Here Richard Dawkins interviews linguist and author John McWhorter, a person familiar to readers of this site. And most of the 54-minute discussion is about linguistics.
It’s refreshing to hear McWhorter’s enthusiasm for linguistics, and this bit of the discussion goes from the start of the interview until about 37 minutes in. It’s sad that McWhorter has, by his own admission, been more or less drummed out of the fraternity of academic linguists because of his heterodox views on racism. I’m sure, based on this interview alone, that he was a terrific teacher.
At any rate, McWhorter explains why he began studying linguistics (it involves Hebrew), how many times he thinks language originated (McWhorter thinks just once, though he’s not convinced that this is supported by the existence of a “universal grammar” or universal “recursion”: subordinate phrases embedded within phrases). Rather, McWhorter is convinced of a single origin of language by parsimony alone. As to when it originated, McWhorter makes rather unconvincing arguments (criticized by Richard) that Homo erectus could use syntactic language; he’s on more solid ground when he thinks that Africans, because of evidence of their mental sophistication, used language around 300,000 years ago.
They discuss evidence that the FOXP2 gene was implicated in origin of language, and McWhorter is accurate in saying that this theory hasn’t worked out, though he believes, along with Steve Pinker, that the ability to use syntactic language is encoded in our genome.
The discussion of “woke racism” (the title of McWhorter’s well known book, which was originally “The Elect”) begins at 36:40. Dawkins moves the discussion into why McWhorter considers woke racism a “religion”, even though there are no supernatural beings involved. I’m not particularly concerned whether one conceives of progressive racial activism as an ideology or a religion, for it seems a semantic question. To me the more interesting questions are the characteristics of the movement (Does it promote irrationality? Is it disconnected from reality? Does it promote “safe spaces”, which McWhorter sees as a religious concept?)
The discussion moves to the question of why you are considered black (or claim you are black) if you have any black ancestors, which leads to McWhorter’s assertion that we have to go beyond race as a personal identity.
The discussion finishes with McWhorter pushing back on the “defenestration” of figures like Thomas Jefferson because they were either slaveholders or didn’t denigrate slavery. He sees this demonization as “pernicious for education”, although he agrees that some extreme versions of racism (e.g., Woodrow Wilson) warrants taking down statues or erasing names. And what, he muses, will demonize us to our descendants.
It’s a very good discussion, I think, and shows McWhorter’s passion, eloquence, and thoughtfulness.
Since McWhorter mentions Jamaican patois as a form of English that isn’t recognizable as English, I wanted to hear some of it, so I’ve put the video showing such patois below.
h/t: Williams Garcia
McWhorter’s *Languages of the World* course, streaming by subscription from the “Great Courses Plus” service (formerly Wondrium), is really fabulous. Also great fun, though piecemeal topics rather than structured as lectures, is the website and podcast Lexicon Valley.
thank you. I’ll look that up.
D.A.
NYC
Great tip! I see he has several courses available.
Here is a professional review of McWhorter’s 2018 academic linguistics book “The Creole Debate.” I haven’t read the book, but did watch and appreciate a video of an actual debate between McWhorter and UChicago’s Salikoko Mufwene. (I was searching for that debate when this review showed up in the results. )
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336017894_Review_of_McWhorter_John_H_2018_The_Creole_Debate
But I have now read this review, and it says a few things which mesh well with our sense of McWhorter as a “public intellectual” and writer on general and political topics. “McWhorter’s rhetorical dexterity and gift for the sharp turn of phrase is not without entertainment value for the neutral reader.” Indeed! Plus, the questions about pidgins and creoles at issue turn out to have some alignments with ideological or political outlooks. “Chapter 5 (“Some Newer Challenges”) deals with the work of some younger advocates of UH, such as Umberto Ansaldo, who have self-reflexively integrated the ideological position of the linguist into the research process and therefore concluded that the category of creole languages should be critiqued as a potentially Eurocentric construct.” Sounds like the sort of thing we would expect McWhorter to cast a dubious eye on, in general social thought.
I’m a big fan of Professor McWhorter. A few words expanding on a bit of what he says here:
As he says, certain linguists (primarily those at MIT and their many followers) have pretty much misrepresented the research on the FoxP2 gene by suggesting that a genetic encoding of language resides within it (yes, many linguists continue to promulgate this). They reference a British family in which orofacial dyspraxia has been transmitted to offspring, for which a mutation in FoxP2 (present in many species) seems to be the culprit. However, the research (conducted by non-linguists) concluded that there was a cluster of deficits (primarily motoric) among these family members, not solely linguistic ones. And as McW emphasizes, orofacial dyspraxias have no inherent relationship to language structure; rather, they may affect speech. Our linguistic capacity is almost certainly built off various evolutionary antecedents that co-evolved (including cortical growth and concomitant cognitive development, vocal tract reconfiguration [larynx lowering and the development of two resonant vocal tract cavities that allows our species to produce a potentially infinite number of vowels, for example], and our uniquely expanded socialization capabilities); our language system is a consequence of evolutionary developments distributed across a large number of independent though interacting sub-systems. I’m not a geneticist, not by a long shot, but I’m highly skeptical that an ability that relies on the recruitment of so many remarkably complex sub-systems might be reducible to a so-called “language gene”, one that predates its presence in H. sapiens). It should be emphasized that generative linguists want this to be true though, because it would lend circumstantial support to their musings about the genetic underpinnings of language structure. Yes, it’s trivially true that our capacity for language is genetically-based in that it is passed on from generation to generation, and is species-specific, but that’s not a full reflection of what generativists assert; they claim that pretty much all aspects of language structure itself (the minutiae of syntax and phonology, primarily) are a consequence of genetic endowment. For example, why do languages largely alternate consonants and vowels? According to generativists, because it is encoded in our genes, and that’s all that needs to be said: that’s the explanation. This approach ignores, doesn’t care, or is suppressing the fact that the mammalian auditory system is more responsive to the sudden onset of acoustic energy rather than its offset (as when a consonant is followed by a vowel); there are obvious survival advantages to a heightened sensitivity to a sudden ambient noise, of course. To me, it makes little sense to propose, as generative linguists do, that this particular structural property of language (as well as so many others that lend themselves to language-external explanation) is itself a specifically linguistic phenomenon that is, or will be, genetically specified and isolable, thus wholly divorcing this ubiquitous (universal) property of language structure from its very deep (and obviously pre-linguistic) evolutionary origins. I could go on with many more examples (and I have in books and papers!), but I’ll stop.
To reinforce your comment, this is a complete non-starter on the very basic grounds that there is no way to encode sufficient information for any complex trait in only one gene. The recipe for any complex trait, such as language, necessarily requires lots of information and that necessarily requires lots of genes.
Thus there simply cannot be “a” language gene.
[A single gene could, of course, negate a complex trait, in the same way that one defective part can stop a complex machine from working; and single genes can also act as switches for complex machinery.]
A good point. I have always assumed that the issue of the FoxP2 gene is that it is felt to be necessary, though not sufficient, for human language production, but most genetic requirements beyond FoxP2 were in place already, and perhaps are in place in our closest primate relatives. Presumably, also, the issue for linguists is ‘what’s at stake’ in any answer. My casual acquaintance with linguistics suggests that most linguists are not interested in the origins of language, especially at a biological level, and those who are seem committed one way or another to the proposition that human language is distinctly human. Interesting stuff.
I think some or many of the genetic requirements for human-like language may be in place for a much larger group of animals beyond primates. (Birds & cetaceans come to mind.) Freely speculating, I can imagine advanced genetic technology that could harness those capabilities in order to “uplift” animals into being language-speaking creatures, though what they might be capable of actually saying is a much more complex subject.
And, of course, there are the ethical issues of “meddling” with genomes. (I am not ideologically averse to genetic engineering, either for plants or animals, including humans.)
hehhhe. Hey! Where’s my hat tip? I sent it to you also! hehehhehe
Kidding.
It was a great conversation.
D.A.
NYC
“… why McWhorter considers woke racism a “religion”, even though there are no supernatural beings involved.”
See ‘apophatic’ religion, compatible with reason, recommended for scientists’ mental health, acknowledges unknowns as opposed to the religion of faith in scientism or the tyranny of reason. Typically eastern, ‘buddha nature’ is not analogized as an old man in the clouds, etc.
“I’m not particularly concerned whether one conceives of progressive racial activism as an ideology or a religion, for it seems a semantic question. To me the more interesting questions are the characteristics of the movement (Does it promote irrationality? ”
Thinkgs to watch for – when something finite threatens to go infinite (like the unsustainable out of control fiscal deficit spending due to high life/death value placed on the Almighty Buck), gender is not defined objectively by Butler, and like I said irrational faith in scientism is right under your nose and ironically creates the impulse to create an answer like critical theory, etc.
Yes, they need to push into the religious aspect more.
Marx made society into god, and bourgeoise private property into the demiurge that constructed the prison of his species-being that can only be seen with his species-consciousness. That could be on Oprah if Marx was alive today – as it is a New Age-ish theosophy.
Marx didn’t use the word “god” but it’s the same gnostic formula. Prison, consciousness, demiurge, transcendence of private property as human self-estrangement, liberate true self, create heaven on Earth.
Also see the Hegel – also a gnostic in the Hermetic tradition.
There is a large gnostic literature to back that up, as well as Hermetic stuff.
It’s damn weird!
I just checked this on YouTube real quick like and ended up riveted to the whole thing – I love these sort of wide-ranging/risk taking yet self-correcting adventures in knowledge. Maybe it’s a lot of dead ends or unresolved questions but so many things come up along the way and man it’s refreshing.
Fascinating stuff.
On the question of the evolution of language, the semantic link between a call and a meaning are well established in some non-human animals. Vervet monkeys make a different alarm call when they detect an airborne predator, like a hawk, compared to when they detect a land predator like a snake. Other monkeys in the troop hearing the calls will react, looking up, or down, appropriately.
Chimpanzees don’t pair bond, like humans, but sometimes a male and a female, who’s in oestrus, will form what’s called a consortship and go off into the forest together. (In the case of the female, this might be willingly or by coercion) and in Jane Goodall’s books she describes how they have a specific call they make when one of the “partners” is moving too slowly or is hanging back for whatever reason, as if the chimp making the call is saying “come on, hurry up”.
We can’t, obviously know whether the last common ancestor of chimps, bonobos and humans had calls with semantic meaning but it is reasonable to suppose that they might. Having “words” like these are, of course, a long way from true language, even if they learned a lot of them: great apes in captivity can learn and understand hundreds of words. But as Pinker rightly claims in “The Language Instinct” having words without grammatical structure would not qualify as language.
The ancestors of humans have had about seven million years to first develop, a number of meaningful “words” which must have gradually developed into a structured language. It seems unlikely to me that this would have happened in anything like a recent sudden surge, but instead, gradually over millions of years. So, in the final analysis we can’t say whether Homo erectus had a simple language, but I certainly wouldn’t rule it out. And in the case of Neanderthals which had extremely complex behaviour, implying the need for sophisticated communication, I’d personally be surprised if they didn’t have a fully developed language. But, of course, this is just opinion – as they say: more research required.
Great discussion overall especially around 16:20 when Dr. McWhorter started mentioning certain names of ceratopsian dinosaurs.
As a former paleontology student, I couldn’t help but smile at how well he threw those names out there, especially Montanaceratops, Chasmosaurus, and Psittacosaurus.