Language: A reef of dead metaphores (Earthlings 101, Episode 10)
Channel: Zogg from Betelgeuse
Date: 2013-03-07

What is language?
What does it reveal about how earthlings think?
What are things, properties and actions?
What is abstraction?
What is a metaphore?
How does language develop?
Is language in decline?
Is the development of language cyclic?
What does it mean to say "language is a reef of dead metaphores"?

Tenth episode of Earthlings 101, the crash course for alien visitors. 

Links
- This episode is based on the book "The Unfolding of Language", Guy Deutscher.(https://sites.google.com/site/theunfoldingoflanguage/)
- Concept, artwork and text by Martin Kuppe
- Music by OcularNebula (http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/407324)
- Speech synthesis by Ivona (http://www.ivona.com/en/)

Disclaimer
Please note that most things in these videos are either conclusions based on personal observation of earthlings, or ideas found in earthling literature. Although they seem pretty obvious to me, most of them are still to be scientifically proven. In terms of earthling science, those are hypotheses, not theories or facts.

Full episode text:
http://tinyurl.com/E101-EP10

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As promised in the video, the full quotes on the decline of language:

"In these days of just about enough perils facing our nation, there is plenty of evidence around to conclude that our grip on our glorious language may be loosening."
---Dick Cavett, "It's Only Language." The New York Times, 2007

"Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way."
---George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language", 1946


"It is shameful to see our very colleges filled with students who seldom set down three consecutive sentences that do not reek with solecisms of expression, of syntax, and of style; while not a few, when they leave the college halls, the winners of a university degree, make blunders even of orthography that might well disgrace a swineherd."
--- Harry Thurston Peck, "What Is Good English?", 1899

"[English shows] how rapidly the language of a nation important both in history and literature can sink"
---August Schleicher, 1848

"...that many pronunciations, which thirty or forty years ago were confined to the vulgar, are gradually gaining ground [among people of fashion]; and if something is not done to stop this growing evil ...English is  likely to become a mere jargon"
---Thomas Sheridan, 1780

"...our Language is extremely imperfect; that its daily Improvements are by no means in proportion to its daily Corruptions; and the Pretenders to polish and refine it, have chiefly multiplied Abuses and Absurdities; and, that in many Instances, it offends against every Part of Grammar."
--- Jonathan Swift, 1712

"And, in few words, I dare say; that of all the Studies of men, nothing may be sooner obtain'd, than this vicious abundance of Phrase, this trick of Metaphors, this volubility of Tongue, which makes so great a noise in the World. But I spend words in vain; for the evil is now so inveterate, that it is hard to know whom to blame, or where to begin to reform."
--- Thomas Sprat, The History of the Royal Society, 1667

"Practically everyone...in those days spoke correctly, but the lapse of time has certainly had a deteriorating effect in this respect." 
---Cicero, 46 BC.