Ep. 84 - The Self-Made Linguist, My Student...Peter

When my student, Peter, approached me about being a guest on my podcast, I wondered what we would talk about. However, I'm glad we recorded because what we have here is golden. Yes, a lesson in language, but more than that, a lesson in grit, passion, pursuit of knowledge and independent learning.

This episode will leave you amazed at what a young person can accomplish. If you know people like Peter, be sure to give them the platform they deserve to share the wisdom that lingers just beneath the surface.

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
Welcome back to another episode of Sciencethree sixty. This is Tim Stevenson,
your host, and on this episodeI have my Grade twelve student, Peter,
who is a self taught linguistics shallwe call him expert. I know
he doesn't want to go that way, but it's the lesson behind the lesson

(00:25):
that I find extremely fascinating in thisdiscussion. I hope you do too.
This podcast is a proud member ofthe Teach Better Podcast Network, Better Today,
Better Tomorrow, and the podcast toget you there. Explore more podcasts

(00:46):
at www dot Teach Better Podcastnetwork dotcom. Now let's get onto the episode.
I started this school year this yearmy thirty first and introducing myself,
I talked about my podcast and scrolledthrough some of the titles. I wanted

(01:06):
to be sure that my students knewthis was a resource that was available to
them anytime. At the end ofthe class, a student named Peter approached
me and he asked me if hecould be a guest on the show.
Well, never want to say noto a student's idea, and in an
effort to build connections, I simplyasked Peter, well, what would you
want to talk about? After all, it is called science three sixty and

(01:30):
after going back and forth on thetopic ideas, we landed on this linguistics.
Peter is a self taught aficionado oflanguage. This became apparent when he
would break down the root and meaningof words that I bring up in astronomy
class. It impressed me, andI thought there could be some value in
what he had to say. Perhapsit would motivate others to seek the deeper

(01:53):
meaning of the words they use andteach. It may shine a light on
unusual words, and Peter might beable to explain the history of our language.
And possibly the discussion could evoke meaningunique to the listener. Perhaps the
discussion could be an outlet for Peterto display his knowledge, leaving him with
a feeling of accomplishment and confidence.So, in other words, I wasn't

(02:14):
exactly sure how this episode would land, but I booked a recording time anyways,
and that was when the magic happened. While I was recording with Peter,
it became clear to me that itwas not necessarily the content of the
discussion that would land, but itwas the meta content that was becoming more
and more evident. It was duringthe recording that I realized the importance of

(02:37):
this conversation. It's kind of likethe message I give to my astronomy class
all the time. If we're workingout a calculation using some Newtonian physics,
I know that some just don't understandthe math, and I tell those students,
write it out in your astronomy bookanyways, copy it just as I've
written it. Why Because the respectand the beauty and the simplicity and the

(03:01):
complexity and the confusion and the struggleand the potential AHA moments can come from
stepping back and admiring the results ofthe efforts that someone else has put in.
I admire the Mona Lisa, notbecause I'm an artist. I listen
to the symphony, not because Iplay an instrument. I tune into the

(03:23):
Olympics, not because I'm an eliteathlete. I do these things because I've
learned to appreciate the results of theefforts of others. And it's this meta
level of cognition that just may inspireme to take my interests, maybe my
talents, my abilities to the nextlevel. And that is just what Peter
is about to do for you.As you listen. Now, don't forget

(03:46):
Peter is seventeen years old. He'sa senior in my school. See for
yourself if he's speaking wisdom beyond hisyears, See for yourself if he's demonstrating
independent learning, See for yourself ifhe's the interesting person in a conversation,
which is exactly what we should bedoing our utmost to prepare our students to
be. And then one last point, reflect upon your practice as a teacher.

(04:13):
You're as a mentor coach or adultin the life of a young person.
Are you giving them the content theyneed to be that interesting person?
Are you allowing them the opportunity toexpress their abilities? Are you sitting back
in the passenger seat and letting themdrive? I hope you'll consider these things
as you listen to Peter. Ihope that you'll consider more than what Peter

(04:34):
says in this episode, but thatyou'll consider what Peter has done and is
doing throughout this episode. Okay,enough for me, here's my conversation with
Peter. As a teacher, I'malways interested in this learning and where people
learn, how people learn, Andyou haven't learned any of this in this

(04:58):
school. No, of course.The thing is I get bored quite easily
and when I was why is that? I don't know why. I'm just
either not interested or I already know, because well, the thing is,
when I was a kid, basicallymy only forms of technology. I only
received my first phone when I wasabout fifteen. My first iPod was like

(05:19):
twelve. My first technological device wasan an MP three player at about ten.
But before that, we all areonly forms of technology. We had
where the TV of VHS and abroken Wii. So guess what I was
doing the whole time? I readand I read, and I read and
I read looking through encyclopedias, andI found joy in that, and I

(05:40):
still find the utmost joyant reading.Well, that's really a beautiful example is
how I became an astronomy teacher.I've never taken a course in astronomy,
and here I am teaching things thatI really have no business teaching. Oh
yeah, but I've done it becauseI've learned it on my own. Your
living proof that learning can be doneout of topic is as long as you
have the intention and you have themotivation to do so. I would,

(06:02):
of course, and as long asyou find an object of passion with it.
In fact, I can give anidea of what my passion for linguistics
arived in. But as long asyou have that passion, you can learn
anything. I can say it doesn'tcare if the language is extremely complicate,
like Japanese, which has three alphabetsystems. It doesn't matter if you want

(06:23):
to learn how to play banjo andyour fingers are stiff, if you have
the motivation and passion to do it. I believe anybody can learn anything.
Yeah, anybody, and everybody iscapable intellectually if they have those things.
My question for you is if aperson says, well, you know what,
I don't have any passion. Idon't have a passion for language or

(06:44):
astronomy, is it possible to tella person how to develop passion in something?
What do they have to do?Oh? Boy? So here's the
thing you might not know this thatbesides linguistics and mythology, I'm also a
very very big philosophy guy. Okay, this is where you're getting into philosophical
Peter. That is not a goodthing. I'll give you a couple of

(07:05):
minutes and philosophically Peter, yes,But basically, in order to find your
passion, I'm saying it's unique foreverybody. Yes, But basically you have
to look in at yourself. Youhave to analyze yourself. What do I
enjoy doing what? And if youdon't enjoy doing anything yet, it's like
maybe you need to try and moreme you should do more effort, try
everything. And if that gives youa little spark, and you know what's

(07:26):
passion. If for me, Iget these shivers down my spine and I
quite start shaking when I do debatesactually, and I starting this fuzzy feeling
in me. If you get something, I would say similar. But if
you get like a trigger, oryou find yourself smiling and do spending time
and time and time again, youknow you're getting passionate about that. So
that's how I can say, findyour passions. And it doesn't matter if
that passion is in say, contributesto society really as long as it it

(07:50):
doesn't matter if it confirms for society, as long as it it's what you
want. As long as it's yourauthentic decision, I can say, go
follow your passions as long as youknow doesn't hurt anybody else. That also
is good advice, but that's brilliant, it really is. And the key
in what you just said there istry things. You've got to go out
and try things. And I thinkthere's people who say I don't really have
a passion anything. Well, thenI think I want to come back to

(08:11):
you and say, but what haveyou tried? Have you actually gone out
of your way to try new things, to take a course, to try
a new skill, do what youdid and read some books, maybe even
spend some time going on a rabbithole down a YouTube channel. Oh of
course, of course I've done that. I know you have. But there's
a lot of people who also couldbenefit from doing some of these. Yes,

(08:33):
yeah, definitely, I can saydefinitely people would. Once again,
it's not just trying though, it'strying and recognizing that you'll fail. It's
thinking that mistakes aren't a bad thing. Mistakes just means it gives you more
motivation to try again. So it'snot just trying one thing and being bored
and being done with it. Ifyou've heard of the concept of grit,

(08:54):
it's that try something and then keeptrying and trying and trying and trying to
see if you get a glimpse ofpassion. And you've had to try as
many things as possible, Yeah,that's the key. There is the first
thing that comes up. If itturns out you're not that passionate about it,
all right, well, at leastyou tried it. At least you
don't want to be a horseback riderexactly, Well, take archery lessons or

(09:15):
whatever the next thing is, yeah, or exactly, but hey, at
least you might get a skill fromthat. They can be usable in the
future. M hm, even ifit is something as silly as horseback rideing.
But you never know. When you're, say, lost in the woods
and there's a horse nearby, peoplealways like to go trail riding. You
know. One thing I wish I'dalways pursued and I never did, and
I regretted to this day is Inever picked up and stuck with a musical
instrument. Musical instrument, Oh,and I wish i'd had. Is there

(09:37):
any musical instrument you wish you've tried? Oh I, oh, absolutely guitar,
because the guitar is so versatile youcan carry it with you. I've
actually played it two guitars in mylifetime. One was a bass guitar given
to me by a friend. Andwhat I'm playing right now, I'm still
learning is electric guitar. Yeah,And there's always a situation where there's a
group of people together and some youknow, around a campfire, and you

(09:58):
go ashake a guitar. This boMy guitar will play a few chords,
and most songs can be done withfour chords, and I don't know those
chords well enough to be able toplay. But sometimes people it's like people
think like an old dog can't donew tricks, but they can. All
you need is the motivation to doit. You need exactly, You need
repetition, you need practice. Forme, how I've gained I should really

(10:18):
practice guitar more often though I knowif my guitar, if my guitar teacher,
Alex is listening to this, Alex, please forgive me, please,
But really, what you have todo is you have to practice often.
And for me, how I gotinto a guitar and how I loved it
is because basically I found a songthat I really wanted to transcribe, and
I'm still transcribing that song to thisday, and we've I actually in order

(10:39):
to try to find the original transcription. Funnily enough, I ended up on
a source that's not only in Japanese, but it's probably from sometimes from two
thousand and two to two thousand andfour, and functions off of Adobe Flash,
and I assume Adobe Flash is anolder platform. At this point,
Adobe Flash has been discontinued anymore.It has been you since it's not my

(11:01):
area, twenty twenty one or twentytwenty two, that something like that.
That was years ago. But youknow, relatively speaking, you know,
you're talking to a guy who whensomebody says nineteen ninety three, you go,
well, that was not long ago, I mean, but in actual
fact, it's actually thirty years ago. Yeah. If you go look at
Neil deGrasse Tyson's video on the world, well our human point of era,

(11:22):
we're just a speck in the timeline. Really we are. We are.
There have been so many events.And because that is true, and you
have a limited time on earth,why not become passionate about something. Why
not pursue enough things that eventually goyou know what, I love that and
stick with it exactly and learn it. Become an expert. You know,
you could teach a course, youcould go on very easily and get a

(11:43):
degree in linguistics and go on tobecome a linguist I could. However,
a strange thing is I actually don'tlike talking in front of multiple groups.
It's big groups. It Actually Iget quite anti social and quite shy about
that, okay. And also,like younger, just talking to people and
just being in front of so manypeople taking notes that kind of terrifies me.

(12:03):
So no, Actually, one ofI'm looking forward to is actually potentially
joined the United Nations, are goingto humanitarian works since at the like,
I have had this one dream sinceI was like the youngest I can remember
my first memory. Basically, it'sto help as many people as possible.
So that's for me. It's joinedthe United Nations and using languages perhaps to
transcribe and to communicate amongst people.Absolutely to do diplomacy, like do something

(12:30):
like that. Don't want your dreamsto be dreams. Follow them. Oh,
it's good advice. It's great advice. I mean people should write that
down on their bathroom mirrors. Don'tlet your dreams be dreams. Follow them
exactly. You have to add onthe ellipses between it for the empatic pause
as well. It's got to bea dramatic pause. Of course. Of
course, that makes presentations do youthink otherwise, if I just say,

(12:52):
don't let your dreams be dreams,just follow them. If I didn't put
the dramatic pause in there, itjust sounds so bland doesn't have the same
effects, had the same to it. I'm not sold. But if you
can put that a little pause inthere, all right, all right,
this guy, this is preaching.So the conversation has something to do with
your area of expertise, which isits linguistics. Surprisingly well, not surprisingly

(13:18):
because you're you're a naturally gifted speaker, and you seem to know a fair
bit about the root of words.Yes, and as well as some mythology
and mythological connections to language and thenaming of some of the names that we
use in science. You become abit of an expert on I'm going to
pull out a file really quickly.This will help me with know stuff.

(13:41):
The International Phonetic Alphabet. Make sureyou speak into the microphone when you do
speak, yes, okay, yeah, I'm just pulling up the International Phonetic
Alphabet. Okay, so I canget my memory. My memory juice is
going well. They say that thebest memory is only as sharp as the
sharpest pensil. On paper. Doesthat make sense? That doesn't that's not

(14:05):
very good. That's pencil on paperhas better memory than most people's brains.
Yeah, but anyway, you've gota keyboard in front of you. Oh
yes, yes, thirty four percentcharge. Yes, so give us just
get the ball rolling here. Giveus an example of where we see the
phenetics and the linguistic roots of someof the words we commonly use. Is

(14:28):
that in science especially so especially Okay, so let's start with one of the
most famous words. You know itquite well, astronomy. Astronomy it derived
from the Latin word astronomia, whichderived from It's a proper noun. It
means study of stars, quite literally. And then it derived from the Greek
proper noun of the same word,and it derives from astro and from astronomos,

(14:54):
which is a compound word, andthat goes from astro and nomos.
Nomos is like to regulate or tomeasure, and astro means star. So
astronomy literally means the regulation of thestars, and the word measure is in
their summer as well. Yes,it's nomos. It could mean regulation or
measure. Would that be the samein the word in chemistry. We use

(15:18):
nomenclature, nomenclature most likely, uh, the way that it most likely,
although it could have also come fromthe Latin, a Latin word either,
because nomen sounds quite Latin to me. There's something similar. But yeah,
that is a that is a highlikelihood. Yeah, because that that nomenclature

(15:39):
would refer to the naming of moleculesand astronomus. So you're saying to me,
that is the naming and the measuringof the star regulating, regulating,
no men kind of sounds like,uh. What the Latin word nomine,
which is means name. So ifyou if you've been to a Catholic Mass,
you heard them say in nomine potterphelly spirit. It means in the

(16:00):
name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit.
So nomine means to name one,means name or to name, so
that would be likely for that one. Oh okay, Well, it hasn't
taken me very long. It hasn'ttaken you very long to impress me with
your knowledge. Before we go anyfurther, can you see me give me

(16:22):
a hint here? How did youlearn this stuff? How did I learn
this stuff? Oh? For thatway you have to go. Let me
think I'm seventeen now, so wehave to go about six fifteen years back
to one year two exactly. Soit would turned out that since I was
I had a very I wouldn't sayrough, but wasn't the best childhood.

(16:42):
But the thing is, the doctor'snoticed that it was very difficult for me
to walk and to grasp objects.I couldn't move, like even when I
was two. So the thing is, however, whenever I was in a
driveway or driving, I kept onseeing letters everywhere, and I even tried
to read my Mump's Fun in theSun hoodie. I almost succeeded, and

(17:06):
I couldn't move it all. SoI've taken to I believe, a behavioral
psychologist and numerous other pediatricians. Itturns out that my brain is especially gifted
in the areas of reading. Icould actually read before I could walk.
And actually a notable idea of thisis that you know when we have the
sign behind us that says escape pod. Well, normally when you have a

(17:29):
page like that, you have thefocus when to read it. Right.
When I see something, I instantlyread it, so it comes at you
as a unit rather than individual lettersthat I then form into words. You
see the whole thing and I seeit, and while some people have a
very visual memory, I hear it. So if I see that, I
hear escape pod. That's your brainspeaking to you. Yes, that's how

(17:53):
my brain works. So but languagewise, I don't really know. I've
only study around the I gotten intoprofessional languages about was it two years ago?
Maybe through yeah, about two yearsago, two to one years ago,
because I've always been quite interested inlanguages and like how people can cross
communicate. So it's only recently throughvarious historical videos on YouTube and a document.

(18:18):
Funnily enough, I found one inHungarian. But through that, that's
how I got my interest in professionallanguages. So you watch YouTube videos,
which I've always said, if youwatch good YouTube video you can learn a
lot of verified sources. And notonly that from there, I've found in
some official documents made by like professorsof linguistics. Because the main guy I

(18:44):
watch, I forget his name atthe moment, but he he has a
degree in linguistics. So have youlearned that much of the English language is
really rooted in ancient languages? Oh? Of course, of course. So
here's a very fun fact about whatwas it? Yeah, about thirty nine

(19:07):
to forty percent of all of ourlanguage derives from Old French, the French,
Old French and Latin, and abouttwenty percent I'm trying to think about
it. It's probably like another somethingless like twenty eight percent is actually originally
Old English vocabulary, and the restis world words, mainly from Latin and

(19:30):
Greek. Because when I think ofancient languages, I don't think of French.
I think of Latin and Greek.And no, no, no,
it's definitely French. Like few wordsthat we're speaking right now are English.
Like the word English itself, backin the days of Old English would sound
like more like anglisk. The sounddidn't exists. It was an scs clustered

(19:51):
well s k cluster, so itsounds like sku so. But like even
the word of the word thing isGermanic, though we are actually Germanic language.
Our closest relative is actually Freesian.Friesian is from Frisia, which is
right near to the Netherlands. Itsounds almost identical to Old English. It's
quite interesting. But the reason whyit's French is because if you know your

(20:14):
basic history. You could remember theBattle of Hastings, correct with science teacher
over here William the con with Williamthe Conqueror taking over England, becoming the
first Normandic king of England. Correct. So because of that, and their
main tongue was Norman French, that'show we all speak French. They French

(20:36):
got influenced it, and that's howwe have English as it is now.
But in the country of England,of course, this is where we get
English. And across the English Channelis the country of France, where they
speak French. So how did theseIt's just one body of water separated these
two countries that speak very different languages. The thing is, during the Battle
of Hastings you had basically I forgetexactly, but William the Conqueror got a

(20:59):
caustous bell basically a cause for waragainst England because as a Norman, that
means he had history of Vikings theywant to overtake. Basically recame some Viking
glory in ten sixty six. Sothey actually got boats and traveled across and
invaded England. So let's go througha bit of a rundown, a historical
rundown here of these countries, kindof which one came first, which language

(21:23):
came first, what language led towhat language? What language led to what
language? How far back are wetalking? Well, I'm willing to.
I mean podcasting is a long formconversation. I mean, how far back
do you want to go? Theoldest I know is proto Indo European.
Well, let's stick with what yourareas of expertise are. If you know

(21:44):
that, then let's start there.So proto Indo European. So it's actually
it's mildly controversial because it was afirst study by Aryan supremacists like the Nazis
who went into Tibet and India andsouth of Slastica and realized they have similar
words to. Well, turns outit's actually quite logical hypothesis. All of
the Germanic languages, Sanskrit, Greek, Iranian languages, and basically all of

(22:12):
those languages, also the Slavic languages, they all share one original language that
most likely I've heard two main theories. But the main theory I've heard is
it most likely originated somewhere in CentralEurope, maybe near Croatia. And what
was that language similar to? It'sactually pretty incomprehensible because it's gone through so

(22:34):
many changes. I mean, ithas die, it's they've been reconstructed over
and over. But it has likea diacritic that's like H subscript two and
that basically means it's a pharringial Hand that means it's quite far back in
the mouths, so it's kind oflike hugh sound okay, but yeah.
So basically, actually, the oldthe proto Indo European word for star is

(22:57):
uh stare, and it's it's somethinglike star or celestial object or to make
bright. Okay, that's what itwould and translate as yes, So they
have looked at the stars and usedthat word most definitely. Actually, there's
a very long history of astronomy andhuman culture. We can go back even

(23:18):
further to the times the Paleolithic eras, where there's the theory that Stonehenge was
actually one of the first astronomical observatories, and we have people like if you
go all the one of the oldestcultures we know of is Australia, with
the oldest myths being the Australian dreamTime. They have myths about the stars
and across those things. There's especiallyprevalent myths about the Playades, okay,

(23:42):
and those are like in the ancientancient times, and I mean the one
the oldest myths in the world,if not the oldest myth called the cosmic
Hunt, originates in Siberia. Thistalks about and it makes a reference to
the Playades and to I believe Venusand Polaris. What did they say about

(24:03):
the Pleiades. Basically, it's basicallya story of a hunter. Basically,
this hunter was back in the Itwas also likely had some was translated to
Proto into European, or it hadsome origin in there associated. But basically
there was man. Man was holdinga spear and a cooking pot, and
he was searching for food. Hefound a female pregnant elk near a river.

(24:29):
He tried to attack the elk,but the elk was saved by the
spirits. She jumped and went intothe skies, and she caught the sun
in her antlers, and it wasstuck in it. And the hunter knew
not only did he need to killthe elk so that he could get his
food, but also because otherwise it'dbe perpetual nighttime. So he kept on

(24:49):
chasing across the ranges across the mountainranges and then eventually basically what happens is
the hunter and the elk are turnedinto stars, and the elk, while
she does die, is spear wellmissing two times. The first time is
why the elk goes into the stars, but after when the spear finally does

(25:11):
hit, their hunt continues because theelk is with child. And it's believed
that this is a metaphor for therising of the Pleantes in the sky as
some of the brightest objects in thenight. You what you say makes me
think that the hunter would be Orion. Uh, most more than likely.
Yeah, And the elk just offto the west of Orion is Taurus the

(25:36):
Bull, but could have been interpretedto be an elk. Yes, because
simply further along to the west fromTaurus is the Pleiades. Yes, And
when you go into the oldest one, there are elks, and it's very
common. It's across all myth,all European myth. Basically, in some
Indo myth it talks about it ahunter and in elk well it's most commonly

(25:59):
a horned of vegetarian mammal and anarea where there aren't elk with horns,
it's a mammoth, so it's atleast dates the ice Age that we know.
So knowing these things, it wouldprobably drive you nuts that so much
of astronomy is based on Eurocentric knowledgeand interpretation. Oh, of course,
Actually I have this in my notesbasically, So basically one of the oldest

(26:23):
forms of astronomy was from the Babylonians, the babylon the Sumerian Acadians in particular,
they are in the region of Mesopotamia, which is modern day Iraq,
Iran, and I believe parts ofSyria during you know, between the tigers
and the Euphrates rivers. They've beenthe onliest known form that was documented in

(26:45):
around one thousand BCE, so onethousand before Christ. So there are observations
notably include Venus Haley's comet, thedivision of sky zones as in similar just
time zones like periods of time inthe day, and the enluma au Enlil.
The animal Anna Enlil is the firstnoted example of well they call it

(27:08):
astrology at the time because he usedfor omens, but it's the first noted
example of astronomy the but behavior ofthe moon comes first, then solar phenomena,
then weather phenomena, and finally celestialobjects, most notably Venus, because
their queen of their queen of thegods, Ishtar got also known as Inana
goddess of war, hunting love.She was actually they would call her the

(27:30):
morning star, and she was actuallya day of fived form of Venus.
It's actually from interestingly enough, ifyou're one for laur and how basically gods
get reinterpretated over demons over the years, a derivation of Ishtar in I believe
it's one of the Livant language.It might be Ugartic or something, but
is Astarte and that's where we getthe demon in the Jewish demon Astaroth.

(27:57):
This is remarkable, really, Venusis a very bright planet, is sometimes
visible in the morning. In fact, right now in October of twenty three,
Venus is in fact that bright objectin the eastern sky. But if
we wait a little while, maybetwo or three months, it will reappear
in the evening sky. Do theyhave any interpretation why sometimes Venus appears in

(28:17):
the evening and not just in themorning. Oh, if you've ever heard
of the underworld myth, they havethe myth of Ishtar traveling to the underworld
and back, which some have proposedas a myth where Venus rising and falling.
It happens to be Venus is moreprevalent in the morning, so it's
known more as the morning star.Also upon the note of Venus, that
tablet sixty three of the Enuma onEnleel, which means thus when the gods

(28:42):
onto an enleel dot dot dot.We don't know all the translations. This
is actually a rather new discovery,I mean new in history wise, but
basically it's called the Venus tablet ofAmisaduka. It lists the first and last
of this bull risings of Venus overa period of about twenty one years,

(29:03):
and has the earliest evidence that thephenomena of the planet were recognized as periodic.
So they recognized the periodicity, andso from that would they not have
drawn the conclusion that perhaps the orientationis not Earth centered, perhaps Sun center
was that did know that? However, A very interesting note about that,
and also reason why they put themoon first, is that the Babylonians did

(29:27):
not use a solar calendar. Theyused a Luna solar calendar, which is
used both the moon and the sun, and they had twelve synodic months,
which are twelve complete cycles of phasesof the moon. This is the Babylonians,
Yes, the Babylonian calendar. That'salso the basis for Greco Roman astronomy,
which is where our Eurocentric astronomy rises. Indian astronomy also quite up there,

(29:49):
and Islamic astronomy, especially that one. Islamic astronomy is quite prevalent.
Earlier, we were talking about somesort of historical development of language. We
got to a certain point, sidetrackedby pleiades. Oh yeah, no,
no, no, it's fine,it's fine. I can go on ransow
sometimes. Well, I'm sure,I'm sure you can. But before we

(30:11):
get back to that, just thinkingof how many stars are are named.
I think of Al Debaron, whichis the brightest star in the constellation Tourus.
These are obviously beetle juice. I'msure I'm saying that wrong. I'm
sure you can say it correctly.But these are names that have a very
strong Arabic sound to them. Yes, I don't exactly know about their names.

(30:32):
You would have to find someone moreprofessional. I'm not a professional at
this, clearly, unlike you,who is a well known astronomy teacher well
known. But basically the reason whyis some of the greatest astronomers of our
time and the first ones were Islamic, like someone Al Rahman is one of
the very noted ones, like someof the first primordial telescopes Islamic, or

(30:53):
like first look up the stars andstar charts Islamic. A notable Islamic figure
who was once again actually was inthe area of the Selucid Empire, which
is a Babylonian empire which was ofthree hundred and twenty three to sixty BCE,
was Celicus of Seleucia. Notice belieffor supporting helio centrism well before his

(31:17):
time and his theory about the movementof tides correctly staying that they were related
to the moon because that's observable.Yes, you can see the phase,
and if he charted it, youwould notice that the full moon and the
new moon result in a higher highand a lower low tide. They would
have known that, they would haveseen that, but before that it wasn't
more well known. You have toknow that around this point it was still

(31:40):
church and state were quite unified,so they had a more spiritual, more
mythological view of the world. It'salso some you can see that more in
the Middle Ages when you have theVatican and its power over Europe, which
is why you have astronomers like Copernicuscovering his publishing. His magnum is on
his deathbed mm HM and Galileo andGiadrana Bruno who are threatened, if not

(32:06):
actually killed for their yes observations.Now going back to sort of the development
of language. You know, honestly, there must have been. Wherever there
are beings, whether they're wolves orhumans, there's some way of communicating through

(32:27):
sounds. Yes, sounds. Actually, there's this author, he's called Stephen
Pinker. I don't have he wasa prevalent. He's a prevalent cognitive scientist.
He published mainly about the computational theoryof the mind, which combines basically
Darwinistic evolution with a psychology, sayingthat our mind functions like a computer,

(32:50):
is made of many organs that havedeveloped over time. He has a book
called The Language Instinct. Well,I have not read it yet. Basically,
the base theory is that it's basicallyas evolve over time for a form
of more universal communication and as intelligencegrows, and also depending on what it
is some sounds arrived earlier on thanlater. Like earlier sounds to make would

(33:15):
be like your lips like built bilabialplosives. Bilabial means using by labial means
two lips, and plosi it meansit has exects bits of air, So
like pa bah like the P andB sound. Actually a funny thing to
know if I go off on arant here is that P and B are
actually just about the same. Theonly difference is that one is voiced and

(33:37):
one is voiceless. That means thevibration of your vocal cords. Please say
pat. Your vocal cords don't reallyvibrate, but you say bat, there's
a much more vibration of your vocalcords there. It's P. Well,
B is just P with more vocalcord vibration. These are the subtle differences
between the sounds that we've used,and I would Now, of course I

(34:00):
am English, so I speak thelanguage. But to me it's it's a
simple language. But to people learningit's it's not. I hear intonations in
other languages that I can't make withmoney. Oh yes, because such as
the was it voiceless vel or fricativeis a very hard one. It's in
German nacht or even in French.What we have in French as the r

(34:25):
as an orange or rouge. It'sa very fricative art, which means vibration
of your vocal cords right near.I forget where, but yah, it's
like near. It's near the backof the throats as a very sound.
And for more native speakers it's quitehard to learn, or even like the
Palatoo series because there's a nyah soundthat's also quite hard to learn for English

(34:47):
speakers. But what is most definitelydifficult for English speakers, I'd say it
are tonal languages. That's language suchas Burmese not to be actually Burmese,
Mandarin, the Southeast English, wellSoutheast Asian languages, and even I believe
Latvian. They're basically saying MA isdifferent from MA. Is different from Ma,

(35:10):
is diferent from ma? Is itfrom ma? Is different from Ma?
Yes, there's a there's a Chineseriddle. I do not know it
fully, my mom does. Shewas, She's a prevalent speaker of Cantonese.
She lived in Hong Kong for quitea time. So basically they have
a there's this rhyme in Mandarin.Is this poem that's composed solely of the
sybil ma but means a story aboutan ox. And it's only possible like

(35:35):
that because the difference between tones,which unless you grow up with them,
your brain doesn't not only can younot make those tones, but you don't
even hear them. Yeah, butyou can. You have to. You
have to listen to them after awhile. It's like with any language.
Really, you just have to listento documents and you have to listen to
people speaking over time and time andtime again. And for me, which
is helping to learn language, I'mpersonally learning Arabic right now. I learned

(35:59):
into the grammar and just see thephonology. What are the sounds in Arabic?
Like for Arabic has a similar soundthat's similar to the k love the
cur sound, but it's actually closerto its more uvululer. So it's like
a cuh sound because you're bringing into play your uvula a little dangly thing

(36:20):
in the back of your throat.It's because it's around that area exactly.
Is this string to make sense toyou? Buvuler and bilabial These are two
terms I hadn't heard, but theymake total sense. Oh yeah, But
there's the thing is the IPA,which is the International Phonetic alphabet that sounds
all possible sounds known to man.Basically, we have our vowels, and
then we have our consonants. Themost common contonts are pullmonic consonants. They

(36:45):
use your lungs in your average way. You have bilabial labio dental, which
is like your mouth and teeth.So that's like, I can't really make
the labio dental series, but theclosest ones I can make are the ones
in English as fa and va oreven it's a weird one. It's an
approximant, which means it's it's hard, it's a weird one. I can't
exactly describe an approximant. But theR as in red is an approximant.

(37:08):
It's it's like that kind of sound. But the vas sound it's basically between
V and W, is an approximant. So you have, yeah, bilabial,
labio dental, dental, teeth,alvealer, post alvealer. I trying
to remember the retroping yet, yes, retroflex, the retroflex series is very
hard. I can't pronounce the vastmajority of them. After retroflex you go

(37:34):
uh yeah, palatal and that's that'sthe one where you use your palte,
which is the soft plat part ofyour mouth. So that's where you have
sounds like yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a Greek one. I'm pretty
sure it's it's like a it's likean l sam but uses your palette more
so it's yeah yeah mm hm.And also there's trills like the trilled R.

(37:55):
You would know that from Spanish uhriba. Yes, I can't. Whenever
I try to roll my rs,I accidentally go into the French art,
which is not a trill but africative. So that's that's a funny issue
with me. But yeah, andfricatives are basically you can't get your trills
and your fricative. You can separateit, you can easily get the mixed

(38:16):
up. It's quite an issue.The terrain in Spain follows mainly on the
plane excellent, but yeah, Areally hard sound to make for English is
the L sound in Welsh. It'sthe alveeler lateral fricative, so basically it
looks like the two l's but it'slike a law sound. So the longest

(38:37):
one of the longest place named inthe twelfth is schlan Vara to filio go
something like that. It's very verylong, but like if you know,
it's in the beginning, it's thelaw sound. It's like an L,
but it's like a sound as well. It's an s the way I've described.
I've heard described, but because Iwas once at a conference with someone

(38:59):
who spoke Welsh, it was someonebetween an s h and an L sound.
So it's like a law sound.There's there's the biblical story about how
prior to if you go back tothis Septuagint, and sorry I should say
the Pentituke, the five books ofthe Bible written by Moses would have been

(39:21):
written in ancient Hebrew. Ancient Hebrew. Ooh, and then there is within
that the story of the Tower ofBabel. The Tower of Babel, Yeah,
that is most likely. We donot know much about that. There
have been numerous scholars who have triedto create a family that encompasses all of
them. These are the people whoare known as rather crazy the linguist excommunity.

(39:42):
They combine the language isolates. Thatmeans their languages that don't have impact
from other many other ones, likethat's like a Basque or Sumerian. Because
it's very old, they tried tocombine them to create a proto world.
So far, no proto world languagehas been found, like correct, So
the Temple of Babel we do notno. But basically it's probably more of

(40:02):
a metaphor of the hubris of humanityfor trying to reach God in the first
place. And this was the punishmentthat you'll no longer be able to communicate
because you'll all be given a differentlanguage that you can't speak with each other
now. And from an evolutionary standpoint, that's kind of silly, because the
evolution in the capacity to make soundsonce again, takes time over the years,

(40:22):
of course, of course, andspeaking of time, you got going.
I am still interested in this historicalperspective on the development of language.
Do we go back to Neanderthal manor do we not go back that far?
Now? You definitely do not gothat far. I'm sorry for anybody
who thinks that happens once again.It seems weird, but it's logical that

(40:45):
Neanderthals would have made only the gruntssound like the ugh, those kind of
sounds. No true language, theProto Indo Europeans, which is the oldest
one I know of, though I'mpretty sure of the Proto Semitical language,
which is all of Middle East,is likely older. The Proto inter European
and the Proto cultures which I knowof, the vast majority of them arise

(41:07):
in the early Neolithic. So that'sbasically the Neolithic began in nine thousand and
seven hundred years before Christ, sothat's what you had the first agricultural revolution,
so it began around there that afteryou had the first big language being
spoken, and this was what partof the world part of the world.

(41:29):
So the oldest civilizations that we knowof are go Beckley Tepe. That was
more of a Stone Age thing,so that's quite early. But the earliest
city state, the oldest proper countrywe know of, is called Uruk.
It was Mesopotamian, it was actuallyspecifically Sumerian, and it would have been
around once again Iraq and Iran.This is where we have one of our

(41:50):
oldest myths of all time that hasbeen written down. It's called the Epic
of Gilgamesh, who was one ofthe first kings who searched for the herb
of immortality. So that's based that'sthat's a bit of a little summary of
where language probably started around, becauseit's in Sumerian that we have actually a
concise phonology. Phrenology is a soundinventory point. By the way, Now,

(42:12):
when you look across Europe, theevolution of the language, that the
population would have spread from this sortof heart of humanity, and as they
moved across the land they would havebeen they would have become isolated, probably
by distance, yes, or youespecially a thing like a geographical barriers such

(42:32):
as mountains, which is why Basquehas been so protected. It is only
bored by it is bored all aroundby mountains. It's a very mountainous area
of northern Spain or southern Francish.And it's because of those geographical barriers you
get language isolates. And the languagesof Italian, Spanish, German, French

(42:52):
English, they all have a lotof similarities. Yes, here's an here's
a very interesting Uh. You mymemory is not the best today. Can
you list those languages again? Isaid? Italian, Spanish, German,
English, French. Yes, uh, four out of the or three out
of four or four to five.Everget four to five. Four out of

(43:14):
five of those are Romance languages,Italian, Spanish, French, and technically
English actually because I'm just saying Englishfor now, because the sheer amount of
Latin and French vocabulary they all derivefrom Latin. I know a tiny bit
of Latin. It's more yeah,it's really old Latin. But basically,

(43:34):
if you know a little bit ofLatin and you know a bit of French,
you can learn Spanish and Portuguese orItalian quite easily. Where did the
language of Latin come from? Latin? Uh, That's a that's a funny
story actually, because it would haveoriginated with you have influences from the Greeks
in Anatolia, with the Trojans,that's the mythological standpoint, and then you

(43:55):
also have the Etruscans who came beforethe Lens. They actually though, a
fact is that the you know,the Roman goddess Minerva, who's known as
Athena, she's actually a combination ofAthena and a proper Etruscan god called Minerva
or Minerva. And that's where youget Latin arising from over the time.

(44:17):
And that I have been around southernItaly. Okay, So is there any
other questions here? I'm sure thatyes, of course there are. Yeah,
we're so Latin. Can we considerLatin to be the root of most
of the European languages? No,actually we cannot. Only the big ones,
we'll say, because we have gotteninfluence the Holy Eastern European ones.

(44:42):
They branched off from proto Slavic.So that's Russian, Estonian, Latvian,
Uh, technically Ukrainian and like Serbian. Those are all crans off from Slavic.
And English is actually a Germanic language, which means our oldest link is
old Norse. So that means Englishis actually a Nordic language. Our first

(45:05):
population are the first population in England, or the Anglo Saxons, They were
actually a Nordic a Germanic band oftribes was also has some Gallic influences though,
so basically the Germanic languages and whichare a sub subsidy of like the
Northern The Norse languages are Frisian,Dutch, English, German, and like

(45:28):
Austrian. So that's there. There'slanguage families, they're old regions. So
your answer to that I have forthis long bit is no, it is
not. It's just that Latin happenedto be for quite a long time,
the lingua franca, which is theuniversal, the most commonly spoken language for
diplomacy purpose over the years. Well, what happened to Latin? Why is
it that nobody speaks it anymore?That's actually a very good question. I

(45:52):
myself do not know. I sometimeswonder, but I can only think that
because of actually I have a tinyidea. Basically, when Latin was used,
it was only the richest people whospoke it. Only the richest people
had the chance to be literate.But if what did the rest of people
speak, they probably rucus. Fromwhat I know of Dante Aligieri, who

(46:14):
wrote the famous divine comedy, includingthe Inferno, Paradisio, and Purgatorio,
that's where you have the Dante's NineCircles of Hell, by the way,
But basically he spoke Vulgar Italian andit was then and in his first one
he wrote the Divine Comedy not inLatin, but in the vulgar Italian.

(46:34):
So the people karebean. So it'skind of the answers instead of giving it
all the parts of the nobles.More so, the people could become literate
as well. So that's how Latinslowly fitted out of power. That's my
that's my guess. So, andalso we have English being more a language
of the people instead of Latin asthe language of the king and the nobles,
and especially of the papacy, becauseecclesiastical Latin, which is a variant

(47:00):
of Latin still spoken, is commonlyused in Catholic Mass. Do you know
an example of some phrases used inecclesiastical Latin? I kind of know a
bit of the Lord's prayer, whichis pot a chist in Kyli's well,
Chili's some defetest nominis TUIs, whichis our father who art in heaven Hell

(47:21):
would be thy name. Sanctus meansthe noun means saint, but means to
make holy. So holy is yourname, quite literally, And when it
comes to Latin, you think ofsomebody in more modern times, although still
I'm thinking of Isaac Newton who wrotehis most famous writing The Principia in Latin.
Yes, can you explain anything aboutwhy he would choose to do that,

(47:44):
because once again, around the time, Latin would have been the lingua
franca, but it would have beenless so though, but more so that
there's been a great history of poems, of doctrines of science, things all
being in Latin. So it's likefollowing that it's could be known. It's
seen as prestigious for scholars to putit in Latin. The language of the

(48:05):
glorious Roman Empire, which and thelike nostalgia for the history of Rome and
the Roman science arrived in the Renaissance. Renaissance is actually French. You saw
how I said they are is Frenchfor renewal or rebirth. So he would
have chosen that language, would hehave thought to himself, likely there will

(48:28):
be fewer people who can actually readthis, or would it be would it
just be the intellectual people who arecapable of actually reading that. It's intellectuals
who are definitely capable of reading Latin. So it was mainly meant for intellectuals,
then I'm presuming. Yeah. Andthen, similarly to some of these
other themes, you think of theBible being written, and traditionally you hear

(48:52):
the King James version King James English. What's the significance here King James English
is actually it's a bit of ElizabethanEnglish, which is kind of like what
Shakespeare would have spoken. Basically,there's been gradual stories over English. There's
been Old English would sound more likeFreezian. It sounds almost like it sounds

(49:13):
entirely different from our version of English. Then you get closer to our version
of English with Middle English, whichis where the French influence comes in,
and over time you get to Elizabethan. So it's the period of English over
time. The thing is yee isactually the informal it's actually the formal pronoun.
I'm trying to think if it's theno, it would have been the
informal yes, because you would havebeen formal, and ye would have been

(49:37):
informal or no. It's the otherway around. Yes, because the reason
why is oh, ye of littlefaith. Yes. But the reason why
they say thou to God isn't itbecause they mean to be informal. No,
it's because actually because thou is singular, ye is plural, So they
didn't want to say that in sayingye instead of like the other one,

(49:59):
they would think that God is plural. Instead, they wanted to say there's
one God, so they used theinformal one. And who was King James?
King James. There's been a multipleKing James. I do not know
the exact history one of them.You need more of theologian, but mostly
someone who is well known for thetranslations of the Bibles at the time.
I do know some fun facts aboutthe Bible, though mainly about the idea

(50:22):
of Jesus Christ's name. Jesus Christwouldn't have known the word Jesus, and
Christ is most definitely not his lastname. No, yes, it's a
title. It comes from the wordChristus in Latin, which comes from the
word Christos or something like that inancient Greek, which means anointed or blessed

(50:43):
with oil, so it means theblessed Jesus, and that derived from Yeshua
or so or in Galileean. There'sfuries of whether Jesus himself was said Yeshua
or Yeshua or Yeshu Oh. Itotally think you're right that. I don't
think people would have referred to himas Jesus. They would have referred to
him as either Yeshua or Yeshu or. The ah was more like a glottal

(51:05):
stop. The glottal stop is actuallya sound. We do have an English
it's the uh, the in betweenH and oh. The oh the u
sound, so it would have beenlike Yeshuah. So there is that.
That name isn't just use for Jesusthe Hebrew Bible, though it's used a
multiple number of times for another man, a priest. And we actually do

(51:28):
have our variant of the name Jesusin the modern day. Can you guess
what it is? Jehovah. No, No, Joshua, Joshua of course,
yes, yes, Joshua. Andbasically it was also a very popular
name. So Joshua and Jesus,same name, actually same name. My
son's name is Joshua. Yeah,you can say, hey, do you

(51:50):
know that you and the besides actuallyshare a name. It's a fun thing
to tell your kid. Fun fact. So so we're moving. We're moving
through the ages here. We we'velooked at several eras of language. We
have. We moved from the ancientdays through to sort of the scientific revolution
era. Scientific revolution depends when youdefine that begins at well, the Copernican

(52:15):
era. The Copernican area still Latinis still spoken. Giordano Giolamo Bruno,
very he came before Copernicus works stillin Latin. So we need to advance
a bit further. But the theoryis that over the time, Latin became
more of a dusty old language forintellectuals and nobles, and instead the language

(52:37):
went down to the people who havebeen more like English for us. What
about some of the Asian languages peoplemigrated west towards Europe, they also migrated
east towards Asia Asia. Yes,so basically the oldest one I know of
that I don't know much I've knownof it, I know of it's theory
is called the Proto Sino Tibetan.So that's Chinese, and that's Tibetan,

(53:00):
that's Nipoli is It's basically a broadarea, although there have been on be
paleolithic settlements in Vietnam, Laos,Cambodia, so that's something interesting to note.
But as someone who knows a tinybit about Vietnamese and like vocal registers
one, but vocal registers are morelike so absolutely Burmese. They have different

(53:24):
modes of voice. You are aidea of a modal voice is more like
this is standard one modal voice.The other voices are breadley which is ah
ah, and the lowest one iscalled vocal fry. You could also known
as the creaky. It's the lowestpossible vocal registry can make. It's like
the ah sound, so in thatone, aw would be different from ah,

(53:46):
which from ah, and they combinedwith those with tongues, and that
is typical of some of these languagesin Southeast Asia most definitely, it's typical
among from what I know, Vietnameseand Burmese. Now, Thaie Thai Tie

(54:06):
is described by the Thai people asa difficult language to learn. I can
see why in my opinion. Theactually I'll get into that later, but
the whole reason why is because ithas a severe instance of historical spelling.
Historical spelling means when something is writtenof one way but sounds a different way.
In our English, the word night, and I don't mean night as

(54:27):
in dark, I mean knight asa knight in shrining armor. The k
there was originally pronounced someone originally saidknight, and actually the German version is
connect. So yeah, that isabsolutely that's an instance of historical spelling in
English. But the thing is Thai, and the one I believe is to
be the most difficult Tibetan. TheTibetan script is atrocious, is basically the

(54:50):
reason why it's it's based off ofSanskrit. Sanskrit is one of the oldest
writing systems we know of. It'sbased off of the divana Gari. That's
what it's called. It's an abugida, and abu gida is basically where
a stillabarius like Japanese, where youhave a whole character represents like pa.
Abugida is basically something similar, butit has an inherent vowel, but in

(55:14):
order to change it, you addon a little diacritic and that represents the
vowel. So you're basically one mightbe pa, but you can add on
a valel that turns it to adiacretic that turns it to pooh, or
you can do a little X beneathhit or like it's called the zero sign.
That's actually where we have one ofthe earliest instance of mathematical zero in
India. So you have put.But basically the instance for tie. And

(55:34):
why Tibetan and Tie are so difficultis because all of Sanskrit's reforms came in
way before Christ. So the innovationof English as we know it happened after
the Nome spelling reform of sanscrit andsanscrit has only had one And when you
have rapidly evolving languages in sands andpeople dropping things and you know, going
to becoming gunna like an example inEnglish, like that, it's only assured

(55:57):
that if they base it still offof that, it might look like a
one way but it sounds somewhere somethinglike completely different. You're talking about this
when we sort of abbreviate and slangour words. Yes, that's an idea
of like sound changes because sounds havenot saying concrete over the time they've changed.
Everything is fluid, so yeah,So basically there's a gemination which is

(56:22):
like a single constant trans into twoof the same. But like what I'm
talking about that it's like that issimplification, or like when two words become
associated so they or it's easier tosay them, so they become a sortin
down to instead of going to it'sgun to or gonna. But basically what
tie has it might look like somethinglike might look like one word but pronounced
entirely different. And that's the sameissue for Tibetan. But Tibetan is also

(56:45):
weird because it has silent vowels,but those silent vowels can impact how the
language sounds based off it, andthe way it's just organized is quite atrocious.
But there is a channel on YouTube. It is mildly coming, but
he is a quite a reputable linguist. And then I would recommend about Tibetan.
His name is Nativ Lang and Ativcapital la Ng. He has quite

(57:09):
a good video on Tibetan. Soi'd recommend that what do you suppose happened
to the silent letters K? Andthere's other examples in the English language?
Why have we done that? Ah, that's historical spelling. So once I
said night with the K used tobe pronounced. It's just that over time
we dropped it, we forgot,But historical spelling stuck around. The K

(57:31):
stuck around, probably to differentiate fromour other word for night, which is
you know, sky night time orpH meaning and gh in the word enough
also being yes, that's also aBasically English has gone through many spelling reforms,

(57:51):
not all of them good, Iwould personally say, I would not
say, but obly good. Avery good example of that is in Scottish,
but basically enough in that they diduseprenare prance differently. It's just that
over time pronounce the same way indialects. Okay, I was thinking of
another one, xylophone, like Xis pronounced z. That's called an allophone.

(58:17):
But the thing is X is justpronounces z or ks. That's just
the way it's pronounced in English.The actual term for X in the IPA
is the uh, the sound inGerman, which is achtnacht, icht licht.
That's the X. That's what itwould be. But we just have

(58:38):
to pronounce it like this because ofhow English works in our evolution of English
over the years. But an interestingexample of English's spelling reform is Scottish.
So you have the last name Mackenzie, right, that's wrong. It's not
pronounced mackenzie. It's actually pronounced macknyee. The z is a yee sound.

(59:00):
It's a y sound. The thingis because when you originally wrote in
uh, you didn't originally write Youused a printing press and you had these
little iron blocks and you had topress them down. And this is before
our modern Gutenberg printing press is thewell known one to stamp them in the
stylish cursive Y kind of looks likea ZT. So that's what you used.

(59:22):
For those zet so over time theyactually, uh, when it came
into the printing press, they didget a y but they also kept that
in for like cursive sake, tomake it look prettier and because it was
an example of history tradition. Butover time people can confut us with the
ZT. This original wife is calledthe yoch, by the way, So

(59:43):
that's why we have mackenzie sounding likeMcKenzie's not mcken. Yee mm hmm,
I'm just thinking of Galileo keeps hismost famous Latin phrase that he used.
I thought you'd know it, yeah, and still it moves. What was
he referring to? So basically hesays they once again, he was an

(01:00:05):
avid. He's an advocate for heliocentrism and about the movements of the stars.
And they said, no, itcannot be. The celestial spheres are
fixed. Earth is at the center, the sun moves around it. And
he said, still the Earth andthe stars move. And this is just
after he's being sentenced to his ultimatefate house arrest. Yes, yeah,

(01:00:29):
it was his last dig. Yes, but he was the authorities. He
was also known for saying it oftenthough, Oh is that right? Yeah?
He was known for seeing it toauthorities, especially during that time.
He was known for seeing it oftenwhen the calics. Whenever they tried to
write him down, he simply said, simuaway. Other aspects of language that

(01:00:49):
have me interested is slang and anddialects, like for instance, in Canada,
if you speak to somebody from theEast coast, they'll speak differently the
same words. We're both speaking English, but we speak different. Or if
you could go down to southern theUS, you'll hear a twang yes in
their voices. That is just that'sbasically evolution over time. We actually speak

(01:01:14):
a dialective American English are a soundis actually like an ei dipthong that it's
two velves pronounced together, So it'sa the original awe sound. The oldest
true English would be probably British eltusis oh, so it's not father,
it's like father. So that's oneof the earlier ones. So it's something
more or less like that. Peoplespeaking over time in simplifying sounds. This

(01:01:35):
is again it could well be ageographical most reason, most definitely there's a
geographical implication behind that. Mm hmm. And what about the animal world,
This is something I'm throwing at youout of left field. But you know,
the what's constantly being studied these days. I hear often in my research
is the language of the orcas,the humpbacks, that they actually have languages

(01:01:57):
of their own, that the northernresident orcas will speak a different language in
the southern residence, and if theybump into each other, they won't know
what each other is saying. I'venever heard of this is as quite interesting.
Thank you for teaching me this.It might be an area of language
you want to study next. Andthe languages, Yeah, that is quite
interesting. The closest example I knowof that in real life is where there
was this chimp called nim Chompsky.He was taught sign language okay and or,

(01:02:23):
and he kept on signing give meorange. It was the sign in
order to Pavolovian trained to get himin orange. So it's quite silly.
There was a whole thing about himbeing the one that a chimp is,
but he couldn't fit back into normalchimp kind because he's a chimp treated all
too much like a human mm hm. And I mean I'm blown away by

(01:02:45):
how much you know. Uh andand as a teacher, I am in
the in the sort of the job. My job is to evaluate people's and
assessed people's knowledge. And you know, you know, first of all,
you get an a wait is itbecause it's because I'm in this wonderful,
glorious podcast. Once again, people, this podcast is great. I am

(01:03:07):
not being paid for this, noram I what you said the podcast is
monetized. I did monetize, Ithink. I think so, yeah,
only if I get a lot oflistens, Because if I don't get a
lot of listens on this, andI won't get anything, you know,
so it spare to be a good, good episode. Well, Peter,
I'm gonna suggest we wrap it upthere, because that was absolutely brilliant.

(01:03:30):
I have I have a feeling thatthis episode is going to get a lot
of positive feedback. I hope so. And I think because people, especially
at teachers, they like to hearstudents who have really taken advantage of the
opportunity to learn. And you've donethat to the end degree. And even
if there aren't like many positive reviews, and I still hope that many teenagers

(01:03:53):
around my age will listen to thatwho don't think they have many passions.
And I hope that they will getsome inspiration. But thank you very much
for a thing. I've done itto the nth degree. I am nowhere
near a professional, but thank youvery much. I'm just doing what I
like, and that's getting you tothe places that you are, and you're
an interesting person as a result.Good on you. Thank you very much,

(01:04:14):
and you're a very interesting person aswell. And thank you and buying
me on your very amazing podcast.You're welcome here on Science three sixty