Alphabet Conspiracy

is the story of man for the thoughts the aspirations the affections of long generations of humanity are woven into the fabric of human speech that's the way it begins story of language all over the world sounds of human speech like the very air we breathe or something most of us take just for granted where did you hide the paper now David you run right upstairs and watch and don't forget to brush your teeth you'd hardly think of our everyday speech as being a specimen for scientists to take apart piece by piece to study to analyze but this is a science the science of linguistics there are perhaps many ways to tell this story we've chosen to tell it through the imagination of the young lady who lives in this house now as you will see she's head over heels in linguistic problems of her own and she might call [Music] [Applause] [Music] it [Music] l [Music] why can't you use a preposition to end a sentence with why shouldn't P simple dangle why does have to be so many different words words words [Music] words [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] oh [Music] how' you do I'm the Mad Hatter well of course my name is Judy and you're in trouble word trouble but we are going to help you Judy this is jaok how do you do she's brilliant how mimy how do you do why does he talk that way because he's the jabberwock and talks Jabberwocky what are you two doing out of the Alis and Wonderland book we're going to free all the people enslaved by words we are going to do away with the AL take moral sword and told you to rub out the words words are awfully confusing sometimes there's no Rhyme or Reason to them at all good you may join our conspiracy here take a note ah Judy will lead the letters into trap go on go on [Music] I'll take care of the capital app you may take care of the little ones hello Judy who's he he's a professor of linguistics Linguistics well Judy what are you doing we're going to do away with the alphabet we're going to murder the language which one there at least 5,000 different languages in the world there are a few of the dictionaries where would you like to start what's he do speak all kinds of languages he doesn't just speak them he's a scientist of language a science of language oh yes he studies the insides of language sounds and words and alphabets alphabets is he for them or against them well there are some things to be said in favor of alphabets name one the alphabet is the basis of writing for one then let's get the man who invented the alphabet yes I'd like to meet him I'm afraid that would be a bit difficult because people have been writing for 5 or 6,000 years why that's centuries yes Judy it is the people have been talking for a long time if this ruler represents the time man has been talking he's been writing only this long but even today in many areas of the earth large numbers of people millions of them still get along without writing if they get along why should they buy the to lar well they can't learn to write most of them because they have no alphabet no alphabet but as civilization began to spread over the Earth people realized that spoken language alone has its limitations they were learning so much they couldn't remember it all you might say Judy that's why writing was invented then that must be why we have whole libraries full of books cuz people wanted to write down for other people what they thought and what they did pity people were talking to each other long before there was anything like Civilization scientists don't know exactly how it all got started but once on the Move speech grew like a great tree with branches joining it limbs branches growing out of other branches branches running up into Twigs each a spoken language that was the source of still other languages and each changing as went along and developed until 5,000 or more known languages spread through the ages even now languages are continually changing new ones springing from old ones sometimes several from a single Source Latin was very important wasn't it oh yes it certainly was what we call the romance languages all branched off from the great trunk of Latin there's Italian Sardinian Spanish and Portuguese Dalmatian and Romanian Catalan and French provel reto romance and if you listen you'll hear a certain similarity P Papa T they all do T something Al well Judy would you be interested to know that at a certain time of their lives babies all over the world speak the same language oh just a moment I know better than that what about Chinese babies and Indian babies German babies French babies and American babies well now just listen to the language that all those babies speak now here's a typical baby isn't this one that be young to talk all babies in the world have the same well baby language to start with the same babbling if you like but this babbling includes the sounds needed to make any language I didn't think baby talk really meant anything oh baby babbling is very important when a baby first comes into the world the speech areas of his brain are like a clean slate ready to be written upon from the very moment of birth with every sound a baby makes he is producing you might almost say practicing the basic sounds of speech then he learns to talk just by practicing not entirely through the first year the child listens to his parents and copies as closely as he can what he hears winning their approval when he makes the right sound s then the sounds begin to take shape and by the age of six the speech pattern is complete it's Daddy huh daddy babies all start with the same sounds and then they just keep doing that fit their language I think I'll make a note of that you might also make a note that we have a conspiracy to get on with shall we go oh yes that conspiracy to do away with the AL alphabet may I ask a question what is it why do you want to get rid of the alphabet it's language we're after really and the letters of the alphabet are the building blocks of language that's a beautiful statement thank you Judy very well put but hardly scientific professional jealousy if I wanted to do away with language what I would go after would be sounds because sounds are the basis of any language sounds make a note of that I suppose the next thing you're going to say is that there a science of sound well as a matter of fact there is for a long time scientists have been curious about how our human sounds are actually made in the course of such a study Professor Wolf Gang V kemplin invented the world's first talking machine make a note to get from kerland that was in the 18th century around 1780 cross him off we're too late here's a drawing of v klin's machine when the professor completed I wouldn't even know how to begin to build a Talking Machine what are you doing Judy I'm trying to imagine how the professor figured it all out before a talking machine could be built the professor had to do a scientific study of just how the human speech mechanism Works l vocal cords mouth pallet nasal cavities for speech you [Music] need air the chest muscles acting as a Bellow operate to fill our internal bag pipe the lungs with air next you need ah noise a read from a bag pipe that will do now we build the machine while our friend is busy let's look at some recent Motion Pictures of the human vocal cords in action these films were made by the ghoul Foundation voice research laboratory at Northwestern University you see human noise is produced by the vocal cords encased in the larynx or Adam's Apple Air from the lungs is released through a space between the cords causing them to Flap apart and slap together these vibration set up sound waves Now by slowing down the action with high-speed photography we can see that the pitch of sound is varried by tightening or relaxing the pull on the vocal cords tightening them raises the pitch relaxing them lowers [Music] it effective as they are the vocal cords are only the source of noise it's the rest of the speech mechanism that shapes the sound into meaningful words now what the professor had to understand to make his machine work was precisely how the tongue teeth lips and so forth operate uh a e o mhm vowels and now consonants BBB z h the breath explodes it buzzes it hes the machine is finished and Now demonstration [Music] why the machine spoke French said you are my friend bbl's machine was quite remarkable for 1780 for it was the world's first successful Talking Machine but scientists today have the benefit of techniques undreamed of in Bon klin's time in these X-ray films of the human speech mechanism in action you can see the tongue and lips assuming various positions to form cavities that modify the Sound by resonance who will give a needle a mouse a cat and a bird to my father the sound of the different vowels depends on the height to which the tongue is raised in the mouth High mid or low and also depends on the position of the tongue in the front or back of the mouth consonants are shaped by tongue lips teeth who will give a needle a mouse a cat and a bird to my father this has been very educational jabber we don't have to bother with the alphabet all we've got to do is get rid of those bowels and consonants and our job is done I hate to disappoint you fellows but what really come out of the human speech mechanism are phon PHS p h o n e m e s phones the basic sounds of speech don't even make a note of that Judy he's just trying to throw us off the track come on Jabba we've got plans to make it is confusing I guess I better ask you what is a phone phon is a sound like a b c no they're letters of the alphabet they're units of writing no alphabet for any language truly represents the sounds of that language let me borrow you pad sit down and I'll show you now let's take this word either now this word has five phonies if I say it slowly [Music] e you can hear the five parts but some people say either can you say either either or either either either or either as your friend the hatter has already said the alphabet can be very confusing different pronunciations are sometimes spelled in the same way that's why scientists had to develop more accurate symbols now in phones either is written this way uh [Music] e and either is written like this ah e the difference is the first little phy that's right now scientists such as Ferdinand suure in France discovered that out of the thousands of speech sounds a human being can make each language has picked its own set of phones English for instance has 45 then those little phon sounds must really be the building blocks of language I better make a note of that for the hatter but for myself I better just stick to the alphabet we have a proposal if we can prove that it's possible to communicate without words to say nothing of fores will you give up your linguistic Obsession and join our conspiracy the science is always open to experimental evidence good [Music] 1 2 buckle my shoe 3 4 shut the door hi I understood him perfectly if we can win over science the alphabet is as good as dead well Dr Linguistics do you conc that we have made a point yes indeed as a matter of fact I think we can substantiate your point further I think you'll find this very interesting Dy science this is one of the Canary Islands Lera off the west coast of North Africa a land of rugged terrain in the sparse L populated areas people found it difficult to communicate with one another across the Deep Gorges Soo the gas contrived an extraordinary form of telephonic speech whistling which can be understood over a distance of three differences in Pitch this whistling language is of great interest to linguistic scientists because it makes use of only one feature of normal speech pitch does with all the variations of tone quality that Professor V kemplin was so concerned about now whereas this Canary another ingenious form of Lang was invented in the North American Plains Indian sign language when tribes met on the trail hunted Buffalo together or met in Council wasn't time enough to learn one another's spoken language so they used sign washon the white soldiers C the Indians beside the river called The Lodge pole River before the snow there'd be no more fighting and that made all the Indians very happy excuse me for inter it I was was just wondering how the Indians managed to talk with their hands in the dark well they couldn't Judy as you can see all of these methods giving man Limitless possibilities for expressing his ideas his concepts of Science and Technology his day-by-day thoughts his feelings his emotions love don't be taken in by those scientific sophistries do animals have alphabets do they have words and animals can without any words at all Quote communicate from the moment of birth and they've gotten without any words at all haven't they oh yes indeed that but would you fellows please oblige now look there's a crow when man invades the forest he's the first to shout beat it and all the other birds animals pass on the alarm not only birds and animals get along without words but insects as well the most incredible of all is the dance of the honeybee when a worker bee finds a flower full of nectar it FL this Urgent Message is communicated by performing a dance the pattern of the dance indicates the direction of the flowers in relation to the sun the speed of the dance tells the distance from The Hive the other bees all take notice they touch the dancer with their discover the scent of the flowers then they all fly out to the source of the nectar animals and insects have many ingenious ways of communicating sound smells with motion we find in all this communication that the animal mind operates almost automatically it receives messages from the outside through its sense organs and reacts instinctively [Music] hello hello why jabber that's very good you're improving hello oh it was the parrot beware the JB talking bird but parrots just imitate what people say yes that's because they are not able to associate a given sound or word with a specific meaning it's curious though that they sound like people some animals such as Apes do have a larynx and the rest of our vocal apparatus the speech mechanism of a chimpanzee is the closest to that of a human being will you please research psychologist Dr Keith Hayes and his wife raised a chimp named Vicki after constant training Vicki had learned to speak only three human words by the time she was 3 years old like human babies she babbled at first later she was rewarded when she made the right sounds Mrs Hayes would shape fick's lips to help her pronounce the word Mama the age of Two and a Half she could say papa and cup now she has learned to use all three of her words appropriately in solicitation now who am I papa papa say she was rewarded when she made the right sound Mrs Hayes would shape Vicki's lips to help her pronounce the word Mama the age of Two and a Half she could say papa and cup now she is learned to use all three of her words appropriately in solicitation now who am I Papa Papa can you say what this is by the age of six Vicki's spoken vocabulary consisted of seven words whereas human children are using hundreds of words by the time they're only 2 years old chimpanzees rangatangs and other mammals may have larynxes in the rest of the speech mechanism but it takes more than that it takes brain power well for the present we must conclude that man is the only one of Earth's creatures with true language because the animals can't manage to combine their cries calls their signals to form the infinite variety of meaning that we achieve when we arrange words and sounds into sentences so Judy shouldn't surprise you that some people have argued that what distinguishes man from Beast is grammar I knew it I knew it I persed it from the moment he started building up the so-called science of linguistics and all these pretentious words are just a cover up of grammar so Judy the sooner we get on with our conspiracy the sooner we get rid of grammar it would be a lovely world without subjects and predicates and split infinitives and the conjugation of verbs but Judy grammar isn't just a bunch of rules I know it's the building blocks of language no it's more like the architect's plan for the building well if you'll pardon me Professor I've got some plans for that [Music] plan then grammar is the plan of how we talk it sounds important but rather hard to understand Judy it's simply this the way words are arranged into sentences is as important a meaning as the separate words themselves Judy did you know that your brain was unconsciously using grammar long before you started the school you mean my head's been full of sub Che and predicates I didn't even know it yes of course did you ever try to make your mind completely blank you can your mind goes on talking to itself and in language that's what we call thinking for language puts not only words into our mouths but into our heads too well that's another trouble with words maybe the hatter is right oh but Judy before you go let me say that words themselves aren't to blame they were developed through the ages to express the vital experiences of people everywhere in a sense people live in different worlds worlds reflected in their languages if we could understand these many languages we might hear the people say we Eskimo must live with snow it shapes Our Lives we have a dozen special words to tell about snow it's far too important to be dismissed with one word to us living in the the troan islands our very existence depend on raising our crops we have more than 100 names for yams Arabic gives us more than 6,000 different words for Camel its Parts and Equipment when language expresses our various ways of life it is indeed our servant some Scholars have wondered if language is not at times our Master people use words do words use people in most of the Oriental World our various social classes speak one to the other in traditional ways does our language then determine our Behavior dictating for each person the way in which he acts towards his equals his inferiors his superiors our Hopey language has no grammatical way to express past present or future so far as our language is concerned one might conclude that the world is without time altogether scientists too are pondering such questions does our language shape our whole philosophy of Life Is it true that some ideas that are clear in one language may be very difficult to say may be even difficult to think in another language even so-called primitive peoples have developed languages that admirably Express their cultures their ways of life but scientists have discovered that there are no primitive languages on the face of the Earth these languages used with ease by the crudest Savages are just as complex as other tongues in fact it sometimes requires the lifetime study of our greatest Scholars to figure them out anthropologists like France boas who pioneered in American Indian languages sought to discover in each language its own system following Boaz Leonard Bloomfield began collecting materials on American Indian Languages by this and other work he set the stage for modern descriptive Linguistics others such as Edward seir an expert on many Indian tongues studied languages as related to cultures and total ways of life of all the languages now being spoken only a few have been studied scientifically and today linguistic scientists all over the world are concentrating upon small speech communities that are rapidly dying out to prevent their languages from being forever lost to the study of man as we understand each new language we learn more about the way human beings communicate with one another oh look there's an envelope maybe there's a letter inside it's an invitation Mad Hatter says we're invited to a mad tea party he's going to prove that language is madness and the guest of honor is to be Dr linguistics aisher JY and gimbal be right over my goodness tea and Linguistics what a curious [Music] combination the Mad tea party is about to commence who's coming where I've invited a cowboy from the southwest a theatrical publicity man and and some other guests how do you do Shorty scare me ma'am Judy this is shorty Rogers famous jazz Trumpeter and composer hey there Judy how do you do crazy shorty you're going to meet a very distinguished professor of linguistics is this cat cool square or way out well I'm not sure that I follow you but this should prove a very amusing encounter they won't understand each other at all shorty it is my great pleasure to introduce to you the very distinguished doctor Linguistics doctor this is shorty Rogers I'm very happy to make your acquaintance doctor skin me man man you're really with it what's the bit here well a hat here's been trying to bug me on this ABC Jazz crazy made the seen man crazy hey you're a real live aspirin well I have to split now so long keep cool they seem to understand each other but I couldn't Mimsy too me either well wle meets my next guest oh Dr L I'd like you to meet a theatrical publicity man how do you do hi looks as if you already have a story yep here's my lead Tong's wag is wag's gag but hot hat cools as doc clicks on rhetoric tricks well that just about ball points the hats chat like a fat vat well I got to run out doc this bash is a Bop some scko packed in that flax cracks flax cracks bander snatch to me you're right they do understand each other perhaps this next guest will confuse him enjoying yourself well now I don't want to sound like I raised on sour milk but I just can't drink enough of this yellow garle to get a talking load you see these doings give me book Fever I get my spurs all tangled and I'm just plain old hog tied when it comes to making Chen music with the pack of strangers well Dr Ling well Dr Linguistics well it was all quite simple he said he wasn't mouthy fresh out of tongue oil this winging shortens his steak rope makes him feel feel like he's got his leg tied up say partner you sat at my lingo you'll do to ride the river with well I got to roll my wheels so long doc so long Amigo him and me's made of the same leather well so much for Linguistics now do let us have some tea Judy after that variety of verbal vocalizing surely you would agree that language is a mixed up mess but Dr Linguistics didn't seem to think the tea party was so mad no actually I thought it was quite sensible Sensible with everyone speaking a different language different dialect if you please now these dialects and occupational vocabularies are what make any language interesting colorful they're part of our humor but they're also the subject of scholarly research well Dr Linguistics I'm afraid that you and I are not made of the same Lea well thanks for the Tean Linguistics it was very pleasant Judy would you care to join me in a little research project in American dialect geography the way a man talks tells us where he comes from like in Brooklyn some people call a bird a blade yes it's not only what people say it's the way they say it that gives us Clues where they were brought up clues that sounds like a mystery it is rather you could look at it as a kind of detective story first we'll need a suspect and a private eye let's make it [Music] two now for the last time are you going to tell us where you're from or you won eh well we have ways of finding out read [Music] this Mary Mary Mary aha west of the Alanis they pronounce the words alike he pronounced them all differently yeah that's right clue number one puts him east of the alanes all right now read this oh sorry greasy hear that he said greasy not greasy that puts him nor to Philadelphia ha read this park he said Park not Park yeah yeah I heard it that eliminates Coastal New England breed wash water hear that not wash and water but wash and water the rest of New England is out must be Central Atlantic State [Music] somewhere father father that senses it I'll put him within a 30 m radius a Time Square right yeah tidy TI and TI [Music] an amusing parlor game Dr Ling something like 20 Questions well a dialect geographer using a list of only 30 words can usually place a person within 20 mi of his home locality so long as he lives in the eastern part of the United States dialect geographers began charting their Monumental linguistic Atlas in the east in 1929 and and had been painstakingly working their way to the West Dr Hans kurath of the University of Michigan has conducted a good part of this research he and his dialect experts are traveling around the country for the past 25 years asking people what words they use for all sorts of things and they've recorded dialect differences in words and how they're pronounced perhaps Dr kurath will show us how the atlas is put together well you see the atlas contains hundreds of maps showing speech difference and their geographical boundaries which we call isoglosses may I show you a few examples this isog gloss sets off the area in which wi cakes are called Fitters this here around Philadelphia shows the area where they call them hot cakes over here they're called FL cakes to the south of it B cakes it is on the basis of isog glasses like these that we establish the dialect thank you Dr kurath man takes his speech ways with him wherever he goes as the dialects flowed Westward the way our population did the strands unraveled and began to overlap here's how they traveled Western New England accents Coast speech Southern Mountain accents Plantation speech Texas accents but down east talk in the state of Maine has stayed put this research has revealed the paths people have taken when they migrated from one part of the country to another shown the changes going on in American speech patterns This research has Unearthed hitherto unrecorded dialects is also marked off areas where big cities have influenced the speech ways of neighboring localities this Atlas is a most impressive achievement in one branch of the science of linguistics the Dr L it may be Linguistics it may be impressive it may even be an achievement in one branch but don't try to convince me that it's a science a science is test tubes telescopes microscopes and chromium plated machines well actually Linguistics has its own share of Hardware Hardware yes that's what scientists call their machines before you can build a piece of hard Ware you have to know exactly what you want it to do that calls for research imagination would you please the kind of imagination that led to Belle's telephone to Edison's phonograph to marone's wireless and to the first all talking picture didn't movies always talk no Judy when I was your age films were silent how do movies talk well running along the side of our film is the soundtrack I wonder whatever it looks like well we might ask the soundtrack to move in a bit is that what makes the picture talk it's just a routine matter of Technology routine matter of Technology indeed you surely wouldn't make light of the magic of physics converting sound into electrical impulses why electronic machines are nothing short of miraculous you'll see example the sound spectrograph turns speech into pictures first the scientist speaks into the machine never kill a snake with your bare hands it is impressive but what is it doing the the machine separates all sounds into two things pitch and loudness the phrase never kill a snake with your bare hands comes out looking like this is it a new kind of alphabet looks more like a fuzzy kind of short hand these patterns of light show pitch and loudness in each instant of sound that gave the scientist an idea why not just create speech artificially by painting these patterns on clear plastic with a brush and when when they feed this hand painted speech into the playback machine here's how it sounds never k a snake with your bare hands it talks by hand yes the sound spectrograph allows linguistic scientists to make very rapid studies of speech sounds and among other things some deaf people have been taught to see speech for example they learn to recognize this pattern as five they hear with their eyes precisely they see pictures of speech oh we've got machines that talk to man and even machines that can listen Audrey that's a machine that listens to spoken numbers like a telephone operator and obeys orders or four yes Audrey the automatic digit recognizer can identify numbers spoken into a telephone and how about the voice typewriter it takes dict and types words as they are spoken see you read it it's like the secretary who never makes a mistake no they're easily confused by different voices and different accents voice typewriters are still pretty crude what about machines that talk to each other yes electronic Computing machines transmit data to each other over ordinary telephone circuits those machines will soon learn that it's a lot easier to get into this talking business than it is to get out of it out of it Bend or snatch I never dreamed machines could be so smart I'd have a tea party conversation with a machines I'm afraid you find the conversation rather dull you see Judy machines have no minds of their own I thought they had electronic Brains it's the brain of man that tells them what to do I give up you and your science scientific attitude magic is just matter of fact to you every Miracle has to have its qualifications reservations footnotes uh goodbye I hope the soundtrack didn't go away mad soundtrack's an impetuous fellow he was in such a hurry he neglected to even mention an automatic translator you see Judy for a long time now scientists have been working toward the realization of machines that will translate one language anguage into another here's a machine that's helping them it's called The johniac Machine translation will need a dictionary and a grammar book a plan of the language designed for the machines to [Music] use there's still a lot to be done though one of the linguistic scientists working on the problem is Professor Kenneth Harper his students from the University of California at Los Angeles are also helping wouldn't it be wonderful if we had a machine that could translate languages so that everybody could understand everybody else yes Judy it would unfortunately translating words from one language to another is not the same as understanding that language but if we knew what the words meant well word for word translation can never quite communicate to us the thinking the overtones that convey true meaning in any language a linguistic Scientist by finding new ways ways of teaching other languages and making them easier to learn are helping us to break down old barriers Judy differences in language have been one of the greatest barriers to A Meeting of Minds among men one expression of the desire for greater understanding is the United [Music] Nations as terellian of Carthage in 200 ad wrote man is is the one name belonging to Every Nation on Earth there is one soul and many tongues one spirit and many sounds every country has its own speech but the subjects of speech are common to all yes the subjects of speech day-to-day talk the chatter of small talk the exchange of pleasantries [Music] news gossip conversation among friends and with strangers who speak different languages but find ways of understanding each other language and speech the basis for communication tools for learning for broadening Horizons of the mind for developing new ideas for exchanging knowledge exploring New Frontiers of science gift of speech a universal quality that links each man to the world of men language the pattern of speech May one day be the instrument that will bring compatibility and understanding to human beings [Music] everywhere [Music] soon I shall be immortalized as the man who freed people from words but you're already Immortal huh even if your alphabet conspiracy succeeds and you destroy the books You Mad Hatter and you too jabberwock will always live on in the minds of men it's because they were created out of words yet you're both very alive to me well I'm very alive to myself and so are you jebor I'm beginning to feel it immortality come on jebber I believe Alice is expecting us [Music] [Music] words words words words hello there Judy having trouble with your homework you see there's so much I don't understand and I'd like to understand perhaps I can help just as men of science explore the atom the gene the universe so also do they study the living breath of human speech expressing the needs affections Joys hopes tragedy the act the very Spirit of man's deepest [Music] nature [Music] [Music] the Bell System is grateful to the many distinguished scientists who helped to prepare this story of language our thanks to the special advisers who supplied and checked the scientific material for this program our thanks also to The Advisory Board which reviews the scientific aspects of these programs its members represent the broad range of science including biology and genetics medicine bacteriology and botany [Music] chemistry geophysics physics anthropology electronics and Acoustics mathematics engineering to all these men and to many institutions the Bell System is indebted for the support they have given this Venture in education through [Music] entertainment