OSHER 517 - Language Myths Debunked!

“Eskimos have many words for snow", "A language is a dialect with an army and a navy", "Aborigines speak primitive languages", "English has the world’s richest vocabulary", "Children learn languages more easily than adults", "Languages die because they are not fit enough for the modern world", "Animals speak their own language" — you've probably heard or read these statements, but are they actually true? In this course, we will examine these and related beliefs about language and we will investigate what aspects of them are true and what aspects are false or even nonsensical. In doing so, we will explore such topics as language diversity, language history, language acquisition by children and language learning by adults, animal and human communication, and much more. We will also consider where language myths come from and why they tend to persist despite all the scientific evidence to the contrary."