When does a word become a word?

In case you didn't hear the triumphant fanfares or spot the vibrantly-coloured processions of jubilant lexicographers dancing in the street, yesterday was Million Word Day. Except it wasn't... and that's why the aformentioned festivities didn't actually happen. You may remember that in a previous post on this blog I talked about the Global Language Monitor's prediction that the English language would reach its one millionth word on 29th April 2009. Well, the day has come and the day has gone, and according to the GLM we still haven't quite got to 1 million. In fact, they've now moved the projected date for Million Word Day to around 8th June 2009... and this is not the first time they've changed their minds (they originally said we were going to become linguistic millionaires three years ago!).

All of this speculation and uncertainy has prompted discussion in the media of what actually constitutes a word. Can, for example, short-lived slang terms be classed as words in their own right. Are we going to let 'text speak' words into the dictionaries if they show signs of having crept into our spoken vocabulary? These are some of the questions addressed in this video report from the BBC. Members of the general public are asked to give their views on words such as chav ("It's a term that's been coined... it's slang... I don't think it's a real word.") and LOL ("Everyone's using it.. it's fun."), while a lexicographer from the Collins Dictionary points out that "a word needs to be used in a wide variety of [contexts] for it to be included in the dictionary". The report also looks at some of the new words that are helping the language to clock up its one million - words such as Obamamania and to defriend (the process of dumping someone from your list of firneds on Facebook).

In another part of the same report the issue of 'word death' is also discussed. Professor Mark Pagel from the University of Reading observes that words like to stab and to throw have a relatively limited life span of about 800-1000 years, while words such as I, to, five and who can be around for as long as 20,000 years. This in itself ios not surprising, given that the words in the latter category are either function words or fundamental basic content words, while those for which he predicts a shorter life belong to the content or open class word group, where, as we know, new words come along and de-throne old words all the time!

A special edition of the Forbes Magazine has recently looked at this issue of language growth. You can read the full article here, but I've picked out a few key points form it below.

On the issue of the one-millionth word:

An outfit called the Global Language Monitor claims that English is about to add
its millionth word, boldly (and absurdly) projecting the event to transpire some
time around June 8, 2009. But that gives the patina of precision to the
ultimately subjective task of determining what counts as "English" nowadays--and
what counts as a "word." Even if we content ourselves with the paltry number of
neologisms that get included in dictionary updates, it's instructive to see
which words make the cut. Recent additions to the Concise Oxford English
Dictionary, for instance, include biosignature, botnet, locavore, mocktail,
plus-one and vanity sizing. In some cases we know exactly where these words are
coming from. Locavore, meaning "a person whose diet consists only or principally
of locally grown or produced food," was coined in 2005 by a group of four San
Francisco women who challenged local residents to eat only food grown within a
100-mile radius. It was then picked up by like-minded activists around the
country.

On the issue of new prefixes and suffixes:

Suffixes and prefixes are the Legos of word-making, handy attachments we slap
onto words as needed. Most don't make us blink: like the "pre" and "s" in
"prefixes" itself.
Others are a little more creative, gaudy and
eye-catching. It's no longer unusual to spot "-y" suffixed words like "women's
magazine-y" and "false-prophet-y" or words with " 'tude" such as
"braindead-itude," "poor-human-being-itude" and "warlorditude." There's nothing
new about "nano" in conjunction with a very small iPod or scientific words like
"nanotubes," but slangy, informal words like "nano-brained" are adding fancy new
features to the insulter's toolbox. The celebutante-inspired prefix "celebu-"
has spawned many recent coinages such as "celebu-tats," "celebu-chefs,"
"celebu-ooops," and "celebu-scent."

On the issue of words that have come into the language from the world of gaming:

Sometimes new words are not invented, but are crafted from old words. In
gaming, a "griefer" is a player who intentionally disrupts the gameplay of other
players--a griefer gives other players grief. Gamers took a word that already
existed and added the highly productive suffix "-er" to make a word that fit
their language needs. On the history of new words:
Shakespeare popped off
hundreds of neologisms, such as "excellent," "lonely" and "leapfrog," that have
long been accepted as words, but which, if dictionaries were being written in
Elizabethan times, would have been flagged as suspiciously colloquial. Given
that it is nearly impossible to create a word for something out of thin air and
see it adopted by the rest of the English-speaking world--i.e., if you randomly
decided to call the cover for your memory stick a "verch," no one else would
join in--most of the words that have accreted in the vast English vocabulary
over the 2000-plus years of the language's existence have been created in
various ways.

LAD plays a part in second language teaching

I've just stumbled across this article that talks about a new method for teaching adults a second language that draws on the nativist theory that we all have an innate capacity for language development. The process outlined mirrors precisely the stages of language development that children go through when acquiring their 'native tongue'.

In theory, there is every reason why this method should work - if learners have already gone through these processes of acquisition as a baby, then it seems reasonable to assume that they will be able to repeat their successes as an adult learning a second language. An interesting idea...

Linguists go bananas over chimp talk

WARNING!!!

THERE IS NO TRUTH IN THIS POST.

THIS ITEM WAS POSTED AS AN

APRIL FOOL'S JOKE.

INCLUSION OF ANY OF THIS MATERIAL IN YOUR EXAM PAPERS COULD SERIOUSLY DAMAGE YOUR RESULTS!!

(JJ - 2nd April 2009)

After years of carrying out extensive research trying to find evidence to support their hypothesis that Bonobo chimpanzees are capable of developing human linguistic skills, scientists are claiming this week that they have finally found conclusive proof that humans are not the only mammal that can ‘talk’.

Studies of Bonobos’ comprehension of human language have been going on for years, with linguists such as Sue Savage-Rumbaugh of Georgia State University (USA) publishing countless research papers focusing on the way in which apes can be taught to recognise basic human words. Well known among today’s psycholinguists and anthropologists is the case of Kanzi, an adult female Bonobo chimp who was able to demonstrate understanding of simple instructions issued in verbal form by Savage-Rumbaugh and her co-researchers. But this considers only the comprehension of human language – and let’s face it, even dogs can be taught to obey basic commands such as ‘sit’ and ‘walkies’ (not that I’ve got anything against dogs, you understand – I’ve met some very intelligent dogs in my time, to be fair… smelly, like most dogs, but intelligent nonetheless). Anyway, where was I… yes, even dogs can be taught to understand some basic human words. It’s one thing to say that Bonobos can understand what humans are saying, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that they are capable of language production. Even Savage-Rumbaugh’s evidence suggesting that these primates can be taught to use basic sign language as a means of communicating on a superficial level does not really provide convincing proof of the existence of an ‘articulate ape’.

But that’s all about to change! In research that is due to be published this week, another team of linguists from the Department of Linguistic Science at University of Thistlebeer Oaks in the USA are claiming that, given the appropriate exposure to a basic model of human language, Bonobos can actually acquire the ability to use human language in its verbal form and to hold spoken conversations with humans.

For the past six years, Professor of Linguistics Juan Foronign has led a small team of researchers who have lived 24 hours a day, seven days a week in the company of a pack of wild Bonobos deep in the heart of the jungle in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Prof Foronign recalls that at first the Bonobos were very wary of the researchers’ presence and it took “more than 18 months for the Bonobos to start behaving normally” in the presence of the team of linguists. However, once the researchers had become part of the furniture, so to speak, “the Bonobos began to lighten up… and this was when [the researchers] started to observe some very interesting behavioural patterns”. What the professor goes on to describe in the preview to his forthcoming publication Bonobo Chimpanzees and the Acquisition of Human Speech is nothing short of breathtaking.








“After some time living with the chimps, one of the younger Bonobos started to become very friendly with some of the researchers, and would actively seek out their company. At the very start of our research project we had named all of our Bonobos after famous linguists and anthropologists, and this was the chimp that we had called Rillfeul (after a mid-20th century psycholinguist whose work was among the earliest to focus on the language skills of primates). Rillfeul, a young male, would interact with the team, offering them food and ‘inviting’ them to play with him. Part of this interaction would involve certain basic vocalisations, and it was only when our researchers began to observe certain patterns of sounds and consistent responses to the same stimuli that we began to notice something more than just basic ‘chimp noises’ going on.”

The scene that Prof Foronign goes on to describe is fascinating… and more than a little unnerving. He explains that, as time went on, the behaviour of this particular Bonobo would become more and more human-like, and that he would mimic certain body language features and, more significantly, linguistic vocalisations of the researchers. The two linguists to whom Rillfeul became most closely attached were both native to the Congo, and both spoke Swahili as their first language. Amazingly, Prof Foronign goes on to describe what he claims to be the acquisition of elements of Swahili by this primate:

“At first it would just be the odd word here and there, and our first thoughts were that it was just a coincidence that Rillfeul was using what sounded like Swahili lexemes. But after a while we could not ignore the fact that these lexemes were being used at the appropriate times – in other words, the Bonobo would use a specific word in relation to the object – or even concept – for which a human speaker would use it.”

This went on for four or five years, and Prof Foronign describes a pattern of language development during that time that was not unlike that of human babies – that is to say that Rillfeul gradually developed the skills to articulate fully-formed complex, multi-word sentences, and to use these accurately and appropriately in communicating with humans. Furthermore, as the linguistic skills of this chimp developed, the researchers also began to observe signs of verbal linguistic behaviour emerging in Rillfeul’s mate, the young female they had named Rank (after American cognitive linguist Mary-Jane Rank). The research that is to be published later this week shares with the world the linguists’ astounding observations of this process of language development in these two primates:

“These two Bonobos – recorded in our research files simply as Ape Rillfeul and Ape Rank – are without a doubt the first primates to have acquired human language – specifically Swahili”.

In presenting his team’s findings at the 2009 Psycholinguistics Symposium in Geneva later this year, Prof Foronign is expected to show a video of Rillfeul, the male, articulating in very clear Swahili “Hyor s’ohgh ullib li’fyu buhll ee’fen yofth iss” which, roughly translated, means “Would you like to share my bananas with me”. On the same video footage (which you can access on YouTube by typing in “Ape Rillfeul’s Day Has Come” – but which cannot be linked here because of the college web filter doodah) the primate can also be heard saying “aymjh ust’wayn d’inyupph” which in Swahili means something along the lines of “I’ve an awful itch, old friend, I don’t suppose you would mind scratching my back for me please”. Astoundingly, Ape Rank obliges!

So what do you think? Evidence that ‘we are not alone’ after all when it comes to the one thing that most people argue distinguishes us from the animals, or just a load of monkey business? Post a comment below and have your say.