WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.419 You know, usually when we talk about endangered 00:00:01.419 --> 00:00:04.820 languages, we tend to frame it as a loss of history. 00:00:05.160 --> 00:00:07.480 We say things like, oh, we're losing stories 00:00:07.480 --> 00:00:10.099 or, you know, we're losing songs. Which is absolutely 00:00:10.099 --> 00:00:12.320 true. Of course, that is a huge, huge part of 00:00:12.320 --> 00:00:15.400 it. Right. But today's deep dive into the key 00:00:15.400 --> 00:00:19.100 language suggests something. Well, something 00:00:19.100 --> 00:00:21.839 much more profound. It suggests that when we 00:00:21.839 --> 00:00:24.609 lose a language like this. we might actually 00:00:24.609 --> 00:00:27.350 be losing a specific way of processing reality, 00:00:27.690 --> 00:00:30.109 that we aren't just losing words, we're losing 00:00:30.109 --> 00:00:33.350 a different way to smell or taste or even touch. 00:00:33.530 --> 00:00:36.409 That is not an exaggeration at all. We are looking 00:00:36.409 --> 00:00:39.689 at the key language today, this linguistic marvel 00:00:39.689 --> 00:00:42.909 hidden away in the Okavango Delta region of southwestern 00:00:42.909 --> 00:00:45.350 Africa. And if you think English is complex, 00:00:45.590 --> 00:00:47.289 Kwee is, I mean, it's running on a different 00:00:47.289 --> 00:00:49.899 operating system entirely. We have a pretty big 00:00:49.899 --> 00:00:52.179 stack of sources to get through, linguistic papers, 00:00:52.359 --> 00:00:54.899 historical records, and some, frankly, tragic 00:00:54.899 --> 00:00:57.520 reports on modern displacement. But maybe let's 00:00:57.520 --> 00:00:59.259 start with the basics. Who are we actually talking 00:00:59.259 --> 00:01:01.299 about here? We're talking about a group of roughly 00:01:01.299 --> 00:01:04.540 8 ,000 people. They're part of the Kaukwadi language 00:01:04.540 --> 00:01:07.680 family. And geographically, you should picture 00:01:07.680 --> 00:01:11.700 the Caprivi Strip, that narrow panhandle of Namibia, 00:01:11.719 --> 00:01:14.879 and then into the wetlands of Botswana, Angola, 00:01:14.879 --> 00:01:18.519 and Zambia. It's a dialect continuum. A dialect 00:01:18.519 --> 00:01:20.280 continuum, which means... This just means the 00:01:20.280 --> 00:01:23.239 language isn't one single thing. It shifts and 00:01:23.239 --> 00:01:25.579 it morphs as you move across the map, sort of 00:01:25.579 --> 00:01:28.120 like a gradient of color, but it's all recognizably 00:01:28.120 --> 00:01:30.459 the same language. Okay, got it. And just to 00:01:30.459 --> 00:01:32.579 clear this up right at the top, the name, I've 00:01:32.579 --> 00:01:36.159 seen it spelled K -X -O -E, sometimes K -H -O 00:01:36.159 --> 00:01:38.780 -E. Right. So the standard now, based on something 00:01:38.780 --> 00:01:41.120 called the Penduka Declaration from back in 2000, 00:01:41.319 --> 00:01:45.019 is K. K -H -W -E. And it's really important to 00:01:45.019 --> 00:01:46.739 stick to that because a lot of the older terms 00:01:46.739 --> 00:01:48.900 you'll find in the literature names like Barraguina 00:01:48.900 --> 00:01:51.140 are actually pejorative. Those are names that 00:01:51.140 --> 00:01:53.480 outsiders gave them then. Exactly. They often 00:01:53.480 --> 00:01:55.939 translate to really dismissive things like people 00:01:55.939 --> 00:01:58.900 of the unknown or wild people. Coy is simply 00:01:58.900 --> 00:02:01.180 their word for person. It's what they call themselves. 00:02:01.620 --> 00:02:05.120 Right. So 8 ,000 speakers. In the world of global 00:02:05.120 --> 00:02:07.939 linguistics, that's flashing red lights for endangered. 00:02:08.360 --> 00:02:11.099 Oh, definitely. But why is this specific language 00:02:11.099 --> 00:02:14.120 such a heavyweight? Why are linguists so obsessed 00:02:14.120 --> 00:02:16.419 with its complexity? It really comes down to 00:02:16.419 --> 00:02:19.319 just density, the sheer density of it. If you 00:02:19.319 --> 00:02:22.360 look at the phonology, the sound system, it's 00:02:22.360 --> 00:02:24.560 almost overwhelming. To give you a baseline, 00:02:24.840 --> 00:02:27.500 English gets by with about 24 consonant sounds. 00:02:27.719 --> 00:02:31.080 Sure. B, C, D, F. We all know the drill. K -Way 00:02:31.080 --> 00:02:34.189 has roughly 70. 70. Wait, so they're working 00:02:34.189 --> 00:02:36.699 with a... A toolkit almost three times the size 00:02:36.699 --> 00:02:39.020 of ours just to build basic words. Precisely. 00:02:39.120 --> 00:02:41.479 And a huge chunk of that comes from the clicks. 00:02:41.639 --> 00:02:43.740 Now, I know people have heard of click languages, 00:02:44.039 --> 00:02:46.840 you know, maybe from Ixosa or Zulu further south. 00:02:47.000 --> 00:02:49.479 Yeah. But Kare is part of the original source 00:02:49.479 --> 00:02:52.840 of those sounds. They have 36 distinct click 00:02:52.840 --> 00:02:54.800 foams. See, that's the part I really struggle 00:02:54.800 --> 00:02:57.120 to wrap my head around. To my ear, a click is 00:02:57.120 --> 00:02:59.240 a click. It's just a sound you make. How do you 00:02:59.240 --> 00:03:02.439 possibly get 36 distinct versions of that one 00:03:02.439 --> 00:03:04.939 noise? Okay, you have to break it down. Think 00:03:04.939 --> 00:03:06.599 of it like a coordinate system with two parts. 00:03:06.759 --> 00:03:09.539 First, you have the influx. That's the suction 00:03:09.539 --> 00:03:11.960 itself. Where is your tongue when you make it? 00:03:12.259 --> 00:03:14.439 Is it behind your teeth? Is it on the roof of 00:03:14.439 --> 00:03:16.539 your mouth, on the side? That gives you the bass 00:03:16.539 --> 00:03:18.979 sound. There are four of those in K -Way. Okay, 00:03:19.020 --> 00:03:21.240 so that's the position, like north, south, east, 00:03:21.379 --> 00:03:23.919 west, basically. A good way to think of it. But 00:03:23.919 --> 00:03:26.520 then you have the efflux, and that's the release. 00:03:27.120 --> 00:03:30.319 How do you let the air go after the click? Is 00:03:30.319 --> 00:03:32.729 it silent? Does it come out with a pop? Is it 00:03:32.729 --> 00:03:36.210 breathy? Do you vibrate your vocal cords? In 00:03:36.210 --> 00:03:38.830 K -Way, they combine those four positions with 00:03:38.830 --> 00:03:40.909 nine different releases. So it's like playing 00:03:40.909 --> 00:03:42.969 a chord on a piano. You're not just hitting one 00:03:42.969 --> 00:03:45.310 key. You're layering multiple things at once 00:03:45.310 --> 00:03:47.770 to get a specific texture. That is a perfect 00:03:47.770 --> 00:03:50.169 analogy. It is absolutely layering sounds. And 00:03:50.169 --> 00:03:52.870 some of these chords are incredibly rare. I mean, 00:03:52.889 --> 00:03:55.189 K -Way is the only language we know of that has 00:03:55.189 --> 00:03:57.990 a pre -nasalized voiced click. Okay, break that 00:03:57.990 --> 00:04:00.449 down for me. Pre -nasalized voiced click. What 00:04:00.449 --> 00:04:02.379 is my mouth even doing there? All right, try 00:04:02.379 --> 00:04:04.860 to picture this. You have to start humming, that's 00:04:04.860 --> 00:04:07.439 the voiced part, while you're creating the suction 00:04:07.439 --> 00:04:10.360 seal with your tongue and letting air flow through 00:04:10.360 --> 00:04:12.400 your nose that's pre -nasalized, and then you 00:04:12.400 --> 00:04:15.139 release the click, all in a fraction of a second. 00:04:15.479 --> 00:04:17.180 I'm trying to imagine doing that. That sounds 00:04:17.180 --> 00:04:18.980 like rubbing your stomach and patting your head, 00:04:19.060 --> 00:04:21.560 but, you know. with your tongue and nose. It's 00:04:21.560 --> 00:04:24.060 an incredible level of articulatory gymnastics. 00:04:24.439 --> 00:04:26.639 It's something most of us as English speakers, 00:04:26.660 --> 00:04:29.319 we basically age out of the ability to learn 00:04:29.319 --> 00:04:31.319 it. If you don't pick it up as a toddler, your 00:04:31.319 --> 00:04:33.379 brain just struggles to map those movements. 00:04:33.740 --> 00:04:36.399 It's amazing that an infant can just absorb that. 00:04:36.720 --> 00:04:39.420 But give it to me now and I'd probably just choke. 00:04:39.879 --> 00:04:42.459 It creates the symphony of sound that makes English 00:04:42.459 --> 00:04:44.759 look like a four -piece garage band. And that's 00:04:44.759 --> 00:04:46.800 just the consonants. The vowels aren't exactly 00:04:46.800 --> 00:04:50.060 simple either. Oh no. They have 25 vowel phonemes. 00:04:50.100 --> 00:04:53.600 They use diphthongs, so sliding between two vowel 00:04:53.600 --> 00:04:57.319 sounds like in boy or cow. And they have nasalized 00:04:57.319 --> 00:04:59.319 vowels where the sound resonates through your 00:04:59.319 --> 00:05:01.620 nose. And it's tonal on top of all that. The 00:05:01.620 --> 00:05:04.779 pitch changes the meaning. Drastically. Early 00:05:04.779 --> 00:05:07.459 analysis suggested maybe nine tones, but the 00:05:07.459 --> 00:05:09.610 more recent work has settled on three. High, 00:05:09.670 --> 00:05:13.189 mid, and low. But here's the kicker. They have 00:05:13.189 --> 00:05:16.189 something called tone sandy. I saw that in the 00:05:16.189 --> 00:05:18.470 notes. That implies the tone of a word isn't 00:05:18.470 --> 00:05:20.470 even fixed, right? Exactly. Imagine the word 00:05:20.470 --> 00:05:23.029 cat is pronounced with a high pitch. But if you 00:05:23.029 --> 00:05:26.329 say black cat and black has a low pitch, the 00:05:26.329 --> 00:05:28.889 tone on cat might actually shift to a mid pitch 00:05:28.889 --> 00:05:31.750 just to bridge the gap between the two. So it's 00:05:31.750 --> 00:05:34.240 like a social chameleon. The word... changes 00:05:34.240 --> 00:05:36.259 its personality depending on which words it's 00:05:36.259 --> 00:05:37.959 sitting next to. That's a great way to put it. 00:05:38.000 --> 00:05:39.579 It's like a chemical reaction. You can't just 00:05:39.579 --> 00:05:43.399 learn the words on flashcards in isolation. You 00:05:43.399 --> 00:05:45.180 have to learn how they behave in a sentence. 00:05:45.459 --> 00:05:47.920 That seems incredibly difficult to process in 00:05:47.920 --> 00:05:50.019 real time. You're not just listening for the 00:05:50.019 --> 00:05:52.100 words. You have to listen to the melody of the 00:05:52.100 --> 00:05:54.160 entire phrase to figure out what's going on. 00:05:54.259 --> 00:05:56.519 It suggests a very high context way of communicating. 00:05:56.639 --> 00:05:58.959 You're always anticipating the relationship between 00:05:58.959 --> 00:06:01.600 words, not just the words themselves. Which, 00:06:01.680 --> 00:06:03.579 actually, that's a perfect segue into the grammar. 00:06:03.720 --> 00:06:06.019 Yeah. Because it seems like relationship is the 00:06:06.019 --> 00:06:08.220 key theme here, too. I was reading about how 00:06:08.220 --> 00:06:10.939 they handle pronouns, specifically the word we, 00:06:11.180 --> 00:06:14.240 and it made English feel unbelievably lazy. It 00:06:14.240 --> 00:06:17.079 really does. In English, if I say, we went to 00:06:17.079 --> 00:06:19.959 the store. You have no idea if I mean me and 00:06:19.959 --> 00:06:22.259 you, me and my wife, or me and an army of people. 00:06:22.980 --> 00:06:26.310 It's totally vague. Right. I could mean... We, 00:06:26.389 --> 00:06:29.670 the two of us on this deep dive, or we as in 00:06:29.670 --> 00:06:32.230 all of humanity. Hiwi just doesn't allow that 00:06:32.230 --> 00:06:35.009 ambiguity. As you said, it's a suffixing language. 00:06:35.050 --> 00:06:37.269 They add information to the ends of words and 00:06:37.269 --> 00:06:39.750 they are so rigorous about gender and number. 00:06:39.910 --> 00:06:42.029 How specific do they actually get? They mark 00:06:42.029 --> 00:06:44.470 gender and number even in the first person. So 00:06:44.470 --> 00:06:46.290 they have a specific word for we. That means 00:06:46.290 --> 00:06:49.410 me and one other male. Wow. And a totally different 00:06:49.410 --> 00:06:51.529 word for me and one other female and another 00:06:51.529 --> 00:06:54.639 for me and a mixed group. So the language forces 00:06:54.639 --> 00:06:57.079 you to constantly acknowledge the identity of 00:06:57.079 --> 00:06:59.279 who you're with. You cannot speak about a group 00:06:59.279 --> 00:07:02.079 without defining its composition. It builds social 00:07:02.079 --> 00:07:04.779 awareness directly into the grammar. You just 00:07:04.779 --> 00:07:07.920 can't hide behind a generic we. It's almost like 00:07:07.920 --> 00:07:10.500 the language itself is checking your ID. Who 00:07:10.500 --> 00:07:14.519 exactly is with you? Precisely. And that specificity 00:07:14.519 --> 00:07:17.279 carries over into how they tell stories. I saw 00:07:17.279 --> 00:07:19.959 you had a note on serial verb construction. Yeah, 00:07:20.019 --> 00:07:22.100 it sounds so industrial, like an assembly line 00:07:22.100 --> 00:07:24.420 for verbs. And it works like one. It's a very 00:07:24.420 --> 00:07:27.040 efficient way to narrate. In English, we might 00:07:27.040 --> 00:07:29.579 say, he took the knife and then he cut the meat. 00:07:29.819 --> 00:07:32.680 Two separate actions, joined by an. Action one, 00:07:32.720 --> 00:07:35.100 then action two. Right. A Cuy speaker might just 00:07:35.100 --> 00:07:37.339 string the verbs together. He knife, take cut 00:07:37.339 --> 00:07:39.759 meat. Very efficient. But the really fascinating 00:07:39.759 --> 00:07:42.160 part is the grammar tags, the suffixes that tell 00:07:42.160 --> 00:07:44.740 you when it happened or how. They only put those 00:07:44.740 --> 00:07:47.040 on the very last verb in the chain. So the first 00:07:47.040 --> 00:07:49.639 few verbs are just raw action and only the last 00:07:49.639 --> 00:07:52.060 one gets the timestamp. Exactly. The last verb 00:07:52.060 --> 00:07:54.339 is like the locomotive pulling this whole train 00:07:54.339 --> 00:07:57.920 of action. It creates a very fluid, rapid fire 00:07:57.920 --> 00:08:01.579 way of describing a complex event as one single 00:08:01.579 --> 00:08:04.839 continuous flow, not a list of steps. This brings 00:08:04.839 --> 00:08:06.680 us to the part of the research that honestly 00:08:06.680 --> 00:08:09.629 just stopped me in my tracks. We've talked sound. 00:08:09.930 --> 00:08:12.470 We've talked structure. But what about perception? 00:08:12.610 --> 00:08:16.490 The big aha moment for me was how Queer speakers 00:08:16.490 --> 00:08:20.949 categorize their senses. Ah, yes. The verb um. 00:08:21.329 --> 00:08:24.629 Um. And that translates to? Well, see, that's 00:08:24.629 --> 00:08:26.829 the problem. We don't really have a single translation. 00:08:26.850 --> 00:08:29.670 In English, we have taste, smell, and touch. 00:08:30.069 --> 00:08:32.509 Three very separate buckets. Completely separate. 00:08:32.610 --> 00:08:34.929 Touching a wall is a different universe from 00:08:34.929 --> 00:08:37.429 smelling a flower. One's my hand. One's my nose. 00:08:37.590 --> 00:08:41.289 Right. But for quiz speakers, those three experiences, 00:08:41.490 --> 00:08:45.110 taste, smell, and touch, are all covered by this 00:08:45.110 --> 00:08:47.750 one verb, ham. So they're all bundled together. 00:08:47.950 --> 00:08:50.629 Yes. They have a separate word for seeing, which 00:08:50.629 --> 00:08:53.669 is ha, and one for hearing, ka. And if you think 00:08:53.669 --> 00:08:55.929 about it, those are the distant senses. You don't 00:08:55.929 --> 00:08:57.730 have to be near something to see it or hear it. 00:08:57.830 --> 00:09:00.669 True. But the contact senses, the ones where 00:09:00.669 --> 00:09:03.259 the world is physically meeting your body, They're 00:09:03.259 --> 00:09:06.519 treated as one unified experience. That's a profound 00:09:06.519 --> 00:09:09.559 philosophical shift. It implies that for a Cuy 00:09:09.559 --> 00:09:12.179 speaker, tasting a piece of fruit and feeling 00:09:12.179 --> 00:09:15.220 the rough texture of a stone are just different 00:09:15.220 --> 00:09:17.940 flavors of the same core sensation. It makes 00:09:17.940 --> 00:09:19.740 you wonder, doesn't it, about the neurology. 00:09:19.899 --> 00:09:22.340 If your language groups them, do you actually 00:09:22.340 --> 00:09:25.269 perceive them as more connected? In English, 00:09:25.370 --> 00:09:28.529 we separate them so rigidly, but in Quay, there's 00:09:28.529 --> 00:09:31.269 this recognition that they are all proximal experiences, 00:09:31.629 --> 00:09:33.889 things happening up close. It's like they have 00:09:33.889 --> 00:09:37.070 a single proximity sensor verb. I am experiencing 00:09:37.070 --> 00:09:39.710 something right here next to me. That's a great 00:09:39.710 --> 00:09:42.309 way to put it. And you see similar kind of blending 00:09:42.309 --> 00:09:44.950 with numbers. You mean the word excora. Yes. 00:09:45.250 --> 00:09:48.250 Excea is the word for three, but it also works 00:09:48.250 --> 00:09:51.389 as a verb that means to be few or to be a little. 00:09:51.490 --> 00:09:54.320 So three isn't just a number. It's also the feeling 00:09:54.320 --> 00:09:58.159 of scarcity. It fuses quality and quantity. The 00:09:58.159 --> 00:10:00.799 number three is the definition of a few, which 00:10:00.799 --> 00:10:03.259 is really unique among African hunter -gatherer 00:10:03.259 --> 00:10:05.620 languages. Usually the number systems are very 00:10:05.620 --> 00:10:08.100 distinct. Here, the number three is tied to the 00:10:08.100 --> 00:10:10.559 concept of a small amount. It really paints a 00:10:10.559 --> 00:10:14.059 picture of a worldview that is deeply observational, 00:10:14.120 --> 00:10:16.460 deeply connected to the physical world. But this 00:10:16.460 --> 00:10:19.320 brings us to the history and the conflict. Because 00:10:19.320 --> 00:10:22.230 this language didn't develop in a vacuum. Not 00:10:22.230 --> 00:10:24.190 at all. And this is where we have to sort of 00:10:24.190 --> 00:10:27.629 overturn a common historical narrative. Usually 00:10:27.629 --> 00:10:29.649 when we talk about African history, we talk about 00:10:29.649 --> 00:10:32.570 the Bantu expansion. About 5 ,000 years ago, 00:10:32.649 --> 00:10:35.690 you have Bantu -speaking farmers moving south 00:10:35.690 --> 00:10:38.549 and east, displacing the indigenous hunter -gatherers. 00:10:38.629 --> 00:10:40.750 Right. The standard story is that the farmers 00:10:40.750 --> 00:10:42.870 have the numbers and the technology, so their 00:10:42.870 --> 00:10:45.129 language just takes over. The Conqueror writes 00:10:45.129 --> 00:10:47.740 the dictionary. That's the usual pattern. But 00:10:47.740 --> 00:10:50.419 in this region, the Okavango and Zambesi, the 00:10:50.419 --> 00:10:52.139 linguistic evidence, tells a totally different 00:10:52.139 --> 00:10:54.580 story. The Bantu languages that moved in their 00:10:54.580 --> 00:10:57.860 languages like Yayi or Mukushu, they actually 00:10:57.860 --> 00:11:00.799 adopted clicks from the Ko languages. Which is 00:11:00.799 --> 00:11:03.980 not normal. It's extremely rare. Usually the 00:11:03.980 --> 00:11:06.720 dominant language imposes its sounds. Here, the 00:11:06.720 --> 00:11:09.259 incoming Bantu speakers heard these complex clicks 00:11:09.259 --> 00:11:11.720 and actually integrated them into their own speech. 00:11:11.960 --> 00:11:14.730 We call it... Parallaxification. Parallaxification. 00:11:15.129 --> 00:11:17.830 Sounds technical. It just means a parallel building 00:11:17.830 --> 00:11:21.289 of vocabulary. But what it implies is that the 00:11:21.289 --> 00:11:24.429 co -speakers must have held significant status. 00:11:24.710 --> 00:11:27.629 They weren't just being pushed aside. They likely 00:11:27.629 --> 00:11:30.409 had ritual knowledge or environmental knowledge 00:11:30.409 --> 00:11:33.029 that the newcomers respected. You don't borrow 00:11:33.029 --> 00:11:35.990 the sounds of a people you see as inferior. So 00:11:35.990 --> 00:11:38.809 the hunter -gatherers were, linguistically speaking, 00:11:39.090 --> 00:11:41.980 the cool kids on the block for a while. In a 00:11:41.980 --> 00:11:45.200 way, yes. Their language had prestige. The problem 00:11:45.200 --> 00:11:47.600 is, over thousands of years, this seems to have 00:11:47.600 --> 00:11:51.259 backfired on the Kowai. How so? Well, once the 00:11:51.259 --> 00:11:53.960 neighboring Bantu languages adopted clicks, they 00:11:53.960 --> 00:11:56.299 started to sound more familiar. It became much 00:11:56.299 --> 00:11:58.519 easier for a co -speaker to learn and switch 00:11:58.519 --> 00:12:01.299 over to, say, Tswana, because the sound system 00:12:01.299 --> 00:12:03.879 wasn't so alien anymore. It greased the wheels 00:12:03.879 --> 00:12:07.070 for their own linguistic assimilation. Wow. That 00:12:07.070 --> 00:12:09.470 is a cruel irony. Their own influence made it 00:12:09.470 --> 00:12:12.049 easier for their language to eventually be eroded. 00:12:12.129 --> 00:12:14.470 Exactly. And that erosion is speeding up right 00:12:14.470 --> 00:12:16.990 now. We're seeing something called semantic broadening, 00:12:17.009 --> 00:12:19.730 which is a very clinical term for what is really 00:12:19.730 --> 00:12:22.029 a cultural tragedy. Give me an example of that. 00:12:22.070 --> 00:12:23.870 What does that look like on the ground? Okay. 00:12:23.950 --> 00:12:26.950 Take the word angara. Traditionally, this word 00:12:26.950 --> 00:12:29.330 meant something very specific. It described a 00:12:29.330 --> 00:12:31.950 ritual act of making marks on the body or in 00:12:31.950 --> 00:12:34.629 the sand during a healing ceremony. It was a 00:12:34.629 --> 00:12:37.950 sacred act. Okay. And today? Today, it just means 00:12:37.950 --> 00:12:40.470 to write. You know, write your name on this government 00:12:40.470 --> 00:12:43.529 form. So the deep, sacred cultural context is 00:12:43.529 --> 00:12:45.690 just stripped away, and it becomes a utility 00:12:45.690 --> 00:12:48.370 word. The shell of the word is still there, but 00:12:48.370 --> 00:12:51.899 the ghost inside it is gone. The meaning is broadened 00:12:51.899 --> 00:12:55.539 until it's generic. And this really mirrors what's 00:12:55.539 --> 00:12:57.440 happening to the people themselves. You can't 00:12:57.440 --> 00:12:59.700 separate the language loss from the land loss. 00:13:00.000 --> 00:13:02.200 The notes mention that many Kiwi speakers describe 00:13:02.200 --> 00:13:05.059 themselves as landless. And this isn't just a 00:13:05.059 --> 00:13:07.960 feeling. It's actual policy. It's a mix of things. 00:13:08.139 --> 00:13:11.080 Conservation policy in Botswana and Namibia often 00:13:11.080 --> 00:13:13.480 excludes traditional inhabitants from national 00:13:13.480 --> 00:13:16.299 parks. But the darkest chapter really involves 00:13:16.299 --> 00:13:18.860 the military. This is the 31 Battalion. Yes. 00:13:20.009 --> 00:13:21.769 In the Libyan War of Independence in the 70s 00:13:21.769 --> 00:13:24.649 and 80s, the South African Defense Force actively 00:13:24.649 --> 00:13:28.200 recruited Kuemen. Why them specifically? Because 00:13:28.200 --> 00:13:30.779 of their incredible tracking skills, again, that 00:13:30.779 --> 00:13:33.259 deep environmental connection was weaponized. 00:13:33.320 --> 00:13:35.399 They were phenomenal soldiers in that terrain. 00:13:35.659 --> 00:13:38.519 And when the war ended in 1990, South Africa 00:13:38.519 --> 00:13:41.299 pulled out. And they took about 4 ,000 Kirei 00:13:41.299 --> 00:13:43.840 and Exxon people with them. They were afraid 00:13:43.840 --> 00:13:45.639 of reprisals from the new Namibian government. 00:13:46.039 --> 00:13:48.820 And they moved them from the lush Okavango Delta 00:13:48.820 --> 00:13:52.200 to a tent town in a place called Schmitzdrift, 00:13:52.220 --> 00:13:54.779 South Africa. Which is a semi -desert environment, 00:13:55.059 --> 00:13:57.559 isn't it? It's a moonscape compared to the Delta. 00:13:57.679 --> 00:14:00.139 I mean, can you imagine taking people whose entire 00:14:00.139 --> 00:14:02.659 language is built around wetlands and rivers 00:14:02.659 --> 00:14:05.019 and dense bush and dropping them in the arid 00:14:05.019 --> 00:14:07.559 Karoo? They lived in tents for over a decade. 00:14:07.799 --> 00:14:10.000 When you displace a community that completely, 00:14:10.240 --> 00:14:12.539 you just fracture all the social structures that 00:14:12.539 --> 00:14:14.620 keep a language alive. Of course. The elders 00:14:14.620 --> 00:14:16.620 aren't walking the bush with the children anymore. 00:14:16.740 --> 00:14:19.159 You can't teach the word for a specific medicinal 00:14:19.159 --> 00:14:21.740 plant if that plant doesn't exist where you live. 00:14:21.960 --> 00:14:24.340 And usually, this is where you'd hope schools 00:14:24.340 --> 00:14:26.399 could help. You know, if you can write the language 00:14:26.399 --> 00:14:28.980 down, you can preserve it. But the story of the 00:14:28.980 --> 00:14:32.299 writing system, the orthography, is just a mess. 00:14:32.659 --> 00:14:36.980 It's a classic ivory tower failure. In the 1950s, 00:14:36.980 --> 00:14:39.820 a brilliant German scholar, Oswin Kohler, he 00:14:39.820 --> 00:14:42.600 developed a system to write co. Did all the hard 00:14:42.600 --> 00:14:45.860 work mapping those 36 clicks. Sounds great. Except 00:14:45.860 --> 00:14:48.679 he published all his work in German and French. 00:14:49.200 --> 00:14:51.179 You're kidding. So the people who actually spoke 00:14:51.179 --> 00:14:53.019 the language couldn't read the manual on how 00:14:53.019 --> 00:14:55.159 to write it. Exactly. It was a... project for 00:14:55.159 --> 00:14:57.500 other European academics, not for the community 00:14:57.500 --> 00:15:00.200 in the Kalahari. It was a scientific specimen, 00:15:00.500 --> 00:15:04.139 not a living tool. That is just so incredibly 00:15:04.139 --> 00:15:07.360 frustrating to hear. It took until 1996 for new 00:15:07.360 --> 00:15:10.059 scholars to finally sit down with the Kowa community 00:15:10.059 --> 00:15:12.240 and revise the system into something they could 00:15:12.240 --> 00:15:15.320 actually use. But even today, that writing system 00:15:15.320 --> 00:15:18.620 has no official status in Namibian schools. So 00:15:18.620 --> 00:15:20.600 if you're a six -year -old Kowa child, you go 00:15:20.600 --> 00:15:23.740 to school. And you're taught in English or Tawana. 00:15:23.799 --> 00:15:26.340 And you learn very quickly that your home language 00:15:26.340 --> 00:15:28.299 is for the bush and these other languages are 00:15:28.299 --> 00:15:30.580 for success. And that's the psychological tipping 00:15:30.580 --> 00:15:32.559 point. That's when a language really begins to 00:15:32.559 --> 00:15:34.679 die. When the children stop wanting to speak 00:15:34.679 --> 00:15:37.789 it. It's devastating. Because, going right back 00:15:37.789 --> 00:15:39.909 to where we started, we're not just losing a 00:15:39.909 --> 00:15:43.149 code, we're losing that symphony of 70 consonants. 00:15:43.210 --> 00:15:45.929 We're losing the ability to say we with that 00:15:45.929 --> 00:15:48.570 incredible precision. We're losing a unique map 00:15:48.570 --> 00:15:51.389 of the human mind. Every language is a different 00:15:51.389 --> 00:15:53.769 solution to the problem of how to describe the 00:15:53.769 --> 00:15:57.000 universe. And Quay's solution... bundles senses, 00:15:57.360 --> 00:16:01.059 it fuses number and quality, and it demands social 00:16:01.059 --> 00:16:03.460 awareness in every sentence. It makes you look 00:16:03.460 --> 00:16:05.480 at your own language and realize how much it 00:16:05.480 --> 00:16:08.220 filters out. We think English is this neutral 00:16:08.220 --> 00:16:10.840 window onto the world, but it's just as biased 00:16:10.840 --> 00:16:13.440 in how it slices reality up. That's the big takeaway. 00:16:13.639 --> 00:16:16.559 We think we see the world as it is, but really 00:16:16.559 --> 00:16:19.159 we see the world as our language lets us describe 00:16:19.159 --> 00:16:21.000 it. So here's the thought to leave you with. 00:16:21.100 --> 00:16:23.059 We talked about that verb alam, the one that 00:16:23.059 --> 00:16:25.960 means taste, smell, and touch all at once. If 00:16:25.960 --> 00:16:28.360 the Quay language vanishes and that word disappears, 00:16:28.860 --> 00:16:32.159 does the human capacity to experience those senses 00:16:32.159 --> 00:16:35.200 as one unified feeling disappear with it? Does 00:16:35.200 --> 00:16:37.820 a piece of reality itself change when the word 00:16:37.820 --> 00:16:40.220 for it is gone? Something to think about. Thanks 00:16:40.220 --> 00:16:41.879 for diving to deep with us. My pleasure.