23. Language 

Sapolsky perfected teaching with a trademark style to make it impossible not to grab and keep your attention to completely learn. Gifted like no other teacher can.

i am OBSESSED with this amazing mans lectures... thank you stanford for allowing these to be online. youre changing/educating lives/minds and thank you for that.

Gonna leave this here for an assignment... 0:37 | Announcements 5:26 | Arbitrariness of Language 15:53 | William's Syndrome 17:37 | Language is Lateralized 23:29 | Language Salad 27:52 | Whistling Language 35:36 | Tourette's Disease 44:43 | The Generativity of Language 54:24 | Brain Coding for a Second Language 01:00:57 | Myelin 01:15:03 | Intentionality of Communication

This man is incredibly intelligent and a wealth of knowledge in his field. I’d love to have a lifetime pass to sit in on his lectures. Thank you so much for making this available to the average person.

أنا بعرف اني محكي عربي ..او عم اكتب اعربي او يمكن عمفكر بالعربي ... رغم اني استاذ انكلش ... و رغم انو انا لاشيئ بين العقول الي علقت بكل صدق... بس دايما اللغة الاولى هي القلب خاصة اذا بدك تقدم شكر من قلب صادق و دايما كنت قول في مطارح بحياة الانسان كانت ولا زالت عاجزة اللغة عن وصفها خاصة اوا بدك تشكر انسان من قلب صادق متل الدكتور هاد . مهاجر سوري مر من هنا و حب يكتب شي بصدق.

This man is my idol. He's been pushing me to pursue my academic achievements for years now.

The way this man creates humor out of nowhere makes him a great stand-up comedian of his own sort.

I’m from Brazil. Came to the US 20 years ago . Unfortunately didn’t have a chance to attend college . I’m so into science , specially neuroscience . I’m so grateful for these vids you have no idea how important they’re. Thank you very much for sharing all this knowledge.

What a wonderful way to craft your own Renaissance education under the Masters of our day! I'm grateful for this and all of his lectures and I am grateful that Stanford allows it to be broadcast to the rest of us!

These lectures are pure gold.

I'm happy to report there are other instructors this good. He is very good and thankfully he's not alone.

"Adults do not invent new languages" Tolkien: hold my English degree

Prof Sapolsky's sense of humor beats any comedian I have heard, professional or not. Science based humor goes deeper than most other forms, especially when the science is about human behavior, which includes comedians.

like so many others, I absolutely love this man's lectures!(edit: I'm grateful to Stanford that they're willing to share these lectures with us, we listen to a top notch professor for free!)

these lectures are pure *gold*

1:06:02 --- Sapolski talking about how we imagine the progression of time, as being left to right or east to west reminded me of a joke that another Standford professor made while delivering a lecture on relativity I'm having trouble finding it, but in one of Leonard Susskind's relativity lectures, he makes some joke along the lines of "English speakers think of time as going left to right, Hebrew speakers think of time as going right to left, traditional Chinese speakers perceive time as going top to bottom, and only physicists understand that time goes bottom to top."

Gee, I never thought one day I would laugh out loud in a neuro-biology-lingusitic class. This guy is a legend.

This guy's lectures are awesome. If by any chance he happens to be reading these comments, or anyone can pass on a message to him, let him know how much I enjoyed his lectures from the other side of the world. And thanks Stanford for sharing, that is extremely benevolent of you.

He is one of the best lecturers I’ve ever seen.

I wish there was more documentaries about him and his work also I wish that you'd be able to watch him perform his lectures and teachings and theories in a more comfortable atmosphere where hes more relaxed would be the probably the coolest thing in the whole world.

Has anyone else noticed that Sapolsky hardly ever, if ever, says ”uhm” when lecturing?

No matter what true crime or zit videos I fall asleep to, I always wake up to this guy on auto play. I’ve never even looked for him but I always wake up going “huh, fascinating”

Sapolsky is the best lecturer ever

One of the absolute best teachers I have encountered in years. What a mind!

Hi. Phenomenal lecture as always. With regards to accents in deaf people, they do occur. My stepfather’s parents were both born deaf and used BSL, and when his mother was signing and vocalising the sound of the word she wanted to say at the same time as signing it, her voice produced those words in local, Northumbrian, accent, despite her never actually hearing the words.

This guy is brilliant. I'm about to binge on all his lectures.

It is an enormous pleasure to listen to this man. Even for me, into other discipline different from biology and relatives.

Just today wrote my TSA essay (oxford psychology test) and I quoted this lecture four time, cheers Sapolsky!

This is where the pros of social media and the ability for anyone to make video channels outweighs the cons. There are many cons and heaps of crap out there but coming across real intelligent content like this is just amazing. There are even other professors out there that just don't deliver it in as engaging a way as this guy. Or there are professors who are just brainwashed with ideological stances and being conduits for that. But, this is something very special indeed.

goodness, where has he been all my life? he is amazing

Amazing in all his teachings.I truly love him.

What an amazing teacher !!!! Like some many I am fascinated by WHAT EVER he is teaching. in school I had only 2 teachers that got through my thick head, Miss Butts- 7th grade math, and Miss Sharp- 8th grade English. So few teachers that actually teach.

I listen to these lectures to learn and to help me sleep. Thank you 🙏🏼

First time I have ever listened to this professor.What a remarkable man.He is undoubtedly a genius in his field.What a privilege to be able to listen to him.What is so obvious,is how humble he is.I admire him!!!! Michael Einkamerer from South Africa.

Watch the lectures right from the beginning. A lot of what he says is linking back to things he's said previously so that the course is a coherent whole rather than individual lectures. I've read two of his books, and his writing style is like his speaking style - many jumps and discontinuities, which lets him talk about more stuff in less space. It works well if you remember everything he's said previously, which means you remember the whole course rather than (as I said before) bits and pieces

In fact for early bilinguals, languages grow scattered in the same area when they are similar, like French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese all piggybacking on the same grammatical structure, but if it is combinations of languages of different root or conception like Chinese and French or Finnish it creates different areas in Wernicke.

Thank you, Dr. Sapolsky and Stanford Univ.! I really enjoyed this lecture.

There also is a whistling language in some villages in Turkey. There must be videos online. It could be a 15,000 feet high equator situtation.

Around 1:10:00 Well, also our Germanic number system evolved from one, two, three, four, and a lot as an orginal way of counting and much later it rose to ten, which meant originally "full" or "complete", and higher numbers. We know that four must have been for a very long time period our highest number as eight means "double four" in very original proto Indo-European language. Explanation: hunters and gatherers did not need higher numbers. Just when human beings started to become animal breeders the numbers grew with the number of animals in their herds.

"New languages are invented by kids and nobody a whole lot older than them learns the new language." (Mind blown)

Had a concussion by baseball and when the coach was driving me home, he asked me for directions, and I was surprised as everyone in the car when halfway home tried to say, “make a left here” and just wordless sounds came out. As far as can remember, understood what others were saying and knew what I wanted to say. Nice to now know what part of my brain was messed up. Had to just point for the rest of the ride home.

I am so grateful for professor s lectures!

I love these lectures.

this guy is my childhood hero. Wouldn't want it to be any other way.

Professor am sitting in our empty amphitheatre here in med school imagining am attending your lecture ❤️❤️ hope I'll get to meet you one day

I like the way he looks, the sound of his voice, his vocabulary, the fact that he moves, his jokes. I am a quiet person I don't speak, most of the time. I would like to be able to take off, like he does.

I'm just greatly thankful for his lectures for free, I didn't even have to enroll at Sanford for this. Cheers, I'm learning more there than in my University even though I'm form Management background. Thank you.

Very enlightenment lecture! I should consider watching the whole course.

Thank you for enlightening us. Seriously.

When he discusses William's Syndrome, and explains IQs around 70, I immediately think of TV writers.

Just for clarification: both the primary motor cortex and Broca's area are found in the frontal lobe with Broca's area just anterior to the premotor cortex. Just in case anyone else was thinking the same thing.

these lectures are the BEST thing on the internet !

Wow. I would have gone to college if I thought it was going to be like this.

I genuinely love that Dr Sapolsky gave that history lesson on lanuage in primates despite the fact not much knowledge was gained from it. Entertaining all the same

these lectures are legendary

These lectures are amazing but it's kind of ironic that the topics with most interest in them - depressions - are not covered by that particular year's lecture... I'd totally love to hear his version of this lecture from this year. Two years worth of new insights...

this guy is such a beast...like a walking detailed encyclopedia of intellectual cliff notes, yet the contest is so advanced

Pro. Saplosky is a great tutor!

That "past your eyes" milk lady who figured it out is on another level.

I deeply enjoy these lectures. I would enjoy them even more at higher resolution and most of all a pop-filter used during the recordings, because every time this genius speaks towards the camera there is resonant noise. The content is, however, priceless. Thumbs up and thank you.

Fascinating lecture

The linguist's name is Lera Boroditsky. Here is one of her terrific lectures on language: longnow.org/seminars/02010/oct/26/how-language-shapes-thought/

Dr. Stanford is on the stampede...The stampeded knowledge level.Stay original Dr. Like you are

Just bought "Behave" Looking forward to reading it. Love it so far.

I might be 11 years late but am loving chilling to these

14:00, love what he said about the deaf university Gallaudet .. my brother is deaf and attended, it was amazing to see the unity , fluidity and growth of the culture without being hindered by hearing people in the normal world 😂 Growing up with a deaf brother has shown me exactly what this professor is teaching. Language is t just verbal/audible , it’s largely body language and facial expression. It was difficult for me as a hearing person raised with ASL to assimilate into regular western society due to the nature of hearing people being quite non-expressive in general. I perceived the world as a very unfriendly place coming out of an exuberant deaf culture , which was then taxing to my mental health. It’s been my life’s journey to learn the differences and affects of language barriers. Most notably my experience drove me to insanity trying to balance communicating to my deaf brother simultaneously translating to the world around me whilst developing in my teen years. I was constantly aware of how loud we are as a population, and if we used body language correctly we would be a more peaceable species. I became quite isolated in my adolescent due to overwhelm in the school system and in various jobs. But this lecture reminded me of the impact this situation has had on my life enough to give myself a pat on the back for even attempting to face such an unfriendly seeming world . Now I understand Perception forms your reality .

I am going to show my kids these lectures instead of sending them to school.

Man, that ape speech arc of this lecture was a rollercoaster! I was really rooting for them being capable of actual language in the end, but it sounds like that's most likely not the case. I'm gonna have to dive into this more to see what eventually became of that bonobo chimp Kanzi and the research surrounding their speech.

Hello, thanks for uploading and captioning such great lectures! Having these available and accessible is an amazing resource. Small caption correction: At 30:20 the captions read "will produce a Chinese Broca's aphasia, or an alexia," however, this should be "will produce a Chinese Broca's aphasia, or analexia,". Thanks again!

Great work ! i'm so thankful for having got a chance to watch this online !!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

I get the impression from this guy that you want to pay attention when Noam Chomsky has something to say.

I'd love to see one of your lectures Christopher.

I was so close to getting a minor (or even double major) in Linguistics when I was in college, and this lecture has brought my obsession with neurolinguistics rushing back with fervor. Every lecture of Dr. Sapolsky's that I've watched has made me want to go back to school, which is not something I ever expected to feel!! I have no higher compliment to give him!

LOVE ALL THE LEARNING!

Fascinating!

sir ,,, thank you for this words, we learn something too with your efforts....

great upload! thank you

Fantastic lecture

Half way through the video "I hope he talks about Koko" ... Yes! He's talking about Koko, and debunks the whole thing, wow, did not expect that. Would love to hear his thoughts on Alex the african grey parrot.

Re animals not lying. My sister's dog lies like a rug. When she comes over to my house where my dog's kibble is on the floor (being protected by my dog). Her dog goes to the window and barks... at nothing. Then when my dog goes to the window to see what's out there her dog runs over and eats her food. Eventually my dog figured it out and quit responding. Isn't that amazing!

from mex. thanks for all this knowledge coach abaut the brain and theirs more funtions in kids and babys and persons too in animals really make me feel so outgoing this environment thanks editors

Give yourself 1month to forget about drawings you made today. And you look at them pretending to be a stranger. Refreshing self examination is the best tool for self discovery. Knowing yourself is the best treasure. Let’s go established presumptions. Be open to all solutions.

combining this course while gaming is perhaps the best entertainment ive had in many years im going to try all the interesting ones from stanford and then move to mit

What a great mind. Thank you!

A useful distinction that is not mentioned, is the distinction between prescriptive and descriptive liguistics. Prescriptive linguistics is the "how to speak properly" taught in formal settings, descriptive linguistics (the area that most linguists study) is the study of how language is actually spoken. Descriptive lingustics includes the study of Patwas, slang, pidgins, and any other form of communication that exhibits syntax.

Love this guy's books. Your library probably has them.

One of the smartest people I've ever listened to.

This is my favourite lecture our of all of them

Professer Sapolsky, nice to meet you.

Great guy to do time with.

Recurssion is a word in programming referring to to infinite repetition. Fycompa is an anti-epileptic with few side effects. but does cause increased fear but not anxiety, constipation. keppra is an anti-epileptic that causes kepprage and personality change that is permanent for side effects. American sign language and Japanese sign Language are very different. But they have poetry in most sign language that get's lost in translation.

Thank you for uploading this.

52:40 THANK YOU

genius! marvelous ideas.very well said

I've found this whole series fascinating but for pure entertainment value the whole story of Koko is a high point.

Motherese doesn't appear in communities in Papua New Guinea and Samoa. They don't even talk directly to babies until they're toddlers. Since households in these communities contain many more family members, however, these children are still surrounded in language, and develop language at about the same rate. (Ochs and Schieffelin 1984)

I was expecting something about esperanto, there was a reference to it in an earlier lecture.

Excellent lecture. Rockin' beard!

A gerund is any verb that is used in noun form. Example: "The amount of time I spend on this question answering thing is trivial" in this case the word "answering" is a gerund since it is used as a noun (interestingly enough this makes the word question behave as an adjective rather than a noun - called an "attributive noun"). I love these lectures because I'm the type that obsessively absorbs information. I get a bunch of information from the lecture, and supplement it by pausing the video and researching terms and studies he references in passing to reinforce the concepts. All this just to keep the gremlins in my head quiet so I can focus at work (I'm a programmer lol).

thank you sir