What would happen if you placed six families, each speaking different languages, on an uninhabited desert island for three years? How would they communicate? Would their children communicate differently? And what else—good or terrible—might happen?
Linguist Derek Bickerton proposed such an experiment and nearly got federal funding for it. Would it have revealed certain unknowns about how languages come into being? Or did his idea amount to “a cultural zoo”? Bickerton (1926-2018) talked with Patrick about his island dream. He also wrote about it in his linguistic memoir, Bastard Tongues.
We also hear from author Michael Erard whose latest ebook, The Language Beat, collects much of his language journalism. Michael offers casting suggestions for a movie about Derek Bickerton’s experiment. And, he discusses some of our most undervalued verbal utterances: stumbles, hesitations and blunders, the subject of his book, Um...
Music in this episode by OTE and Trabant 33. The photo (via Wikimedia Commons) is by ＤＡＶＩＤ. Sign up for Subtitle’s newsy, nerdy newsletter here.
