“A language is a dialect with an army and a navy.” – Max Weinreich

Today, just a few choice quotes on language. You can go here for the actual book review.

On Oranges

Orange comes from the Spanish Naranja – originally, the word was norange. Over time, however, ‘a norange’ became ‘an orange’. The same reason is why Ned is a short form of Edward: ‘Mine Edward; became ‘My Nedward’. Or, if you didn’t know why Shakespeare used ‘nuncle’ as an affectionate name, the same reasoning applies – ‘mine uncle’ to ‘my nuncle’.

On Western Languages

The Proto-Indo-Europeans were an ancient group who took over Europe, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Northern India, China, and Western Russia, with a few small exceptions, and are the reason many Western languages seem to have similar words for many nouns: they’re all based on the same root. They’re also the reason English has irregular verbs like shake/shook: in Proto-Indo-European, pluralisation came from changing the vowel in word, not using an s. Based on the enormous area they covered, scientists speculate they represent either an enormous military culture, or the advent of farming, which would have allowed for cultural dominance.

An exception: the Basque Region in Spain, who must have resisted their hegemony somehow and maintained their own language.

On the Passive Case

English teachers always tell us not to use the passive: Pinker fights back. Passive can actually reduce the complexity of sentences, he explains, by reducing how much information you have to hold in memory to understand it.

“Reverse the clamp that the stainless steel hex-head bolt extending upward from the seatpost yoke holds (trace) in place”

“Reverse the clamp that (trace) is held in place by the stainless steel bex-head bolt extending upward from the seatpost yoke.”