Review: D.C.'s Planet Word Museum Celebrates Language

Libertarians should recognize language as a quintessential example of spontaneous order.

Language is the quintessential example of what Nobel laureate F.A. Hayek called a "spontaneous order": institutions that emerge through the uncoordinated, unplanned actions of many human beings. No one invented English; it bubbled up from below, the result of an infinite number of disparate decisions by people seeking to communicate in the pursuit of their own goals.

Washington, D.C., now has a museum dedicated to just this idea. Planet Word opened in late 2020 with a mission to "inspire and renew a love of words, language, and reading." Its three floors of interactive exhibits are informative and surprisingly functional, given the voice-activation technology on which most of them rely. They explore the origins of words, connections among foreign tongues, banned books, pun-based humor, the way music makes use of alliteration and rhyme, and more.

Comments

[Mockamodo]

In the meantime we're making our language practically useless for communicating. Anyone tried to read an article using people's "preferred" pronouns? And woman can refer to the guy or the gal, some people are neither men nor women, some are both. The word literally can mean literally, but it can also mean virtually or hypothetically. Like the English language isn't difficult enough already.

[ShelleyMiller]

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[BerylEller]

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[sarcasmic]

That's actually a great example of what happens when changes are imposed onto language as opposed to it evolving organically.

[SandraBuck]

I get paid over 190$ per hour working from home with 2 kids at home. I never thought I’d be able to do it but my best friend earns over 10k a month doing this and she convinced me to try. The potential with this is endless. Heres what I’ve been doing..

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[Mike Laursen]

????

[Mike Laursen]

Hmm, that was supposed to be an emoji.

[Don't look at me!]

Looks boring.

[Sometimes a Great Notion]

Didn't you see it has "pun based humor". Just needs, shitty service and its the Reason comments section.

[Utkonos]

Hey! I resemble that remark!

[JesseAz]

Washington, D.C., now has a museum dedicated to just this idea. Planet Word opened in late 2020 with a mission to "inspire and renew a love of words, language, and reading.

At only the cost of what, 10 million a year?

https://spac.umd.edu/news/story/nsf-grant-funds-research-at-planet-word-museum

A few articles with different agencies funding this.

[Eeyore]

More government funded shit?

[Mike Laursen]

“Planet Word is a private, non-government museum, supported primarily by the generosity of our donors.”

https://planetwordmuseum.org/about/

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

Another fine example of shallow reporting. All that talk of "spontaneous order" is fine, but it practically begs for telling us what the exhibit says of "imposed order" like personal pronouns, the definition of "woman" without needing a biologist, "pregnant people", and other such woke abominations.

The lack of such reporting, and the administration under which this opened, makes me mighty suspicious of what is there but unseen in this article.

[Utkonos]

Maybe we should conversate further about this…

[CE]

Yeah, turns out even the dictionary is a living document. Like when a Supreme Court nominee uses the dictionary definition of a word and is criticized for it, and then the definition changes later that day.

[TheReEncogitationer]

Ackshuyally, 'twas ever thus. Dictionaries do not dictate how words are used, but rather just document how they are used.

For example, when I was in the Second Grade, The Oxford English Dictionary had over 100 definitions of the word "Run." Now, in the Information Age and Space Age, who knows how many uses there are?

[Unicorn Abattoir]

Word up.

[MWAocdoc]

Love of words … I grew up in a family of seven plus people who played word games around the dinner table every evening. Puns were especially popular as we light-heartedly engaged in banter and each contribution triggered the next contribution almost spontaneously. Long live spontaneous order! Also in that vein, the English language evolution did NOT result from an “infinite” number of individual decisions. Certainly it was a very large number of such, but even a thousand trillion decisions is not “infinite.”

[Don't look at me!]

The decision making process has not yet ended.

[Utkonos]

Yeah but sometimes it goes in the wrong direction. I just found out that “bird” is now considered to be simply A word—it is no longer THE word!

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Libertarians should recognize language as a quintessential example of spontaneous order.

Trust us... we do... we do.

[Vernon Depner]

Rubbish. The usefulness and durability of a language depends on resisting its natural evolution. Academicians, teachers of grammar and spelling, standards and style books maintained by publishers, professional organizations standardizing terms of art, definitions specified in law, standardization of language for broadcasters, etc., all stand astride the flow of natural language drift shouting, "Slow down!" If they did not, language would change so rapidly that literature from even the recent past would become unintelligible, there would be no durable standard versions of languages that allow non-native speakers to communicate, and mutually unintelligible dialects would much more quickly evolve. All of that would severely degrade communication. Without those deliberate efforts to resist "spontaneous order" and impose a prescribed order, we would soon need translators to speak with our grandparents, like people in 12th century England.

[mtrueman]

” would be no durable standard versions of languages that allow non-native speakers to communicate, and mutually unintelligible dialects would much more quickly evolve. All of that would severely degrade communication.”

Pidgins and creoles arise when there is no agreed upon standard to allow people to communicate. These languages are used to facilitate trade and draw vocabulary and grammar from several languages in a simplified form. Pidgin adopted by children as their native language, like Swahili or Tok Pisin, the language of New Guinea, evolve and take on the richness and complexity of more established languages.

“language would change so rapidly that literature from even the recent past would become unintelligible,”

Not that rapidly. Italian and Spanish have been separated for hundreds of years, but speakers can quickly adapt to each other even when they have no formal or informal education or experience.

[Vernon Depner]

Pidgins and creoles arise when blah blah blah…

That’s exactly the problem I’m talking about, dipshit. Without imposed standards, people start improvising, and intelligibility contracts.

Italian and Spanish have been separated for hundreds of years…

There were always separate languages in Spain and Italy. It was the imposition of Latin that gave them the ability to communicate with each other. When the empire fell, “spontaneous order” took over and the Latins of both places drifted apart into mutual unintelligibility.

You’re making my case.

[mtrueman]

"people start improvising, and intelligibility contracts. people start improvising, and intelligibility contracts. "

People start improvising precisely to make themselves intelligible. That's how pidgins and creoles arise. Without this one of the parties to the negotiations would have to learn to language of the other, an impracticality that pidgins circumvent.

"When the empire fell, “spontaneous order” took over and the Latins of both places drifted apart into mutual unintelligibility."

They're not really mutually unintelligible despite the 2000 years of separation and drift. With effort, patience and good faith, speakers can make themselves understood. Ukrainian and Russian, I believe, are another example of mutually intelligible languages, though if the speakers are in a bad or unfriendly mood, they are apt to demand an interpreter.

[Vernon Depner]

You keep showing that I'm right while thinking you're arguing against me.

[mtrueman]

Pidgins don't contract intelligibility, they expand it. That's why they arise.

[Vernon Depner]

Pidgins are a desperate attempt to communicate when prescribed language has been debased. You're basically arguing that agriculture and food markets are unnecessary because starving people have successfully survived eating bark and bugs.

[mtrueman]

“Pidgins are a desperate attempt to communicate when prescribed language has been debased.”

Yes I agree that pidgins arise from a desperate attempt to communicate. What have you got against desperate attempts. Sometimes they’re the only way to go. You’re a sea faring trader from England and you meet an African guy with an armload of elephant tusks. You think you’re going to take this guy back to England and enroll in Oxford to learn the language as God intended and only then, degree in hand, will you conclude the deal. Not practical. That’s why pidgins arose. In desperation for a workable means of communication to make trade possible.

“when prescribed language has been debased.”

You don’t understand what pidgins are. They arise when two or more groups of linguistically distinct people who don’t share a common language, let alone a common prescribed language, come together to do business.

“You’re basically arguing that agriculture and food markets are unnecessary because starving people have successfully survived eating bark and bugs.”

I’m not basically arguing that at all. If that’s really what you think. and you’re not feigning incomprehension for effect, go back and read my comments again. Consult a trusted secondary source and learn about pidgins and creoles.

“people have successfully survived”

I know you don’t like desperate attempts at solving problems. Now it’s successfully surviving that’s raising your ire. You’d prefer a noble death to successful survival.

[Utkonos]

“Pun-based humor….”
For some reason my ears just pricked up.
WHAT’S that now?

[mtrueman]

"Language is the quintessential example of what Nobel laureate F.A. Hayek called a "spontaneous order"

Spontaneous order is disruptive and offensive to many. Take the use of non-standard pronouns, for example. People, on their own volition, adopt new usages and even invent new words for their preferred pronouns. Many are threatened or offended by this. Noted Reason commenter Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf calls these spontaneous innovations 'woke abominations.' Mockamodo claims that these innovations threaten to make the language unintelligible.

[Vernon Depner]

Yes, perverting the language to force acceptance of false concepts can reduce intelligibility.

[mtrueman]

"perverting the language"

People are perverse, so languages follow suit. 'Cleave' is an English verb that means 'to divide' and 'to adhere' - opposite meanings. If it's pronouns you want then look at 'she.' It could be a female person you're referring to, or it could be a ship or a country. The notion that a ship or a country is a female, has breasts or a vagina is nothing if not perverse. False concepts are part and parcel of any language if you look closely enough.

[Vernon Depner]

Are you drunk? Oh...yeah, it's New Year's Eve. Nevermind.

[mtrueman]

I'm not drunk. I'm trying to explain myself to you. If you don't understand my point, which is a subtle one I grant you, you may ask me for clarification. I'd be happy to elaborate.

[Bill Falcon]

language is racists, reading is racist, math is racist. Now Reason say it slowly. And more articles on rationalizing MAP as acceptable behavior as it is libertarian.

[Bill Falcon]

Sarcasism of course

[NOYB2]

Language is the quintessential example of what Nobel laureate F.A. Hayek called a "spontaneous order": institutions that emerge through the uncoordinated, unplanned actions of many human beings.

Not many of those left.

Libertarians, as usual, did nothing to contribute.

Socialists are trying to take language over and manipulate it to serve their purposes ("woman", "man", "gender", "liberal", etc.).

[mtrueman]

"and manipulate it to serve their purposes"

Manipulating words and sounds to get what you're after is why language came about in the first place. Of course socialists do it. The idea that non-socialists don't is absurd.