Interview
John McWhorter on key lessons from linguistics, the virtue of creoles, and language extinction
- Language learning may delay dementia onset by a couple of years through new neural connections, though claims that it raises general intelligence (IQ) or creates a uniquely different worldview are not supported by research.
- Language acquisition ability likely ossifies around age 13, making fluency difficult to achieve thereafter, while creole languages can evolve from pidgins into fully functional systems within one or two generations by stripping complex features like grammatical gender for regularity.
- Current language extinction rates, driven by globalization and technology, are faster than in the last 3,000 years and could reduce the global total from 7,000 to between 500 and 600 living languages within approximately 100 years.
- Future language revival efforts may struggle to establish new generations of speakers unless the language possesses a pre-existing written history.
- Language evolution is slowing due to written language and digital communication, potentially allowing modern speakers to understand English from a thousand years in the future.
- Long-term linguistic evolution depends on communication frequency: constant connectivity would likely prevent new languages from emerging over 1,000 years, whereas significant communication delays (years) between star systems would force the emergence of distinct languages.
- Future artificial intelligence may necessitate languages with denser semantic packing than human tongues can handle, potentially leading to an "AI language" shaped by algorithmic biases that influences human thought.
- Increased communication via a shared language between hostile nations might paradoxically increase the likelihood of war, suggesting that linguistic diversity could serve a functional role in maintaining comity.
- While language acquisition is limited by age and language death rates are high, languages do not degrade but rather adapt their structures and vocabulary to maintain efficiency.
- Speech speed may correlate with intelligence, though this link requires further verification, while the use of hedging phrases like "sort of" and filler words like "likes" serves pragmatic functions despite potential aesthetic criticisms.