come to America where English is so central and other languages are discouraged

"unconceivable" ... maybe you should focus on your english

Brasil?

@ precisamente. Vc também, eu imagino

@@ClanDosCanalhas Sim, hehe. Legal do japonês. Eu tô estudando espanhol. Já fui pra Tóquio, é incrível!

@ poxa, muito legal! Buena suerte con el Español, entonces :)

@@ClanDosCanalhas español, sin mayúsculas. Igual que em português ;)

I’m working in IT. I’m good at what I do, but I’m successful because I speak really good English. 🙂

@@anttikalpio4577 yeah that's really make a big difference down the road!

False learning ENGLISH opened doors for u. If I learned whatever u people speak it wouldn’t make a difference in my life at all

You didn't watch the video. Most of what he talked about was not that.

Or all speak the same language.

Shirley Wilson do you wabble your head to say yes? I just came from India and that is so strange for a European. It’s not only spoken language. You need to understand body language also. 🙂😀

Antti Kalpio 👍yep

@@thisisnull Yeah. Sometimes I really doubt Ted's selection of speaker. I understand they even worked on practicing and rehearsing with the speaker prior to the actual presentation. This kind of thing should not have happened as this is not presentable (rambling on and on and out of context).

@@thisisnull I am never a big fan of TED. Instead, I am a fan of Toastmasters (it's a public speaking organization in case you don't know). Their speeches are short and sweet 5-7 minutes. Generally include storytelling and teaches a moral lesson. It doesn't guarantee any new or novel ideas like TED's focus, but I find they are more entertaining and educational because these speakers are actually in a speaking club rather than just anyone in the street who has a good idea can come up and talk and have no sense of speech organization or delivery techniques... etc

Amusing to see someone reply in this fashion on this talk about language which makes a point about how important perception of language is to our minds. Because he speaks a language you understand, but not in a way you like he uses said language, you express this dissatisfaction in the same language he uses. But does this notion devaluate this TED talk video? I'm not a native English speaking person, but because I am multi-lingual, I can understand what he says. I might not like the way he puts it into words, but nonetheless I can grasp the general content. As a matter of fact, my knowledge of the English language allows me to interpret cultural traits not native to me which are present in this foreign language. My level of understanding allows me to translate things like humor and sarcasm without getting lost in translation. I am native Dutch speaker, so I could probably fake South African and Belgian. My knowledge about the German language and culture is enough to read and understand it, and am even confident enough to speak it in Germany which is about 10 km from my home. I also have a basic grasp of Danish (both lingual and cultural), which allows me to share ideas and concepts with not only Danes, but also Swedish and Norwegian people. Because Belgium is also only 12 km away and half of it speaks French, again my knowledge of this language and culture allows me to read, understand and convey trains of thought in French. And because I know English is a language which is used as a second language to many non-native English speaking people, who are quite well capable of grasping more than just the translation of words alone, I am able to convey a statement: Don't shoot the messenger, just get the message.. ..in case you didn't get the message, language is important since some of them are going extinct like dinosaurs and Bengal tigers but still have a lot to tell..

@@dimitri877 Right. American English native speakers are not used enough to really know other countries' culture through studying their related language, and that's a pity. At least being Europeans has some advantage

I learned and speak six languages ... My handicap is that I read VERY slow, need to understand everything ... And taking courses while in college was always a problem for me - I never had enough time to read everything I wanted to. I have three children, grown up by now, taught them all and spoke to them in three languages - they are all engineers, excellent in mathematics, ... My mother also spoke several languages. ... I was the BEST in the History of E. L. ... I can still in my 60's read Chaucer without a problem. ... even Beowulf ..

lol

0megalvyz1 Learning and being smart is important, but big biceps is importanter! Get to the gym!

Too wordy. But you've impressed yourself, and that's the important thing.

Thank you.

20alphabet I was equally impressed, but my propensity for tomfoolery superseded my predilection for intellectual colloquy. Burp!

@@daddydojang Lol 😆😆😆

Sometimes it would be a better one, some people definitely talk too much

I agree ... For me too it is a bit weird ... Long vowel : aa like in the finnish word Kiitos (thank you) and diphtong like the spanish word Causa or finnish word Nainen (woman) ... Let's hope someone explains it.

But he never talks about diphthongs, he talks about long vowels... you know like vowel number 1 /i:/ or 7 /ɑː/

Name a war fought over not understanding. hahahaha

If it wasn’t caused by misunderstanding.. Then it was fuelled by religion. And yes, the 1969 war Honduras and El Salvador had over a football game counts as religion also.😆

@@anttikalpio4577 They understood everything.

Wrong thought. Germans killed millions of Germans in RELIGIOUS WARS .. and they all spoke the same language; but one side was Evangelicals and the other Catholics.

@@nuitNo.6 hate here is not hateful hate it's the power to change , and I think some how we all need to change ourselves to a better version.. don't you agree

I hate hate!

Really? What about lightning.

@@muhash50 What ??? We didn't invent lightning ??!!

@@Sneed_formerly_chucks agriculture lead to civilisation, which up until recently was a bad thing as it brought violence, mass extinction and the spread of disease

@@Sneed_formerly_chucks Only recently has it started making some of our lives better than that of the nomads which once existed.

@@nicholasjackson106 lol

そですね．But I think it’s just the result of a random causation originated from our history (i.e. the day when humans walked out of Africa in different directions). 语言的历史很有意思。

The language history is also the human history, isn’t it? It’s wonderful opinion. こうやっていろんな言語で会話できるのって素敵ですね。 It’s great we can talk via various languages😊

emoticon/emoji is almost language,I think😆

Really? You believe him? Jewish believe is. . . God send down 4 letters first. Aleph. Bay. Jeem Daal.

Nice example, but what if you're wrong? What if putting a traffic light there actually makes things worse, in a way that is contrary to what people would expect? What if all your expectations as someone who lives in the city turn out to be completely wrong? What if, while fixing the problem at one place, it creates several others at other places that nobody would have thought of? Well, except for city planners, because it's their fucking job... You need city planners for those reasons. They have data, they have knowledge, about the way groups of people, cities, tend to work, and it's knowledge that random people who are merely living in a city don't have if they haven't read books and whatnot about the topic, as it is often knowledge that isn't intuitive. It seems simple, it seems intuitive, but you would be surprised how those things can often not be simple and intuitive. I've believed plenty of crap about language in my life, the kind of things that pretty much everyone who is not a linguist believes, the kind of things that seem very obvious... and yet, when I started to actually get into linguistics, I realized how wrong I was... and sometimes, in ways that retrospectively seem so obvious, it's almost embarrassing. The metaphor with the surgeon is a good one. Every human has organs, but would you trust anybody but a surgeon to manipulate your internal organs? I mean, duh, you just have to make sure the bits are connected and it doesn't bleed to much, right? Many, many people cross bridges. Would you trust anybody but engineers to build them? I mean, duh, it's just putting a few pillars and the road on top of it or something, it's certainly not that complicated, right? And, I mean, I've seen a rocket in action, it doesn't seem too complicated; I just have to make sure something goes on fire at the back of it to propel it, right? Like, OBVIOUSLY the young don't know how to speak anymore, OBVIOUSLY English comes from German/Latin, OBVIOUSLY English is the simplest/hardest language ever, OBVIOUSLY spelling things wrong means you're an idiot... Many people believe what I just said. Way too many people. Maybe you believe some of those things. I certainly did in the past. It's all wrong, though. Demonstrably wrong. It's so easy to demonstrate it's wrong, it's almost insulting. It's like only linguists know how wrong those statements are. Why do so many people believe it? Maybe because biases are a thing? Maybe because human logic has flaws? Maybe because they lack knowledge, as well? Maybe that's why we invented the scientific method, and the different methods used in different fields to collect data, I wonder? Maybe that's why we need experts, be it in physics, medicine, or linguistics? And, I mean, thanks to this *lovely* Dunning-Kruger effect, people who know little about some topic tend to be overconfident about their knowledge on that topic, which DEFINITELY makes me wary of anybody who says they don't really need a city planner to plan their city... He's not butt hurt. He's just tired of the bullcrap people say about language and linguistics. I am too, and I'm not even a linguist. And I mean, for fuck's sake, Neil just fucking insulted the whole body of experts in linguistics; how can you not be upset about that? I'm sure even cryptographers, who were the ones praised, actually facepalmed at that one.

Language is not the problem. Speaking without saying anything, speaking for the sake of speaking, is the real problem. And while it is quite the experience to try to find other ways to communicate, you can never get to the level of complexity language allows us to communicate. Simplicity has its benefits, but complexity too.

What is a bad word?

Body language is overrated

yes, I agree ... Also: languages are not precise enough, many ideas/philosophies can not be completely or at all be explained because of that.

I don't know if language is superficial, but without more details, this conversation does seem like it is...

Could you please give examples?

Because people are wrong and think they're right, and they show absolutely no sign of humility. Some will even say linguists are wrong or useless, as demonstrated by our good friend Neil in his tweet. It gets fucking annoying.

Your not

I thought he was funny 🤨

Sure? I thought this guy invented it

@@manueldecesar7781 lol

I said that when I was 10...

Ah, finally a negative comment I can get behind.

I knows English jk

Lol

No. That's the whole point. Diversity informs us more about how the human mind works than a single one could. Ancient or modern.

Unsurprising to me.

You are right

@@existenceisillusion6528 You used language to say there's no such thing as language. Let that one just hang there for a minute (or, are minutes not real either?).

@@existenceisillusion6528 Well, I appreciate your comment, and the clarification. Because of it, I am able to see, and appreciate the humor. Like doing a rewind. So, in all honesty, thank you. Looking back, I can see the humor you were aiming at, but you did not do the generally accepted things people do on the internet, and in text, to indicate that it was a joke. The words alone were not enough to make any judgment. Hence my response.

@@yardmasterswealtheducation8424 Did you mean an emoji like this 🐸 ?

"he needs to learn how to learn how to speak" Now that's what I call irony

lol! perfect

Lefty: I lived under left regime in Europe ... and it is proven in practice that such systems do not work. Trump is right in defending capitalist traditions.

@@zakorektnost Trump is not defending capitalism. It's ludicrous to think he has any policy beyond reality TV like reactions, self enrichment, self aggrandizement , or petty tantrums. If you believe that blue collar workers cannot have healthcare, millions don't in the US, then you're a Republican.

Because he knows it is not actually wrong, because being "wrong" isn't an actual linguistic concept. And also because he knows languages evolve and words change meaning, especially since he has applied this idea to his own creations. Just sayin'

Well, depending on how you define "invention", I guess you're not wrong