chronicled. this is the most definitive chronicling of china's contribution to science in the world. she said you ought to read this if you want to understand where the boom is coming from. it's not new. it's not like yesterday they discovered science or the discovered tel aviv had been there 6,000 years and here is the guy that put it all together from a very good book and she said you all to read it. so, i've got a lot of books i started this book and i have to start it again because i forgot some of what i read in the first part, but these books will keep me occupied this summer. >> tell us what you are reading this summer. send a tweet at book tv. up next on book tv, linguist john mcwhorter argues languages are not rigid constructions that rather open to growth by continuous usage.

mr. mcwhorter reports only 200 of the world's 6,000 languages are written hospital, this is about 30 minutes. >> thank you for coming every ready. i'm going to start by reading briefly from a book this is from the beginning of the book and a book where i hope that we can look at language and a happy way than we are often trained to so this is a happy book and this is how it starts out. introduction page through a grand book on what was once known as natural history as we also often do and you will find that almost all drawings of marine life are rendered from the perspective of someone standing on the shore. there will be some fish bobbing around out in the waves and may be flying fists doing what they do. but the clans, squid, enemies and such will be flying on the

beach or artfully positioned on the conveniently placed rock formations or even dangling from the margins. this is the standard procedure in illustration to pass the middle of the 19th century. it all looks nice enough but wouldn't it seem more natural to draw a squid swimming in the water fierce and alert institute putrefying on a rock? but then what was natural to someone in 1840? even if they were a naturalist one thing that wasn't natural if you think about it was imagining what an underwater scene looked like for a simple reason. people back then didn't have the technology to ever be under water for very long and certainly not to be able to see much will even making a stab at it. there were no diving submarines. you might take a deep breath and hold your nose and a dive under but water is often muddy and it's hard to see through when its moving plus you can only hold your breath for so long and certainly not long enough to plunge a mile down and get a

peek at inglis officious and such. in england it was only after the home aquarium in the 1850's that people started to get a sense of what aquatic creatures looked like in life such that illustrators' began drawling underwater marine scenes. before this as modern as the british war in so many ways, even those with advanced educations, three names and south forks had no way of picturing undersea life in the jacques cousteau nature to us. to start thinking of sea creatures in that way you had to see them that way. and in many ways quite often to be a linguistics to feel like you are under water in the 1840's while everybody else is on the beach playing jellyfish on to the rocks. it's because so much of the language is so hard to see or hear. so from what is easy to see and hear we learned of their languages and then in many parts of the world there are assorted

dialect's and these dialects are in some sense lesser than languages. part of the difference would seem to to the fact that as one typically supposes, a language is a collection of words. english has enough to fill a doorstop like the oxford english dictionary. some have dialect out there in the rainforest doesn't and therefore qualifies as something different from a language and then there's the riding issue of the language isn't fixed on the page then surely we suppose it has not achieved its full power a certain transience see it is just a dialect in other words. because of this it becomes natural that if asked which is more complex, the french or the language of the tiny group in new guinea called the [inaudible] most people would suppose the answer is french the developed the language after all. the truth however begins with the observation that if you fault the two tenders were annoying imagine having to deal

with 100 genders. down underwater what we see is a world with 6,000 to languages period. even if there vocabulary's number in the tens of thousands if anything the languages that are a little so ordinary or special as we might and gifted sort of person typically the rock star once like english and french and mandarin chinese. but we will never meet much less have any reason to learn the language. besides, we are too busy attending to other notions about our own language such as an of the greatest flaws of the anglophone is the propensity to use the language illogically. we are taught that a languages sensible and such the we treat it as an oddity that english is shot through with inconsistencies and richard has heightened the festivity quotient of many e-mail in box of excerpt that get around his

crazy english book along the lines of unloosen or lose in the same if we conceive a conception and reception why don't we grieve of aggression or observations such as the there's no a a an eggplant or ham and a hamburger. this is but the tip of the iceberg of the nonsense account of the english. under water you can see the rest but we are terrestrial, not to mention to editorial. don't even get most of us started on what happens when the language is mixed together. spanish, full of english words is reviled by many and fought as an issue by others and there is even a time that more than a few had a serious problem with hinglish having taken on so many words from french and latin after all a real languages pure. here's what feels like to be under water. one reads a perfectly pleasant newspaper article about people in the caucasus mountains a patch of the region home to

several dozen languages. the one closest to the famous is jordan. one of the other ones mentioned in the article spoken only by about 1200 people in a few villages is called for our purposes and in the article what we learn? only that it is a language of the unknown origin. otherwise the articles of the jokes in the nearby caucasian language speaking groups tell about one another. i'm not waiting for a newspaper writer to give linguistics lessons, but given the on the beach perspective on the language that rains, it's hard not to feel like something has happened when a language like this is like in passing especially as an orphan. attention must be paid if not in the article them somewhere that the unknown origin business for example with the quote implication that as a kanwit sort of thing or she is all alone as it is outside of the light and less than something a

dialect perhaps to read to be sure, if the idea is the language origins must be on paper than archie is lost indeed. it's been spoken language rather than written like all but about 200 of the world's 6,000 languages. but paper isn't the only way to tell where the language came from. a group of similar languages such as french, spanish, italian, portuguese and romanian began as one language which split off into several when the populations become separated over time. linguists can compare the word for something and related languages and deduce with the word was in the parent language. now we know that works pretty well in cases where even the parent language was written down for prosperity for a sample hand is in french mono and in portuguese and romanian. no link list is surprised based on the techniques of what is called competitive reconstructionist, the latin word for the hand is honest in

the same way archie is one of a passel of kittens a language family called for whatever it is worth 46 caucasian. if the word for tonga is muts and in chechen and moz [inaudible] and so one than linguists can use those words and fullback the tape and see that the original word in the parent language even though it was never written down. so, orgy is not an unknown origin of all. it's brown from a posture from the language probably spoken about 6,000 years ago. if anything it is a better known corrigendum most of us are as people. most of us have no records of our ancestors further back than four or five generations and certainly couldn't reconstruct them from our dna and our relatives. the world is bursting with language families of this kind whose ancestral language can be reconstructed in the same way as

the caucasian were above. that's enough from the book. anyway the book starts out like that and that is just the introduction. with the point of the book is is to show that there is a world of wonder about their linguistically that it's hard to get a sense of because we don't know what people are saying and we don't encounter those languages but it is amazing as the variety of flora and fauna and once we realize that there are 6,000 truly fierce languages out there instead of there being maybe 100 languages and then a whole bunch of dialect, than we are in a position to understand a lot of things about english that are harder to understand if we think that english is a normal language. so just by way of preview, one of the main points of the book is that if you go to a place where about 2,000 people are speaking the language you never heard of it, nor has anybody

else, it's never been written down, then an understandable idea must be that that must be a language that is less sophisticated in some way than japanese or spanish or some language spoken by people with tall buildings and airplanes and the new yorker etc. that is a natural sense that you might have gone and it's actually the opposite. if you see a language that is unknown spoken by people who are outside of what we might call civilization, be prepared for the grammar of it to be so complicated that you can't believe that human being sexually speaking while walking at the same time. [laughter] its english that is a little dandong compared to the languages like those because of english's history, which is a rather unique one that is shared with just a few languages in the world. when adults have to learn a language it changes it forever and it makes it less like archie. that's what happened so english

was learned by a lot of vikings started in 1787. there were no books for them, there was no berlitz, there was no school. they just heard it. they were vikings, they were busy coming and they did not learn holding english well. as a result, they knocked the cases to pieces and toward the conjugations, they spoke the way we would spiegel english if we had to learn very quickly on the fly and nobody taught it to us or corrected us. and as a result, old english became what we are speaking, this strangely genderless language, this language where your conjugation of paradigm in the present is walk, walk. what other language have you learned where that is all there is? owls because the vikings. they did that. as a result, here we are today. there are some languages like that. persian is another one like that. but talked about in the book, i encountered persian. when he was caught in the rain, this is back 15 years ago it is an apartment complex and it

started raining so hard. it was really like something out of a movie. and so he for some reason was caught so i let him in and he's 106 and on at the time was about 22. we had nothing to talk about. so i figured she clearly seeks something so i figure we are going to use language. he said persian so we started going through the persian grammar. it was on the elementary for the language and i didn't know anything about persian of the time by learned since that was a language of an entire. a lot of adults learned it and it became the anguish of its group. posture of its relative. persian is different and there are various languages like that. if you realize that the languages are only easy by accident and that normal languages are difficult and you notice that languages in the normal state are extremely irregular and so we worry when english doesn't make perfect

sense and we don't like that people confuse alladi and lay and people say fewer books less than they say less books but then if you look at a real language like say navajo there's no such thing as a regular verb. you start to learn and think their must be a pattern. the new figure there's the pattern did you learn another and it's nothing like that one and using cocaine their must be to conjugation class's like spanish and the third is nothing like the ever to and you figure the three and then a couple days later two space 17 and they don't do anything like one another. you figure how many classes are there? pretty soon you've learned hundreds and none of them are alike. it is a completely regular verbal system. babies learn this and because they can that is the language is like. if you look around the world, what you see is that there are countless languages. 6,000 is the typical house, and

some of them are rather streamlined and user friendly. they tend to be spoken by a lot of people and they tend to be language as a vampire and therefore i am speaking one of them, but most of them are hideously, marvelously fascinating and complex and that is a lot of what linguists actually do for a living. ..

>> these languages of our very much real, complex, just like notre dom or giant squid did or like anything else that is complicated that seems it may hurt you. this book, what is it isn't an what it could be is designed to ensure you into how wonderful the world of

languages as opposed to the view that there are fewer languages than a bunch of dylex and the main thing there is to think about most people do not speak it properly that is a very gloomy way of looking at things. i want of happier way. this is my half the book. i will be happy to take questions. thank you. [applause] >> are the more complicated languages they tend to write them down because they were more complicated? >> no. that is interesting idea. of language could be hideously complicated and it

could be written down. any islamic language stayed at the way they work until the advent of printing and widespread literacy. to start from the ground up with russian to get somewhere to not be living with your married to a russian is difficult. i still somebody who studies it as a hobby i still quietly think it is a hoax nobody speaks the language. [laughter] but yet to it is written and that's busy easy one. if you try to learn polish you will have a stroke. it can be very complex they get complex because baby k and turn them that way. like a snowball rolling down the mountain and the baby can take anything and in buy the time they lose that capacity to late coming they

already speak polish that just goes on a generation after generation. it amazes me to hear toddlers speaking languages that are extremely complicated and they have busted me already. but that is the way that it is. >> what about lose a language and you lose a culture? >> a language is a big part. not everything. i hesitate to stress that too much because we're losing languages at a rapid rate and i am supposed to say we are fixing that but to be honest i am not sure how much it can be fixed. keep being the smaller one spoken is hard sell when a languor wage dies, a lot of

coulter dies but we need to look at the fact you can have a culture that is different from the mainstream because we will see more of that. so let's say you are a native american and you have lost touch with navajo and the language has died. it is hard to bring a language up from the page. do want to tell the person there for you are not navajo even though the language is gone? that is not the happiest news. there is a calculation made in 100 years there will not be 6,000 languages but 600. also said of language dies every two weeks. one language that i feature is a marvelous thing called

ket and the grammar is so complex professional linguists did not figure out the verbs until 15 years ago. bill looks like there is no sense. it is more like a rule of some and you can barely believe people speak it. 3,000 people speak it. but there was an article i read it is not 500. that is difficult to reverse. unfortunately that is true. >> if you are a tourist and one to use language to break through cultural barriers barriers, it is so hard to learn a language how can you get at it? >> it is.

even if you can speak it badly then you have made a major accomplishment. i am sure there's a certain reason the it in terms of learning a foreign language were there is nobody in your home who speaks it, i know of only one way that really works and i mentioned this. take the word of sommeliers but it is a belgian and english it is called spanish without toil for example, which is the awkward translation. but they are not known that much credit you sit down 20

minutes per day, giving this to unwilling people. [laughter] they have these exercises come i learned to speak confident hoarded german from this book. [laughter] you are approximating the case is a and this is the complement that you get. genuine part of the first ever went to germany i was eating and joking with the interest and sound like a chimpanzee and one guy said you speak german better than anybody that has not spoken german. [laughter] they have a wide variety so i do suggest that but you have to use rosetta stone for past joe that will be on tv but i recommend the magic book.

>> [inaudible] [laughter] and. >> that is very controversial and linguistics. i will give you the muffin answer. the question is, do languages make people think differently? says that make you look at the road with the different sets of glass is than another language? i would love it if that were true. many linguists would say

yes, if you speak korean been you see the role differently than if you speak french because of vocabulary divided up different a. if you put a video cassette into a box that is different than a candlestick into a holder. that means curious the pudding different and a french. that is vague month and answer meeting comfortable. [laughter] this is not my area but i have thought about it the current research shows language grammar does make you think of sphingosine slightly different ways but it is not that we would think of as interesting or much fun. french has gender and is

surrounded you do an experiment with french people and ask them if they table or cartoon character would speak with a high voice are low voice french people are more likely than english speakers to say it would speak with a high voice that correlates that if it is seven. but if you know, and a french people they don't walk around that tables don't shave and darth them in than print run of i am interested that the french person is more at -- more apt to think the table talks with a high voice. [laughter] if i were a psychologist i would find those more interesting but as a person watching, i don't believe in that idea but there are people who have been studying this harder than me who would tell you that they do.

that is my genuine answer which is no. >> what about african languages. >> what about them? [laughter] >> the languages. >> it is fun and 70 asks a question like that. there are many languages in africa. not that there is in a one family with variations. i cannot think of a single one thing to say about african languages except a great many of them are impressive. you have the click languages they are not expressive you do not call a leopard to say it is interesting it is just like our letters b, d, or l

talk about the languages indoor fur, no rule for the plural every now has its own plural and you have to know every single one. everything is child or children or shelf and everything is different. there are a semitic languages related to arabic and hebrew that include the deal been stationed you can languages if you know, their big board hebrew one where you could have fun if you are bored is to mention some words from arabic or hebrew and the waitress will say that is my word that is what languor a.j. is like a and africa. [laughter]

>> i am curious how dylex have fewer words and proper languages? >> what do you mean? >> wouldn't there be the same number roughly that. >> do you mean that languages spokane by small indigenous groups have a smaller vocabulary than english? >> >> what i think you are referring to is if english has 170,000 words and you are not supposed to say what the number is therein is a different word from was. i don't care but look at the oxford english dictionary, it is 170,000 words. it is true if you look at

one of the isolated indigenous languages they do not have 170,000. how many is hard to say because you're not one of those people who compile the word list was probably a somebody from michigan. it is probably tens of thousands but the fact is that even within the tens of thousands of synonyms and shades of meaning and a lot are considered words and english are not. for example, we have the word ruth that means mercy. that is not a word is just in there because somebody put it there but that is not a word if you subtracted them the typical english speaking college graduate knows then you get closer to the 30 or 40,000.

but certainly the larger developed languages to have a larger vocabulary is because you can catch them all in amber in the big dictionaries and also words for us down to go out of style because you can capture them in dictionaries but in the indigenous culture a word will be used hundreds of hundreds of years then it drops away and then in nobody remembers that at all. that does not have been with us. i think that is the answer to the question. >> that did it if we can give a round of applause. [applause]

>> i think probably everybody in this room wearing a uniform are here because of the board e those one way or another if you think back to when you joinder made the decision and probably have something to do with that. either you felt you have the warrior east coast or competitive and looking for a venue. to say i want to join the most you need to unit or maybe felt there was the absence of that in your life to wonder if i going the right way are headed for jail or a life that allow bring out what is in me so you say i want to go somewhere where the code of honor exist and can be taught to me.

and i hope that is what you are. the other thing that is honorable this it is a choice of we were born in ancient sparta or macedonia there be no choice is the only thing there was but you have 100% of the armed forces coming out of 1% of the population. that is a real choice of ready-made but if you think about it, the values of the civilian society not knocking anything are quite opposite to the warrior ease those values. the conscious choice is pretty amazing so let me talk about of values.

the paramount valued if this make a xerox star or donald trump life liberty or the pursuit of happiness is held out and rightly so. when you chose the warrior alisos, a duty becomes the value. and service asea cannot wear your hair in a ponytail or for another couple of months put the second value the greater culture at to large holds the pie is the pursuit of affluence and celebrities so somebody like donald trump is lionized where

nobody will get rich in this room what the warrior culture offers is honor. i will tell you a few ancient stories today. but went under siege by the athenians, the spartans came to their aid. whenever they helped another country than ever since monday or army but one man, a general who would kick them into shape. when he came to syracuse, it was a very wealthy city and the sleeper of a virtually had no army. he had to form an army. and when he went to pick his officer corps, to give these

instructions come a search for men who care not about welfare power but who crave honor. i would guess that is what is filling this group here. another difference this in civilian life, people want the creature comforts, air-conditioning, and the easy life if you could take up till to lose 20 pounds you will do that but the warrior culture the embrace of diversity, the rougher the better and when people tell stories in the warrior culture, it is always the most hellish stories possible. right? i am a marine and when they talk about their history they don't talk about the great but the worst casualty

scenarios. that is one of the great warrior virtues. one other thing in particular, i think you guys are the pinnacle of the warrior ethos. not because the special forces soldiers and to do not work with indigenous insurgency or something like that, in then to exercise influence without a 302 make

people do what you want to do by many of our power by personal magnetism and honor and integrity and warrior hood that is as high as it gets. i salute everybody for that. so what i think the warrior ethos is, i will start with the stories from the book stories about ancient sparta i am talking about the classic old-time ancient warrior ethos i hope when we get into questions i would love to hear what you say about rules of engagement and the dubious gray areas these are four quick stories about the sport 10 women.

they come from plutarch with sayings of the spartan women i highly recommend it. a messenger returns to start from a battle and the women gather to find out what has happened to their men. 91 mother the messengers says your oldest son was killed facing the enemy. of the mother says he is my son. your younger son is alive but he ran away from the enemy and she says he is not my son. this second story another messenger returns from another battle and the mother approaches to say how fares our country the herald

says another, i am so sorry to tell you all five sons were killed facing the enemy and she said you fool i did not ask about my son's i asked about our country. we were victorious. then i am happy and goes home. the third story, how to brothers were fleeing from the enemy toward the city and the mother happen to come down the road. she lives her spirits over her head its and says where do think you are running two back here from whence you came? [laughter] we do not know the end of the story but hopefully they went back. and then the final story is she hands her son a shield

and as she sends them off to battle says comeback with this or on it. that's his day hard-core culture when your own mother kicks you in the ass there is something to that. but it warrior ethos probably the ball out of the primitive hunting man and the virtues that were needed only after armed to with a couple of spears to take on the mastodons it was designed originally to accomplish two things to overcome fear and to make people work together. since this year is the most

primal the motion, others had to be brought into counter that in a cultural way these third three things that were recruited that was honor and shame and love people think of shame not as a positive but almost every great warrior culture is a shame based culture whether the samurai culture whether they suffered dishonor to kill themselves and also pashtun is a shame based culture so is the marine corps and certainly is part of going back to those

stories when you think about the mother whose son was alive but had run away from the enemy to say he is not my son. that is the application of shame to make people go forward. there is a great story about alexander the great. excuse me. when he and his army were in india by teeing almost 10 years come in the army was ready to revolt alexander called the whole army together and stripped naked in front of them. you could see it across his body was one wound after another with arrows and rocks and javelins' and boulders and everything possible and he said to his

men would get these wounds there were all got for you in the service and they're all on the front. not in the back if any one of you can stand fourth to strip naked beside me and yours are greater than mine my will turn the army around right now and not a one-man came forward instead they burst into a cheer and eight forgiveness for want of spirit and only to move lead them forward. it is great leadership that the application of shame. and to summoned the spirit their worthies and those of shame if someone fail this