Language Death and Pragmatic Conception of Why We Learn Languages (For Economic Value)

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Language death is common worldwide as languages lacking economic value die out. For instance, the Mostitan language is endangered due to the lack of economic benefits compared to Spanish. The main reason people learn languages is for economic opportunities, like finding a job and feeding their families. Popular languages like English thrive not because they are easy to learn, but because they are linked to powerful economies like the United States. Economic value is a significant driving force for language learning, making languages like Mandarin, Spanish, and English more sought after. While some people learn languages for the sake of learning, the majority are driven by economic incentives.

Edward Gibson is a psycholinguistics professor at MIT and heads the MIT Language Lab. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00) – Introduction
(10:53) – Human language
(14:59) – Generalizations in language
(20:46) – Dependency grammar
(30:45) – Morphology
(39:20) – Evolution of languages
(42:40) – Noam Chomsky
(1:26:46) – Thinking and language
(1:40:16) – LLMs
(1:53:14) – Center embedding
(2:19:42) – Learning a new language
(2:23:34) – Nature vs nurture
(2:30:10) – Culture and language
(2:44:38) – Universal language
(2:49:01) – Language translation
(2:52:16) – Animal communication