Episode 31 - Danny Bate and the joys of etymology

0:10 Speaker 1 Welcome to Lexus the podcast. All about language and Linguistics. I'm Lisa Casey, I'm Dan Titan and I'm Jill. Lavender. 0:23 Speaker 2 So on this episode of Alexius, we're really pleased to be joined by Danny bait. Here is a PhD student at Edinburgh University and is on Twitter as that etymology guy, which is what we want to talk to you about daddy. 0:39 So thanks very much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me and I would for very much like to stress that and that is meant to be self The Retreat because that's how people tend to refer to me in the third person, is that that it's a lot. Naughty, there are many of us but just that one, you know, 0:57 Speaker 1 so the etymology side of things then you clearly, I mean, clearly you really 1:01 Speaker 2 love it. Balaji I mean that's obvious. And 1:03 Speaker 1 as far as I can understand it, etymology is the study of the 1:06 Speaker 2 origins and development of words. So looking back at the history of them tracing their development. What sparked that enthusiasm and where is it? Taking you right? Yes I'm gonna have to just think back. Yeah and all scroll back in my place you know to kind of track the development of where this enthusiasm come from. 1:22 I think people In all sorts of academic fields of realized that you can combine the things you love there is some sort of intersection between them. And I while I was at school, you know, growing up as a kid, huge love for history which my parents installed, it will instill in me and if it's not surprising growing up in Norfolk which is well said County somewhat stuck in the 19th century so it's not it's I'm enormously proud of the place put so 1:49 Speaker 1 that we get a Norfolk burn on the podcast. 1:52 Speaker 2 Yeah. It's something I go back. There is no wonder that this love for history developed because it's you know it evil church is all cities. It's that's not too surprising. Then a series of brilliant teachers school that got me enthused about learning languages, modern languages in particular and it's very gradual meeting. 2:11 These kind of this, these two points intersecting and suddenly realizing that historical Linguistics and etymology exist. You know, that's that's I think where it comes from a personal note, but I think specifically We at some ology, it's I think firstly, there's an idea that it really is the study of the obvious like need these, are you making connections of the words that you are using and to somehow take a step back and think about these words that you don't have to know the SM elegy to use, of course, but it's kind of take a step back and think of wow, yeah, that word is connected to that. 2:47 What? It's almost like learning about something the barrel members of your family or friends. It has Immediacy, I think so. Yeah, I think it's extremely pleasing. There's a status something that I enjoy it myself and I'm happy that I've been able to spread the enjoyment of the people I suppose slightly later. 3:06 And my personal etymology Journey would be really getting into the theoretical stuff and that the ideas behind the etymology science. That allows us to make these connections and stuff like sound laws, for example, some The thing about these sandals sound laws about their regularity can be quite pleasing. 3:28 It's almost like I don't know building something you know if you've got the tools to build something you go ahead and spot the connections and see how it develops and you just build up this kind of this this toolkit for dealing with language and language itself can pick your own language of English and my case can become so much more sort of familiar. 3:49 No, sorry, the sales laws thing. Yes. What join? 3:53 Speaker 1 Just 3:53 Speaker 2 explain a bit more about that. Absolutely, so it's a mataji like like any scientific Endeavor starts off with a series of a mess of data, right? We have all these words in these languages and for a long time, we humans have been spotting these correspondences between words in different languages, maybe words in the same language and ones were correspondence. 4:16 Is that our regular? So for example, quite a famous one is how in English. We have the word father. And in Latin, we have, but are Greek. We have a Sanskrit we have bit, they're all these words. Me Father, you know, there's a very regular correspondence, and you can spot this in words mean, same thing, words have same sounds. 4:38 So you could, you know, the same correspondence of an F to a p. You can also see in, you know, English fish Latin as this guess, you know, things like this that these correspondences will how on Earth do we explain the weave? Several kind of theoretical options that we do at our disposal. 4:57 You know, we can say firstly it's just go and just sheer coincidence that these words happened to look very similar and mean the same thing. I think his rational human beings that's just not, that's not really an option. The second one is borrowing, well that's also that you know, that happens a lot where one language and one language speakers take words from another source that happens all the time, Sanskrit ethylene ancient Which of India, we kind of, we kind of roll that out because that's so far away, geographically, that would be a, we would have that written down. 5:30 We would need some some, you know, previous culture with planes and spaceships to sort of make that borrowing fit. So what we're left with is that these all these words come from a common source, a common, hypothetical source, and they've changed in very regular ways. 5:47 They've changed like slowly the sounds of shifted and the way that we can Capture that shape is what Michael sound laws. That's not in a sort of prescriptive legal sense. That's not like these Soundcraft ashamed, that they should change, but more just like in the same way that you might have a law of gravity. 6:06 We're just describing how over time one sound come another and in related words that sound that sound change has not happened so that sort of makes sense. Yeah yeah 6:19 Speaker 1 he pointing out that if you were if you were a Dutch speaker you always knew that. Darth Vader was going to be Luke's father because 6:27 Speaker 2 but is it Vader in Dutch? Yeah it's fun. Yeah it's the you guys are spoiling him ology. They're absolutely say you know it is relevant. I tell myself on a daily basis. Yeah. It's yeah it's true. You know we have these big things and you're absolutely right that you know it has this sense of predictability about it. 6:47 If for example the English words I don't know the English word father began with a very different sound Began for example with a good you know if it was gather that would be a lot harder to connect because we can bring in some phonetics here. 7:02 We know, etymology doesn't stand on its own. We used all the different subfields of linguistics can use the insights of each other, to kind of solidify these ideas. And if you know some phonetics, you might know that fur as sounds, they're not a million miles away from each other. 7:20 You know, one, you know, they're both pronounced with The lips or one lip in the case of fur. They're both voiceless, which means that the vocal folds in your neck and not vibrating. So, obviously, you know, there's definitely a cognitive leap here, there's something that you need to make that connection. 7:37 Not saying, it's always obvious, it's not, but in terms of phonetics, we can definitely say this would be a pretty regular chain try. This will be a fairly, you know, not bizarre, thing, to happen with him. And 7:50 Speaker 1 so that, that seems to suggest that Etymology is got something to tell us about relationships between languages. Whether that relationship is phonological or semantic in terms of the meanings. Some can you maybe talk to us a little bit about what Ed apology? 8:06 Has taught us about the relationships between languages and maybe the people who speak them or spoke them as the kids movie? 8:13 Speaker 2 Absolutely. I mean, it's a big question. I'll say that from the outset and we don't like 8:19 Speaker 1 to make it easy for you. No, no earn your dollars. It's that we don't pay you. 8:24 Speaker 2 That's okay, that's fine. Yes, a very fair, you know, I'm ready for this. I'm ready, it's true. I do say the kind of caveat though that like when it comes to etymology and historical Linguistics in general we have such you know there's so much work to do. 8:43 We really have our work cut out for us deciding what the what is let alone the why and the how very often I found. It is brilliant whole PA. D Theses that are devoted to at some ology and they say, at the end of the chapter, now I'd like to hesitantly suggest reasons for why the previous 100 pages of data why that may have happened. 9:06 So, you know, it really is a kind of separate issue. That's that. You deserves its own questions and its own analysis. Certainly, it's a manager can tell us a lot. It can tell us, for example, about the relationships between the languages first and foremost, these words, these simple correspondences that I And they tell us that there's got to be some sort of relationship between the people as well. 9:29 The people that the speaker's of these languages. I mean it's very easy in linguistics to use metaphor. When we might talk about things like borrowing, my talk about language chains will language, doesn't change. It is changed in the sort of way. It's it's very hard to really get we can very often lose sight of the people at the heart of language so to speak. 9:51 So definitely. You know, it's easy to make these etymological connections, but there's an implication that there was some sort of relationship between the people too. And in a case of the Sanskrit week that in English words, the idea is that once upon a time there was a culture that spoke a language from which these words descend. 10:11 Lots of people have been working on trying to work out what that culture may have looked like and where that culture may have been students group of people may have been in terms of like focusing in on. That's But one 10:23 Speaker 1 issue, sorry to interrupt it is that like the kind of graph illogical representations that we've seen of sort of branches of world languages that there's some kind of call language, you know, at the base of the trees, so to speak and then sort of romance. Languages was a branch? 10:40 Instead of Germanic languages is a branch and there's some other branches for other things. Would that would that? Is that what that 10:45 Speaker 2 is? That's the idea. Yeah. So there's an idea that these graphs of course are prone to error and is this Amelia lots of there's been a lot of friendly criticism over the years about what is the right way to display the connections between between languages and in the case of the these branching trees, I mean the benefit is the Simplicity but that's that's a that's a different matter in short. 11:11 Yes that's the whole idea and when you have these big branching structures and you might have one single node normally at the top of the structure, there's an implication that that Was once some sort of unified language and that there was one some sort of unified people who spoke it. 11:30 So I suppose in the case of the Germanic family. So that's an English German Dutch Swedish, Norwegian Yiddish. There's an implication that all these languages emerged from something that was spoken in northern Europe, maybe around the shores of the Baltic Sea in in and around sort of the first first, millennium BC, early, first Millennium 80. 11:51 So there's a, there's an implication You know that there are some people and as a further indication that something happened. I mean, we have to get from that initial stage to the stage we have today, where Germanic languages are spread around Europe and spread around the world. 12:07 In the case of the latter that we actually have historical, you know, that's in the historical record. That would be the colonial expansion of English Dutch and German. We, if we go back in time, we still need to say that something has to happen. 12:23 In the society, some migration is going on that spreads. These Germanic languages around Europe and in many cases we have some evidence scene of some sources that described what happened in some cases. We are just, you know, we're happily strolling off into the darkness of prehistory and making some assumptions and trying to back them up, zooming in a bit. 12:44 I think English would be a perfect example of this. English is a language as many many external influences. So famously, we Of old French old old North French in case of the Norman Conquest. We have the influence of Norse with the Vikings coming in. 13:02 All of these languages have contributed, something to the growth of the grammar of English, the Lexicon of English, sounds of English and some cases for that for that to have happened to these languages, to have had to have an influence. We need specific political and social circumstances, if that makes sense. 13:22 So, In the case of the Norman Conquest, that's very well documented and we have a huge tapestry of, you know, detailing specifically what happened and we have this huge large class of Norman's almost like a kind of Nur a political regime coming in and we think yeah, kind of makes sense that they would give words to the English language. 13:43 If the Norman conquest or if the Normans had been, I don't know. Five people much more unlikely that that would have happened if it To be that specific social socio-political circumstance for that to happen. In the case of Old Norse Old Norse was very much concentrated in what is now the north of England. 14:03 Hence, the reason why you know, you have so many is of North sounding names and Yorkshire and Humber land in a place names York itself, for example, is that is jorvik. It's a penis Norse name. And we, you know, if you've ever been to New York, you've ever been to like the jorvik Viking Museum, which is awesome attraction. 14:21 So I've been on more times than I care to To admit. It's you do you get a sense that the integration of the people and therefore of the language was very intense because this isn't we we need that kind of situation. The historical situation to get the words from Norse that we have in English. 14:38 I mean, words like leg for example, that's a pretty basic bit of vocabulary. There's nothing's nothing wrong with the old English word for Lake, which was shank still survives in the shanks Longshanks redshank stuff, like I put leg is very much to be the default. 14:55 We need some sort of strong migration need, we need integration, we need people getting along, you know? We need, we need good friendly. Relationships between these two language communities for borrowing to happen. If these communities were some House of self segregating it that wasn't contacts, then it's not going to happen. 15:16 So you can read all sorts of things about people by real life into these etymological. All connections. 15:24 Speaker 1 Can I just Donnie speaking from York? I'm just interested in all of this richness and all these layers, you're talking about all your awareness of the historical context, the social context that power balances that are going on behind all these changes, how this might be a bit of a silly question, but you, when you say tweet, about relationships between words and, and you show the patterns. 15:51 So clearly, How do you arrive at such as of crystallizing version of that of those patents when you're so aware of all those layers and it must be really difficult. Not to say, well, in this context this would carry a meaning of, or this might have semantic Shades up. 16:10 You know, how do you how do you process that? 16:13 Speaker 2 So I'm trying to anticipate that kind of thing or trying to work with what we know and what we don't and encoding that in what I write is, is hugely important to me, I really Not to stress that that it's not fair to say that it's not an exact science. I think that's the point of science is to not be exactly which crying it's okay to not be exactly. 16:32 It's okay to include times when we just, not sure there are so many words in the English language. Yeah, you can look them up in the Oxford English Dictionary. And look them up in, whatever your go to sources, and it'll just saying, that's the monetary unknown. 16:47 Like, this is just, this justifies. Every all are all that toolkit I mentioned. All those Sound changes and ideas theoretical laws historical information. Is that there is just words that defy all of them and we've got nothing to work. 17:03 Within the nine times out. 10 in my experience is extremely common, vernacular words, that look kind of Germanic and we'll just have no records for them pre 1600. But no it I think that to answer your come to give an answer to your question. 17:19 Yes, there is a real need for for hesitancy and for cause Ocean. There are for example at counterintuitive, etymologies, at one of my favorite things II may have made made of seen this. I take a fair amount of evil bleah with etymologies that just Define reason that they just didn't make sense. 17:39 I understand that kind of mental jarring thing. That's how is that? That was surely, these two words must be related. And I think whenever I talk about these parts as much as I'd like to, A big bold letters. 17:55 These two words are not related. Well, if they're that similar, if they're that similar for for it to be counterintuitive for it to feel wrong, whatever. I might be say, they could well be some sort of connection, a connection that we just need to slightly nuanced things. 18:13 So it's entirely possible that two words and might have a very different origin. But since coming into the same language such as English that That they have influenced each other in some way so that we have many different processes going on. Very general linguistic process of analogy. 18:31 It's kind of a catch-all term if two things are somewhat. Similar of two things, have a connection. Well, you start to consider them to be similar even if they have different 18:41 Speaker 1 Origins would folk etymology come in here, where people perhaps have perceived something and it's, you know, a false friend or whatever and they've made an assumption. And then that next to The history of two terms that as you say, came from complete. 18:56 Different places is that? Yeah. Come on. I don't know. 18:59 Speaker 2 It is it really isn't? It seems so logical to me. It seems so reasonable that. People should say, well, focus and Balaji to give some give a bit of background. Is this idea that words don't have particular origin with another word? 19:15 Might get altered so way as in some way that they end up resembling. So my favorite example of this would be crayfish crayfish Comes from, I think, from old French police, it has no connection even through these very, very ancient links to to the English word fish, but if you are a so some Middle English speaker and you have this word crayfish. 19:38 Well, you know creepy, see some sounds like a bit like fish. He lives in water, you know, it's extremely sensible thing to make it much more, much more romantically, it meaningfully plausible. Reasonable. 19:54 And there's also another idea that many words we take from other languages, might have very some alien. Very uncomfortable, phonology, The Sounds the combinations of sounds may not be, then they may not fit, right? So, there's lots of words, that English. 20:10 Adequately American English gets from Native American languages like the Algonquian language family. I believe a moose would be an example of that, but you know, these words may have answered of an Algonquian origin. And an Algonquian sounds do not bringing that into English. 20:27 There may be some combinations of sounds that combinations of meaning. We think, well, let's make it a bit more English. Like I said, we can we can dive into the suggest Oracle circumstances about you going on but from a metal watch point of view that changes quite reasonable. 20:43 I think it's yeah making it more bit more familiar. 20:47 Speaker 1 So Danny can you give us a few other examples of you know what we might term? 20:53 Speaker 2 Nuggets that you found interesting 20:55 Speaker 1 but might kind of shocking 20:56 Speaker 2 surprises. Okay, yes I think I'll feel like I have I have yes. Some some examples that have been tried and tested before and to the the general mental aim of my followers. 21:10 Speaker 1 Yes. Give us a 3 on the Pain Scale. Hey y'all 21:13 Speaker 2 this game okay thanks girl. So starting with let's go for a number so what's my scale of pain? 21:20 Speaker 1 What we had 10 or 10? 21:23 Speaker 2 So okay, we're starting with a solid fine on the Pain Scale particular favorite of mine because I'm very much, you know, a historian at when Amity storing heart Gall as in asterisks and gallic the associated adjective not related. 21:38 That's, that's ridiculous. Preposterous. How can I it's working? It's working already and that's what that was basically. Yes, I completely agree and I more than open to, you know, objections and there must be some sort of relationship between the two More that it could be a case of just simple coincidence that the word garlic we get from Latin. 21:58 So the Romans they have the a gaulish person or I call this man deserves a Gallows, the country of the letter of the land was Galia. Gaul is a different word coming in from a different origin. That's because of Germanic origin and fifth part of a huge family of related words family that I love very dearly for words for people living within the Roman Empire, or the old Roman Empire and who speak in a lesson or some. 22:22 Lots of romance family. Sorry. Yeah. So in the, in the case of goal, the origin is very much good because of the specifics and challenges of old French, but it's related for example, to other examples of X, Roman citizens, or people in early Medieval Times who still thought of themselves as Romans such as the Welsh. 22:44 For example, who in comparison to be at those awful Angles and Saxons for themselves yet with true Romans, you know, we've been here since since Adrian So words like Welsh, which is another dramatic word as, as Lisa. And so, you know, it's in the Welsh word for Welsh and Wales is completely different. 23:02 Come on Ike, it's comedy. And like, yeah, no relation. That that's is an excellent. That's better. That's a name that supplied from the outside. To a particular group of people, all sorts of interconnections be made that while Anya in Belgium, for example, which is the French or romance-speaking part of Belgium call. 23:22 Cornwall. For example, it's the Welsh be outdoor an Old English current Wireless. So the Welsh people of the peninsula, probably zooming over to Romania. We have wotcha or well each year which is a large chunk of Romania is one of the kind of traditional parts of that the modern country, what do they speak? 23:43 Their well Romanian. It's in the name, it's a romance language. So huge family of the lace words for, you know, for these Romans or X Romans and it's It gives us go. It's really cool. Let's do 23:56 Speaker 1 another one. Do another one. 23:58 Speaker 2 How about outrage is not from out and it's not from 24:01 Speaker 1 Rage, nice, 24:04 Speaker 2 have a lot about. That's that. Well, that's just mad. 24:09 Speaker 1 He will during explain it 24:12 Speaker 2 out rate yet. So here's an example of where I think some caution is absolutely necessary. So there's definitely been some analogy going on. I think the first syllable of the word let me be the first to the book could be the second. There's definitely been some sort of like folk etymology remodeling to make it sound like the the world's out in Rage specifically here. 24:36 I'm just talking about its ancestry as a word you know how it comes down to us and it's from Latin. So Latin has this word Ultra which means like over or Beyond and the specifically it's called erotic mm. Which is like going / - so going Beyond this. 24:54 I think that sort of emotional sense. And from that perspective, we have all quite regular sounds changes sound shifts over time. So, the article ending, which is like a, just a suffix that quite regularly becomes ours or each in English so like I don't know where suffrage Village in English. 25:15 They have a so I think of Village once more time would be a velocity calm. It's like the villainous kinds of that over time Village and in In year old French has this very systematic way or when you have a vowel than L, the L drops out. 25:30 So for example, something like Latin has the word power dose. It means hot too. So latter the spell do that comes true in French. It's like a uel kind of changes and then merges become a part of the bout. 25:46 Yeah. So his thing when I mentioned these I like to think as a shock Factor Behind these words but I absolutely agree. You do want to put your minds at rest and say, look, we know we've done our homework. There is actually some, some good reasoning behind this. Okay, let's let's let's take it one step further. 26:02 Speaker 1 Yeah. How does hit us with the most shocking? You've 26:04 Speaker 2 got okay, law and legal. No relation. So we I think so we have that, we have the noun law and we have the associated adjectives and of course I think that Association is partly due to their similarity, but they do have different Origins. 26:21 Speaker 1 One is to be L. It's Just yell. Simon. This is the same. 26:24 Speaker 2 It is just the Olson. Yeah, because it's legal. That's from Latin Legolas. That's latlng legs and, you know, that that is the Latin word for low. But again, because we've come up with these, these these sound Wars and we know, because we've come up with them, we kind of have to stick to them. 26:42 And because of these sound laws is not really no way that we can connect Latin Flex the noun back to English law, which is actually a borrowing from Knows, I think it's almost a local which is literally the stuff that is laid down that the laying down board so to 27:01 Speaker 1 speak. Yeah, there you go. Only for us isn't you said, law is like Lex the name of this podcast is next? Yeah, 27:17 Speaker 2 I probably. So it can't let me get this, right? I don't think it can be related. To lure the English word, it could be related to Lex. Yeah, Alexis isn't Reno is from ancient Greek. It's all to do with words and vocabulary, and I think there might be a connection there between words vocabulary reading. 27:38 Yeah. And some sort of common metaphor with the law has been letting her. 27:44 Speaker 1 Yeah, I think I will 27:46 Speaker 2 have to double check that. I really, I think there might be the yeah. 27:50 Speaker 1 So what we, what we need you to say Hey, Donny is the, it is the law for people 27:58 Speaker 2 and that's come get me like a proper 28:00 Speaker 1 etymologists. You've sort of intimated that there are some people out in the world that have suggested that etymology is a waste of everybody's time, and, of course, we disagree. But could you could you outline for us? What are some of our, what are some of the practical uses of 28:14 Speaker 2 Entomology, right? Yeah, I'm really pleased to be asked that because it is, I think vocation when they're putting it a bit too grandly, but it's Certainly a, I don't know, it's certainly something that I like, to talk about and like to promote, you know, it's not personally, you know, I'm an academic, I do believe that knowing things is pleasurable in itself. 28:33 It's an end in itself, like, it's, I think it's okay to just be like, oh, there's two words related. That's okay. But there are some absolutely some practical applications. Number one being Pub quizzes, don't know, it comes up, you know, conversation starters on the station, grease. If you're stuck at, you know, and awkward awkward conversation and dinner party, having a haircut. 28:52 Very sluggish food on the more linguistic side. I really I really believe that there is an actual applications with this and it really goes back to what I said earlier. About the theoretical stuff behind Theory, at the end of the day is just us trying to come. 29:10 Make sense of the data makes sense words come up with, you know, these generalizations and these hypotheses. And they absolutely in entomology, they're grounded in first and foremost of work so that you know, the Data is the starting point and you can build up and build up and say, or in the 8th Century. 29:28 BC was one sound change happened and it affected this language and it didn't affect this language and and you can leave it at that. You know, you can even go in that direction. But once once you've got the law was once they've been spotted, if that's the right word or what's they've been formulated. 29:45 It's and once that they've been seen at once, once you couldn't, you were individually can understand them and what on Earth linguists are going on. You do have a tendency when we do, like, technical terminology and jargon. Once you understand them, you can go in the opposite direction. 30:01 You can use the law and apply it to what you're trying to learn. For example, we trying to them language stuff like sound laws and I Concepts like, semantic, shift and syntactic change. They can kind of make sense of what we're trying to learn as someone who's been through the experience of learning a second language as an adult. 30:22 My absolute Bane is vocabulary. I really struggle with memorizing vocabulary, and it just, it just doesn't stick the way. The number one way that I make it accessible to myself, is to find the etymological connections. 30:38 So say, for example, really good, a really good case of this or language. For this would be German German. As I mentioned in English, are related in that they come from a common origin. This prehistoric language and each one Gone through its own development, its own series of shifts. 30:57 We sticking with Sounds here, they've developed in different ways, but these Ways by and large have been pretty regular. And my mean, regular me like, they've been applied across the board. So German for example, went through a well-documented and well-understood series of sounds shit. 31:13 It's called the high German consonant shift for the second German second Germanic consonant shit. And what that really means is that Even at an early stage, had a set of sounds and over time, they became other sounds right. English English and Dutch. 31:32 For example, did not undergo this. General change. It didn't. It's gone through its own things. God knows, English is changed. Yes, I certainly changed in what enough ways to confuse learners, but crucially, it hasn't gone through the same process. 31:47 So if you are a German learning English, if you are someone who knows English. Dutch. And we're trying to learn German. You can learn these rules and you can affect germanna fi the words, you already know. Yeah, and end up with Joan. 32:03 So for example, I'm sticking with and I'm sticking with the sound, Kurt with the letter t, let's say that the ancestor of these languages at one point it had the sound tip that's fairly uncontroversial and you know English Dutch and German. Once upon a time they have this sack and German. 32:21 It was one of the sound's effect. And by the shipped, it either became so at the beginning of a world or sir in the middle of the word or at the end. So, and that point I made earlier about phonetics, that's again, quite a reasonable change. 32:37 These sounds have features in common, it's not as if it became, I don't know what I could. I don't know less sound made the lips, that would be very unattractive. But you know, it's still pronounced with the tip of tongue and it's, you know, not too strange now. 32:52 Clyde that let's take some English words, the English word to in German spy or the preposition to is to a tongue, is a tumor in German. So you can kind of get the regularity go in the middle of a word. No water, Vassar Street Strasse. 33:10 It's really 33:10 Speaker 1 clear when you do it like that. 33:12 Speaker 2 Yeah, but here's the thing, like you have two, I don't claim that everyone should become an entomologist. Everyone should feel like, I don't claim that this is obvious. Oh, how dare you not. You know, about the second German shift, I don't mean to say that, I know that you have to go through certain steps to be comfortable with these, with these theories, but I just want to illustrate the be so useful and so were straight this. 33:37 I have never had a single lesson in Dutch. Never had a sickness in touch and if you've been to the Netherlands, you know, there's a foreigner. It's quite hard to actually speak Dutch because, if that's don't let you have this one story where I was with my fiance in the Netherlands. And we ask this older Couple. 33:53 I know it just took the German phrase for. Can you please take a photo of us? And I D Jimena fund it and I think it was something like in German you make a photo you don't take a photo. 34:10 So it's like been thoughtful, Martin Kerr originally, Kerr is going to be something like wonderful in Photo Market or in photo runs amok. Really terrible Dutch but it is kind of Dutch. 34:25 And this time and this gentleman like clearly said, the right thing because we sold a manic. He just turned around. When your touch is very good, that was about three or four years ago. And I've been riding the wave of euphoria. As we've talked about, I mean, you've talked quite a bit about sort of sound changes, sound blows things like that, what about 34:45 Speaker 1 meanings your etymology is associated with history of words having developed over time. So meanings got to fit in 34:52 Speaker 2 somewhere. 34:52 Speaker 1 Wait, where does that come into play? 34:54 Speaker 2 And it's fundamental, you know, you could say it's one of the two pillars of etymology sense and as well as we tend to divide the words and divides words, history and make connections between words based on two things. So that's when Michael form and meaning and form. 35:11 I mean in the general sense for most of the time its sound but sound of course, is not the only way in which we do language. It's also sign and you can do as managing sign language for example. But Meaning is crucial. There's absolutely a separate thing and I think a good etymology and by which I mean instead of tracing the history and making these connections back in time and across languages absolutely has to satisfy both, you know, it's entirely possible when I might. 35:41 You know, when one particular word derivation Theory it might make me squirm and it's not great. It's probably because it's not taking one of those boxes either the sounds don't match up For the meaning. You just really like I can't see how that's going on. 35:58 I had this conversation recently with was only was about the word else. In English, wasn't Christmas-themed. I was talking to a certain specializes in sort of a history of folklore and Magic. We may well be listening so quite Francis, he was asking me, it just checking something. 36:14 Well, elf is one of these words, we could probably say that it has a common Germanic origin. You can spot related words in In German and in I think, Swedish Norwegian and pretty pretty safe on that regard, they all mean something like mythological mischievous creature that mean like that and you know, there's a connection there to the Latin for the Latin word Albus which means White and the connection that they say there's a connection to be made there. 36:44 I mean to say is a connection that we could make it's plausible. It's plausible based on the sounds on the meaning that's Is doesn't doesn't doesn't fit, right, right. It doesn't, it doesn't how? And how would you get from one to the other? Absolutely crucial to kind of make these connections, you know, you don't need much to satisfy those two requirements. 37:06 If, in the case, if if we had like a single, you know, documented Source from the from, absolutely, the early days of the historical record. You know, we're really on the edge of the dish of the darkness of prehistory and we had one source, That said something like, oh I don't know elves as being the ones who are glowing. 37:28 So yeah, literally anything but because we don't have that it's just you know the the semantics the meaning of these words is absolutely crucial. So yeah, I it really does have a big part to play and I think to do etymology we have to have those two things going on at the back of your brake lights. 37:47 That's, you know. Okay. Yes. I would say that in the cases of The sound was I mentioned. And, you know, did this example of German, how it sounds shifted in a very regular way and kind of net? Nice neat way. That you can capture meanings. 38:04 They do follow, they follow Trends. They follow kind of common parts of progression. You can talk about General semantic shift so you can learn things like narrowing, a broadening. So that's a very common one. So you might know how Hound in English used to be the general word for dog and then, Dog, bizarrely. 38:24 Dog is one of those words in English, really don't know where it came from. And also why it Rose to to Stone standard status. While, herand narrowed in a sense that, you know, I don't know. I mean, our first like, I, like big Fierce dogs. 38:39 Where is it? Costing German didn't happen. Sits want this dog that has not changed? So there are these broad changes, sometimes it is just, it is just unpredictable. Um, so for example, German has two words for that German has Fleck and shrimp. 39:02 Sort of you can use them in different circumstances but they may really mean that these are related to German slim and slight which are adjectives of Sighs. It's not, it's not, this is not really a bad thing to be slim or slight. 39:17 I mean, it personal circumstances, you know, meimei Means so. But in general, you know, we could talk about all that sort of slim building or this is a this is a slight change so bad. So that's a kind of thing where the - has probably taken. 39:34 I think it's the German that has gone down by its own thing. Yeah. That's just like it's interesting. It's not very helpful for learning the language but I guess it goes back a little bit to Jim's. Question earlier about context, doesn't it? I mean where did because there 39:47 Speaker 1 might be a very specific context to that you don't know what's going to say is that is that Billy links to a time where beings of small Builders sort of you know, a sign of poor health. Yeah poverty. 40:01 Speaker 2 It could be you know there are all 40:03 Speaker 1 sorts of like just crack it is they just did they just figure out what 40:28 Speaker 2 These sorts of things then. 40:31 Speaker 1 So Danny. What is your favorite book about language? 40:34 Speaker 2 I think it for a general Linguistics book. I've always treasured David crystals how language works? I've really treasured that one. It absolutely. You know it got me got me started. When I was when I was a teenager very much, it's addresses and lays the groundwork for the way sticks and leaves. 40:52 He's up to the title. It does do what it says on the tin, it is how language works. So I can definitely recommend that slightly more specific to me and for any historical Linguistics and Isabel people interested in medieval languages, my sort of again, another book that I've just treasured and I have it with me here in Prague, don't have many books like the unfortunately. 41:11 But this one I couldn't leave behind would be the other Blackwell history of the Latin language. It's just one of those books. It's again, it's very specific to me. But if you want a book just First is written so well, goes to the whole history of the language and I still reading new passages. 41:28 I'm still coming back to it over and over again and certainly has lots of useful stuff for etymologists as well. 41:35 Speaker 1 What's your favorite linguistic, fact or idea? Tempted as I 41:39 Speaker 2 am to go for some sort of broads linguistic change something like Grimm's law something like, I don't know, some sort of very big sound change. I would say one just gives Eh, it's just some meat, it's such a nice bit of fact, we have these two linguistic terms in English teacher, but a bit of linguistic technology, we have Cal King and we have loanwords. 42:03 Loan word is when word is kind of borrowed as it is to take the form and the meaning, possibly with some adaptation and bring it into your own language. Cal King comes from, I think of the French word, meaning to draw. I think from calx, meaning chalk is where rather than just borrowing the word as it is. 42:21 You sort of Translate it into your own vocabulary. So German, for example, has a Lego German came up with the concept or a beer garden. Be a garden to English words, but it's from be a garden. So we chant we've made it English. As a sense, it's accounting is often called a loan translation when you kind of break apart and translate the constituents but still keep it. 42:44 Still, keep it neat. Here's the fact, the word loan word is a calque the word. Hulk is a lone wolf, 42:56 Speaker 1 very good, it's really 42:57 Speaker 2 fun. It's just gives me no pleasure that wall, definitely one of it as I hope I manage to do need someone packing but yeah, just love it. 43:06 Speaker 1 Yeah, okay. Last quickfire question, you've talked a little bit about how everybody should feel confident about looking for links. Between words, what one bit of advice? Would you give a budding 43:17 Speaker 2 linguist? Yes. All sorts. Probably overwhelmed, advice to be honest. Because I I've always loved just would love to inspire somebody first and first and foremost, yet practicing with languages. I don't mean to say this, in a way, like you have to know languages, you really don't could be your own language, but just dive into it, find languages, you know, read Around the languages that interest, you just just going to keep going. 43:40 I learn languages in the way that I just read about them often, very kind of more Technical and more linguistic way. But when I, you know what, I don't wanna do anything else, just to kind of, you know, keep going, keepo up. Just last night, I was reading something about Welsh didn't know before just kind of keeping going. 43:55 So just this dive in to explore lots of languages and that's not very helpful. Just, I mean to say, keep going more specifically use the internet. There are so many great resources. There are some great podcasts out there. These days, none come to mind at the moment. 44:13 So, you know, the lots of great podcasts. Lots of great, YouTube videos ones that really just take the time to unpack these extraordinarily powerful thing. Trees and make them accessible to know to whom you audience. If I had to be something concrete, something where I would just really recommend wholeheartedly read Wikipedia, I just, you know, there are a lot of these old criticisms of Wikipedia to the get thrown around. 44:39 Some of them are still rather than some of them are. I think no longer really applied because as time has gone by, it has improved itself. But just you know, you have these pages and obviously some are going to be more time Cool summer going to require more assumed knowledge and others but the fact that this exists, the fact that you can just dive into a page about the English language and it's you know it starts from the basics, it introduces it you've got all the history of both Knology and the best thing about it. 45:08 If you don't understand something probably just click on the word and it might be a link. We could be just pretty good at anticipating terminology that cannot be assumed for the reader and they may well insert some sort of pink. Yeah. Okay, it's not perfect but But you know what, a lot of wealth and if you are learning before learning a language and just think I know this language is making sense, how do I break down sounds? 45:31 Or the meaning or the word order? But what is the person going on my first quarter called the Wikipedia? Because I know some of the people who edit that and like they are linguists, they do due diligence and I think you can trust what they say. So that would be, that would be my first Port of Call and use that to just launch yourself into more helpful. 45:52 Linguistic goodness. 45:55 Speaker 1 Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thank 45:58 Speaker 2 you. 46:07 Speaker 1 Today's language in the news, our focus is going to be swearing which is exciting. I don't know if we'll have actual swearing in it. We'll see what happens. Jill did you want to talk to us about something that you found? Well, yeah, it was just me, interesting, spectacle of Christian guru-murthy, he is the nut channel 4 news. 46:25 Anchor who's been taken off the air for a week after making an offensive comment off camera about the Northern Ireland. Minister Steve Baker and She dropped to see Dom and it was what I was quite interested about was partly their reactions and how Steve Baker responded to the situation because he said, he didn't have a lot of regard for a Christian guru-murthy felt that he was misrepresenting situation through the construction of his question and he hoped that they sacked him. 46:56 But later on after Guma the apologized, very tweet, he tweeted that. He accepted the apology and Dated it. And clearly back down I was quite interested in the fact that it obviously released a lot of really intense feeling at the time, then climbed down from because I thought that that that linked very nicely to some other research that's come out recently about the use of taboo words and how pathetic they are and how that affects us. 47:29 And if somebody who does, like Open Water Swimming occasionally and see through it, I know that the thing that gets me through that initial shock of cold water is to swear incredibly loudly. Yeah, and one really, really pleased to find out that that's actually part of an experiment that was done with people were made to for us to put their hands in icy water. 47:54 And it was found that if they swore, well, they did it. They could withstand the pain for logging her. This is pretty well. Documented is that I think we talked, we talked about this with dr. Emma boo. Moon and the episode that we did about swearing was it Keele university? Did this? Did this study initially? 48:09 And I think it's probably been replicated a couple of times as well, but what absolute what absolute joy to discover. There's genuine anesthetic capacity in swearing, but that really interesting lie. If I remember the findings rightly lie, if you don't sway frequently, if you are a frequent swearer, the analgesic property of swearing is count. 48:34 That you have to be a non regular swearer for it to before it to work really. Well, this is a really interesting one. Eyed, I'm not completely sure why this made it to the news, given that the comment was made off air. Hmm? Yeah. I was it reported and why is it? Why have they taken him off? 48:50 Are for making a comment off are? I'm curious as to how exactly this made it into the new cycle, but it's interesting. It made it onto Twitter because if it was off there, you know, the recording actually appeared on Twitter soon after and i'mi'm watching it thinking, All he's going to be in trouble but also have funny it was, but I guess given he supposed to be a kind of unbiased neutral news anchor, you know you can't you can't necessarily be dropping the siwan to describe someone who you may, well think he's a Well w anchor. 49:20 And maybe maybe that's the idea. Is that it is that it doesn't fit with sort of this public Persona. Yeah. Also, the reason it was so popular is because is because the general public loves a good sway from a person that supposedly not meant to in inverted commas. Only, you only have to watch any clip of Maria margall. 49:37 He's tuned in to see to see the responses and of course, she really famous. Yes, last couple of weeks dropped. Some very interesting choice words about Jeremy Hunt this time. Yeah but not the sebum for him. 49:53 Yeah. And that that whole thing as well, about the kind of the that sort of release of swearing is quite interesting because there's Jill was saying that sort of, you know, it was that moment of frustration at the end of an interview could hear it was pretty, you know, he was He was obviously 50:05 Speaker 2 Krishnan guru-murthy was 50:06 Speaker 1 was clearly quite agitated by it and it did feel like that word was used as a real kind of release of tension. And you know 50:14 Speaker 2 swearing is got all of those different sort of functions, doesn't it? There's a really good 50:17 Speaker 1 episode of the bunker 50:19 Speaker 2 podcast if you have is have listened to which she's got a good sort of survey of some of those things. A lot of it does touch on the same grounds as Lisa was saying that we talked about with him and burn. There's a few other little bits in it which you kind of nice that was Jen's but also there was an interesting sort of Revival of 50:33 Speaker 1 a Worried about a kind of a Linguistics paper or two papers, I think around compound swears and I'm going to say 50:41 Speaker 2 a couple of swear words here. So one of the words and this actually it's one of my favorite swear words shit given but also they 50:48 Speaker 1 talk about words like fuck trumpet. And one of my absolute favorites which I don't think was actually 50:53 Speaker 2 covered in the original paper but we're going to put in here anyway flag shagger and why those are successful 50:58 Speaker 1 is partly about the kind of combination of 51:01 Speaker 2 the two words that form the compound and it's something to to do with the 51:06 Speaker 1 number of syllables that are 51:07 Speaker 2 involved. So starting with a one syllable word like 51:10 Speaker 1 shit and a two syllable word like Gibbon but also the kind of rhyming that takes place between those 51:16 Speaker 2 syllables, the kind of 51:18 Speaker 1 emphasis that you place on those syllables as well. Which I guess he's down to things like quite poetically. Like iambic pentameter is no. Yeah, literally states that there's this really, really glorious, and I say glorious for fans of swearing. If it's not for you, then don't go and look it up but strong Lang. 51:34 Did a whole blog post on it which again will link in the show notes where they literally lay out the pattern? And it is, it is literally about meter. So if I knew our students of literature as well as language, then this will make perfect sense to you. Otherwise, you might need to go away and have a look. But essentially, you have a single stressed syllable and then a second die. 51:54 Syllabic element with a truck aook pattern. So a stressed syllable, and then an unstressed syllable on the second part. And that seems to be the thing that really makes It work, the the metric pattern coupled with the two images that you get in something like shit Gibbon and they really do break it down for you in the blog post. 52:13 I highly highly recommended as a read and it's not as though compound swears or anything new. I mean, people have been using those for a long, long time. So so you know something like scumbag order to Ward or douchebag ones where you might add head or face or brains you know like you know dickhead shit-faced keep going Dad, no. 52:33 Right. Nope, jockey cetera. 52:38 Speaker 2 You know those, those are quite powerful, aren't they? But we gonna 52:43 Speaker 1 create what I really like about. This is to move on. From those ones is this thing about using animals as the second word? Yes. Yeah. Weasel. And one bottle of one book if I know there's also Trum pet and biscuit and things like that, these are all kinds of it would be really interesting to do a The study and again, look at the patterns of other qualities. 53:08 Are they all like, plus, innocuous, plus, soft, plastic eggs, biscuits, a nice to eat, that kind of thing. So you've got a really shocking. First syllable taboo, word plus something. That is really incongruous and doesn't really fit in the idea of swearing and that I think adds that sort of semantic layer. 53:29 So you've got the profanity in the taboo language but you've also got the Yeah, you like shit, but you're also like, you know, a weasel. Yes, I love that play. Interplay between, you know, real punch, and then just laughing in someone's face. 53:47 And that was that was actually one of the other features that we talked about with them a burner that aside from kind of analgesic properties. And the way that kind of swearing can work in a biologically speaking, and there are biological kind of consequences that a lot of people who kind of can't get behind switched. 54:04 Whirring in its social function, really really don't accept the idea of swearing as play or swearing his creativity or swimming, as you know, humor and social connection, which as we've just discussed, is it was a joyful thing to believe about you, fart waffles. 54:23 And before we go, we just like to give a little shout out to rather unusually the British medical journal who invited me on to be an expert panelists. All those in an episode for medical students and Junior doctors on accent and how accent can play into professional identity in the workplace. 54:42 If you're interested in having a listen, then go and check out the podcast which is called sharp 54:48 Speaker 2 scratch.