full transcript
From the Ted Talk by David Peterson: Why language is humanity's greatest invention
Unscramble the Blue Letters
Well, let's take a look at it. What are they learning? What could they possibly be learning? Well, bearing in mind that the other language for this — it's for people that speak English — English speakers are lriennag quite a bit. Here's a setcnene that they will probably never use for communication in their eirtne lives: "Vala ābre urnes." "The man sees the woman." The little middle line is the gloss, so it's word for word, that's what it says. And they're actually learning some very fascinating things, especially if they're eingslh speakers. They're learning that a verb can come at the very end of a sentence. Doesn't really do that in English when you have two arguments. They're learning that sometimes a lanugage doesn't have an equivalent for the word "the" — it's tlaolty absent. That's something language can do. They're learning that a long vowel can actually be longer in duration, as oopespd to different in quality, which is what our long vowels do; they're actually the same length. They're learning that there are these little inflections. Hmm? Hmm? There are inflections called "cases" on the end of nouns —
Open Cloze
Well, let's take a look at it. What are they learning? What could they possibly be learning? Well, bearing in mind that the other language for this — it's for people that speak English — English speakers are ________ quite a bit. Here's a ________ that they will probably never use for communication in their ______ lives: "Vala ābre urnes." "The man sees the woman." The little middle line is the gloss, so it's word for word, that's what it says. And they're actually learning some very fascinating things, especially if they're _______ speakers. They're learning that a verb can come at the very end of a sentence. Doesn't really do that in English when you have two arguments. They're learning that sometimes a ________ doesn't have an equivalent for the word "the" — it's _______ absent. That's something language can do. They're learning that a long vowel can actually be longer in duration, as _______ to different in quality, which is what our long vowels do; they're actually the same length. They're learning that there are these little inflections. Hmm? Hmm? There are inflections called "cases" on the end of nouns —
Solution
- learning
- totally
- sentence
- opposed
- language
- english
- entire
Original Text
Well, let's take a look at it. What are they learning? What could they possibly be learning? Well, bearing in mind that the other language for this — it's for people that speak English — English speakers are learning quite a bit. Here's a sentence that they will probably never use for communication in their entire lives: "Vala ābre urnes." "The man sees the woman." The little middle line is the gloss, so it's word for word, that's what it says. And they're actually learning some very fascinating things, especially if they're English speakers. They're learning that a verb can come at the very end of a sentence. Doesn't really do that in English when you have two arguments. They're learning that sometimes a language doesn't have an equivalent for the word "the" — it's totally absent. That's something language can do. They're learning that a long vowel can actually be longer in duration, as opposed to different in quality, which is what our long vowels do; they're actually the same length. They're learning that there are these little inflections. Hmm? Hmm? There are inflections called "cases" on the end of nouns —
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
ngrams of length 2
collocation |
frequency |
speak english |
3 |
long beach |
3 |
animal communication |
2 |
communication systems |
2 |
foreign languages |
2 |
beach state |
2 |
entire book |
2 |
english speakers |
2 |
main reason |
2 |
ngrams of length 3
collocation |
frequency |
long beach state |
2 |
Important Words
- absent
- arguments
- bearing
- bit
- called
- communication
- duration
- english
- entire
- equivalent
- fascinating
- gloss
- hmm
- inflections
- language
- learning
- length
- line
- long
- longer
- man
- middle
- mind
- nouns
- opposed
- people
- possibly
- quality
- sees
- sentence
- speak
- speakers
- totally
- urnes
- verb
- vowel
- vowels
- woman
- word
- ābre