 Good morning, once again please, I want a very enthusiastic good morning from you, good morning, right lovely, let us come to our next class continuing talking about design features of natural languages, what is there in natural languages that makes them unique, that makes them such a versatile medium of communication for the entire mankind, for the entire world and we have already seen some of their features, you may recall we spoke about features like they are common to all mankind, we says they are species uniform, every human being has got language, they are common only to mankind, only human beings have this kind of language, can you tell me what other features we spoke about, human, human beings human languages, these languages have to be learned, acquired even though we are biologically gifted, they have to be acquired, they are culturally transmitted, anything else, sorry yeah right, only human, all human beings have it, anything else, yeah it varies across time, across region, okay right, let us look at one or two more today and tomorrow and then we will start talking about structure of language and we may begin with, we will begin with sounds, then we will go on to organization of sounds, organization of words and organization of sentences, right, you may take notes if you like, but all of these PPTs and other things are going to be on the, I will mail them to the class representative, I will mail them to Mahesh and they are also going to be on the net later, you also have books which describe these things in great detail and I will also try and send you links to the websites which talk about some of these things, please do look them up as well, right, the feature we will be talking today about is its vocality, you know that language, it can, you know natural languages can be spoken, man made languages in that sense, you may or may not be spoken, but natural languages are designed to be spoken, you know nature or God has given us the ability, has given us a special organs whose main function is to help us speak, we have, can you put your finger here on your glottis, on your throat, inside there is a diaphragm, we will talk about it next week in quite some detail, inside there is a diaphragm, you know which vibrates as you and I talk, keep your finger here and say, now do not say, now just say, again please say, do you feel something vibrates here when you say, these are special gifts of nature for us, if this diaphragm did not vibrate, my voice will not reach you, if it did not vibrate in your throat when you spoke, your voice would not reach me, God has, nature has given us special ability, of course you know, at times once in a while you come across people who cannot speak, but these are the aberrations of nature, by and large, 99.99 you know count as many as you like, except for a very rare exception, all human beings are designed to speak, they have been given tongue, they have been given pharynx, they have been given other organs, we will talk about organs of articulation, you know beginning next week and we will see that human beings have been specially gifted, they have been designed to speak, no matter who you are, you may be a poet or you may be a quote unquote a fool, everyone is designed to speak, everyone has that natural ability, we actually, you know the psychology today, the current belief is that we are born talking, you know parents get terribly worried when the child does not cry after birth, doctors get into action, you know all kinds of worries happen, but when the child cries that is the first test that it is throat, it is vocal cords, work, the child is able to communicate, of course the child cries under the pressure of atmospheric pressure outside, the child's lungs take time to cope with the pressure of air plus other kinds of things, which we only inadequately understand even today, we do not know exactly and entirely why a new born baby cries the way it cries, but it does cry and that cry is audible, because the child, the baby has the apparatus which makes its cry audible, the child you know we are designed to, we are born actually, you can think of, you know there are Greek philosophers even as in India, we have always believed that human beings are born talking, it is a later belief, you know we will on this course perhaps we may not talk about it, but if you are interested you can look up books which get into this debate, whether language is learnt or language is naturally acquired, there has been a group of psychologists, a group of philosophers, particularly in the last 100 to 150, 200 years at the most, who have believed that language is part of nurture, only taught, but for a long time you know, we have believed including in the west, I mean Greek philosophers have said that, our Indian philosophers have also said that actually you might remember the story of Abhimanyu, does anyone remember the story of a character in Mahabharata, somebody called Abhimanyu, no? Yes, what is that story, who can stand up and tell us, who would not mind being caught by the camera, please you may not know the entire story, it does not matter, do try, it will give you the ability to speak in public, these things are skills, they are acquired only through practice, who will stand up and speak, slowly and begin again, can you introduce yourself, you are right please, you mean Abhimanyu, in her mother's home, by Krishna was narrating the story to her, his mother and... Please go on, does not matter, right, okay, you know the Mahabharata has an anecdote, which says that prince Abhimanyu learned how to organize a particular formation or how to break that formation, even before he was born, it so happened that one night, while he was still unborn, while he was still inside his mother's womb, his father happened to be telling the story to his mother, his mother, Abhimanyu's mother, do you know her name, Subhadra, okay, Subhadra asked her husband Arjuna, how do you get inside a chakra viewer, a formation which is like a circle, which is a circle with blade, you know a dancing circle, how do you get inside that kind of formation and Arjuna seems to have described that in some detail and inside the mother's womb, the child was hearing, but before the story goes, Arjuna could complete that story, the mother fell asleep and then Arjuna stopped telling the story, had Arjuna realized that his son was listening to the story inside, he possibly could have continued, but it is one of those tragedies of mankind, which keep happening, because they are designed to happen, right, so you know we have always believed that children learn, you know they begin talking or they begin learning language, even before they were born, some Greek philosophers also said that, let me see if the link works, can one of you, alright, see this Greek philosopher, can anyone please read it aloud, somebody else, this side please, can you stand up and read it aloud, okay, last minute, right, please stand up, I will now pick up people, because you seem to be hesitant in volunteering, okay, read it aloud, you see the born in us, natural, God-given, please go on, you see the born in us, natural, God-given, please go on, and to show ourselves what we wish, we not only have escaped from living as browns, but also by coming together, we have founded cities and set up laws and invented ads, and speech has helped us attain tactically all of the things we have devised. We shall done with intelligence is done without speech. Isocrates in Antioch. Yeah, this is Isocrates. He was, please sit down. Thank you very much. What's your name? I'm Sartik. Right, thank you, Kartik. Isocrates was a classmate of Plato. And they all believed, Greek philosophers believed, just as Indian philosophers believed, that God has created, God has given mankind a special ability to speak, a special ability for language. There is a lot of recent medical evidence as well, which suggests that human beings begin learning language even before they are born. If you are interested, there are. And you can find some of these books. You can make a note. And I will send you the link through Mahesh. You can, this book is available for free download. One of the best books I have read in recent years on the subject called The Brain. Many people today say that we know only as much about brain today as we did about the solar system in the time of Galileo, which means hardly much, hardly enough. We have very limited knowledge of brain. We actually do not know what's the difference between brain and mind. We do not know how brain works. We do not know which part of the brain has language ability, or does do all parts of the entire brain is involved in doing anything. There are lots and lots of questions. We know something about the structure of human brain. We know that it has billion plus neurons. We know that it has interconnections. But we do not know how those interconnections act together. We have done a lot of work in artificial intelligence, neural network. But we have not even touched the surface of the ocean. I will strongly encourage you to read this book. You see, somehow we do not have a big culture of reading for pleasure, reading in free hours. But if you cultivate that, you not only acquire good language, you acquire some very precious knowledge, some questions, which otherwise don't come to you. So when you read a book like this, you will have questions coming to your mind. Who taught me this? How did I get this? When somebody sings, and if you have the wrong rhythm, how do you know the rhythm is wrong? Did someone tell you about the raga? Did someone tell you about the melodies, about the cadence? How do you know that this is not the proper raga? This is not the proper rhythm. How does your mind or brain remember even the tune, let alone words, let alone voice? How do you remember that? Is there any connection between grammar of language and the tune of the song? There are a whole lot of questions. And the wonderful thing about this book is it has not been written by linguists. It has been written by neurosurgeons. Three of them, one Egyptian neurosurgeon doctor and two of his colleagues together. Extremely well-written book. Anyone who begins reading it cannot keep it aside until you finish it. I will encourage you to buy it. But if you don't have enough money or you don't want to buy, at least read it on the net. And you will see. The point that I am coming back to is, after selling this book, trying to sell this book to you, I hope some of you will read this book. That there is a lot of evidence. People have taken photographs of children born at or the fetus at various ages inside the mother's womb. And they have found that neural network starts getting denser and denser as the child progresses. 20th week, 24th week, 30th week. A child born after 30th week may be a premature baby, but it is fully formed. If you are interested in some of these areas, please visit the pediatric ward of your hospital, talk to doctors. And you will see nature, the wonders of nature. That it's possible that a child may be born in seven months. It is possible that a child may be born of an in six and a half months. But the child is fully formed. And if, God willing, the child survives, the child grows up to be as normal a human being as anyone you and I know. So one feature of language is, it's a biological feature. The feature is we have the ability to talk. We have the ability to speak. And this ability starts getting formed even before we are born. There is much recent medical evidence that proves this. There is also anthropological evidence. There are many, many communities which even today have language but don't have a script. Their language is not a written language. Do you know any language of that kind? Anybody? If you actually, you see, once again, just as I told you, we don't have the culture of reading for pleasure. We do not have the culture of, oh, we had. But only old people did that. When they traveled, went on pilgrimage. But sometimes you should find to travel to un-exotic places also within the country. India is a vast country. There is nothing in the world which is not there in India. You want permanent, snow-clad places. Go to Ladakh, Leh, higher reaches. You want desert. Go to Rajasthan. You want rains every day. Go to Northeast, Shillong. Similarly, there is a region in central India, Chotanagpur, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, parts of Bengal, parts of Hills in Maharashtra, Andhra, Tamil Nadu, where what we call tribal people. It's a misleading name. You and I are also tribals. We all live like tribes. But we are quote unquote what we call scheduled tribes. Orangos, Mundaris, Santals, Todas, Nagas, Angamis. You also have some students from those places here. Try and find them. Talk to them. And you will see that they have as much a language as you and I have. They also have literature. They also have epics. They also have jokes. They also have vulgar jokes. They also have wonderful jokes. But their languages are not written. Actually, many languages, not just one. I can, I have mentioned only three. I have mentioned even today, Konkani is written in three different scripts. In Goa, it is written in Devanagari or English. In Karnataka, Konkani is written in. Kannada is script. In Kerala, it is written in Malayalam script. Santali is written in three or four different scripts. Santali is written in Devanagari script. Santali is written in Bengali script. Santali is written in Roman script and in something else. That does not make Santali a lesser language. Do you get my point? There are over 1,000 languages in the world spoken even today. India itself claims, sorry, there are over 10,000. India itself claims nearly 1,700 languages. Sorry, the world has not just 1,000. It has many, many more. I'm not sure of the exact. Not more than a few hundred of them have their own script. That does not make them any lesser language. They have all the literature. If you look at Sanskrit, Sanskrit was not a written language until about 2,500 years ago. Until about the time of Buddha, Ashoka. Because the technology of writing itself is a new technology. If you are interested, look at this book. And maybe you can also find, I have not checked, but possibly you can find copies on the net as well. This is the history of writing. We have a copy in the central library. Writing itself is relatively recent. About 3,000 years ago, Phoenician traders, traders in the North Africa, West Asia, in that pocket, what is called Egypt, Libya, Iraq, Iran, in that area. Some traders invented the art of writing. And then technology was invented. Initially, we wrote on hard surfaces, stone slabs. You had hammer and chisel. And you struck the chisel with the hammer. And then you wrote your name. Long time. It took you one hour to write Mahesh. One and a half hours to write Sreej. One and a half hours to write anything else. There were specialists like there are carpenters, like there are electricians or plumbers today. There were people who wrote eventually, gradually. And the paper was found by the Chinese. Ink was invented. Then writing became more widespread. More people began learning writing. Finally, when printing was invented, sometime in the 15th century, more and more books came today with computers. Once again, literacy seems to be disappearing. Not many people write. They only print on computers. But writing is a man-made thing. It's a technology. It's a combination of different kinds of sciences and arts to make it a particular kind of technology. Some people, just as today, every human being does not know how to type on computers. Do you know anyone who does not know how to type on computers? Yes or no? Do you know people who do not know how to type on computers? Yes or no? I know many people. I come from a village where few people know. And they don't live in the village. Those that know how to type on computers live in either Noida, or Gurgaon, or Bangalore, or Chennai, or some other places. They are migrated. So just as computer literacy today, writing was a specialized skill. Writing was or writing is a specialized skill. It requires a technology. It requires hardware and software. You have to have pen. You have to have ink. You have to have paper. Or you have to have computer. Computer has to have a printer. Printer has to have a cartridge. You need paper. Or you have virtual writing. You need a screen, a whole lot of artifact. Actually, literacy is an artificially acquired. I'm not saying literacy is not important. I am saying it is acquired. It is artificially acquired. It is created by human beings and acquired by human beings in a deliberate manner. It is not acquired by anyone just as spoken languages. A spoken language, you and I hear and we acquire. Is that so with the written language? You flash a page before the child. And the child after a flash a page every day before the child. And the child learns writing. Yes or no? Everybody, please. Are you with me? Are you in the class? Yes, sir. Do you think if we flashed a page before the child every day, the child will learn writing? No, sir. No, the child won't. Because it's a man-made skill. The child will have to first hold the pen. Do you know how many muscles work when you write? It's a particular kind of skill. You will have to hold the pen, the muscle on your forearm, the muscle on your upper arm, some muscles on the, if you are a right-handed person, then some muscles on the right part of your back. If you are a left-handed person, then some muscles on the left hand, left part of your back, then some neural movements in your brain drive the pen before you write A or before you write M or before you write any other letter. Plus technology. So writing is not natural in that sense. It's quote-unquote natural. But speaking is, everybody can speak. In all our lives, spoken language has come first, written language has come next. Do you know anybody who learnt writing before he or she learnt speaking? Anyone? Even if he or she is in B. Tech from IIT or from anywhere, it doesn't happen. So we will agree. Do you agree that language is vocal? Please write the next feature. Language is primarily, mainly vocal. We are all designed to speak. We are speaking animals. Whatever else you see, writing or typing or chiseling or painting, whatever else we do, or calligraphy. All of this came later. Language is also open-ended. Please write. What do I mean? I mean that it keeps gaining and losing words, sounds, sentences, features. It's in a constant flux. Both its ends are open. It constantly gains, no matter what you think. There have been movements for purity. You must speak only Hindi, no English word there. Don't call it airport. Call it Vimana Patan. Don't call it book. Call it Pustak or Kitab. Whatever man-made efforts, language always loses elements. Language always gains elements. Sounds, words, kinds of sentences. If you compare your language with your ancestors' language, your grandfather, your great-grandfather, actually we say that in five generations it becomes a new language, a great-grandson. In other words, my grandson would not understand the language spoken by my grandfather. If they were to be at any place together, I will have to interpret one to the other. It's open-ended. Why? What do we mean by open-ended? It keeps losing and gaining words and sounds. Different classes of words. In English today, you have no distinction of gender except in some pronouns. You say he and she, sometimes also in adjectives. But there was a time when English had distinction of gender, even in articles. There was one kind of the, T-H-E-D for boys, another kind of the for girls. Today in many languages, in Marathi, in Bengali, I don't know about maybe other languages. Increasingly in Punjabi and in Hindi, you do not distinguish between plus honor and minus honor, OK? You just say, you sit, you sit. You don't say, you sit. You sit. We do not ask, how are you? In Marathi, how are you? In Bengali, in Punjabi, in many other languages. Features keep changing. New features come, old features go away. It's a constant flux. And different kinds of words. It is not just that nouns and adjectives change. I'll give you examples in a minute, OK? Also prepositions, also articles, also pronouns. Keep disappearing. Pronunciation keeps changing. New kinds of pronunciation. When Persian came to this country, some new sounds came. Old sounds disappeared, OK? In our, in the writing system of Indian languages, we have three kinds of, we have S, we have SH, and we have another kind of SH, OK? In Devanagari, we write S, SH, and SH, right? Do you have similar letter in the script of your mother tongue in Telugu? Yes or no, please? But we don't pronounce it. It has either become KHA or it has become SH. It is no longer that it used to be, OK? It's hardly pronounced anywhere except by phoneticians now. So sounds, words, features, entire lot of things keep changing. They are open-ended. Somebody has said that language is like a patient on the table, on a surgical table. It keeps bleeding, constantly blood going out. And it is on transfusion, constantly new blood coming in. If you stop the new blood or if you stop bleeding, the patient will die. So similarly, a lot of people try engineering. Don't let a new word come into. Don't let foreign word come into that language. Look at what has happened to Sanskrit or classical Latin or classical Greek or classical Persian. They are no longer spoken. They became library language only in books. So all natural languages are open-ended. They take and lose new words. They lose old words. They gain new words. How does it happen? Why do we gain new words? Why do we lose old words? We do not know exactly. Much that happens in nature is not very well known to us. But we have one or two guesses. One is when technology changes, the way we do things, or when culture changes, the way we believe, the way we interact with other human beings, whenever there are these changes. So for example, when there was monarchy, we had one set of vocabulary. We had kings, we had palace, we had princes, we had kings, bodyguards, we had generals, we had everything was connected with. So we have Raj Kumar, Raj Kumari, Raj Putra, Raj Darvar, Raj Udyan, Raj Marg, the highway, et cetera, et cetera. But today we have Janupat, people's road. Today we have Prasatantra Pratinidhi, Sabha, Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, Vidhan Sabha, Gundo Sabha, Achol Sabha, the entire vocabulary changes. And those other words start going. Similarly when technology changes, the way we traveled, the way we cooked, the way we wrote. Look at some examples. Can you recognize? Have you seen a cooking facility of this kind? How many people? Raise your hands, please. Do you remember the word for it in your mother tongue? Please write on your notebook. What is it called in your mother tongue? That in Hindi we call it chulha. Write. In Telugu, what do you call it? Lovely. And the word for the firewood that you burn here? Malayalam speakers? Tamil speakers? Hindi speakers? You see, in your language it is already dead. You don't know. There is no Indian language which does not have word for all of these things. Which does not have the word for all of these things. What is the word for firewood when it becomes ash? Lovely. This is a special word for that. Look at the next slide. Look at this. You might see that the vessel, the pot, is resting on three or four protruding structures. What is their name for them? They have a special name in Telugu as well as in Hindi. In any language, it's the same technology. Do you remember the name? It's dead in your language. Because it's hardly in use in your families now. You use gas stove, or you use electric stove, or you use solar stove. Or actually, many families don't cook. They go to Pizza Hut. They go to Domino's. What are the other things? McDonald's, or Sarvanavavan, or Murugan Idli, right? But everything here has a name. Can you look at the little glass structure which has a flame in the picture? What is it called in your mother's time? Moodi Pum. No, that's right. That's right. So you see, your child, your grandchild actually, tell him that I asked you this question. God willing, you have 10 grandchildren, each. I don't believe in the boggy of overpopulation. The world has enough space for a lot more people. We need people, right? Maybe your grandchild would see it in a museum. But until about, or even today, when I go to my village, I live in this kind of thing. Because we don't have electricity there. And electricity is such a highly ecology-destroying, damaging kind of technology, such an eco-unfriendly kind of technology. That's another matter. But as technology changes, words change, can you tell me the name of the pan on which this old lady is cooking? In which this old lady is cooking? Karahi. Karahi. In Telugu? Barati. Tamil? Tamil? Ganesh. Malayalam? Anybody who speaks Marathi here? Karahi. Karahi. Sayi voleonazhaaf. Thank you. God bless you. There is no language which doesn't have a word. But now, increasingly, the word pots and pans and, you know, are coming, non-stick pans, non-stick pots are coming in. There is another, you know, flat kind of pan behind that vessel. What is it called? What is it called in Telugu? What is it called in Marathi? Same thing though. Tamil. OK. Check with you. I have a feeling that it may have a difference. You know, for everything, all the utensils, et cetera, et cetera, do you see there is a water pot with some water there? What is it called? Chamu. Right, nota. OK. All of these, you know, this was an entire technology. It's changing. Another view of the same kitchen, lot of things. What is that earthen pot behind this young lady? OK. And it came in different kinds, different varieties. And each of these different varieties, different sizes, had names. There was Gharah, there was Surahi, there was X, there was Y. A whole lot of different things. OK. Many of these things, you can please make a note. OK. Find words for these things in your mother tongue. In my mother tongue, what is called a stove in English? Itchula. What is firewood? Itjaran. OK. What are those protruding structures? In my mother tongue, they call it gori. The pan, the deep pan is called loya. The flat pan is called tawa. Those big ladle, small ladle. They are karchul, cholani, uchkan, a whole lot of things. What is the word for the water that came out of boiled rice? Kanji. Without maar or kanji, yes. All of these things. Can you translate it into English? Difficult. Because Englishmen don't have that thing. Can you translate the word cake into telugu? Difficult. Because we do not have that culture. We do not eat that dish. The point I'm making, ladies and gentlemen, language changes as technology changes. I have seen on this campus the days when computers were limited to three departments, electrical, computer science, and applied mechanics. Then slowly, each department's office got one computer. And we had to queue up. Then, you know, internet mail came here in the 1990s. All mail swear received in one lab, network lab, in the computer science and engineering department in BSB. And every department's clerk went there as a designated hour, brought the printout, distributed like post. Entire department had only one email ID. The email ID of my department was IMGT1, because industrial management was there. And those people had colonized us. But gradually, now, you know, everyone routinely says, what is your email ID? Send it on the mail. Mail, the word mail has. Meaning has changed. It doesn't mean a railway train. It does not mean postal service. So things change. They also change when culture changes. Look at some modern kitchen, new words. What is that flat hanging thing called? What is this thing called? What is this called? Is the lid of the cooker. It's the lid of the cooker. What is this thing called? Tap. What is this thing called? Where does it go to? Come on. It goes to the geyser. You see? Or water dispenser. Water dispenser. Lots of, you know, entire kitchen has changed. Compare this kitchen, please. Compare this kitchen with this kitchen. Except that human beings are the same. Everything else has changed. That kitchen, the new kitchen is energy intensive. For everything, you need electricity or some other form of energy. Whereas for this other thing, it is so far, far simpler. Of course, you know, you can say the cooking today is better. I think the best cooking happened in some of these kitchens. But the entire technology has changed. The vessels have changed. The utensils have changed. The tools have changed. Look at these kitchens. The way we traveled. What is the word for the bullock cart driver in your mother tongue? It's not the driver. What is the word for elephant driver in your mother tongue? What is the word for horse driver in your mother tongue? A horse minder. Those who speak Hindi. Please raise your hands. Those who speak Hindi. What is the word for the person who looks after the horse? Saees. I'm sure Telugu has them. I'm sure Tamil, Malayalam. All of us, you know. But because this change, every part of this contraption has a word. What is the name for the rope which crosses through the nose of the bullock? What a cruel way. Their nose had to be pierced for the rope to be put through. What is it called? That rope. Next time you go home, please find in Hindi. It is called nath. What is this rope called? The rope with which the bullock car driver controlled the boat. Everything. What is this wooden structure called? What is this wooden structure called? In Hindi, it is called jua. Yoke. Y-O-K-E. All of these things, you know, today we travel by train. And Indian railway trains are as crowded as this. This is a train from out of my village. Everyone trying to go to Delhi, or to Bombay, to Calcutta, to Madras, villages getting deserted. And you know, we have an entire, in all our languages, we have now words like train, express, reservation, late, railway station, 500 words from the technology of railway trains alone. Railway line, crossing, tracks, x, y, a whole lot of things. You can make an entire list of things where we have got words from. Language is arbitrary. Can I have you for another three minutes? Language is arbitrary. The meaning and word have no connection. You can have any word meaning anything. The word, I have taken some examples here. The first line, you know, chuma, c-h-u-m-a. In Tamil, it is an adverb. In Hindi, it's a verb. In Hindi, it means kiss. Mothers kiss their babies. But in Tamil, it's an adverb. Why are you doing it, chuma, for no particular reason? Or b-b, in Urdu, it can mean wife. In Punjabi, it can mean mother. Adai, it can mean in my mother tongue, it can mean aunt. But in Hindi, it's a maid servant. Aai in Marathi is mother. But in Hindi, it is past tense of come for a girl, a larki aai. Or bai, in the Hindi spoken in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, it can mean a dancing girl, a dancing woman. But in Madhya Pradesh, in Chhattisgarh, in Rajasthan, it can mean a mother, a grandmother, or a respectable woman. You know, words and meaning, pronunciation and meaning, don't seem to, I don't know if it is true, don't seem to have a logical connection. It is arbitrary. Language is, anything can be made to mean, anything can be made to mean anything. I'm sure you are aware of them in the hostile language. Some people say words with g-l mean good things. So you have glad, glamour, gleam, but glisten and glow. But you also have things like gloom, which means sadness. So it's not necessarily true. Words can have one meaning, one day, another meaning, another day. Madam used to be a respectable lady. In some slang, madam today means the head of a brothel, the woman who runs a prostitution den. Gay earlier was the description of a BTEC boy, handsome, rich, intelligent, assured of a job. Today, gay means someone who has a particular kind of sexual preference. Similarly, with silly, thrill, earlier woman was known as wife man in Old English. Today she is woman. So meaning and pronunciation and words don't have a logical connection. We'll meet tomorrow again and continue this discussion. Thank you. Have a good day. Thank you. Yeah.