "four."So holophones can also occur
when words are barred intoEnglish from different origins.
For example, the word "tire,"the sleepy version has potential
(23:29):
Germanic roots, while the wheelversion comes from French.
Jane (23:32):
Even though those in American English are spelled the
same.
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (23:36):
Exactly, there's a Y in the other.
Jane (23:39):
Yeah, in British English, tire that you use on your car is
t, y, r, e. Here's anothertricky thing in the English
language. When words go fromsingular,meaning one, to
plural, meaning two or three orfive or more, we generally add
an -s or an -es s to the end ofthe word. Like, "cow" becomes
(24:00):
"cows," "fox" becomes "foxes,""horse" becomes "horses." But of
course, there are exceptions tothis rule.
Grace (24:08):
Hi, my name is Grace. I'm 10 years old. I live in Rocky
Mountain House, Canada. Doeseverything that ends with -us,
like "octopus" or "cactus,"could end with -i, like "cacti"
or "cactuses?" I know about"cactus" and "octopus," but I'm
looking for like anything thathas those.
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (24:28):
Hmm. So the answer is, nope! In Latin, the
-us words end with an -i, sowhich gives us octopi. However,
it is a Latinized version of theGreek word octopus and we
borrowed it into English. Andgenerally, when we borrow words,
which we do all the time, wemake it plural as an English
word. So in addition to"octopi," we can also say
(24:50):
"octopuses" as an acceptableform of the plural. "Cacti" can
also be "cactuses," even thoughit sounds more, sometimes more
like fancy to say "cacti." Somewords like "radius" and
"alumnus" do get an -i at theend, and they are never said
"alumnus" is or "radiuses." Youknow, "radii" and "alumni,"
right? But some words that endin -us never get to see an -i.
(25:11):
I've never heard of "boni" and"campi" because those are
actually "bonuses" in"campuses." There's always
exceptions to every rule.
Jane (25:20):
So if you're trying to figure out, if you know a word
and you don't know how to saymany of them, how are you
supposed to guess? If you don'tknow whether it's "bonuses" or
"boni" or "octopuses" or"octopi," how do you figure it
out?
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (25:35):
My rule of thumb, if I didn't, if I don't
know how to pluralize somethingin English, is just to add that
s sound at the end, because mostwords do end in -s. And of
course, sometimes it'll be like-es or maybe it sounds like a z
sound, but it's that general sor z sound at the end of it,
like dog, dogs, bonus, bonuses.There may be times when you're
less grammatically correct, butI think that's okay. It's okay
(25:56):
to be creative with yourlanguage, too. So I err on the
side of adding the s sound atthe end of all the words.
Jane (26:02):
People will probably know what you're trying to say.
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (26:05):
They'll know what you're talking about,
yeah. And if they feel the needto correct you, that's okay,
too.
Jane (26:08):
Speaking of plurals...
Oliver (26:10):
My name is Oliver. I'm eight years old, and I live in
North Carolina, Raleigh. If twotooth is "teeth" and if two
goose is "geese," then why istwo moose not "meese?"
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (26:29):
That'd be kind of fun if they were
"meese." They're kind of big,though. I feel like "meese"
sounds like like a small thinginstead of like a big, huge
animal, right? So the reason whyis because "tooth" and "goose"
are words with Germanic origins.So the word "goose" comes to us
from Old English where theplural of goose was "geese." And
that's because of some soundchanges over time that led from
(26:51):
"gooses" to "geeses" to "geese,"which we say now. But anyway,
the reason why we don't say"meese" is because the word
"moose" doesn't have Germanicorigins. It was borrowed into
English sometime around the1600s from a Native American
language in the Algonquinfamily, likely either
Narragansett or Abenaki, whichwere spoken in what is now the
(27:12):
northeastern region of theUnited States, New England. So
the plurals are differentbecause they have different
origins.
Jane (27:17):
So Erica, is it actually helpful if you don't come from a
family or a culture where youalready speak multiple
languages, to learn some otherlanguages, so you can start to
see how these words in Englisheven come together?
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (27:31):
Absolutely, I think of being able to speak
multiple languages as kind of asuperpower. I... English is my
primary language. It's the onethat I'm the best at, but I've
spent some time studyingMandarin and studying Spanish,
and it's definitely helped mesee the world in different ways.
There's different ways of ofexplaining things in different
(27:52):
languages. Some languages havewords that we don't have in
English that describe certainfeelings that we might really
know but don't have words for.Like, there's a word
"kuchisabishii" in Japanese.It's like, when your mouth is
bored, like you're eatingbecause you're not really
hungry. You're not eatingbecause you're hungry, but
you're eating because yourmouth, or your mouth is lonely,
not bored. Your mouth is lonelyand it needs something to occupy
(28:14):
it. And there's tons of otherwords that kind of explain fun,
interesting experiences that wehave as people, but we just
don't have one word for inEnglish. So if you learn other
languages, you get to know that.You also get to experience more
of the world, and sometimes ithelps you with learning your
primary language too.
David (28:33):
Hi, my name is David. I am five and a half. I live in
Thousand Oaks. Why do 11 and 12not end in the word "teen?"
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (28:51):
Well, if they did, then we wouldn't be
able to call 11 and 12 year olds"preteens". But this seems like
another two-part question. Sowhy is t-e-e-n not part of those
numbers, which I do have ananswer for. And then why did the
people who came up with thenumber names do it that way,
(29:11):
which I have... I can make aneducated guess for. So "eleven"
and "twelve" come from the OldEnglish "endleofan" and "twelf,"
which even further back were"an" plus "lif," so "an-lif"and
"twe-lif" which is one "lif" andtwo "lif." But scholars aren't
exactly sure what "lif" means.One theory, because we don't
(29:34):
always know. Sometimes it's inthe past and it's gone. One
theory is that it means leftover. So like one left after 10
and two left after 10. So teenwas just a form of 10. You know,
you can see how they kind ofsound alike. So like you say,
teen, teen teen, teen, teenteen, teen, teen, teen, teen
might, might eventually get to10. There was other variations
too, but that was just one ofthem. So 13 and up were just
(29:57):
three-teen, four-teen, or 3-10,4-10, 5-10, right? But why were
they different? Why weren't theylike the "an-lif," "twe-lif?"
Why wasn't it just three "lif,"four "lif," right? It's hard to
know for sure. We don't have afor sure, for sure answer, but
back a long time ago, therewasn't much reason to talk about
(30:18):
more than 10 of something. Youhave, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, several,
many, just have a lot of things.So if it's more than the numbers
that you count, it's just a lot,right? But most of us have 10
fingers, right? So it's easy tocount to 10 on your fingers and
maybe your toes, if you prefersometimes you need just a little
bit more than the ones on yourfingers. So you would say, ah, a
(30:40):
little more than 10, eleven."An-lif," or 12, "twe-lif." And
we got so used to that. So evenwhen we needed to count up to
3-10, and 4-10, and 5-10, thepronunciation of 11 and 12
stuck.
Jane (30:53):
Huh? But we're not sure about that.
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (30:56):
We're not sure exactly why 3-10, 4-10,
5-10, is exactly that way. Butthe guess is that we... or why
1-10 and 2-10 didn't end up it'sprobably because they were, they
were like that before, and wejust stuck with what we knew.
Jane (31:09):
So do you think if suddenly all the kids listening
today decided together we'regonna change it and we're gonna
start calling 11 "one teen" andwe're gonna start calling 12
"two teen." And so it's like,how old are you? I'm "two teen,"
and next year I'll be thirteen.Do you think we could change the
English language?
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (31:31):
Absolutely, it would take a long time,
perhaps, or like a big amount ofkids doing, deciding to do
this. But it could definitelyhappen, because language is
always changing. You might evennotice it when you hear some
slang that you're like so overat this point, like, if I try to
use any Gen Alpha slang, they'relike, I'm just gonna sound super
Ohio, right? That sounds soembarrassing. So all of our
(31:52):
listeners here get to decidewhat happens next, where our
language is going. You don'tneed to come up with things or
try to make changes. They'regonna happen naturally. But if
you wanted to make "one teen"and "two teen" be the next cool
thing, by all means, absolutelydo it, and we'll see if it
actually sticks.
Jane (32:09):
The truth is, every single day, new words get invented. For
those of us listening who areadults, that means we sometimes
get confused when you, kids,tell us something using a slang
word you and your friends use.But on the flip side, the really
cool thing is, you, kids, arethe ones at the forefront of
language change.
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (32:30):
Y'all are the ones who are doing the big
thing. So I'd say, keep it up,and I'm excited to see where you
take it next, like whatinnovations and cool, new, fun,
weird, awesome things y'all comeup with.
Jane (32:43):
If you were to invent a new word, what would it be? I'd
like to invent a word thatdescribes the feeling when you
love something or someone somuch that you wish you could
just squish yourself togetherwith them and become one being.
Like how two water dropletspushed together blob into one
big water droplet. What wouldthe word be for that? Send us a
(33:05):
video of what word you wouldinvent and what it would mean,
and we'll put it on ourInstagram page. Thanks to
sociolinguist Dr. EricaBrozovsky for answering so many
of our questions today. If youfound this episode fascinating,
you should check out the showshe hosts on PBS called
Otherwords. Otherwordsinvestigates fun, interesting
(33:25):
and sometimes totally strangethings about language. You can
find it on YouTube and atpbs.org. We'll link to it in our
show notes for this episode, aswell. As always, if you have a
question about anything, have anadult record you asking it on a
smartphone using an app likevoice memos, then have them
email the file toquestions@butwykids.org. But Why
(33:49):
is produced by Melody Bodette,Sarah Baik and me, Jane Lindholm
at Vermont Public anddistributed by PRX. Our video
producer is Joey Palumbo, andour theme music is by Luke
Reynolds. If you like our show,please have your adults help you
give us a thumbs up or a reviewon whatever podcast platform you
use to listen to us. It helpsother kids and families find us.
(34:11):
We'll be back in two weeks withan all new episode. Until then,
stay curious.
This is But Why
Public. I'm Jane Lindholm. Onthis show, we take questions
from curious kids just like you,and we find answers. I don't
know about you, but I feel likeI learn a new word all the time,
even though I've been an Englishspeaker my whole life! Some
researchers estimate there areroughly 1 million words in the
(00:43):
English language, so there's noway I will ever be able to know
every single one of them, butit's a fun goal to have. Did you
know new words get invented allthe time? I bet there are words
you use with your friends thatdidn't exist when the adults
around you were growing up, andthere are words our grandparents
or great great grandparents usedthat you may never even hear
(01:06):
because they're no longerpopular. Lots of people describe
languages as living or alive.Now, they're not technically
alive, but they seem kind ofthat way, because they change
all the time. Our guest fortoday's show is someone who
studies words and how we usethem. Dr. Erica Brozovsky is a
(01:26):
sociolinguist, and she hosts thePBS show Otherwords, all about
words and sounds. When westarted talking to Erica for
this episode, I needed to askher for a word definition before
we even got into the interview,because I wasn't sure exactly
what a sociolinguist does.
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (01:46):
So linguistics is the study of
language, and sociolinguisticsis the study of language related
to who we are as people, so likewhere we're from, or who we
spend time with, or even whatother languages that we speak.
Jane (01:58):
Erica says there are lots of different ways to study
languages and things to studywithin the field of linguistics.
Some linguists are reallyinterested in the sounds we
make, and others study themeaning behind words. Some
linguists specialize inlanguages that used to be spoken
a long, long time ago. Ericasays she decided to pursue
(02:18):
sociolinguistics because she'sinterested in what's happening
in the world around us here andnow.
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (02:24):
I like talking to people. That's why
I'm here today, and it's cool tothink about what's actually
happening. So why is it that Ispeak differently than you based
on any number of factors, likewhere we're from, or who we
spend most of our time with, orthings like that.
Jane (02:39):
Okay, we have a lot of words questions and language
questions from kids. So I'mgonna get out of the way and
jump right in.
Maya (02:45):
My name is Maya. I'm eight years old, and I live in
Fairfield, California. Whoinvented the English language?
West (02:51):
I'm West. I'm seven years old. I live in Arcadia,
California. Where did theEnglish alphabet originally come
from?
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (02:58):
So the English language doesn't just
have one inventor, the way thatthings like popsicles or
earmuffs or trampolines do,which were all invented by kids,
by the way.
Jane (03:08):
Whoa.
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (03:08):
Yeah, it developed over thousands and
thousands of years. So whatwe're speaking right now is
called Modern English. Butbefore that, came Middle English
and Old English, which didn'treally sound like English that
we speak today at all. I took anOld English class, and it was
like learning a whole completelynew foreign language. But
language is like, it's changingall the time. So I would say, if
(03:30):
you speak English, you can be aninventor of some parts of
English.
Jane (03:33):
Yeah, I don't think of this as Modern English. I think
of what we're doing as like,super wicked cool English, no
cap.
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (03:41):
And we're like, oh, cringe.
Jane (03:45):
So where did the alphabet that we use come from?
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (03:49):
So the alphabet has its origins
actually in ancient Egyptianhieroglyphics, which were...
those were pictures. So theywould carve or draw pictures
that might be like a jar, thatwould talk about jars or there'd
be some animal, there'd be thatanimal, right? So Semitic
workers in ancient Egypt 4,000years ago came up with an
alphabetic script that was kindof adapted from hieroglyphics in
(04:11):
order to write down theirlanguage, and that then
developed into the Phoenicianalphabet, which is how we got
the name alphabet, which is fromthe first two letters. So Aleph
meant ox, and Bet meant house,and it doesn't mean ox house or
house ox now, but that's wherewe get the letters from. And
then the Phoenicians broughttheir alphabet to Greece, and
(04:33):
then it spread to Italy andinspired the Latin alphabet. So
English itself used to bewritten in a Runic alphabet
called the Futhorc until the600s, like not 1600s but 600s,
when it became replaced by theLatin alphabet. And then after
some... there's someadjustments, like removing the
letters thorn and eth, whichwere the "th" sounds. And maybe
(04:56):
you've seen stores called likeYe Olde Candy Shoppe.
Jane (04:59):
Uh huh.
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (05:00):
That that y comes from the eth. So really,
it would have been pronouncedThe Old Candy Shop.
Jane (05:04):
Oh, really? So it wasn't "Ye" old. It was "the" old.
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (05:07):
Yeah, it just, it sounds fun and cute
now, but it comes from the eth.So they, you know, they removed
those letters and they addedsome new ones, like u and j. So
beforehand, v and u were kindof... or v was used for both u
and for v, and i was used forboth j and for i. So now there's
one of each. So we ended up withour 26 letter alphabet.
Jane (05:27):
And there are other languages that use the same
alphabet as English.
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (05:32):
Correct. So Spanish, for example, uses the
same alphabet, although theyalso have an n with a little
tilde over it, called an enye.
Jane (05:38):
Right. And Welsh has a double L that's pronounced by
blowing air through the edges ofyour mouth, which is very fun.
So, so we have some differentletters, even if we're using the
same alphabets for somedifferent languages, but then
some languages use totallydifferent styles of writing and
alphabets.
name
Hugo (05:55):
My name is Hugo. I come from Hong Kong but I'm living in
London. I'm 6 years old. Why isthe words that we use now the
words that we use now?
Jane (06:04):
Why are the words we use now the words we use now? So
nobody invented the Englishlanguage. We can all be
inventors. But why do... we howdo we have the words that we all
know how to say and share?
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (06:20):
That's a really good question, and it's
kind of hard to answer, but Ihave an idea. So words are
really powerful. They can makeus feel sad or happy, hurt or
excited, bummed out or on top ofthe world, right? And we get to
choose what words we use, right?I say, use your words. So
through these choices that wemake every day with the words
(06:42):
that we decide to speak or towrite or to sign, we build
friendships and connections withthe world around us. And if
you've ever heard a baby copywhat a grown up says, you know
that we like to repeat things.So the words that we use now are
the ones that have been repeatedover and over and over and over
and over and over and over andover and over again. So some
(07:04):
words have been lost to history,and we don't even know what we
don't even know, but the wordsyou know and say now are what
you've learned or been taughtthat's been passed down from
someone else.
Jane (07:14):
Where did the words we use now mostly come from? Do they
come from other languages, orwere they sort of invented by
English speakers over time?
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (07:24):
Yes... to both of those things. So a lot
of the words in English wereborrowed from dozens of other
languages. So many of them, likethe word coffee comes from
Arabic. French influences, youhave German influences, you
have... so many ones. And alsowe invent them. So when we're
thinking of a lot of slangterms, they sometimes get
(07:47):
invented by somebody. So likethe word "okay," which may be
one of the most common words orpopular words in the world, I
don't know, lots of languagessay okay, is thought to come
from a kind of a joke. It was ina newspaper in Boston, and it
stood for all correct, but itwas like, O, L, L, correct, K,
O, R, R, E, C, T, because theywere trying to make a joke. And
(08:10):
it kind of stuck after there wasa presidential candidate who was
from, I think it's from, fromthe area of Kinderhook, and they
called him Old Kinderhook, andsaid, Old Kinderhook is okay.
There was a whole thing aboutthat becoming this big, popular
word, and now, long time later,we use the word "okay" all the
time.
Jane (08:27):
I had no idea, even though I really do say "okay" all the
time. Also, just in case itwasn't clear because you're
listening and not seeing thingswritten out, all correct would
be spelled A, L, L, C O, R, R,E, C T, not O, L, L, K, O, R, R,
(08:49):
E, C T. So the joke was thatit's obviously not all correct,
if you can't even spell"correct" correctly.
Hakeem (08:57):
Hi, my name is Hakeem. I live in Chicago, Illinois. I'm
eight years old. Why do wordsspell the way they are?
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (09:07):
Well, words in English are spelled all sorts
of wonky, different ways. Funfact, the spelling bee is an
English thing. They don'ttypically have spelling bees in
other languages because theirlanguages are not spelled so
wonky the way that ours is.
Jane (09:26):
Do you know what a spelling bee is? It's a
competition where someone says aword and you have to spell it
correctly without being able tolook at it. We did an episode A
while back with a NationalSpelling Bee competitor. We'll
link to it in our show notestoday. But if you speak a
language where it's lessconfusing how things are
spelled, there's not much needfor a spelling bee competition.
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (09:50):
Exactly, exactly. Sounded out right? But
in English, it isn't, isn'tquite so simple. So I think that
this is kind of two questions inone. So words are spelled the
way that they are becausesomeone put them in a dictionary
and claimed that is the correctway for them to be spelled. And
we all just went along withthat. So before we had reliable
dictionaries, people spelledthings any which way that fell
(10:12):
right to them, and maybe evenspelled the same word different
ways every time they wrote it.There was no right way to write
it. But now, spellings have beenstandardized thanks to the
dictionary. But I think thisquestion is also asking, how did
we get things to be the way thatthey are? So if you ask me, I
think English spelling is kindof a mess, and it's been that
way from the very beginning. Soto explain that, we'll kind of
(10:34):
need a mini alphabet historylesson. So Old English, as we
mentioned earlier, was aGermanic language spoken by
Anglo-Saxons in what is nowEngland. And like I said, it's
not anything like the English wespeak today in the 21st century.
So old English, some people say,some experts say, was spoken,
let's say in the 400s to the1100s and they used the Runic
alphabet known as the Futhorc.So in the 600s, the Latin
(10:57):
missionaries came in andreplaced the Futhorc with the
Latin alphabet. But the Latinalphabet wasn't designed for a
Germanic language, and therewere sounds that Anglo-Saxons
used that didn't exist in Latin.So they had to improvise. And
things got even more complicatedwhen the French invaded English
in 1066, and changed a lot ofEnglish spelling to make it more
(11:17):
familiar for their Frenchreaders. So English spelling was
a jumble of Germanic, Latin andFrench rules. And then came the
Great Vowel Shift, where lots ofpronunciations changed, so like
the Ooh sound became Ow, so"hoos" and "hoond" became
"house" and "hound".
Jane (11:38):
Historians are not sure exactly why or how the Great
Vowel Shift happened, but ithappened gradually between the
years of 1400 and 1700. So ittook many, many generations of
people. It wasn't like youradult said to you, "Could you
please get the "hoond" into the"hoose?" And you were like,
"Huh? What are you talkingabout? I can't even understand
(11:59):
you. Do you mean get the houndinto the house?" "Hooned" or
hound being a kind of dog, bythe way.
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (12:06):
And then there's even more. The printing
press came about right in themiddle of all these
pronunciation changes. Soprinters would spell things as
they saw fit, adding extraletters or changing spelling so
that the words would reflecttheir history. So for example,
the word "dumb" ends with a B,which you can't really hear. So
some printers started mistakenlyadding a B to the end of words
(12:28):
like "crumb" and "numb," whichis an error that we call
hyper-correction. So it's likemore than correct. It's so
correct that it's actuallywrong. And words from Latin like
"sign" and "doubt" had lettersthat were added in to remind
readers where they came from,"signum" and "dubutary."
Jane (12:44):
And then we still use that today, kind of because it got
put into dictionaries and intobooks by printing presses, which
were pretty new. And why don'twe just drop the dumb B from
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (13:01):
I think it makes a lot of sense to have
"dumb?"
things be spelled the way thatthey sound. But we are people of
convention. We just stick withthe things that we know,
apparently, when it comes towriting. It would be a big... it
would be a big shift to changethings for everybody across the
world. So we're kind of, itseems stuck where we are.
Etta (13:21):
My name is Etta, and I'm five years old, and I live in
Germany. Why is English so hardto learn?
Isaac (13:29):
Hi, my name is Isaac, and I'm nine years old, and I'm from
Kamloops, BC. Why is the Englishlanguage so complicated?
Right.
Jane (13:38):
English is difficult, I think, because there are so many
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (13:40):
So it's complicated, because English is
exceptions to every single rule.Think of the spelling rule like
I before E, except after C, orwhen sounded as A as a neighbor,
and way, that's a lot ofexceptions just for one little
not just invented
rule, and that doesn't evencover how you spell the word
"weird," right?
Grayson (14:21):
My name is Grayson. I live in St Louis, Missouri. I'm
nine years old. Why do differentcountries have different
accents?
Jane (14:29):
Why do different countries have different accents? And Jack
in Ireland notes, you know, evenpeople in the same country but
different parts of the countrycan have different accents. So
let's take English, but I thinkthis is true in many languages.
How can we speak the samelanguage but have different
(14:49):
accents and different ways wepronounce words?
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (14:51):
Well, first things first, we all have
accents, every single one of us.Some accents will make it clear
where you're from or whatlanguages you speak, or who your
friends are. Even if everybodyaround you sounds pretty
similar, you still have anaccent. You just all have the
same accent, right? So to answerthe question, if we're talking
about someone, let's say from anon-English speaking country,
(15:13):
speaking English and having aforeign accent, that's because
the sounds that make up eachlanguage are different. So for
example, in Spanish, there arefive vowels and there are five
vowel sounds (15:23):
a, e, i, o, u, which are ah, eh, e, o and oo.
In English, we have the samevowels: a, e, i, o, u and
sometimes y, but between 15 and20 different ways of pronouncing
those vowels, depending on whereyou're from. So when we're
babies, we can hear all thedifferent sounds that make up
every language in the world,hundreds of different sounds. So
(15:44):
when we're babies, we can hearall the differences. But we
learn to focus on only the onesthat are in the language that we
are learning to speak, becauseour brain doesn't have room or
time for every single sound inevery single language, right? So
if you only learned five vowelsounds growing up, you might
have a tough time not onlypronouncing a bunch of different
sounds, more sounds than you'reused to, but also hearing the
(16:06):
difference between them. Andnow, accents within the same
country or within the samegeneral area or same language
come from how you spend yourtime. Where do you live? Who do
you spend time with? Usually,accents develop when there are
separations between people. Somaybe you live in the US and you
say "tomato" and... or you livein the UK, or Australians say
(16:26):
"tomahto." There is a wholeocean of distance between those
places, and there are lots ofdifferent social groups too,
even in the same area, who candevelop different accents. So
sometimes, when you're talkingwith someone who has an accent
that's really different fromyours, you might even
accidentally start copying theiraccent, and that is called
speech accommodation, so you'reaccommodating towards what they
(16:47):
sound like.
Jane (16:48):
We just talked about differences in pronunciation,
like "tomato" and "tomahto." Butsometimes we have different
words for the same thing,depending on where we live, even
though we speak the samelanguage. You might throw things
away in the trash can in the US,but the rubbish bin in the UK!
Or enjoy soccer in the UnitedStates, but find that it's
(17:09):
called football elsewhere. Wehave an episode all about that,
too, by the way. Check out ourshow notes if you want to hear
it. Here's another example.
Natalie (17:18):
My name is Natalie. I'm 11 years old, and I live in
Rutherford, New Jersey. Why aresome people in England say
biscuits while we say cookies?
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (17:27):
So for me, English biscuits and US cookies
aren't exactly the same kind ofthing. They are very similar.
I'd say like the cookie part ofan Oreo is a biscuit. So Oreos
could be like a chocolatesandwich biscuit, but chocolate
chip cookies, like fresh out ofthe oven, those are definitely
not biscuits. So we say "cookie"because of the Dutch word
"koekje," meaning little cake.And there was a lot of Dutch
(17:49):
influence in New Amsterdam,which is now New York. So that's
where we got cookie from."Biscuit" comes from the Latin
"biscoctus" meaningtwice-cooked. So originally,
biscuits were a really, really,really hard bread. Because they
didn't go bad very easily,soldiers would carry them around
for a super long time, andthey'd dip them in water or soup
or whatever was around to softenthem up. And it was a good
(18:12):
source of fuel. But that'sreally about it. Probably didn't
taste very good, the texture...It's not a snack that I'm
excited about. Eventually, whensugar became more common, they
started to get tastier. So inthe middle of the day, before
lunch was invented -- because itwas invented, at one point --
people would have tea andbiscuits to tide them over until
supper. That's kind of a longanswer, but the short answer to
(18:35):
the question of, why do we saydifferent things in different
Jane (18:36):
Okay, I think it's time for a little cookie break. Or
places is because we havedifferent influences around us.
So like how we got cookie fromDutch, it didn't used to be as
should it be a biscuit break? Orif you're in Australia, a break
easy to communicate with peoplefar, far away, so sometimes we'd
end up with different names forthe same things.
for some bickies? When we comeback, why do we have silent
(18:58):
letters? And my favorite, ifmore than one tooth is teeth and
more than one goose is geese,what do we call more than one
the English language? Speakingof spelling, you know what makes
moose? Meese? Stay with us.
(19:40):
spelling a word extra confusing?Silent letters.
Wesley (19:46):
My name is Wesley, and I'm five years old, and I live
in Chicago. Why do words havesilent letters?
Madelief (19:54):
My name is Madelief from Brisbane, Australia. I'm
eight years old. Why do somewords like "knife" have silent
letters?
Annabelle (20:01):
My name's Annabelle. I'm eight years old, and I live
in Utah. Why does the word"island" have an S in it that is
silent?
Jane (20:11):
Wesley, Madelief and Annabelle have all noticed that
there are words in English withsilent letters. What's the deal
with silent letters?
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (20:22):
They are tricky. That's why we have those
spelling bees, right? So a lotof the silent letters are thanks
to the Great Vowel Shift, whichhappened hundreds and hundreds
of years ago. So some words usedto have two syllables, but with
the shift, they lost theirsecond half. So "name-ah" and
"lik-eh" became "name" and"like." We spell those with the
(20:42):
e still, the e at the end thatkind of represents that. That's
the silent E, right? Otherconsonant sounds faded away as
well. So "dum-b," like, with a bsound became "dumb" without the
b sound. "Ni-ght" and "li-ght"became "night" and "light."
"K-nife" and "k-night" became"knife" and "knight." And some
scholars wanted to update thespelling to match the new
(21:03):
pronunciation, but the printingpress kind of helped lock in
those outdated spellings. Andspecifically the s in "island,"
that's an example ofhypercorrection, as we mentioned
before. So the word "Isle," i,s, l, e, had the s added because
it came from the Latin word"insula," which has an s in it,
but "island" is from the OldEnglish "ieland": i with a long
(21:27):
bar over it, e, l, a, n, d, andpeople thought they were
related, so they added the s.
Jane (21:33):
So why did we get rid of those sounds, though? Why don't
we still say "name-ah?" Why dowe say "name" instead? I mean, I
see how the letter just kind ofstuck around. But why did we
change the way we say it?
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (21:46):
Hmm, I don't know if I have an exact
answer for that, but think ofwhen you're speaking quickly,
like things fall away. You mightdrop a couple syllables or
sounds here and there justbecause you're speaking quickly.
Or maybe other words will getmixed in with there. So for
example, the word "apron" usedto be "napron." So you know how,
(22:08):
when you spell things that startwith a vowel, you have to have
an "an" in the articlebeforehand, instead of just "a,"
you have "an." So it used to be"a napron," and now it's "an
apron," or the word "newt," likethe salamander kind of creature
used to be "ewt," and it was "anewt" and now it became "a newt."
Jane (22:27):
So a lot of the way we speak, it's just to make it
easier for us when we're sayingthe words, even if the spelling
then becomes more complicatedwhen we write it.
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (22:36):
Yes, exactly.
Sydney (22:37):
My name is Sydney. I'm 10. I live in Rutland, Vermont.
Why some words sound like otherwords, like "bare" and "bear."
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (22:47):
So, words that sound the same but are
spelled differently are a typeof homonym called a homophone.
So we end up with homophonesmostly through sound merging. So
for example, the words "meat"and "meet." So m, e, e, e, t
used to be pronounced like"mate," almost, and m,e,a,t was
"met." And now they'repronounced the exact same way.
(23:08):
Just "meet." And f o, u r usedto rhyme with "tour," and
f,o,r,e used to be twosyllables, so "for-e," and now
they're both pronounced "four."So holophones can also occur
when words are barred intoEnglish from different origins.
For example, the word "tire,"the sleepy version has potential
(23:29):
Germanic roots, while the wheelversion comes from French.
Jane (23:32):
Even though those in American English are spelled the
same.
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (23:36):
Exactly, there's a Y in the other.
Jane (23:39):
Yeah, in British English, tire that you use on your car is
t, y, r, e. Here's anothertricky thing in the English
language. When words go fromsingular,meaning one, to
plural, meaning two or three orfive or more, we generally add
an -s or an -es s to the end ofthe word. Like, "cow" becomes
(24:00):
"cows," "fox" becomes "foxes,""horse" becomes "horses." But of
course, there are exceptions tothis rule.
Grace (24:08):
Hi, my name is Grace. I'm 10 years old. I live in Rocky
Mountain House, Canada. Doeseverything that ends with -us,
like "octopus" or "cactus,"could end with -i, like "cacti"
or "cactuses?" I know about"cactus" and "octopus," but I'm
looking for like anything thathas those.
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (24:28):
Hmm. So the answer is, nope! In Latin, the
-us words end with an -i, sowhich gives us octopi. However,
it is a Latinized version of theGreek word octopus and we
borrowed it into English. Andgenerally, when we borrow words,
which we do all the time, wemake it plural as an English
word. So in addition to"octopi," we can also say
(24:50):
"octopuses" as an acceptableform of the plural. "Cacti" can
also be "cactuses," even thoughit sounds more, sometimes more
like fancy to say "cacti." Somewords like "radius" and
"alumnus" do get an -i at theend, and they are never said
"alumnus" is or "radiuses." Youknow, "radii" and "alumni,"
right? But some words that endin -us never get to see an -i.
(25:11):
I've never heard of "boni" and"campi" because those are
actually "bonuses" in"campuses." There's always
exceptions to every rule.
Jane (25:20):
So if you're trying to figure out, if you know a word
and you don't know how to saymany of them, how are you
supposed to guess? If you don'tknow whether it's "bonuses" or
"boni" or "octopuses" or"octopi," how do you figure it
out?
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (25:35):
My rule of thumb, if I didn't, if I don't
know how to pluralize somethingin English, is just to add that
s sound at the end, because mostwords do end in -s. And of
course, sometimes it'll be like-es or maybe it sounds like a z
sound, but it's that general sor z sound at the end of it,
like dog, dogs, bonus, bonuses.There may be times when you're
less grammatically correct, butI think that's okay. It's okay
(25:56):
to be creative with yourlanguage, too. So I err on the
side of adding the s sound atthe end of all the words.
Jane (26:02):
People will probably know what you're trying to say.
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (26:05):
They'll know what you're talking about,
yeah. And if they feel the needto correct you, that's okay,
too.
Jane (26:08):
Speaking of plurals...
Oliver (26:10):
My name is Oliver. I'm eight years old, and I live in
North Carolina, Raleigh. If twotooth is "teeth" and if two
goose is "geese," then why istwo moose not "meese?"
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (26:29):
That'd be kind of fun if they were
"meese." They're kind of big,though. I feel like "meese"
sounds like like a small thinginstead of like a big, huge
animal, right? So the reason whyis because "tooth" and "goose"
are words with Germanic origins.So the word "goose" comes to us
from Old English where theplural of goose was "geese." And
that's because of some soundchanges over time that led from
(26:51):
"gooses" to "geeses" to "geese,"which we say now. But anyway,
the reason why we don't say"meese" is because the word
"moose" doesn't have Germanicorigins. It was borrowed into
English sometime around the1600s from a Native American
language in the Algonquinfamily, likely either
Narragansett or Abenaki, whichwere spoken in what is now the
(27:12):
northeastern region of theUnited States, New England. So
the plurals are differentbecause they have different
origins.
Jane (27:17):
So Erica, is it actually helpful if you don't come from a
family or a culture where youalready speak multiple
languages, to learn some otherlanguages, so you can start to
see how these words in Englisheven come together?
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (27:31):
Absolutely, I think of being able to speak
multiple languages as kind of asuperpower. I... English is my
primary language. It's the onethat I'm the best at, but I've
spent some time studyingMandarin and studying Spanish,
and it's definitely helped mesee the world in different ways.
There's different ways of ofexplaining things in different
(27:52):
languages. Some languages havewords that we don't have in
English that describe certainfeelings that we might really
know but don't have words for.Like, there's a word
"kuchisabishii" in Japanese.It's like, when your mouth is
bored, like you're eatingbecause you're not really
hungry. You're not eatingbecause you're hungry, but
you're eating because yourmouth, or your mouth is lonely,
not bored. Your mouth is lonelyand it needs something to occupy
(28:14):
it. And there's tons of otherwords that kind of explain fun,
interesting experiences that wehave as people, but we just
don't have one word for inEnglish. So if you learn other
languages, you get to know that.You also get to experience more
of the world, and sometimes ithelps you with learning your
primary language too.
David (28:33):
Hi, my name is David. I am five and a half. I live in
Thousand Oaks. Why do 11 and 12not end in the word "teen?"
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (28:51):
Well, if they did, then we wouldn't be
able to call 11 and 12 year olds"preteens". But this seems like
another two-part question. Sowhy is t-e-e-n not part of those
numbers, which I do have ananswer for. And then why did the
people who came up with thenumber names do it that way,
(29:11):
which I have... I can make aneducated guess for. So "eleven"
and "twelve" come from the OldEnglish "endleofan" and "twelf,"
which even further back were"an" plus "lif," so "an-lif"and
"twe-lif" which is one "lif" andtwo "lif." But scholars aren't
exactly sure what "lif" means.One theory, because we don't
(29:34):
always know. Sometimes it's inthe past and it's gone. One
theory is that it means leftover. So like one left after 10
and two left after 10. So teenwas just a form of 10. You know,
you can see how they kind ofsound alike. So like you say,
teen, teen teen, teen, teenteen, teen, teen, teen, teen
might, might eventually get to10. There was other variations
too, but that was just one ofthem. So 13 and up were just
(29:57):
three-teen, four-teen, or 3-10,4-10, 5-10, right? But why were
they different? Why weren't theylike the "an-lif," "twe-lif?"
Why wasn't it just three "lif,"four "lif," right? It's hard to
know for sure. We don't have afor sure, for sure answer, but
back a long time ago, therewasn't much reason to talk about
(30:18):
more than 10 of something. Youhave, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, several,
many, just have a lot of things.So if it's more than the numbers
that you count, it's just a lot,right? But most of us have 10
fingers, right? So it's easy tocount to 10 on your fingers and
maybe your toes, if you prefersometimes you need just a little
bit more than the ones on yourfingers. So you would say, ah, a
(30:40):
little more than 10, eleven."An-lif," or 12, "twe-lif." And
we got so used to that. So evenwhen we needed to count up to
3-10, and 4-10, and 5-10, thepronunciation of 11 and 12
stuck.
Jane (30:53):
Huh? But we're not sure about that.
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (30:56):
We're not sure exactly why 3-10, 4-10,
5-10, is exactly that way. Butthe guess is that we... or why
1-10 and 2-10 didn't end up it'sprobably because they were, they
were like that before, and wejust stuck with what we knew.
Jane (31:09):
So do you think if suddenly all the kids listening
today decided together we'regonna change it and we're gonna
start calling 11 "one teen" andwe're gonna start calling 12
"two teen." And so it's like,how old are you? I'm "two teen,"
and next year I'll be thirteen.Do you think we could change the
English language?
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (31:31):
Absolutely, it would take a long time,
perhaps, or like a big amount ofkids doing, deciding to do
this. But it could definitelyhappen, because language is
always changing. You might evennotice it when you hear some
slang that you're like so overat this point, like, if I try to
use any Gen Alpha slang, they'relike, I'm just gonna sound super
Ohio, right? That sounds soembarrassing. So all of our
(31:52):
listeners here get to decidewhat happens next, where our
language is going. You don'tneed to come up with things or
try to make changes. They'regonna happen naturally. But if
you wanted to make "one teen"and "two teen" be the next cool
thing, by all means, absolutelydo it, and we'll see if it
actually sticks.
Jane (32:09):
The truth is, every single day, new words get invented. For
those of us listening who areadults, that means we sometimes
get confused when you, kids,tell us something using a slang
word you and your friends use.But on the flip side, the really
cool thing is, you, kids, arethe ones at the forefront of
language change.
Dr. Erica Brozovsky (32:30):
Y'all are the ones who are doing the big
thing. So I'd say, keep it up,and I'm excited to see where you
take it next, like whatinnovations and cool, new, fun,
weird, awesome things y'all comeup with.
Jane (32:43):
If you were to invent a new word, what would it be? I'd
like to invent a word thatdescribes the feeling when you
love something or someone somuch that you wish you could
just squish yourself togetherwith them and become one being.
Like how two water dropletspushed together blob into one
big water droplet. What wouldthe word be for that? Send us a
(33:05):
video of what word you wouldinvent and what it would mean,
and we'll put it on ourInstagram page. Thanks to
sociolinguist Dr. EricaBrozovsky for answering so many
of our questions today. If youfound this episode fascinating,
you should check out the showshe hosts on PBS called
Otherwords. Otherwordsinvestigates fun, interesting
(33:25):
and sometimes totally strangethings about language. You can
find it on YouTube and atpbs.org. We'll link to it in our
show notes for this episode, aswell. As always, if you have a
question about anything, have anadult record you asking it on a
smartphone using an app likevoice memos, then have them
email the file toquestions@butwykids.org. But Why
(33:49):
is produced by Melody Bodette,Sarah Baik and me, Jane Lindholm
at Vermont Public anddistributed by PRX. Our video
producer is Joey Palumbo, andour theme music is by Luke
Reynolds. If you like our show,please have your adults help you
give us a thumbs up or a reviewon whatever podcast platform you
use to listen to us. It helpsother kids and families find us.
(34:11):
We'll be back in two weeks withan all new episode. Until then,
stay curious.
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