Learn a Language Like a Native... With SCIENCE!

In an article published this March in the online journal PloS ONE, a group of researchers have shown that adults learning a foreign language can begin to process this language with the same part of their brains that process their native language. In their research, only those who received full immersion style training became fully native-like, at least when learning the artificial language Brocanto2.

"Bro! You totally Bro-minated that Tequilla, Broseph!"

Brocanto speakers in their native habitat?

Brocanto2 is an artificial language with only thirteen words that was used by the researchers to test their hypotheses. The advantage of artificial languages, which are similar to real languages but simpler, is two-fold: they can be mastered in only a few days or hours and none of the study participants will have had any prior experience or contact with them outside the lab.

Coming Soon- Rosetta Stone: Ork

In the study, two groups of adults learned Brocanto2 in different ways, either in a classroom context or through immersion. Later, electrodes were used to measure their brain responses when they used their language skills to play a computer game and to judge whether a sample sentence was grammatical or not. The results showed that those in the immersion group had more native-like processing of Brocanto2.

In the second part of the study, the researchers called the participants back after three to six months. Since Brocanto2 is an artificial language, none of them could have had any exposure to it in that time. Surprisingly, both the classroom taught and immersion group became more native-like processors than before, although their performance neither improved or worsened.

What have we learned from this study? First of all, it seems even the brains of adults can "consolidate" a foreign language over time, associating it with native language brain mechanisms. It also showed that an immersion learning environment accelerate the association of a foreign language with those mechanisms.

So, if I may be forgiven a quick slide down a slippery slope argument, it seems to me that the best way to learn a foreign language like a native would be to parachute over the country of your choice with no dictionaries, phrasebooks or grammars and just figure it out from there:

Probably NOT the most practical advice...

Want to learn more? You can read the entire article (which is open-access) here: Morgan-Short K, Finger I, Grey S, Ullman MT (2012) Second Language Processing Shows Increased Native-Like Neural Responses after Months of No Exposure. PLoS ONE 7(3).

Alternatively, there is an excellent summary for non-specialists over at Lab Spaces.

The SpeechJammer, Tool of Future Dystopian Tyrants or Greatest Idea Ever?

A paper published by two Japanese researchers last week has been making some noise among both language-people and tech-people recently. Although if it works as promised, the SpeechJammer may be able to silence its own critics. From the abstract:

In this paper we report on a system, "SpeechJammer",
which can be used to disturb people's speech. In
general, human speech is jammed by giving back to
the speakers their own utterances at a delay of a few
hundred milliseconds. This effect can disturb people
without any physical discomfort, and disappears
immediately by stop speaking [sic].

That's right, ladies and gentlemen, life just got a mute button.

Sadly, still no rewind button
for last weekend.

Imagine the possibilities for a moment: angry ex-spouses, boring lecturers, anyone who starts a sentence by saying "I know I've said this before, but...." Suddenly, dinner parties become bearable, cocktail parties no longer tedious. If I'd have had one of these in grad school, well, I might have stayed there.

The scientific principal behind the SpeechJammer is called Delayed Audio Feedback. Psychologists have discovered that if playing back someone's words at a slight delay interrupts the normal feedback we use to evaluate our speech. The result is an irritating sensation that can only be relieved by shutting up. Presumably, the effect was discovered during Bring Your Child to Work Day.

Why are you copying me? Why are you copying me?
That's annoying. That's annoying.
Stop it! Stop it!

Already, a chorus of negative types have been sounding the alarm about the potential for abuse by oppressive Big Brother types. To which I reply: if you outlaw SpeechJammer guns, only outlaws will have SpeechJammer guns. And, really, who wants to listen to outlaws all the time?

He never stops talking about how
brilliant the show Deadwood was.

Perhaps the greatest part of this invention is the poetic justice. The only way to shut a person's pie-hole is to stuff their own words down their throats. Even if they can ignore the Delayed Audio Feedback, as research shows there is considerable variation in the response to DAF, maybe the shame of knowing what a jackass they sound like will do the trick.

Victorian Slang and Curses

"Remember, my son, keep your Arbor Vitae away from Miss. Laycock"

To prove that a fascination with slang and vulgarity predates Urban Dictionary, take a look at the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue published by Project Gutenberg. Its author claims it documents "all the peculiarities of language by which the man of spirit is distinguished from the man of worth," that sort of thing being very important to Victorians.  Apparently they were also worried about people discussing "twiddle diddles" around women.

I can't help but think that there is more than moral instruction behind this dictionary, but also a smidgen of lurid curiosity. Some Highlights:

Many of these so-called vulgar terms are now standard or even quaint idioms. Take KICK THE BUCKET (die), CANARY BIRD (prisoner) or PIG HEADED (stubborn). SHAG and SCREW have maintained their meaning over the last two hundred years, but VIXEN has changed for the better. (For more on that, see my Word of the Moment feature on "fox" here).

Quite a few words have disappeared, except in print. I suspect ATHANASIAN WENCH and QUICUNQUE VULT have lost a bit of their punch. And I've never heard a patron at Lisa's Billiards and Brews complain about the guy staring at her DIDDEYS or DUDS (although I think APPLE DUMPLIN SHOP is due for a comeback).

The Grammar Police currently wringing their hands over the abbrevs kids are using these days may be dismayed to find two hundred year old chimney sweeps using YEST (for yesterday). Among the other terms I'd love to bring back are COCK ALLEY, DICKED IN THE NOB and FART CATCHERS (admittedly limited in usage these days, but what a mental image!).

By the way, if you're curious, "twiddle diddles" are the same thing as "nutmegs" and "tallywags."

Free (the) Reference Grammars: Formosan mini-Edition

Hmmm, (Blows virtual dust off blog) I guess it has been a while since I updated here. The good news is that several new projects have arisen which may redefine Bad Grammar the blog's role. More on those in the coming months.

With that in mind, I realize that Toward a Grammar of Takivatan Bunun is not on most people's casual reading list. But as a linguist with a interest in the world's less celebrated languages, Rik De Busser's Ph.D. thesis (available on his webpage) is a fascinating peek into a language not previously well documented. Based upon De Busser's own field work, this provisional grammar goes along way towards providing a concise English language description of the Takivatan dialect of Bunun.

De Busser's work is firmly in the Functional Typological tradition. Bunun has a remarkable number of verbal affixes, mostly derivational and many of the most important get a thorough treatment. There is also a chapter devoted to the role of reduplication (a common feature of Austronesian languages).

To anyone interested in verbal morphology, reduplication or Formosan languages, De Busser's thesis is a wonderful resource to read. Even non-linguists, I believe, will benefit from his overview of the history of Taiwan's aboriginal people and their experience with Chinese, Europeans and Japanese colonial enterprises.

Free (the) Reference Grammars: Kurdish (and Zazaki) Edition

These days it is difficult to not know something about the Middle East. Even my old roommate Dass knows where Iraq is (to be fair, he was sent there on an all expenses paid vacation courtesy the US Army...). Between Arab Springs, Iranian nukes and the rise of Turkey as an emerging economic power, the relentless roulette wheel of the news cycle is going to land on at least one of them a day.

And yet, there is a lot more going on beyond the conflicts that concern mighty geopolitical powers like Europe, the US or China. Many other ethnic groups like the Kurds, Assyrians, or Copts also call the Middle East home (many for thousands of years, no less). With that in mind, it is time to once again jailbreak some linguistic research from the academies and highlight the digital research available for anyone to learn a little more about an important minority in Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria: the Kurds and their language.

Starting with the The Kurdish Digital Library, which is run by the French Institut Kurde de Paris. It contains resources in many languages covering linguistic, cultural and historical topics. The free materials are all public domain books, so don't look for anything cutting edge, but they are still useful for the dedicated self-guided scholar.

For those looking for more up-to-date information, you can read the paper Kurdish Linguistics: A brief introduction, which is from 2002. This pdf scan of a scholarly article which provides background knowledge on the Kurdish language(s) and the state of scholarship. the Iranian Studies page at Harvard University contains links to two large (250+ pgs) reference grammars for both Kurmanji and Sorani Kurdish. The grammars themselves are heavy on the morphology, light on phonology, but way worth a read for anyone wanting a concise introduction to these lesser studied languages.

Oh, and they also have introductions to several historical languages: Avestan, Old Persian and Manichaean Sogdian.

Finally, although Zazaki is not generally considered a Kurdish dialect anymore, it is spoken in the same region and belongs to the same West Iranian Language family as Kurdish, and it would seem a waste not to mention some of the random resources out there for this lesser known gem of a language.

Such as:

The Position of Zazaki among West Iranian Languages, by Ludwig Paul
Zazaki "Double Ezafe" as Double Case-marking by Richard Larson and Hiroko Yamakido


und...

Zur dialektalen Gliederung des Zazaki by Mesut Keskin (in German)

Japanese English by James Stanlaw: Review

A collection of chapters analyzing the relationship between the English and Japanese in the context of contemporary Japan, Stanlaw's book presents a wide variety of perspectives on language contact. It is written principally for researchers on international varieties of English, although in this case "Japanese English" is quite different from Singapore English or Indian English. It presents a broad, if not necessarily unified view of how English has been adapted by principally Japanese speakers.

Good for: Contact Linguists, World English researchers, those looking for a deeper understanding of "Japanglish"

Not so good for: Anime enthusiasts

Final Verdict: This book is a bit of a mixed bag. It has some highly technical material, as well as the sort of textual analysis that will appeal more to the humanities crowd. The eclectic nature of its contents will inevitably mean that everyone will find a chapter that interests them, and chapters they will skim over.

LCTL of the Month: Swahili

Zanzibar. "Swahili" comes from the Arabic word for coast

My first linguistics teacher used to complain about how the terms “sex” and “gender” were being used interchangeably. An old school linguist in the anthropological tradition, he was adamant that the distinction was useful. Unfortunately, as he said:

“The terms sex and gender are now basically synonymous, except that (as far as I know) teenagers are not yet having gender in the back seat of cars,”

While “sex” and “gender” may be interchangeable in common usage, in the social sciences they still have distinct meanings reflecting the difference between biology (sex) and culture (gender). So, what does it mean when linguists talk about “gender” in languages. This month we will explore linguistic gender by examining a language with one of the most extensive gender systems in the world: Swahili.