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giffirt 's review for:
The Story of Human Language
by John McWhorter
The lecturer made a lot of jokes. Some of them were funny, some not and some were outright insulting. Let's start with some obvious ones. Please don't make jokes about slavery. That is not okay. And use words like "negro" only if you have a direct historical quote or historical instance you are referring to.
This was also way too long, and repetitive. The same things were told over and over again.
And even though I am not a linguist and I only listen to these because I have boring hobbies, I could still find several mistakes. Mostly considering Finnish and Scandinavian languages, since those happen to be the ones I'm most familiar with.
The lecturer also said, that it is not possible to have a language that would have seven vowels in same word, because it would make only "aioaioaaee" -noise. But we actually do have, at least one: hääyöaie. (It is not widely used, more a curiosity, but it still makes perfect sense if you speak Finnish!)
Considering this book drove me nuts and I don't even know that much about linguistics, I would imagine listening this would make a painful experience for anyone who is more familiar with the subject.
This was also way too long, and repetitive. The same things were told over and over again.
And even though I am not a linguist and I only listen to these because I have boring hobbies, I could still find several mistakes. Mostly considering Finnish and Scandinavian languages, since those happen to be the ones I'm most familiar with.
The lecturer also said, that it is not possible to have a language that would have seven vowels in same word, because it would make only "aioaioaaee" -noise. But we actually do have, at least one: hääyöaie. (It is not widely used, more a curiosity, but it still makes perfect sense if you speak Finnish!)
Considering this book drove me nuts and I don't even know that much about linguistics, I would imagine listening this would make a painful experience for anyone who is more familiar with the subject.