WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.439 I want to start today with a little visualization 00:00:02.439 --> 00:00:06.019 exercise. If you can, picture the coat of arms 00:00:06.019 --> 00:00:08.380 of South Africa. It's this really stunning piece 00:00:08.380 --> 00:00:10.939 of art. You've got the secretary bird, the rising 00:00:10.939 --> 00:00:14.480 sun, elephant tusks. It's really majestic. But 00:00:14.480 --> 00:00:16.420 I want you to look right at the bottom. There's 00:00:16.420 --> 00:00:20.019 this green ribbon with a motto on it. Exactly. 00:00:20.019 --> 00:00:21.859 And when you look at that, your first instinct 00:00:21.859 --> 00:00:23.839 is probably to try and place it. Is it Zulu? 00:00:24.219 --> 00:00:28.000 Is it Xhosa? Maybe Afrikanans. But it doesn't 00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:30.480 look like any of them. It's a phrase. And it 00:00:30.480 --> 00:00:32.780 translates to something like diverse people unite. 00:00:33.060 --> 00:00:35.899 A really beautiful idea for a country. But the 00:00:35.899 --> 00:00:38.219 language it's written in, that's where you find 00:00:38.219 --> 00:00:40.299 the ghost in the machine. It really is. That 00:00:40.299 --> 00:00:42.640 language is ZAM. Yeah. And the tragedy of it, 00:00:42.659 --> 00:00:45.380 or maybe the irony, I'm sure which, is that ZAM 00:00:45.380 --> 00:00:47.539 is extinct. There are no living native speakers. 00:00:47.840 --> 00:00:50.750 Yeah. So the national motto of this vibrant modern 00:00:50.750 --> 00:00:53.130 country is written in a language that's fallen 00:00:53.130 --> 00:00:55.929 completely silent. Yeah, that fact just completely 00:00:55.929 --> 00:00:57.929 floored me when I was digging into the sources. 00:00:58.009 --> 00:01:00.729 It feels like a secret just hiding in plain sight. 00:01:00.990 --> 00:01:03.950 But here's the thing. Zam wasn't some, you know, 00:01:03.950 --> 00:01:06.370 isolated oddity. It belonged to a whole language 00:01:06.370 --> 00:01:08.870 family that is, well, it's arguably one of the 00:01:08.870 --> 00:01:11.250 most complex and tragic on Earth. Without a doubt. 00:01:11.269 --> 00:01:13.750 It's a family that just challenges everything 00:01:13.750 --> 00:01:15.950 we think we know, but what the human voice can 00:01:15.950 --> 00:01:18.739 even do. So today we're doing a deep dive into 00:01:18.739 --> 00:01:21.640 the two languages. And I have to say, going through 00:01:21.640 --> 00:01:23.459 the research for this, my thinking went from, 00:01:23.500 --> 00:01:25.980 okay, another language family to, wait a minute, 00:01:26.060 --> 00:01:28.200 these might be the most complex sounds humans 00:01:28.200 --> 00:01:30.799 have ever made. We're talking about world record 00:01:30.799 --> 00:01:32.980 holders for phonetic complexity that are just 00:01:32.980 --> 00:01:36.000 hanging on by the thinnest possible thread. It's 00:01:36.000 --> 00:01:38.640 a study in extremes, really. On one side, you 00:01:38.640 --> 00:01:41.799 have this. This maximum possible complexity, 00:01:41.879 --> 00:01:44.560 just an explosion of sound. And on the other, 00:01:44.599 --> 00:01:49.079 you have extreme demographic fragility. It's 00:01:49.079 --> 00:01:51.280 like finding a supercomputer inside an ancient 00:01:51.280 --> 00:01:54.079 ruin that's about to crumble. Right. So our mission 00:01:54.079 --> 00:01:56.200 today is to try and unpack that. We're going 00:01:56.200 --> 00:01:59.299 to look at the unique superpowers of the two 00:01:59.299 --> 00:02:02.180 family, the detective work connecting them to 00:02:02.180 --> 00:02:06.019 the ancient Kalahari. And, yeah, we have to face 00:02:06.019 --> 00:02:08.780 the hard reality of where they stand today. And 00:02:08.780 --> 00:02:11.139 to do that right, we first have to clear the 00:02:11.139 --> 00:02:13.379 deck a little. We have to unlearn something that 00:02:13.379 --> 00:02:15.939 most of us probably saw in old encyclopedias. 00:02:16.280 --> 00:02:19.840 We need to talk about the K word of African linguistics. 00:02:20.020 --> 00:02:23.460 You're talking about Khoisan. I am. Yeah. For 00:02:23.460 --> 00:02:25.340 a very long time, you'd open a textbook and see 00:02:25.340 --> 00:02:27.840 all these clique languages from southern Africa 00:02:27.840 --> 00:02:30.439 just lumped together under this one big umbrella. 00:02:30.819 --> 00:02:33.400 Khoisan. It's the standard label, I think. Most 00:02:33.400 --> 00:02:35.319 people probably assume it's a real family, like 00:02:35.319 --> 00:02:37.900 saying Romance languages or Indo -European. Right, 00:02:37.939 --> 00:02:40.340 but that's the trap. Linguists today see Khoisan 00:02:40.340 --> 00:02:43.719 as, well, it's... pretty much obsolete as a scientific 00:02:43.719 --> 00:02:46.199 term it's a term of convenience not a genetic 00:02:46.199 --> 00:02:48.199 reality it's a bit like looking at europe and 00:02:48.199 --> 00:02:51.080 saying well basque and hungarian and english 00:02:51.080 --> 00:02:52.860 must all be related because they're neighbors 00:02:52.860 --> 00:02:55.340 which we know isn't true at all they might borrow 00:02:55.340 --> 00:02:57.060 words sure but they have completely different 00:02:57.060 --> 00:03:00.419 family trees exactly So the two languages, which 00:03:00.419 --> 00:03:03.240 is our focus, they are a primary family. They 00:03:03.240 --> 00:03:04.900 stand on their own. They're not some sub -branch 00:03:04.900 --> 00:03:07.439 of a big Khoisan tree. They're their own distinct 00:03:07.439 --> 00:03:10.919 lineage, spoken historically in Botswana, Namibia, 00:03:10.919 --> 00:03:13.460 and South Africa. So if Khoisan is out, let's 00:03:13.460 --> 00:03:16.020 get the name right. Tu, T -U -U, where does that 00:03:16.020 --> 00:03:18.240 come from? It's actually a wonderful example 00:03:18.240 --> 00:03:21.659 of linguistics finally getting it right. The 00:03:21.659 --> 00:03:24.379 name Tu is from a word that shows up in both 00:03:24.379 --> 00:03:26.419 main branches of the family. It just means person. 00:03:26.830 --> 00:03:28.750 Oh, I really like that. It grounds the whole 00:03:28.750 --> 00:03:31.150 discussion. Instead of some, you know, colonial 00:03:31.150 --> 00:03:34.050 label or a complicated geographical name, we're 00:03:34.050 --> 00:03:35.629 just using the word they use for themselves. 00:03:36.050 --> 00:03:39.090 We are people. Precisely. Now, to kind of visualize 00:03:39.090 --> 00:03:41.409 this, think about the arid parts of southern 00:03:41.409 --> 00:03:44.729 Africa, the Kalahari Basin. This family is split 00:03:44.729 --> 00:03:47.270 into two main branches. First, you have the Ta 00:03:47.270 --> 00:03:49.710 branch. This is mostly in Botswana. It's the 00:03:49.710 --> 00:03:52.729 more robust branch, relatively speaking. And 00:03:52.729 --> 00:03:54.469 we'll get to what robust actually means in a 00:03:54.469 --> 00:03:56.710 bit. Okay. And the second branch. The second 00:03:56.710 --> 00:03:59.050 is the Kewi branch. Sometimes you'll see it written 00:03:59.050 --> 00:04:01.909 as Joui. This was the branch found all across 00:04:01.909 --> 00:04:04.389 South Africa. This is the one that includes Zam 00:04:04.389 --> 00:04:08.710 from the motto. And this branch is, well, linguists 00:04:08.710 --> 00:04:11.550 describe it as Moribund. Moribund. That's a very 00:04:11.550 --> 00:04:14.530 polite academic way of saying dying. It is. And 00:04:14.530 --> 00:04:17.730 the relationship between Ta and Kewi, it's distant. 00:04:18.199 --> 00:04:20.600 They are related, but it's not like looking at 00:04:20.600 --> 00:04:22.540 Spanish and Portuguese. It's a much, much deeper 00:04:22.540 --> 00:04:24.319 separation. They've been apart for a very long 00:04:24.319 --> 00:04:26.660 time. Okay, so we've got the geography, the Kalahari. 00:04:26.800 --> 00:04:29.759 We've got the family tree, Ta and Kewi. But the 00:04:29.759 --> 00:04:32.100 thing that really stopped me in my tracks was 00:04:32.100 --> 00:04:34.939 the sound. We all hear about clicks. Maybe we've 00:04:34.939 --> 00:04:37.579 seen them in movies. But the two languages take 00:04:37.579 --> 00:04:40.519 this to a level that is, it's frankly hard for 00:04:40.519 --> 00:04:42.519 an English speaker to even imagine. It really 00:04:42.519 --> 00:04:45.319 is. We need to talk about their specific superpower. 00:04:46.310 --> 00:04:49.009 Because two languages, along with just one neighboring 00:04:49.009 --> 00:04:51.829 language called MAMCO, are the only languages 00:04:51.829 --> 00:04:54.449 in the world to use bilabial clicks as speech 00:04:54.449 --> 00:04:56.790 sounds. Bilabial. Let's just unpack that. That 00:04:56.790 --> 00:04:58.730 just means two lips, right? Correct. Bilabial, 00:04:58.730 --> 00:05:01.529 yes. So most clicks we might try to imitate are 00:05:01.529 --> 00:05:04.110 made with the tongue against the teeth or the 00:05:04.110 --> 00:05:06.490 roof of the mouth, like that stick sound. Exactly. 00:05:06.490 --> 00:05:09.029 Those are tongue -based. But a bilabial click 00:05:09.029 --> 00:05:11.149 is made just with the lips. It sounds almost 00:05:11.149 --> 00:05:15.040 like a stiff kiss. A pop. A kiss sound, but used 00:05:15.040 --> 00:05:17.519 as a consonant. So you're not just being affectionate. 00:05:17.519 --> 00:05:19.699 You're using it in a word to mean, I don't know, 00:05:19.759 --> 00:05:23.620 dog or run. Precisely. Now I should add a tiny 00:05:23.620 --> 00:05:25.560 asterisk here just for the linguists listening. 00:05:25.759 --> 00:05:28.279 There was a ritual language in Australia, Damon, 00:05:28.379 --> 00:05:30.920 that also used them. But Damon was an invented 00:05:30.920 --> 00:05:34.240 ceremonial language, not a mother tongue. In 00:05:34.240 --> 00:05:36.699 terms of natural spoken languages, two stands 00:05:36.699 --> 00:05:39.779 completely alone. That is just wild. Out of 7 00:05:39.779 --> 00:05:42.720 ,000 languages, only this group in the Kalahari 00:05:42.720 --> 00:05:45.360 figured, hey, let's use a kiss sound to build 00:05:45.360 --> 00:05:48.040 words. But it's not just that one sound, is it? 00:05:48.060 --> 00:05:50.139 It's the sheer number of sounds. It's staggering. 00:05:50.439 --> 00:05:53.399 Let's take the Ta language, also known as Okexo. 00:05:53.740 --> 00:05:55.600 It's part of what we call a linguistic area, 00:05:55.800 --> 00:05:57.899 Strogbund, that has the most complex inventory 00:05:57.899 --> 00:06:00.459 of consonants in the world. When you say inventory, 00:06:00.639 --> 00:06:02.220 give us a comparison. How many are we talking 00:06:02.220 --> 00:06:05.060 about here? Well, English has about 24 consonant 00:06:05.060 --> 00:06:08.300 sounds, give or take. Us, one. Somewhere between 00:06:08.300 --> 00:06:11.540 80 and, you know, some analyses push it to 160. 00:06:11.819 --> 00:06:14.139 Wait, 160? How is that even possible? I feel 00:06:14.139 --> 00:06:16.060 like I'd run out of parts of my mouth. It's all 00:06:16.060 --> 00:06:18.579 about the combinations. You have your basic consonants, 00:06:18.600 --> 00:06:20.860 then you have clicks, but then you have clicks 00:06:20.860 --> 00:06:23.459 that are voiced, clicks that are nasal, clicks 00:06:23.459 --> 00:06:26.180 that are aspirated, clicks followed by a glottal 00:06:26.180 --> 00:06:28.319 stop. And from what I read, they're also combining 00:06:28.319 --> 00:06:30.800 different airstreams. Right, that's the key. 00:06:31.000 --> 00:06:33.579 Most of our sounds are aggressive. We push air 00:06:33.579 --> 00:06:36.370 out. Clicks are aggressive. We suck Aryan. Two 00:06:36.370 --> 00:06:38.490 languages will do both, sometimes at the same 00:06:38.490 --> 00:06:40.610 time. And then on top of all that, they have 00:06:40.610 --> 00:06:43.790 these incredibly complex vowel systems and tone. 00:06:43.910 --> 00:06:46.410 And tone, right. Just like Mandarin, the pitch 00:06:46.410 --> 00:06:48.569 changes the meaning of the word. So you have 00:06:48.569 --> 00:06:51.329 the world's widest variety of clicks, a massive 00:06:51.329 --> 00:06:54.189 list of consonants, complex vowels, and tonal 00:06:54.189 --> 00:06:56.129 changes all happening at once. It's like a symphony. 00:06:56.170 --> 00:06:57.949 I mean, compared to that, we're basically playing 00:06:57.949 --> 00:07:00.810 chopsticks on a toy piano, and they're playing 00:07:00.810 --> 00:07:03.860 Rachmaninoff on a concert grand. That's a great 00:07:03.860 --> 00:07:05.860 way to put it. It really represents the full 00:07:05.860 --> 00:07:08.180 potential of what the human vocal tract can do. 00:07:08.439 --> 00:07:11.199 It's a library of sounds that exists nowhere 00:07:11.199 --> 00:07:14.279 else on earth. That brings us to the who. Who 00:07:14.279 --> 00:07:15.939 are the people who developed this? I mean, we 00:07:15.939 --> 00:07:18.199 don't have written records from 5 ,000 years 00:07:18.199 --> 00:07:20.639 ago in the Kalahari. No, we don't. But we have 00:07:20.639 --> 00:07:22.399 something almost as good. We have linguistic... 00:07:23.129 --> 00:07:25.850 I love that term. It's like digging for history 00:07:25.850 --> 00:07:28.709 inside the words themselves. Exactly. By comparing 00:07:28.709 --> 00:07:30.629 the modern languages, we can reconstruct words 00:07:30.629 --> 00:07:34.430 from Proto -2, the ancestor language. And there's 00:07:34.430 --> 00:07:36.970 one specific word that acts like a GPS coordinate 00:07:36.970 --> 00:07:40.329 for their history. It's the word for the gemsbok. 00:07:40.649 --> 00:07:43.430 The antelope with the long, straight horns. A 00:07:43.430 --> 00:07:45.790 very specific animal. A very specific animal. 00:07:45.930 --> 00:07:48.170 The reconstructed word is something like dock 00:07:48.170 --> 00:07:51.949 high. Now, why is that so important? because 00:07:51.949 --> 00:07:54.730 to have a single common root word for the gemsbok, 00:07:54.910 --> 00:07:57.709 the people who spoke that proto -language must 00:07:57.709 --> 00:07:59.829 have lived where gemsbok lived. Which is the 00:07:59.829 --> 00:08:03.870 desert, the arid scrubland, the Kalahari. Precisely. 00:08:04.129 --> 00:08:07.089 It anchors them to that environment. It's proof 00:08:07.089 --> 00:08:09.569 they didn't migrate there recently. They've been 00:08:09.569 --> 00:08:12.110 desert dwellers for thousands and thousands of 00:08:12.110 --> 00:08:14.490 years. But the sources also mentioned they weren't 00:08:14.490 --> 00:08:16.470 alone out there. They were interacting with their 00:08:16.470 --> 00:08:18.949 neighbors. Yes, specifically the Kho speaking 00:08:18.949 --> 00:08:21.670 peoples. And this is where that Khoisan confusion 00:08:21.670 --> 00:08:25.050 comes up again. Tu and Kho are distinct groups, 00:08:25.269 --> 00:08:28.230 but they've lived side by side for millennia. 00:08:28.550 --> 00:08:31.350 And they started to, well, swap things. Like 00:08:31.350 --> 00:08:33.669 borrowing a cup of sugar, but for vocabulary. 00:08:33.769 --> 00:08:36.190 And body parts, apparently. Yeah. The research 00:08:36.190 --> 00:08:38.750 notes some really specific borrowings. For example, 00:08:38.750 --> 00:08:42.399 the word for chest. In Naxo, it's goo. which 00:08:42.399 --> 00:08:44.519 is borrowed from the co -word goo. And chin, 00:08:44.740 --> 00:08:48.059 the language n has g -a -n, which is from co 00:08:48.059 --> 00:08:49.860 -an -n. But here's my favorite little mystery 00:08:49.860 --> 00:08:52.320 from the reading. It's the word for louse. Head 00:08:52.320 --> 00:08:55.029 lice. Yep. The root word, something like Sony, 00:08:55.210 --> 00:08:57.570 shows up in both to and co -families, but some 00:08:57.570 --> 00:08:59.210 linguists think it doesn't actually belong to 00:08:59.210 --> 00:09:01.490 either of them. So where did it come from? The 00:09:01.490 --> 00:09:03.529 theory is that it might come from an even older 00:09:03.529 --> 00:09:07.230 pre -to or pre -co substrate, a ghost language, 00:09:07.570 --> 00:09:10.169 spoken by a group who was there even before them. 00:09:10.309 --> 00:09:13.450 Wow, a ghost substrate. So we have a word for 00:09:13.450 --> 00:09:15.649 a parasite that actually outlived the entire 00:09:15.649 --> 00:09:17.769 language of the people who first named it. It 00:09:17.769 --> 00:09:20.730 suggests these deep... deep layers of human history 00:09:20.730 --> 00:09:22.529 in the Kalahari that we're just now beginning 00:09:22.529 --> 00:09:25.549 to understand. This complexity, the borrowing, 00:09:25.629 --> 00:09:28.370 and the shared sounds, it must make classification 00:09:28.370 --> 00:09:31.370 a nightmare. You mentioned two isn't related 00:09:31.370 --> 00:09:33.610 to the Kexa family, which includes the famous 00:09:33.610 --> 00:09:35.870 Juhoan language. Right. It's the difference between 00:09:35.870 --> 00:09:39.250 being related by blood and, say... related by 00:09:39.250 --> 00:09:41.769 marriage. Tu and Tex are not genetic cousins, 00:09:41.990 --> 00:09:44.850 but they form a sprockbund, a linguistic area. 00:09:45.029 --> 00:09:46.970 They share clicks and tone because they've been 00:09:46.970 --> 00:09:49.009 rubbing off on each other for so long. It must 00:09:49.009 --> 00:09:51.129 be so hard for researchers, though. I was looking 00:09:51.129 --> 00:09:53.570 at the list of names in the documents. Val Orange, 00:09:53.870 --> 00:09:57.909 Kakea, Satya, Valpens. It's just a jumble. It 00:09:57.909 --> 00:10:00.340 is a jumble. And that's partly because we just 00:10:00.340 --> 00:10:02.779 got there too late. A lot of these names are 00:10:02.779 --> 00:10:05.320 for varieties that went extinct before anyone 00:10:05.320 --> 00:10:08.519 could properly document them. A researcher named 00:10:08.519 --> 00:10:11.799 Westfall studied a variety called Namani. It's 00:10:11.799 --> 00:10:14.039 gone. Dorothy Oblique recorded another one she 00:10:14.039 --> 00:10:17.019 just called S5. Gone. It's like trying to map 00:10:17.019 --> 00:10:19.100 a forest after a fire has already burned through 00:10:19.100 --> 00:10:20.779 half of it. You're just counting the stumps and 00:10:20.779 --> 00:10:22.799 trying to guess what the trees look like. That's 00:10:22.799 --> 00:10:25.919 a painful but very accurate metaphor. And that 00:10:25.919 --> 00:10:28.450 brings us to the hardest part of this. We need 00:10:28.450 --> 00:10:30.789 to talk about the current status of the Kwee 00:10:30.789 --> 00:10:33.190 branch. The South African branch, the one the 00:10:33.190 --> 00:10:36.470 motto comes from. Yes. The Kwee languages were 00:10:36.470 --> 00:10:39.750 once spoken all across South Africa. Today, that 00:10:39.750 --> 00:10:42.090 entire branch is represented by essentially one 00:10:42.090 --> 00:10:45.529 surviving language, Ng. And when we say surviving, 00:10:45.649 --> 00:10:47.669 we need to be very clear about what that actually 00:10:47.669 --> 00:10:49.389 means. We're not talking about a thriving village 00:10:49.389 --> 00:10:52.149 of speakers. No. The source material is stark. 00:10:52.370 --> 00:10:54.789 It notes that Ng has only one elderly speaker 00:10:54.789 --> 00:10:58.090 left. One. Just one person holding an entire 00:10:58.090 --> 00:11:01.070 branch of a language family in her mind. Effectively, 00:11:01.070 --> 00:11:03.110 yes. I mean, there are community efforts. There 00:11:03.110 --> 00:11:05.450 are heritage learners. But in terms of fluent 00:11:05.450 --> 00:11:09.529 mother tongue competence, it's down to one. When 00:11:09.529 --> 00:11:12.830 she passes, the language moves from living to 00:11:12.830 --> 00:11:15.809 archival. That's just devastating. And it's not 00:11:15.809 --> 00:11:18.049 just Enching. The list of the lost is so long. 00:11:18.210 --> 00:11:22.210 Zam is gone. Zegri is gone. Zoroa .ungku. And 00:11:22.210 --> 00:11:24.730 those aren't just names on a list. Each one was 00:11:24.730 --> 00:11:27.309 a unique way of seeing the world. A unique sense 00:11:27.309 --> 00:11:29.570 of humor. A unique way of classifying plants. 00:11:30.460 --> 00:11:33.240 All of it just erased. It brings us right back 00:11:33.240 --> 00:11:35.960 to that motto, K -E's are a key, diverse people 00:11:35.960 --> 00:11:38.820 unite. It almost feels less like a slogan now 00:11:38.820 --> 00:11:40.960 and more like a memorial. It serves as a permanent 00:11:40.960 --> 00:11:43.539 reminder of what was lost. The Vol Orange group, 00:11:43.720 --> 00:11:46.220 the Danster .UI, these are just file folders 00:11:46.220 --> 00:11:48.399 filled with ghosts now. So is the news any better 00:11:48.399 --> 00:11:50.539 for the other branch, the TA branch in Botswana? 00:11:50.639 --> 00:11:52.580 You called it robust at the beginning. Well, 00:11:52.600 --> 00:11:55.240 better is a very relative term here. The TA branch 00:11:55.240 --> 00:11:57.940 is the survivor. But the primary language in 00:11:57.940 --> 00:12:00.360 that branch is .exo. And what are the numbers 00:12:00.360 --> 00:12:04.559 on that? About 2 ,500 speakers. Okay. 2 ,500. 00:12:04.580 --> 00:12:07.679 I mean, globally speaking, that's a tiny village. 00:12:07.740 --> 00:12:10.159 That's the population of a single large high 00:12:10.159 --> 00:12:12.639 school. And that's the strongest language in 00:12:12.639 --> 00:12:14.700 the entire family. That is the titan of the two 00:12:14.700 --> 00:12:17.820 family, yes. And even within Ta, diversity is 00:12:17.820 --> 00:12:20.620 collapsing. The lower Nassau dialects, Ani and 00:12:20.620 --> 00:12:23.419 Hasi, they're already extinct. So Kai is holding 00:12:23.419 --> 00:12:25.700 the line. pretty much by itself. That really 00:12:25.700 --> 00:12:28.360 puts the word robust into perspective. It's robust 00:12:28.360 --> 00:12:30.799 like a candle in a windstorm is robust compared 00:12:30.799 --> 00:12:33.200 to a single match. Exactly. And this is why linguists 00:12:33.200 --> 00:12:36.240 are so obsessive about documenting it. Because 00:12:36.240 --> 00:12:37.539 while it's always the language that contains 00:12:37.539 --> 00:12:39.679 that phonetic inventory we talked about, the 00:12:39.679 --> 00:12:42.299 hundred plus consonants, the bilabial clicks. 00:12:42.600 --> 00:12:45.580 So if not so goes, the bilabial click as a living 00:12:45.580 --> 00:12:48.200 human sound, it essentially disappears from the 00:12:48.200 --> 00:12:50.960 planet. It does. It becomes a recording. A digital 00:12:50.960 --> 00:12:54.100 artifact, not a living, breathing mode of communication. 00:12:54.519 --> 00:12:56.940 It would be like losing the color blue from our 00:12:56.940 --> 00:12:59.159 visual spectrum. So let's try to synthesize this. 00:12:59.259 --> 00:13:01.519 We have the two family. It's completely distinct. 00:13:01.679 --> 00:13:04.340 It has this deep, deep history in the Kalahari, 00:13:04.440 --> 00:13:08.000 proven by the word for Jemsbok. And it has by 00:13:08.000 --> 00:13:10.820 far the most complex sound system humans have 00:13:10.820 --> 00:13:13.799 ever produced. But demographically, it is on 00:13:13.799 --> 00:13:16.679 the absolute brink. One branch is down to a single 00:13:16.679 --> 00:13:18.440 person. The other is down to a few thousand. 00:13:18.970 --> 00:13:21.809 It makes you think about what we value as advanced. 00:13:22.029 --> 00:13:24.009 You know, we think of global languages like English 00:13:24.009 --> 00:13:25.830 as being advanced because they have words for 00:13:25.830 --> 00:13:30.250 Internet or microchip. But structurally. Structurally, 00:13:30.330 --> 00:13:32.409 English is quite simple. Phonetically, we're 00:13:32.409 --> 00:13:35.090 lazy. We're lazy. We are. We use a tiny fraction 00:13:35.090 --> 00:13:37.250 of what our mouths and our lungs can actually 00:13:37.250 --> 00:13:40.490 do. We settled for the easy sounds. The speakers 00:13:40.490 --> 00:13:42.210 of two languages didn't settle. They used the 00:13:42.210 --> 00:13:44.690 full instrument. They built a cathedral of sound 00:13:44.690 --> 00:13:47.450 while most of us are building sheds. And that's 00:13:47.450 --> 00:13:49.809 the thought I want to leave everyone with. We 00:13:49.809 --> 00:13:52.649 often see history as this march of progress where 00:13:52.649 --> 00:13:55.570 the better or more complex things win out. But 00:13:55.570 --> 00:13:58.389 in this case, we have the Olympic athletes of 00:13:58.389 --> 00:14:01.049 articulation, the most sophisticated sound systems 00:14:01.049 --> 00:14:04.129 ever devised, being silenced by languages that 00:14:04.129 --> 00:14:07.330 are, frankly, phonetic couch potatoes. It's a 00:14:07.330 --> 00:14:10.250 sobering thought. When a language like N goes 00:14:10.250 --> 00:14:12.850 silent, it's not like losing a book. It's like 00:14:12.850 --> 00:14:15.889 burning down a library. but a library of sounds. 00:14:16.029 --> 00:14:17.870 And you can't rebuild that library. You can't 00:14:17.870 --> 00:14:20.730 just reinvent a bilabial click and all the grammar 00:14:20.730 --> 00:14:22.889 that has to go with it. No. Once it's gone, it's 00:14:22.889 --> 00:14:25.009 gone for good. On that note, thank you for guiding 00:14:25.009 --> 00:14:26.950 us through this. It's a heavy topic, but a really 00:14:26.950 --> 00:14:29.330 important one. My pleasure. And to all of you 00:14:29.330 --> 00:14:31.490 listening, next time you see that South African 00:14:31.490 --> 00:14:33.909 coat of arms, take a closer look at the motto. 00:14:34.230 --> 00:14:37.330 Remember the people, the two, who gave us those 00:14:37.330 --> 00:14:39.730 words. We'll see you on the next Deep Dive.