Awww!!! Who doesn't love babies? (Besides the vast majority of my friends.) Me personally, I love babies right when they're getting up into that age where they're talking and making little gibberish noises. I'd have full out conversations with my nieces and nephew when they'd be gabbing up and storm, but it never made sense on my end what they were saying. I just thought it was funny to watch them as they got so excited to talk with me. I guess, at least according to this article, that they may have actually been making sense all along! Huh! Who knew!
According to this article, baby chatter is actually a language all of its own. The concept is interesting and it piqued my interest because my newest niece is very deeply in her chattering stage and learning new words everyday. I think that this stage in language development is vital to children learning language (though I am clearly not an expert.)
I can definitely see myself agreeing with this article (especially since I've always been a firm believer in speaking proper English and like adults to babies. [Though I'll be the first to admit that I start making the noises around a cute baby.]) In all of my experience with babies, I've never seen a child in my family have a hard time grasping the concept of language, but we always spoke to them like normal people. Most of the time. I completely agree though that babies have a language all of there own! Hell! My cousin and I still speak ours on occasions!
I didn't particularly wish to go and learn more about the topic, just because of the time crunch as well as I don't believe it's something I really need to know. Babies have gibber jabbered for ages and they're going to continue gabbing before they learn language. There currently isn't a way to decipher what their meanings are, so I don't truly see a reason to go out and learn more about it.
This topic can relate to the world because the world is always going to have little munchkins running underfoot, so it's nice to have a better grasp on how they learn language and what's totally normal for them. I believe this concept applies to all language-learning infants and it will continue to apply towards them for a long time.
Well, that's all I got for you tonight guys! I'm sorry that it was a bit rushed and sloppy, I'll have something better next time!
Signing Off!
Juliana Mandile
Hello again to you all! Now, I don't know if you're like me at all (though I'm sure we all have at least one of these moments once in our lives) but do you ever just stand there, red and flustered in the face, flailing your arms and searching for a word that doesn't exist? Or is it just me? To be totally honest, I experience lexical gaps (now I know the word for it is a lacuna!!!) on a daily if not conversational basis! There are ideas out there that I just want a word for! (For example, that FUWBBUWBWUBWUBWUB noise you get while wiggling a piece of sheet metal.) Now, at first, this video just seemed fun and silly because it was talking about a word for a non-virgin, but it quickly gained far more interest to me when it began talking about lexical gaps and how all languages have them.
Interestingly enough, I know very little about linguistics (though I call myself an English major and I get a happy tingly feeling within my soul as we discuss language-y things in class.) I found though that I'm constantly trying to fill my own lexical gaps by constantly making up words to fit what I want. Not very English-Major of me, but it works and keeps me happy. The video gave me a new word to add to my vocabulary though and made me giggle with glee!
Once again, I don't think there's much to agree or disagree with this video (it's pretty much an informational video). If I had to pick a side though and discuss what I'm agreeing with, I'd say yeah! Post things you think are funny and learn new things about them! In all seriousness though, lexical gaps are something I wish we had less of or that we could find ways to fill.
After watching this video, I have the sudden urge to run out and see how many lacuna's I can come across in a week and then look into something even more curious to me- are there actually words out there for what we want and we just don't know them, or is it a true lacuna with no real word within our English? I have a feeling that if I actually find the time to do so, it'd make for a very fun and interesting research project!
Lacuna's are aspects of every language (as mentioned in the video about Romanian and their lack of a word for 'shallow'). It's curious though that if we can describe a phenomenon, why do we have no word for it? Not just in English, but in all languages. Why are lexical gaps possible and how could we bridge these gaps? What would happen to language in itself if we found a way to name everything? Could it possibly lead to creating a universal language? All of these questions swim through my head and it makes my inner nerd giddy.
Well, I think that's it for this week! See you all for Blog #4!
Signing Off!
Juliana Mandile
Hello again my darlings! Today I was able to locate this, oddly fascinating article about a mutual word (and feeling) most of us understand on a deeper level.
Huh?
That's right! One of the most universal words that we can all understand is "Huh?" Which in my case is a wonderful thing! I know that throughout my day, on average, I use the word 'huh' or 'uhh...' at least twenty or thirty times. So, finding this article made me VERY happy to know that if I was ever lost in a foreign country, there's at least one very large part of my vocabulary that other people would understand!
Now, I don't know about you, but finding words that are similar ("amor" vs "amore") just make the little perfectionist inside my head scream and shout for joy! Knowing that there's a word that can be understood in any language has me literally bouncing for joy right now. In the video, they mention the concept of a universal language and how there's been several attempts throughout history to unite us under one language... As appealing as this sounds to me, I think it would be a horrible idea. Like we've been learning in class, our languages help form our thoughts, and our thoughts are what make us, well, us. Our languages give us a uniqueness that makes us unlike anyone else who ever is, has, or will be living.
Something that drew me to the article (as I stated before) was honestly the fact that it used one of my favorite words (not to mention I honestly think that for every article I look at, I consider the pun factors longer than I actually spend reading the article). The article itself is about universal language which makes it absolutely perfect to do a little blog entry about for a language class, plus it gives me, the author, something silly to giggle about as I type away!
Now, I don't know about you, but I never realized that Coca Cola had risen so high in the world that it was considered a universal word. I think it goes to show how huge the soda industry has risen. That, or they make some pretty awesome commercials. And Polar Bears are cute. Another word that I think they should add to that list though is Disney. I don't think that there's a child alive who knows the words "Coca Cola" but doesn't know "Disney". I think that there might come a day when I do more research on the topic of why "Disney" isn't in the universally known words list, but I think I'll have to save that for another day. Or another blog post. Whatever piques my interest first.
On the subject of research though! I've always loved the idea of secret languages (kind of like the Chickasaw language we just had to decode for the Chapter 2 questions) so I think I'd have to say... No. I wouldn't do more research or delve deeper into the topic of universal languages. Yeah, it'd be cool to know the words I could use so that everyone would understand me no matter where I am, but I think that a universal language is just a waste of time. Not to mention I adore individuality and anything that is unknown and strange to me.
A universal language (at the moment at least) has no affect on the world due to the fact that one does not exist. Yet. For the moment, we're all stuck with our own individual languages (oh the horror! Individuality!) Maybe sometime in the far future, after the world has gone through some major reconstructions of society they'll unit us under the same old boring language... But in the meantime! We each get our own special language that changes even within our own borders! Yay!
With that being said, this one was fun! See you all again next week!
Signing Off!
Juliana Mandile
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