Babbel On: October 2018 Language News Roundup
A fire in Brazil, new additions to the dictionary and more from the world of language this past month.
By Thomas Devlin
A Fire At The National Museum Of Brazil Wipes Out Language Records
On September 2, a fire ripped through the National Museum of Brazil, and it’s estimated that 90 percent of the 20 million items in the collection was destroyed. Each of them is a painful loss, but one that particularly stands out is the Documentation Center of Indigenous Languages. The department contained written and audio records of indigenous languages that are no longer known, like Tupiniquim and Mura. It’s possible that because of this fire, these languages are now lost forever.
While no one could have predicted this catastrophe, the loss is especially painful because of our modern ability to preserve these kinds of artifacts. In 2018, you can record your own voice on your phone and preserve it seemingly forever, and it’s pretty easy to do. Why weren’t the last existing recordings of these languages kept in the cloud?
In a recent article in Wired, linguists from the National Museum of Brazil pointed at one problem in Brazil: not enough library science. Despite having amassed huge collections of cultural artifacts, the country just hasn’t invested enough resources into their preservation. And this isn’t to call out Brazil in particular, because it’s far from the only country where digital archives are in danger. It just happens to be the unlucky country that had to face the tragic consequences. The real issue for the lack of digitizing, though, is the cost.
The Wired article notes that there were initiatives to work on the digitization of the National Museum of Brazil’s archives, but it was basically an unaffordable process. In the past, language preservation projects have run up costs into the hundreds of thousands of dollars because the work is so long and arduous. But if humans want to keep the past alive, this work is necessary. There’s no telling what else we could lose.
‘Latinx’ added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary
Merriam-Webster regularly adds new words to keep up with the English language, and the latest batch was announced on September 4 with the addition of over 800 new words to its dictionary. There are words taken from other languages, like the Korean chili paste gochujang and the French restaurant term mise en place, tech terms like Instagramming and force quit, and millennial words that are “ruining language” like guac (short for guacamole) and hangry (when you’re both hungry and angry). One particularly interesting word doesn’t come from any of those sources, though: Latinx.
Latinx is the gender-neutral version of Latino and Latina, created by activists who want to get rid of the gendered nature of the Spanish terms. The concept has gained a lot of momentum in the past few years, but it has been around since about 2004. Last year, Babbel Magazine wrote about the rise of the term, and why people are for or against it. Deanalís Resto, who is Puerto Rican, believed the use of the word was necessary to break down the hierarchy in which the male Latino is the norm:
“A lot of people will be like ‘Oh, it’s just semantics, it’s just a word,’ but words are powerful. It’s awesome to feel like you’re a part of something bigger, even with one word. It feels really powerful.”
There is plenty of backlash to Latinx, which happens whenever there’s any kind of language change. First, there are those who think any attempts at gender neutrality is liberal political correctness. Then there are Spanish speakers who think Latinx is an English construction that is being imposed on them by people who don’t even speak the language(some prefer Latine because it could conceivably be pronounced in Spanish). And then there are people who argue Latino and Latina are bad in the first place because it’s a homogenous term that colonizers forced on disparate groups of people who don’t necessarily belong under the same umbrella. Still, Latinx has gained a lot of ground and, as its addition to the dictionary reflects, it is being regularly used by a large number of people.
Amateur Forensic Linguists Find Their ‘Lodestar’
It’s hard to believe, but just this last month, the New York Times published an anonymous op-ed written by a “senior administration official” in the White House. We won’t go into the details here because they were thoroughly discussed elsewhere, but to no one’s surprise, the internet exploded into speculation over who could have written the piece. Many people tried to think of who had the motive, but others turned to a single word as evidence: “lodestar.”
Basically, Twitter user Dan Bloom attempted to identify the writer of the op-ed based on the use of “lodestar” in the piece, which is also a word that Vice President Mike Pence has used in a few different speeches. At first, people took it seriously — how weird a word is “lodestar”? — but the theory didn’t work well. Real forensic linguists stepped in to point out that, well, that’s now how forensic linguistics works.
Forensic linguistics is a field of study that uses language to identify people. Babbel Magazine wrote all about it during this past month, and how it’s been used to solve cases, most famously the Unabomber’s identity. It’s also what identified Robert Galbraith as the pen name of J.K. Rowling. Cases like these are never cracked with just a single word, though, which is why “lodestar” doesn’t make much sense. Instead, forensic linguists look at much less noticeable traits — the frequency of words like “by” and “that” and “which” are notable. While it sounds strange, the frequency with which people use these function words can create a blueprint that identifies them. It’s not quite as exciting as finding a single word like “lodestar,” but it is definitely still cool.
Bonus Forensic Linguistics: Fans of Netflix’s American Vandal mockumentary series also got a dose of forensic linguistics when season two came out this month. The students/documentarians in the show used forensic linguistics on people’s Instagram accounts to help identify who was pulling all the pranks.
Babbel Bites
The Babbel staff’s favorite language articles from the last month.
What Is The Fastest Growing Language In The United States?
No, it’s not Spanish or German or any of the common choices. Quartz India reports that the fastest-growing language in the United States right now is Telugu, a South Indian language. Others on the top of the list include Arabic, Hindi and Chinese.
What Japanese Haiku Can Teach Us About Translation
Thanks to their brevity — 17 syllables in all, usually—looking at Japanese haiku can teach us a lot about the intricacies and messiness of translating from one language to another. Babbel Magazine looks at the lessons haiku can teach us.
France And The Language Of Occitan
France is noted for taking steps to control the French language — the Academie Française controls what language is “correct”—and they’ve also tried to keep other languages from being spoken at all. BBC writes about how France tried to forbid Occitan, and why the language and its speakers have not gone away.
Is Jargon Making Our Lives Worse?
Yes, jargon is just generally annoying — “Can we circle back on that synergy?”— but JSTOR Daily makes the argument that it is systematically being wielded to bend truth. For example, jargon-y phrases like “arbitrarily deprive of life” instead of “kill people” are able to change the emotional impact of a story, and this power can be used for evil.
How Australian English Grew Its Wings
To an untrained ear, British and Australian English can sound pretty similar. Babbel Magazine looks at the history of Australian English (and you can learn some fascinating Australian slang here).
On Liking Some Words More Than Others
In The Conversation, Spanish lecturer Carmen Álvarez-Mayo writes about why people prefer some words over others. A combination of phonaesthetics (the perceived beauty of specific sounds) and our personal experiences shape our word preferences. It would be impossible to pick a specific word as “most beautiful” or something like that — though Babbel Magazine has tried.
Why So Many Students In New Jersey Learn A Second Language
Last month, we wrote about a Pew Research Study that showed what percentage of students in each state are learning a foreign language, with New Jersey at the top. This month, NJ.com asked people why they thought New Jersey was on top, with demographic diversity being a key reason.
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