Babbel On: July 2018 Language News Roundup
The death of Koko the sign-language gorilla, stories about language at the World Cup and more from the world of linguistics.
By Thomas Devlin
Koko The Sign-Language Gorilla Dies At 46
Koko, whose full name is Hanabiko, is a western lowland gorilla who was born into captivity at the San Francisco Zoo in 1971. The gorilla was used for animal behavior studies, and eventually fell under the care of Penny Patterson, an animal psychologist. Starting from an early age, Koko was taught a version of sign language that Patterson termed “Gorilla Sign Language,” as it’s not exactly like American Sign Language or any other sign language out there. Still, over Koko’s life, she learned over 1,000 signs, giving her a complex, if somewhat rudimentary, means for communicating with humans.
There is some debate over exactly how advanced Koko’s language skills were. Penny Patterson’s research has argued that Koko’s sign-language development mimics that of a child learning a first language, proving that gorillas and humans aren’t so different after all. On the other hand, there’s been strong criticism that Koko’s abilities have been greatly exaggerated on purpose, or perhaps the researchers have interpreted the sign language too loosely. There is a possibility researchers fell for the Clever Hans effect, meaning the people who spoke to Koko were subconsciously signaling with body language to indicate which sign Koko should use. If that were the case, it would mean she didn’t know what she was signing.
No matter what, Koko did expand our understanding of animals. It will take more than one gorilla to prove that non-human primates can learn a language, after all. Her greatest contribution was opening our eyes to new possibilities, and getting people around the world excited about the possibilities of human-animal conversation. And even if she did not have as complex a vocabulary as Patterson recorded, Koko did prove that gorillas have a language ability beyond what was previously thought.
The Future Of Queer Language
June was Pride month, the annual celebration of all things LGBTQ. In honor of that, Mic wrote about the possible future of queer language. As more and more LGBTQ identities enter the mainstream and words originated by queer people are used by more people, it’s worth thinking about how the lexicon will continue to change.
It should first be noted that language is a particularly hot-button issue in the LGBTQ community, because it takes a lot of work to create new language that is accurate, inclusive and agreed-upon by everyone. You only have to look at the word “queer,” which has been an ongoing battleground. The word, which started as a slur primarily for gay men, is now used as a positive term for anyone who does not conform to old standards of straightness. The acronym LGBTQ has also gone through dozens of iterations, and there’s still no consensus on the best way to represent the wide range of identities that make up the community. As sexuality and gender norms continue to shift, the language that is used by people will change.
Queer language is not all labels, however. There’s also the lexicon of phrases like “yass queen,” “throwing shade” and “kiki.” And while these phrases may sound modern, they’re actually pretty old. These phrases can be heard in the 1990 documentary Paris Is Burning, which is all about the lives of drag queens. They just feel new, however, because they’ve finally broken into the mainstream, thanks to representation in shows like RuPaul’s Drag Race. The Mic article notes that a lot of this slang is actually appropriated from the black community in the United States, which is something that continues to be reckoned with, but today, they are inextricable from queer culture. There’s no saying exactly where queer language will go, but it will continue to innovate and find new ways to include those whose identities do not easily fit into the English language as it exists today.
Language At The World Cup
The World Cup is one of the most important sporting events on the planet. Bringing together 32 teams from different countries to set aside their differences and compete is no small feat. One of the most notable features is the linguistic diversity that comes with an event like this. To celebrate, here are a few stories about language at the World Cup:
- During the World Cup in 2014, the podcast The World In Words talked about how the different teams communicate with each other without a common language. FIFA lists four official languages, but referees are only required to know English, making it the lingua franca of soccer.
- On a smaller scale, The New York Times published a story about Luis Soto, a man who lives in the Peruvian Andes who’s broadcasting his coverage of the World Cup in the indigenous language Quechua. It’s the first time the Peruvian team has made it to the World Cup in over 30 years, and Soto is using this opportunity to help revive the Quechuan language family.
- Also in The New York Times is an interview with New York Times en Español editor Paulina Chavira, who fought for the Mexican soccer team to add accent marks to their uniforms. Before, people named Hernández would have HERNANDEZ on their backs, which is a carryover from long ago when adding accent marks was difficult (think typewriters). The team made the switch this May, just in time for the names to be accurately represented at the World Cup.
Babbel Bites
The Babbel staff’s favorite language articles from the last month.
In Space, No One Can Hear You Scream — But They Can Hear Russian
The strongest rocket program in the world is currently the one in Russia, and because of that, Russian is the de facto language of space. Space.com looks at how, as space travel becomes more ambitious, working with nations to choose a single international language of space will be an important and difficult process.
What Do You Call The @?
The @ symbol started as a rather insignificant symbol, but thanks to email and social media, it’s now ubiquitous in cultures. Babbel collected the various names for the symbol, because they are all very different, and some are hilarious.
Using Your Eyes To Talk
For people who are paralyzed, communication is a huge issue. Without the use of your mouth to speak aloud, or your hands to use sign language, it’s almost impossible to communicate. To address this, design agency TBWA/India designed a simple “eye language” to help paralyzed people communicate.
How One Man Created A Written Language From Scratch
Creating a written language is not easy, and creating a written language without knowing any other written language is almost unimaginable. Babbel writes about one Cherokee man who did it, though, and about how he brought attention to Native American languages.
More Words For Happiness
Emotional words are a rich resource for “untranslatables,” because it seems like every language has words for a feeling that just can’t be captured in other languages. To look into this, and to enrich people’s feeling vocabulary, Tim Lomas has created a small dictionary of terms from around the world and the emotions they express.
Counting The Many, Many Languages Of India
Despite certain misconceptions that everyone in the country speaks Hindi, India is home to hundreds of languages, many of which haven’t been very well studied. Atlas Obscura writes about how Ganesh Devy launched the People’s Linguistic Survey of India to get a more accurate accounting of what everyone speaks on the subcontinent.
Alexa, parlez-vous français?
Wired documented Amazon’s years-long quest to teach their robot assistant Alexa a new language: French. Alexa already spoke English, German and Japanese, but each new language is a somewhat difficult task, and it exposes the complexities of language.
On The Choice To Raise Your Child Bilingual
Teaching your child two languages is inherently useful, because knowing two languages is better than one. But when the second language isn’t really that popular where you live, it can be an uphill battle. Keith Gessen writes in The New Yorker about deciding to teach his son Russian in the United States.
