**This class will be taught on Zoom**
“Eskimos have many words for snow”, “A language is a dialect with an army and a navy”, “Aborigines speak primitive languages”, “English has the world’s richest vocabulary”, “Children learn languages more easily than adults”, “Languages die because they are not fit enough for the modern world”, “Animals speak their own language” — you’ve probably heard or read these statements, but are they actually true? In this course, we’ll examine these and related beliefs about language and we’ll investigate what aspects of them are true and what aspects are false or even nonsensical. In doing so, we’ll explore such topics as language diversity, language history, language acquisition by children and language learning by adults, animal and human communication, and much more. We’ll also consider where language myths come from and why they tend to persist despite all the scientific evidence to the contrary.
Week by Week Outline
1. “Eskimos have many words for snow” / “English has the world’s richest vocabulary” – Do the words of our language determine how we think about the world? Do some languages have more words than others, and does it matter? Do all languages have words at all?
2. “A language is a dialect with an army and a navy” – What is a language and what’s a dialect? Does everyone speak a dialect? Are some languages or dialects better than others?
3. “Aborigines speak primitive languages” – Are some languages more complicated or complex than
others? How do we measure complexity at all? Do all languages have grammar?
4. “Children learn languages more easily than adults” – How do children acquire their mother tongue? And what about other languages learned in school? Can adults ever learn a language as children do?
5. “Languages die because they are not fit enough for the modern world” – Are languages more or less adapted to their environment? Why do some languages die and others don’t?
6. “Animals have their own language” – How do animals communicate? And how is it different from how humans communicate?