Babbel On: The Top 10 Language Stories Of 2018

Here are the biggest linguistics, language and culture stories from the past 12 months.

It’s been a long year, and one filled with tumultuous events. You can read any number of summaries of the year in Trump, or the year in Brexit, or the year in Macron, but sometimes it’s nice to step back from political stories. To give you a different look at 2018, we collected the 10 biggest language stories of the past year (in no particular order).

1. Netflix Ramps Up Its Non-English Content

There was a time, not too long ago, when watching something with subtitles meant you were some kind of art snob. That’s no longer the case, though, as Netflix, in its quest to dominate all media, has made foreign language a staple of its shows. With TV shows like Elite and Terrace House, Netflix is exposing audiences to more languages and cultures than they’d had access to before. Read More

2. Yanny-Laurel Annoys Everyone

If you saw one language-related story this year, it was probably this, because for about a week, it was everywhere. A recording of the word “laurel” made its way onto Vocabulary.com, and it was found by a student who was confused why she could only hear “yanny.” It was only a matter of time before it was posted on Reddit, and as it spread across the internet this past May, the world was divided over whether it said “laurel” or “yanny.” The best explanation for this phenomenon is that because the sound file appears in isolation and is very noisy, your brain is forced to choose which noise frequencies in the recording to emphasize. What the brain chooses varies from person to person, thus leading to the divide. Read More

3. Pronouns Could Be Used To Diagnose Depression

As depression continues to impact people around the world, researchers are trying to find new ways to diagnose it. One diagnostic method was looking at a person’s writing to determine if a person with depression writes differently. While some takeaways from this research were a bit obvious — depressed people use more negative terms, for example—there were also stylistic differences. The extensive use of first-person pronouns (I, me, my) over third-person (they, he, she) and the use of absolutist terms (all, nothing, always) over non-absolutist (sometimes, most) were both indicators of depression, even though it’s not immediately obvious why. While it’s not yet being widely used, early tests show that these signs are very accurate in diagnosing people with depression. Read More

4. French President Emmanuel Macron Unveils Push For French Language

English has become the lingua franca in a number of countries, and not everyone is happy about that. This year, French President Emmanuel Macron unveiled a plan to make French more popular (it’s currently the sixth most spoken language in the world). The plan includes promoting French online, in foreign classrooms and in Africa. This last point, however, was not taken well by everyone, with some pointing out that the plan is pushing a colonial mindset. With more French speakers outside of France than in it, the language is likely to keep growing no matter what. Read More

5. ‘Black Panther’ Brings Xhosa Representation To The Screen

Black Panther dominated American culture in the first half of this year, and for good reason. It’s both a landmark in representation, and also just a well-made film. It also featured some interesting linguistics. Despite the film being set in the fictional African country of Wakanda, the non-English language used in parts of the film was Xhosa, one of the official languages of South Africa that is spoken by about eight million people. The accent used in the film, however, is not South African. The dialect coach who worked on the film designed a whole new way of speaking so that Black Panther could sound like it was set in Africa, but not in any specific place in Africa. Read More

6. A Fire At The National Museum Of Brazil Destroys Language Records

On September 2, a fire destroyed 20 million artifacts in the National Museum of Brazil. There are so many individual tragedies stemming from this single event, but perhaps one of the largest is the loss of irreplaceable indigenous language recordings. While certainly not the worst museum fire in history, this event once again spurred discussions about conservation and the work that still needs to be done to protect important cultural artifacts. Read More

7. Twitter Becomes Home To Amateur Forensic Linguists And ‘Lodestar’ Truthers

This past September, the New York Times published an anonymous op-ed by someone who was part of the Trump administration and who claimed to be part of “the resistance.” Of course, people immediately started wildly speculating about the author. One of the leading early ideas was that it was Vice President Mike Pence, and the whole theory rested entirely on the use of the word “lodestar.” Real forensic linguists, however, pointed out that a single word basically never indicates an author (plus, it can be purposefully misleading), and that really, you need to study things like preposition frequency and phrasal verbs. This may sound less fun, but it’s actually pretty cool that small factors like these can identify a person. Read More

8. Starbucks Opens A Store For American Sign Language

In a move to increase accessibility, Starbucks opened its first store designed around American Sign Language this October. Located near Gallaudet University, a school that uses both ASL and English, the Starbucks is staffed with ASL-using employees and signage that feature the non-verbal language. While this is only one store among over 14,000 in the United States alone, it provides a proof of concept that can help accessibility advocates in the future. Read More

9. Koko The Gorilla Dies At Age 46

Koko is arguably the most famous gorilla to have ever lived, and so her death this past June was a major deal. Koko’s apparent ability to understand humans and communicate using sign language was seized upon by the media, turning her into a celebrity. Her death also brought up allegations that Koko’s abilities were greatly exaggerated, however, and it isn’t helped by lingering controversy (including sexual harassment allegations) at the Gorilla Foundation, where Koko lived for most of her life. Whether Koko truly understood sign language or not, her life did a lot to shift our conceptions of language and our fellow primates. Read More

10. Artificial Intelligence Remains At Front And Center

The language stories that will affect our lives most in the coming years are almost definitely those about the evolution of artificial intelligence. With Google Home becoming bilingual, Google Translate addressing its biases to become more effective, and machine learning slowly improving its ability to process language, artificial intelligence is improving by leaps and bounds. And while computers are still not even close to as good at language as humans are, it’s only a matter of time until we’ll have to contend with talking, actually intelligent robots. Read More