Noam Chomsky - One Human Language

[@bijofrancis1114]

I can't find any modern day intellectual like him so I often come back to listen to this guy . Noam is legit.

[@tomcotter4299]

Peterson is the modern day Chomsky.

[@edwardjones2202]

​@@tomcotter4299 Categorically not. Compare "Maps of Meaning" with "Fateful Triangle" or "Deterring Democracy" Pretentious, pseudo-intellectual babble Vs concrete, amazingly well documented and trenchantly argued political analysis infused with deep social concern

[@nicolaslegrand9414]

@@tomcotter4299Cough ... !!! No. Point.

[@Istariable]

Maybe not on youtube. You will prolly find serious intellectuals in cientific papers and books, not blogs, vlogs or whatever.

[@feelwang]

This train of thought is fast, stable, totally under control.

[@lorenzomcnally6629]

It's called sociopath Marxist semantics sociopath.

[@Truepumpkin]

Very basic point I know, but I'm always so amazed at how thoughtful and ahead of his time Chomsky is. The man understands the nuances of global politics so well and it's crazy to think he's talking about this in the 1990's yet it is still so pertinent today.

[@5eek3r0fknowl3dg3]

i was thinking same thing about frog analogy

[@tasheemhargrove9650]

This is similar to biological and genetic diversity among organisms. On the surface, it seems as if there's so many different humans and human societies, human cultures etc, but it's superficial. To call a %1 difference in genes and/or biology diversity can only be superficial. When other organisms see humans, they'd have a hard time distinguishing between different individuals and groups.

[@ObjectiveAnalysis]

Tasheem Hargrove exactly. Well done for breaking through the capitalist/fascist propaganda

[@lucasrandel8589]

I don't see this as a profound point at all. Why would we care if a marsman wouldn't see the difference in our languages? To us the differences are still important. We don't learn anything from a marsian perspective.

[@tasheemhargrove9650]

@@lucasrandel8589 *Why would we care if a marsman wouldn't see the difference in our languages? * The same reason it would benefit frogs to care about the human perspective of frogs. As Chomsky pointed out, to the species (in this case, frogs), our subjective experiences may make superficial differences seem much more significant than they are in objective reality. *To us the differences are still important.* This right here is an issue. Because what does this mean? If we collectively as a society agree that a concept is important to us, does that automatically equate to that same concept being objectively true? I think most reasonable people will say no. Objective truth is most important for all of us, and any advanced civilization attempting to understand the world as it is, as opposed to how it'd rather the world to be. Our subjective opinion of what's important to us is valued only in our imagination; while, objective truths have the largest effect on objective reality. So a hypothetical martian species, who isn't limited by humanity's biased view of itself, will have an easier time detaching themselves from the human subjective experience and can study the human species in a more objective manner. In the case of language, Chomsky is pointing out that it's clear to any outside observer that the "diversity" in language that we perceive as humans is superficial. In other words, we're obsessing over differences of less than 1% merely because most of us are incapable of, or just never think to zoom out of our small slither of reality and try to understand reality as a whole. The idea that "To us the differences are still important" is an example of human beings missing the forest for the trees. Even though it may be difficult to see the entire forest when you aren't above, but on the ground with many trees in your way, it isn't wise to assume that the one section of the forest that you happen to find yourself in is indicative of the entire forest. This is why wars and arguments over things like race, religion, or nationality seem so absurd when you're looking from the outside in. Because it is absurd. The people engaging in it are missing the forest for the trees. It's like two frogs fighting to the death because one frog thinks that dark green frogs are inferior to light green frogs. I hope this clears some things up.

[@lucasrandel8589]

@@tasheemhargrove9650 I guess my problem is with the notion of 'objective diversity'. Catagorization of any kind is done from what you would call 'subjective experience' or what I would call 'perspective'. Say you're a creature that only eats triangle shaped things. You would lump all non-triangle things together as non food and make huge distinction between different types of triangle. Similarly a creature that really likes squares and nothing else wouldn't see the difference between a triangle and a hexagon. There is no objective middleground they're both working from. Though After rewatching the video I understand how the martian perspective helps explain the diversity in laguage away. In order to make the point or a universal language. I still don't think it can be used for much else though, and I actually don't think Chomsky was arguing that. Because understanding that certain differences are relatively small from an outside perspective doesn't solve the problem of difference. Let's say we live together and have to agree on what to have for dinner. I want pasta and you want pizza. Understanding that from an outside perspective they are both 'wheat things' won't make me desire pizza any more. Simillarly in for example religious wars, just because outsiders can't see the difference between one God and another doesn't mean the differences are trivial. they are very significant to the people it matters to.

[@dionysianapollomarx]

@@lucasrandel8589 you're conflating a set of categories with another. This is the same line of thinking that underlies the criticisms of generative grammar and the integrated causal model of psychology. What Chomsky does is making the analogy of a faculty of mind such as language that is universal with that of an arm or a nose of a human that is also universal. What is happening with the mind is that it manifests externally different iterations of the same universal mental faculty. You're conflating this notion of diversity with a diversity of opinion. That is beyond the scope of the current argument.

[@eyesofpicasso]

I love the chomsky sense of humour: "apparently he's a total crook, but he ran on an independent ticket, so everybody voted for him..."

[@Name-jw4sj]

Dude, Chomsky is low key a comedian. He always has a great joke in his speeches unintended or not. He has a great sense of humour.

[@lunaridge4510]

@@Name-jw4sj Jewish sense of humour, like the human language, is imbedded into the DNA.

[@bdbtbb]

It would be interesting to know when this talk was recorded.

[@dhanajit]

Given in the source link description: Professor Noam Chomsky delivers the 20th annual James R. Killian, Jr. Faculty Achievement Award and Lecture, titled "Language: the Cognitive Revolutions," on April 8, 1992.

[@n.j8622]

Strongly recommend to read Hannah Arendent .

[@martinpollard8846]

when was this early 90's?

[@karanajaya151]

What's innate capacity that you said in your Linguistic book really is? I ever read in your book book entitled " Syntactic structure" I am an English teacher at Unversity

[@angelhernandezand4245]

Angel Hernandez López

[@luisathought]

Thank You

[@cherylmburton5577]

It sounds like "God made humans in His image" male and female.

[@lorenzomcnally6629]

Via Karl Marx his God.

[@cherylmburton5577]

Yes, he appears to be a subtle Atheist, who dances around his talk on responsibility of Intellectuals.

[@cherylmburton5577]

@@lorenzomcnally6629 You're right, who gets some of his material from the Holy Scriptures and then fills in the rest with his philosophy. Maybe the opposite of St Thomas Aquinas.

[@lorenzomcnally6629]

@@cherylmburton5577 He fills his semantics with Marxist economics cliches and Platitudes. Decades of cliches. ZERO solutions Just Marxist BS.

[@bernardvantonder7291]

Brilliant

[@sallysarchive]

When was this?

[@ince55ant]

6:43 scotland still pushing and the world is unified in its fragmentation. wonder if this was during thatcher...

[@djtan3313]

I get him.

[@illygah]

Noam isn't an academic. He is a scholar, he understands things because he's a scribe. His confidence is so because it is true.

[@lorenzomcnally6629]

True forced labor, starvation and disease. Socialism and KOMRADE CHUMPsky.

[@shadrackomulepu1771]

In the case of English being a universal language, when the balance of power shifts, so will language. Not many countries still speak Greek.

[@angelhernandezand4245]

Angel Hernandez and

[@Tiqerboy]

I think probably the most obvious thing any alien would notice about human language is that they all share this common trait: Every language is based on dialog. In other words, one person speaks, the other listens. Then that other person speaks and the first person listens. There is no such language on this planet that requires both people to be speaking at the same time.

[@chomskysphilosophy]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/nXLQaZiblMuipas

[@derekhollingsworth1704]

Chomsky has said the primary function of language is thought, not communication

[@ximono]

Is that Lex Friedman asking the question?

[@Pedro-ds3cq]

People just dont get his theory lol

[@MegaArroman]

Lex Fridman asking the question?

[@Ichorof]

Is that fucking Lex Fridman asking the question??

[@cabwaylingo_]

not many quite like him

[@KittredgeRitter]

It's a slight difference. Ha! You mean in comparison between us and frogs?

[@MRender32]

No, not between us and frogs. Between frogs and other frogs.

[@surplusking2425]

Even human and frogs have enormous similarity in biological sense. for example both have mouth to swallow nutrition unlike other lifeforms like sponge and shiitake mushroom.

[@قتقبتقتقيت]

in one language, we have a lot of languages, the height language, the language of the literary with complex system complex sentences, his just in Majste places .the second courant language, the language of the school and unversite college with simple systems simple sentence the family language no systems on order in the sentence in this language we have special between two people it is alsoe language in one language we have alot of dailacates a lot of accents in the same country this just miracle of Allah: وخلقناكم الشعوب والقبائل للتتعارفوا: ::the meaning that Allah created us people to know etechorhter the best of you ho or her have the best heart and clean herat :::وإختلاف ألسنتكم: :::the meaning that Allah created us with different tongues with different language's just to know etechorhter and to respect and we have the special language and general language just fro diversity that give us richness in culture to this environment spoken: and we have language spoken and language non spoken language of the body that just represent that the language it important and necessary and it just the windows of the cognitives of human kind all the respect with the peace be upon us.

[@MrMjwoodford]

Well, he was wrong - so far - about the status of English in the world, as its continued to grow and taken on its own momentum.

[@viviandarkbloom8847]

what he said here is that there are more and more papers written in other languages, which is quite true. A decade ago I could have never imagined to find material on Computer Science written in Vietnamese.

[@brandonszpot8948]

He wasn’t speaking about the “status” of English.

[@tombombadil9123]

I like the subtle joke about the French. It's funny cos it's true - they ARE all Frogs 🤣

[@cmattbacon7838]

Ribbit 🐸

[@atomoyoga]

Maybe Sanskrit is the base of language as we understand it today. They focus in the sound and the phonetics for vowels and consonants depending on the points of pressure in the mouth and throat... ❤Chomsky is pure wisdom ❤

[@brandonszpot8948]

That wouldn’t be the case as we know that language had already existed for a long time before Sanskrit was spoken as vernacular.

[@atomoyoga]

@@brandonszpot8948 probably Africa had already many languages too...

[@kairavideshpande6508]

Sanskrit alphabet (or the abcd of Sanskrit) is organised in a phonetically ordered way (in the sense that the velars are grouped together, affricates together, all aspirated sounds in order). This does not mean Sanskrit language has different sounds that other languages do not, or that it has more, or even that it is the "original" language. Maybe it means that the person who laid down the sounds together knew a bit of linguistics. :p

[@atomoyoga]

@@kairavideshpande6508 the chicken or the egg? We would have to ask Panini then. 🤗 Yes you are probably right. They did have to have a system of organization to end up with the conclusions of the differences of the pressure of throat, tongue, palatine, dental, limps, semovowels and vowels. 🤗 Om! We will explain the Shiksha. Sounds and accentuation, Quantity (of vowels) and the expression (of consonants), Balancing (Saman) and connection (of sounds), So much about the study of Shiksha. || 1 | Taittiriya Upanishad 1.2, Shikshavalli

[@lucasrandel8589]

I guess he was wrong about the growing diversity. Isn't all academia done in english now days?

[@araponga.revolucionaria]

no.

[@brandonszpot8948]

It might be hard to believe, but there are many places on this earth where English isn’t spoken all that often

[@lucasrandel8589]

@@brandonszpot8948 and those places tend to not have a lot of academia

[@brandonszpot8948]

@@lucasrandel8589 Except that they have far more than they used to in a relatively short amount of time. Even 50 years ago, you’d be hard pressed to find a textbook on computer science written in Vietnamese. The fact of the matter is that academia is far more diverse today than it ever was, and proportionally English academic literature makes up far less than it once did.

[@holgerjrgensen2166]

They all speak fluent global, No, they Dont, just saying global all the time, global rhyme on local, 'pedo-foni' is also human. Development of Language and Consciousness, is two sides of the same development. 'Language without Mathematic, is not a language, and Mathematic without language, is not Mathematic'. Our Eternal Life- and Consciousness-Structure, is basicly very simple, mirrored in the rainbow. The Green color refer to Intelligence, the basic-picture of our Consciousness, show a Circuit, (Circuit-Principle) and a circuit present Perspective, (Perspective-Principle). Short told, Intelligence means Logic and Order, the Perspective-principle means, relations of all realations, or all relations relationship. So, this is the very Kernel of the Nature of Mathematic in a Eternal Perspective. The most basic in the Organism-Structure of the Living Beings, (Life-Units) is the Masculine Princip, and the Feminine Princip, as stands for Sending and Recieving, the basic in all and any communication. The end of a Developing-Circuit, is beginning of a new, and high'er. In the developing-Circuits the Consciousness and Language is going to be re-newed, In the Plant-Kingdom, communication is mainly of chemical nature. Campell monkey's, is a first example of word-bending in Animal Kingdom, Worst danger from, - Ground, Tree, and Air, is base-words, if less worst, an 'o' is added, they have about 12-15 words, exept 'come here', all is warning-words/call. Our language-developing in childhood, mirror the Langauge-developing of mankind, first we can one word, then two, and then it 'explode', and soon after we say, - one, two, many, Piraha'-people dont have numbers, but say, - some, more, and much. Esperanto is the real International Language, it is 100% logical/Mathematical, no exceptions. English might be the most common language, but it is still a national language. Only about One (1) million out of 7.000 mill. speaks the International Language. At last, economic reasons will force Esperanto into common use, but it might first be about 500 year from now. So, Esperanto is the final step in a long developing era, of the Language, but after the mathematification of text and spoken language, the communication will be of 'direct psychic korrespondance', whole-psychic, (or half-psychic, via medie,) which means 'living pictures', live-pictures, thought-pictures. Through our experiences with dreams, we all ready have an idea of this nature, Living pictures, word-less messages, warnings, greetings, yaeh, and even 'physical' hugs, this is in a horisont of 3,000 years.

[@KozzmoKnight]

Interesting, he's not wrong, he's not right either. He has gone too far into the camp of biological phycology, or what could be called the diagnose and medicate industry. People think differently due to their language. There is empirical evidence to support this. www.edge.org/conversation/how-does-our-language-shape-the-way-we-think I agree with him a Jungian level that there is a collective consciousness, and this creates a universal bond of language recognition. However, even his arguments show its own fault. He says if you take someone out of Africa from a tribe with no outside contact for thousands of years, and raise them in Boston, they will speak English with a New England accent. yes, but they would not speak their native language or have the same mannerism than a sibling who was raised with the tribe in Africa. Then that leads to another problem, if you had twins, raised in this situation, research shows that they would have behavioral commonalities. I don't have a study on that, I have seen them, I'm a twin, so it is something I have an interest in. That would indicate that there are both environmental and biological forces at play. His theory of language is a good starting point, however, it has flaws. It is not consistent with all of the empirical data. This becomes important in my research on PTSD and Dissociative identity disorder, which are actually the same thing, just in varying degrees.

[@قتقبتقتقيت]

all the languages they came frome the tree 🌳 called the indo-européennes tree, and we can see that the language they created for their specific environment, the meaning that Allah created the language's from the environment like Allah say: واختلاف ألسنتكم: the meaning that Allah give us ditterent tongues 👅 this ditterent tongues look like them our environment all the languages strated in the sacrificed places in the 🕌 the mosque and the eglise ⛪️they borne in good place that meaning they are frome Allah and fro one language we have a lot of leveles we have the family level with of different vocabulaire and grammar and we have the courant language it the language fro the school and unversite with vocabulaire and grammar and we have the height language with of course complexe grammar and complexe vocabulaire it the language of the literary the language of it stay the source of sceince all the respect fro the father of the linguistic moderne and grammar generative.

[@sheafisher3578]

At first he says he suspects increasing uniformity and then for the second question he says he suspects increasing diversity.

[@oldboy9267]

I don't think you are quite following him. He is talking on two different subjects with similar applications.

[@nuckinfuts7502]

No he’s saying from an extraterrestrial non-human perspective we are all the same but in our narrow human perspective we actually care about our differences however small they may be. Think about American football fans. From an outsider’s perspective, they’re all just watching the same sport but if you ask two diehard fans from rival teams how they feel about the other well all of a sudden there’s a world of difference haha

[@chicofogaca]

I don't subscribe to his ideas. His way of thinking oversimplifies the enormous differences there are among languages and cultures. For him it's all about the mind and biology, with no concern whatsoever about social interactions, and the social evolution of languages. Makes no sense to me.

[@Lightsomewise]

Read the Quran before it is late

[@nyccolm]

Chomsky has an adept mind. You can see it is difficult for him to have patience with stupid questions, especially when those stupid questions have long ponderous introductory statements designed to “show off” what the speaker considers to be their cleverness, but what is in fact not very clever at all. It’s like listening to a first- year university student at a frat party.

[@julianfischer2341]

There are many other factors outside of "power" that would lead English or another language to become the dominant language: Transportation, trade, technology, the internet, historical context, among others. The fact that English is an efficient language helps too. Power also plays a role.

[@noj996]

don't all your said examples entail power?

[@westleygreenhalf2338]

And possibly empowerment. @@noj996

[@derekhollingsworth1704]

I think all your examples are examples of power. I'm not sure what you mean by efficient. English is a difficult language to learn being made up from so many fragments with irregular verbs etc. It is socio-economic and political 'power' that drives it.

[@julianfischer2341]

@@derekhollingsworth1704 With regards to efficiency, one can be concise and articulate in English without using too many words. That's what I meant. That's partly why English has been adopted in settings like aviation and mathematics. I agree it is a difficult language to learn coming from many other languages, more so initially. The production or evolution of language isn't exclusive to power dynamics. For example, spoken poetry and music or verbal expressions of joy and beauty are not necessarily about power.

[@derekhollingsworth1704]

@@julianfischer2341 Hi Julian, when you say English is concise, in comparison to what other languages? I agree that the production of culture through language occurs organically. What doesn't usually occur organically is language shift - the move from one language to another. In this domain power is key.

[@OmarAhmed-od9rf]

Lex Fridman speaking??