The End of my Book.

In general Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue was an amazing book. I am so glad I chose this book because I learned so much from it, not only about English or Languages, but about the history of humans in general. To be honest, the title of the book did not really make me expect much from it, since I thought it would be more like about English, Grammar, and more English. But the book was actually more about the ancient civilizations which through migration and interaction shaped and reshaped languages, or even created them. For example, I had no idea that there were such things as Proto-Indo-European, and Proto-Germanic languages, and that all of our contemporary languages are actually branches of these. It was great to learn that my first language Spanish is a descendant language of Latin, which is itself a descendent of Proto-Indo-European. Knowing this, now I can more easily understand why Spanish and English or languages in general are so different from each other, in aspects such as gender, case markers, etc. In the English and Spanish case for example, even though these two languages are both late descendants of Proto-Indo-European, their differences are due to events that happened long before they even existed. It is actually a very long story, and I am going to summarize it for you because this was actually what I liked the most about the book.

So Proto-Indo-European is where everything started. This was the language spoken in Europe way before any of the languages we know today were even known. From this one, many other branches were created; among these branches was Proto-Germanic which is the branch from where languages such as English, German, Swedish and many others came. But the reason of why English is so different, is because Proto-Germanic, was actually the different one among Indo-European languages, since way before English was spoken, Phoenician speakers who migrated to Europe learned Proto-Indo-European, and beat up the language erasing plenty of grammatical properties from it, and creating Proto-Germanic. Then English itself suffered huge transformations, first mixing with Celtic languages such as Welsh and Cornish, second being all beat up and modified by the Vikings and finally being invaded by the Norman and French.

The story is actually much more complex than what I just showed, but as we can see even this little information can give us an understanding of how after such long History of change, a langue has to obviously in some way be unique.

The concluding chapters of my book were 4 and 5. In chapter 4, McWhorter talks about the influence of grammar or language in our way of thinking. This was specially very interesting since we started the semester reading the article Does Tout Language Shape How You Think?. And just like Guy Deutscher, McWhorter disagrees with the Whorf theory supporting his point with very convincing evidence.

In Ch 5, McWhorter goes on more deeply in the story of language even before English existed, explaining with more details what I just summarized above. These two chapters I have to confece were a little bit boring compared to chapters 1, 2, and 3 which I enjoyed more, but overall they actually taught me a lot.

Thank God i have never gotten Malaria!!!

Malaria

Infectious disease characterised by chills and fever and caused by the bite of an infected anopheles mosquito.This word comes from the mediaeval Italian mal (=bad) and aria (=air), describing the miasma from the swamps around Rome. This 'bad air' was believed to be the cause of the fever that often developed in those who spent time around the swamps. In fact the illness, now known as malaria, was due to certain protozoans present in the mosquitos that bred around these swamps, and which caused recurring feverish symptoms in those they bit. I found this etymology, to be kind of funny...Ho and by the way, The word "etymology" derives from Greek (etumologíā);), meaning "true sense", and -λογία (-logía), meaning "study"; from λόγος (lógos), meaning "speech, account, reason. Just thought it would be cool to checkout the etymology of etymology.

Option #2

Hi Lucy Linguistics, I am very happy to hear that you will appreciate my opinion about this book. Well, “Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue” by John McWhorter is an amazing book. By reading it, we start some sort of exploration of language, in where we are constantly being amazed by very interesting fact about the history of language. Even though, McWhorter centers most of the book in the specific aspects that make English so different from its close relatives (Germanic-Languages), we can still acquire very precious knowledge about every language in general from this book. Besides talking about for example, the beginnings of English, starting whit the invasion of Germanic groups such as the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes to Britain in the 5^th, followed by the invasion of the Danish and Norwegian Vikings, and at last of French conquerors, the book also explains how all these languages suffered some king of a mixing process. Then, even more interesting, is the fact that with time more and more little ingredients were added to this mix blending with it, forming what we know today as English (how I said before, this same process applies to every language around the world). I personally, found this knowledge very useful at a personal level, since it not only helped me in understanding the reason of why English is so complex, but also because now I can understand why are there so many languages around the world. I think that this book will be very useful for your class, because it will also give your students the opportunity to fully appreciate their language, especially those who only speak English, since it will allow them to understand the reasons of why English is how it is. It would be very important for your students to understand how English’s properties such as –ing ending and usefulness do, are properties that did not just appeared out of the nowhere, but that are instead, the result of the mutation that different languages suffer when they are closely spoken. They will be exposure to very rational theories, about the influence that Celtic languages such as Wesh and Cornish had on English. They will learn history, not only of language but of societies in general. They’ll learn that the Celtics were not totally disappeared from Britain with the invasions of the Anglo-Saxons, but rather, that they were actually important element of such society. They’ll learn, that things in language don’t “just happen”, as an example, McWhorter will use the do used in some Germanic-languages, but that it is only used “kind of” like in English, showing convincing theories and strong arguments to support his claims. In conclusion, this is a book that will give provide you and your students with beautiful knowledge about English, and every other language in general. It is also very important for me, to highlight the authors professionalism and respectable attitude when approaching counterarguments and disagreeing with them in a very respectful and admirable way.

How to pronounce Jonathan!!!

Ok, for the Linguists I would write my whole name using Phonetic characters…so Jonathan sounds like this [dʒɑnəθən] where the first syllable of “Jonathan” is voiced, palatal affricate, with a low central vowel rhyme “jo”. The next syllable is voiced as well, alveolar nasal, with a rhyme of a mid central vowel “na”. And finally, the last syllable which is conformed of three sounds and not two like the previous ones, starts with an unvoiced, dental fricative sound [θ], followed by a mid central vowel rhyme “than”, and finishes with a voiced, alveolar nasal consonant [n].

Now for the natives who have never taken a linguist class, I would tell them to start by making a sound by locating their tongue in the hard part in the roof of their mouths (the palate) while briefly stopping the air and obstructing its release causing some friction to produce a “Jaaa” sound. Then I would tell them to use the front part of their tongue and the rough, bony ridge right behind and above their upper tetth, while allowing the air stream flow out through their noses production a “Naaa” sound. And to finish, I’d make them put the tip of their tongue behind their upper teeth while blocking the air stream and having the air push through the narrow opening cause some friction and producing the sound “THaaaa” which right after being said we will add the nasal “N” sound we previously went over.

Chosen book

Well, the book I have chosen is “Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English” by John McWhorter. The introduction, I have to say is amazing; I think it is the first time that an author catches my attention so quickly. Well the book how you can assume is about the history of English, something that at first sight I thought was going to be kind of boring but let me tell you, I was totally wrong. This guy’s writing style is awesome, very interesting, understandable and funny. He makes you, the reader, feel extremely comfortable, as if you were just talking to a friend, and not a linguist. However, there are some exceptions, in where Mr. McWhorter just throws the weirdest words and makes you run for a dictionary, but anyways I am enjoying it and getting used to it.

So far I have only read the introduction and up to page number 20. But I have already learned so much from it, and not only about English, but about every language in general. I learned so far, that invasions were basically the founders of languages, since these very early empires started spreading their native languages to every place they would conquer. But most interesting, is the mutation that these imposed languages suffered with time in such places, since the conquered people would mix their old language with the one brought by the conquerors. Such was the case of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes in their invasion to Britain, in where according to McWhorter their Old English got mixed with the native Celtic languages Welsh and Cornish, giving birth to some of the aspects of Modern English, such as the “meaningless do” and the “-ing thing” for present actions, which make English so different from its other relatives Germanic-Languages (which are the languages originated from Proto-Germanic, the original source or root of languages such as German, Dutch, Yiddish, Norwegian etc… ). These two properties (meaningless do and –ing ending) are very important, because they are the ones that make English’s grammar, structure and everything about it, one of the weirdest languages in our planet.

My Reflection on Language

To begin my reflection on how language has shaped me, I am going to start telling you that even though I was born in New York my first and strongest language is Spanish. The reason for this, is that I grew up in my parent’s country; Colombia. However, I can perfectly communicate, read and write in English since I left the country when I was around five years old, when I believe my brain had already absorbed essential elements of the language. I can also understand a little of Portuguese due to the similarity that such language has with Spanish, but I cannot speak it at all. English I would say is the language that I usually speak the most with my girlfriend, my friends and people at work; however I also use Spanish a lot, since is the only language in which I communicate in my house. To be honest, I don’t really remember how the exact process of learning the languages I speak happened, but I am pretty sure that it must have been a combination of school and home in the earliest stages of my life. I strongly agree with the theory we mentioned in class, about language being something that us human beings automatically absorb in our earliest years of life, where our brains act like sponges soaking and learning from every piece of available data. Something that I wonder, or that I think would be great, is the idea of every human being speaking the same language. This I think, would be something amazing since we would be able to really share the different perspectives in which we all understand the world.

Finally, I think that Deutscher’s article is very interesting. It kind of made me think a little bit more about language and give it a more significant importance. The facts mentioned in the article about different practices of language giving or causing different perceptions about the world and even developing “super natural” abilities in people are just amazing facts, especially for a person like me who had not give language more credit than the one for simply allowing me to communicate. And even though some of the experiments mentioned in the article caused certain type of skepticism in me, like for example the ones in which Spanish people gave certain characteristics to random objects and that according to Deutscher were result of the influence that language had in their perception, I still strongly respect and find very amazing his theory