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Who Makes the Rules of Language? | The Language of Language
Published 4 days, 21 hours ago
Description
Who makes the rules of language?
Settle into The Language of Language, a thoughtful sleep story about the words we use, the rules we learn without noticing, and the people who tried to put a living language on the page.
Colourless green ideas sleep furiously. The sentence makes no sense, yet somehow we know its grammar works. Tonight, that small puzzle opens a journey through the strange work of using words to describe words.
In ancient Mesopotamia, pupils press lists of words into damp clay. In India, Panini builds a grammar with rules about its own rules. In Korea, King Sejong gives the sounds of speech a shape that people can write.
Later, we enter James Murray's dictionary workshop, where millions of paper slips wait in wooden pigeonholes. Each carries a word caught in an ordinary sentence.
Beyond the workshop, language keeps moving. Children make plurals for words they have never heard, young signers in Nicaragua help a new language grow, and language nests give Māori and Hawaiian a home in the next generation.
Along the way, we meet Chomsky, Saussure and Whorf, and ask how the words we know might nudge what we notice.
The story ends after midnight in the quiet Scriptorium. The lamp is still burning. Nothing needs defining before morning.
You don't need to remember any of the rules tonight. Let the words keep you company as you settle down to rest.
This sleep story is told slowly and gently for sleep, relaxation and quiet late-night listening.
Explore The Idea of Ideas series:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLd5WzOPdClFY
Listen to more Sleep Stories from the Pioneers:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRypv-XVJDZk
Explore Sleep Stories from the Pioneers:
https://pioneersofhumanbehaviour.com/sleep-stories/
Support the project:
https://ko-fi.com/pioneersofhumanbehaviour
Sleep well. 🌙
Stories to fall asleep to. Ideas worth waking up with.
Settle into The Language of Language, a thoughtful sleep story about the words we use, the rules we learn without noticing, and the people who tried to put a living language on the page.
Colourless green ideas sleep furiously. The sentence makes no sense, yet somehow we know its grammar works. Tonight, that small puzzle opens a journey through the strange work of using words to describe words.
In ancient Mesopotamia, pupils press lists of words into damp clay. In India, Panini builds a grammar with rules about its own rules. In Korea, King Sejong gives the sounds of speech a shape that people can write.
Later, we enter James Murray's dictionary workshop, where millions of paper slips wait in wooden pigeonholes. Each carries a word caught in an ordinary sentence.
Beyond the workshop, language keeps moving. Children make plurals for words they have never heard, young signers in Nicaragua help a new language grow, and language nests give Māori and Hawaiian a home in the next generation.
Along the way, we meet Chomsky, Saussure and Whorf, and ask how the words we know might nudge what we notice.
The story ends after midnight in the quiet Scriptorium. The lamp is still burning. Nothing needs defining before morning.
You don't need to remember any of the rules tonight. Let the words keep you company as you settle down to rest.
This sleep story is told slowly and gently for sleep, relaxation and quiet late-night listening.
Explore The Idea of Ideas series:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLd5WzOPdClFY
Listen to more Sleep Stories from the Pioneers:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRypv-XVJDZk
Explore Sleep Stories from the Pioneers:
https://pioneersofhumanbehaviour.com/sleep-stories/
Support the project:
https://ko-fi.com/pioneersofhumanbehaviour
Sleep well. 🌙
Stories to fall asleep to. Ideas worth waking up with.