What Now? With Trevor NoahLera Boroditsky: The Language You Speak Controls Your Mind
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
115 min read · 22,641 words- 0:00 – 1:32
Can You Hear When Someone Learned English?
- TNTrevor Noah
[upbeat music] So you, wait, you speak, so you speak Russian?
- LBLera Boroditsky
I speak Russian as my first language.
- TNTrevor Noah
Why, why do you speak Russian?
- LBLera Boroditsky
I grew up in Ukraine and Belarus.
- TNTrevor Noah
Huh. And so, wait, in Belarus don't they speak ... Oh, I'm gonna expose myself. I've always thought it was like-
- LBLera Boroditsky
Belarusian
- TNTrevor Noah
... Belarusian.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Yeah.
- EUEugene
Russian.
- TNTrevor Noah
No, Belarusian is how I've always said it.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Uh, both Russian and Belarusian are spoken in, in Belarus.
- TNTrevor Noah
Okay, okay, okay.
- LBLera Boroditsky
But it was mostly Russian when I lived there. Mm-hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
Did you ... Wait, so did you grow up speaking Russian?
- LBLera Boroditsky
I grew up speaking Russian, yeah.
- TNTrevor Noah
Oh. And then at what age did you s- start speaking English?
- LBLera Boroditsky
When I was 12.
- TNTrevor Noah
Wow. I don't pick it up at all.
- LBLera Boroditsky
It's because I-
- TNTrevor Noah
Normally I can hear when somebody has like-
- EUEugene
11 and a half.
- TNTrevor Noah
No, really. I can-
- EUEugene
Like, that's when I-
- TNTrevor Noah
G- genuinely.
- EUEugene
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
I can normally pick up when somebody started speaking anoth- like especially English at a much later ... Because there's like little small ticks that they'll give away in the language where you're like, "Oh, no, that's from that other language." But you don't have that at all.
- LBLera Boroditsky
I went to spy school.
- TNTrevor Noah
[laughs] You say that as-
- EUEugene
And could be very true.
- LBLera Boroditsky
[laughs]
- 1:32 – 4:00
The Soap Debate
- TNTrevor Noah
So-
- EUEugene
We all-
- TNTrevor Noah
Okay, quest- que- question.
- EUEugene
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
This is an honest question, honest question. I want to see how you guys think.
- EUEugene
Mm-hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
When, when you're using ... Like, when you're using, like, a bathroom, right?
- EUEugene
Yeah.
- TNTrevor Noah
Okay? And then you're washing your hands.
- EUEugene
Who says wash our hands?
- TNTrevor Noah
Let's just imagine you wash your hands-
- EUEugene
Okay, sure
- TNTrevor Noah
... after using the bathroom, okay? What do you think is more natural?
- EUEugene
Mm-hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
Soap first-
- EUEugene
Mm-hmm
- TNTrevor Noah
... then lotion-
- EUEugene
Mm
- TNTrevor Noah
... or lotion first then soap? And what I mean is not in order of use.
- EUEugene
Ah, yeah.
- TNTrevor Noah
I mean how people place the bottles.
- EUEugene
Yes, yes, yes.
- TNTrevor Noah
Should they place the soap closest-
- EUEugene
Soap on the right
- TNTrevor Noah
... to the sink? Yeah, soap on the right-
- EUEugene
Yeah
- TNTrevor Noah
... in relation to you?
- EUEugene
So further from the tap, yeah.
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah. Is the soap supposed to be closer to the taps or further from the taps?
- EUEugene
Further from the tap.
- 4:00 – 6:00
Trevor’s Bathroom Rules
- TNTrevor Noah
as ... You're just ... This is, like, just as crazy to me.
- EUEugene
Yeah, but sometimes-
- DADave
No, the-
- EUEugene
... the bottles are unmarked, and then you end up washing your hands with the lotion
- DADave
... a- and, and I don't-
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah, but that wouldn't be a problem-
- EUEugene
Yeah
- TNTrevor Noah
... is ... Oh, Lera, yeah, please. No, no, Lera's ... Yeah.
- EUEugene
Yeah.
- TNTrevor Noah
This, this wouldn't be a problem i- for me.
- EUEugene
What?
- TNTrevor Noah
This w- you ... If people like you didn't exist, this wouldn't be a problem in the world.
- EUEugene
People like me?
- TNTrevor Noah
We wouldn't need to label it. Lera, how are you?
- LBLera Boroditsky
I'm well. How are you?
- TNTrevor Noah
You're actually the perfect person to jump into this.
- LBLera Boroditsky
I have strong opinions.
- TNTrevor Noah
You do have strong opinions.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Yeah.
- EUEugene
About soap or in life?
- LBLera Boroditsky
Well, first of all, you can't soap your hands before you turn on the tap. Now you've made the tap soapy. You're gonna have to-
- EUEugene
Thank you
- LBLera Boroditsky
... wash the whole tap again.
- EUEugene
Thank you.
- LBLera Boroditsky
That doesn't make any sense.
- EUEugene
Yeah, but I do a little bit of a pre-soak before. You know how you, you moisten your, your toothbrush before-
- TNTrevor Noah
How long are you in a bathroom for?
- LBLera Boroditsky
But then are you washing the tap after you've done the whole-
- EUEugene
I'll never touch that thing ever again.
- LBLera Boroditsky
[laughs]
- 6:00 – 9:00
Why We Wash Our Hands Differently
- DADave
Hard washing, like perform surgery washing.
- TNTrevor Noah
You know I wash my hands, you know I wash my hands like that.
- EUEugene
[laughs] I believe it.
- TNTrevor Noah
I don't know. I wash my hands, and I sing Happy Birthday when I wash my hands
- EUEugene
So you have enough time
- TNTrevor Noah
Because I, I, I, I was told once that if you sing Happy Birthday-
- EUEugene
Mm-hmm
- TNTrevor Noah
... then that's the amount of time you're supposed to be washing your hands for.
- EUEugene
Mm.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Do you choose a different person to sing Happy Birthday to each time?
- TNTrevor Noah
I just say hands every time.
- EUEugene
That's a crazy question.
- LBLera Boroditsky
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
[laughs]
- EUEugene
That question is insane.
- LBLera Boroditsky
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
Where have you been all of my life? [laughs]
- LBLera Boroditsky
Because you should choose who you're sending these beautiful benedictions to.
- TNTrevor Noah
I always sing... No, I sing it to my hands.
- LBLera Boroditsky
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
I sing it to my hands every single time.
- EUEugene
You're sending out messages in a bottle without an address. [laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
Wait, but okay, what's wrong?
- LBLera Boroditsky
You should do this on Patreon. People should, should pay you-
- TNTrevor Noah
To sing them happy birthday while I wash my hands
- LBLera Boroditsky
... Trevor, a wi- in the bathroom. Yes.
- EUEugene
You know that-
- TNTrevor Noah
Wait, wait, wait. But I wanna know, I wanna know, Lera, think
- EUEugene
... you know that statement you made there?
- LBLera Boroditsky
[laughs]
- 9:00 – 14:00
How We Imagine Ourselves in the Afterlife
- TNTrevor Noah
to be a cognitive scientist doing what you do because you have to spend most of your time thinking about, like, how people perceive the world-
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm-hmm
- TNTrevor Noah
... versus, like, how the world is supposed to be or isn't supposed to be or the... Like, literally the, j- just, like, in, in this week. Because I knew you were coming, I was like, "Oh, I'm just gonna think about all the things that seem one way in my head, but then to somebody else could be completely different." I-
- EUEugene
Yeah
- TNTrevor Noah
... I never would've thought that you were, like, a lotion away person, though.
- EUEugene
No, no, no. I've even planned on, uh, how I want to be dressed 'cause, you know, 'cause let's say someone died in the '80s.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm-hmm.
- EUEugene
And then I die in the 2065s.
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah.
- EUEugene
'Cause that's how long I'm planning to live.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm-hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
Nice. Good choice.
- EUEugene
And then I'm wearing something that I think is cool for 2065.
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah.
- EUEugene
And then they meet me as a spirit, but they're dressed in 1985.
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm-hmm.
- EUEugene
So I've been thinking far ahead 'cause I'm like, "I want to have a timeless outfit as a spirit."
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm-hmm. And do you dress yourself-
- EUEugene
And height as well
- LBLera Boroditsky
... in that timeless fashion every day?
- EUEugene
I want a timeless height, like six foot... Hmm?
- LBLera Boroditsky
Do you dress yourself in that timeless fashion every day?
- EUEugene
No, no, no. Every day I take chances.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm-hmm.
- EUEugene
But as a spirit-
- TNTrevor Noah
But you need to practice so that people-
- EUEugene
No, as, but no, but as a spirit, I've even thought, I don't want shoe laces as a spirit. Because I-
- TNTrevor Noah
Wait, but who's, who's dressing you?
- EUEugene
In life or as a spirit?
- 14:00 – 19:00
Why Everyone Experiences Reality Differently
- EUEugene
he will show up, [laughs] he'll show up with a battle ax and they're like, "You can get- "
- TNTrevor Noah
Thorfinn.
- EUEugene
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
Show your face. This is what 60 looks like, Thorfinn. Not you. You look like you've been plundered to death.
- EUEugene
[laughs]
- LBLera Boroditsky
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
I, I, I wonder if like ... So I, here, here, one of the reasons your, your vocation fascinates me is because I feel like we all live in it here, right?
- EUEugene
Yeah.
- TNTrevor Noah
I think everyone lives in it, but some people I feel like live in it more than others. So we, we all speak multiple languages.
- EUEugene
Mm-hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
We've all grown up in different cultures where the languages and the cultures are different and the people act completely differently.
- EUEugene
Mm-hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
And when I, when I, when I was like consuming your work, I was like, "Oh, this is somebody who actually studies the very idea of what normal is."
- EUEugene
Mm-hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
Or what people perceive as normal.
- EUEugene
Mm-hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
How do you speak to your parents? How do you speak to your loved ones? How do you s- how do politicians speak to, uh, the constituents? How do people in different political parties speak to each other? You, you, like all of that ... I won't lie, when I, when I read through your work, I found myself going, "This is impossible." It's, it's almost like the worst thing that could've happened to us is living in a world where everyone can communicate because if I'm understanding your work correctly, no one communicates the same even if we're using the same language.
- LBLera Boroditsky
My favorite quote on communication is the, "The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
- TNTrevor Noah
Mm. Damn.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Uh, we often think we have communicated. And all of us have had this experience of, "Oh, but I said clearly," and then you realize, oh, communication is actually about re- the receiving end, not about the sending end.
- TNTrevor Noah
Yes.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Right? So just because you said something doesn't mean the person understood it the same way that you meant it or even understood it at all. Uh, they could have understood exactly the opposite sometimes. But all of us live in a constructed reality, a reality that our brain constructs with the help of language and culture, but we all believe that we are experiencing reality directly.
- EUEugene
Yeah.
- TNTrevor Noah
And objectively.
- LBLera Boroditsky
And objectively. And everyone is experiencing a different reality. And so when we come across people who see things differently from us, our first instinct is to say, "Oh, well, they haven't been exposed to the right information. I'll just give them the right information and that'll convince them."
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Um, and then you try to do that and, um, it still doesn't work. You still disagree. Then you say, "Well, they must be stupid or biased," and you give up. Um, instead of saying, "Well, maybe I see things the way I do because of my history and my own set of experiences."
- TNTrevor Noah
Mm.
- LBLera Boroditsky
"And so maybe I can learn from this misunderstanding or I can learn from this miscommunication and broaden the way I see things as well." Um, but there's an infinite set of ways to see any issue, no matter how small or how large.
- TNTrevor Noah
Are you thinking this ... Do you use the internet? Like, do you use social media?
- 19:00 – 20:00
How Language Makes Humans Smarter
- EUEugene
How humans think and ...
- LBLera Boroditsky
How humans get so smart. And a big part of that is language and culture. Uh, the languages and cultures that we all marinate in-
- EUEugene
Mm
- LBLera Boroditsky
... uh, teach us what thousands of years of the humans before us have developed.
- EUEugene
Mm.
- LBLera Boroditsky
It's intellectual property that is contained in languages developed by ancestors and ancestors' ancestors. And we as children are given it, and we take it completely for granted as if it's just part of the air that we breathe. But of course, each person with their own history, their own linguistic experience, gets a different set, uh, of cognitive basics to work with. And yet we all walk around thinking that we see the world exactly it is, as it is. We see the world purely as reality-
- EUEugene
Mm-hmm
- LBLera Boroditsky
... when everyone else is using their own set of filters and their own set of experiences.
- DADave
Question.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Yes.
- DADave
If you had a person who is, um, had born in like two d- two, two different languages, like
- 20:00 – 23:00
Does Speaking Another Language Change Who You Are?
- DADave
let's say English and Chinese, let's say.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm.
- EUEugene
Mandarin.
- DADave
Mandarin. Thank you. And, um, uh-
- LBLera Boroditsky
Everyone's now on best behavior. There's a linguist.
- DADave
[laughs]
- EUEugene
Yeah, no, no, no, no.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Have to name the language properly.
- EUEugene
Now we're fully on it. We're fully, you don't even understand.
- DADave
Yeah. No, we're ... And for all [laughs] intents and purposes-
- EUEugene
[laughs] He likes this
- DADave
... for, for all, I don't know how to, how to make everything equal-
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm-hmm
- DADave
... but for all intents and purposes, they were like identical environments, let's say.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm-hmm.
- DADave
But just the languages were different.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm-hmm.
- DADave
Would they be, according to you, yes or no, I don't know if it's, you know, would they be like different people? 'Cause language is so part of like our personality.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm. Mm-hmm.
- DADave
Would just switching the language make the person a different person?
- LBLera Boroditsky
Yeah. You can actually do that with bilinguals. You can do studies like that with bilinguals where you make them do a task in one language or another, and, uh, you can see that they think differently depending on what language they're doing it in.
- DADave
Yeah.
- LBLera Boroditsky
And many bilinguals will tell you, and I feel this too, uh, like you're a almost different person when you're speaking two different languages. Now, there may be some parts of that personality that shift because of the context in which you use the language. So for example, one language might be the ch- language of childhood, another the language of work, another the language of something else, right? So there could be contexts, but there are definitely structural elements of language that lead you to think one way or another, depending on which language you're using in the moment.
- DADave
Yeah.
- EUEugene
So-
- DADave
If you ... Yeah
- EUEugene
... sorry, just to ... No, just because in my mind, a bilingual person is sort of like, I might be wrong, but it's sort of like the same person using two different like outfits or something. Do you know what I mean? Like they would, they just dress differently in a way.
- DADave
No.
- EUEugene
No, I'm, I'm not saying it. I'm asking. I'm, I'm, I'm just-
- DADave
No, no, I'm, I'm answering as a linguistic expert.
- 23:00 – 30:00
Why Some Things Get Lost in Translation
- EUEugene
beings. But I've also realized with us, when we speak English, we become more structured and we know what to say. But then when we switch to Zulu-
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm
- EUEugene
... we are more mischievous and humorous. Like him and I, we just go, "Nyee [laughs] ." And then we come back again. So to your point, it's almost like a persona that comes on based on the language and what it reminds you of and where you draw it from.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm-hmm.
- EUEugene
Because there was never anything traumatic about us speaking the way we s- it's actually very nostalgic.
- DADave
Yeah.
- EUEugene
But I would even argue this on top of that. I think what I've found is the language itself, like language itself-
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm-hmm
- EUEugene
... contains information, right? And this is, this is what I'd love to learn from you on like a, on an expert level is the way I understand it is when I think of words that I speak in every language-
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm
- EUEugene
... the word itself comes with information enc- encoded within it.
- DADave
Of course, yeah.
- EUEugene
So beyond like the, just the word, like the meaning of the word. So sort of to your question, Dave, is like, I find that the ... Okay, so, so, um, let's say for instance, I miss you. Let's say a sentence like, "I miss you," right?
- DADave
You never say those words to me.
- EUEugene
Yeah, but when I say, "Ngikukhumbule."
- DADave
Oh, yazi mfana.
- EUEugene
You see?
- DADave
Mm.
- EUEugene
So like, I miss you, s- it, it, it has its meaning-
- DADave
Mm
- EUEugene
... but then ukukhumbula-
- DADave
To re- yeah. To, it's more like to remember
- EUEugene
... is, is thousand, it's more like to remember somebody.
- DADave
Yes, yes.
- EUEugene
And while they both share the same like space, if they want a diagram, you, you would say yes, missing someone and remembering them, but it actually like means something different.
- DADave
Mm-hmm.
- EUEugene
Being hungry in some languages is very different to being hungry in other languages when you look at the words. And I often think to myself, it might be because those peoples-
- TNTrevor Noah
Had a different period of hunger-
- DADave
Mm
- TNTrevor Noah
... that influenced the making of their word for hunger.
- 30:00 – 35:00
What Language Do You Dream In?
- TNTrevor Noah
right now.
- DADave
And could be-
- TNTrevor Noah
A, that's probably a joke.
- DADave
Abso-
- TNTrevor Noah
And B, if it's true, we had nothing to do with this.
- DADave
Question.
- TNTrevor Noah
We didn't know.
- DADave
Here's a question. Another question.
- TNTrevor Noah
We did not know at all.
- DADave
What, um, language do you dream in?
- LBLera Boroditsky
You know, uh, the language I dream in changes a lot depending on where I am. So for example, I speak Spanish badly, but if I'm in a Spanish-speaking environment I start dreaming in Spanish, and all of that din in my head immediately switches into Spanish. And frustratingly, the din in my head is s- so much better Spanish than the Spanish I can speak out loud.
- TNTrevor Noah
Oh.
- DADave
Oh, wow.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Uh, my French in my head Accentless, perfect. When I try to speak it out loud, totally different. But I think that the language you dream in can switch very, very quickly, even for languages that you don't speak that well. At least that's what happens for me.
- TNTrevor Noah
So I've, I've always thought, and this again is just me in my own amateur scientist world-
- EUEugene
Amateur?
- TNTrevor Noah
I've always thought-
- EUEugene
Am-
- TNTrevor Noah
Thank you
- EUEugene
Did you call yourself a-
- TNTrevor Noah
Thank you, Eugene. You're very kind.
- EUEugene
Sure.
- TNTrevor Noah
Um, so I've, I've-
- EUEugene
Amateur's too high, by the way.
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah, yeah. [laughs]
- EUEugene
[laughs] Fucking idiot we are. [laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
[laughs] So I've, I've, I've always thought that, um, the reason the languages you aren't necessarily the most fluent in are fluent in your brain is because your brain actually does know those languages fluently, but the tongue can't achieve them fluently. 'Cause remember, language exists in two places. It exists in your mind, and it exists in your mouth. So sometimes you can, you can hear perfectly, you can dream it perfectly, and then when you speak it, your, your, your tongue is... Like, okay, let me, let me think of, let me put it this way. Imagine yourself doing a back flip right now. Just imagine it.
- EUEugene
You know how many girls would have? [laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
[laughs]
- EUEugene
I love that in your world [laughs] that's... You've kept like grade six standards for getting girls. [laughs]
- 35:00 – 43:00
Are We Fighting Because We Don't Understand Each Other?
- LBLera Boroditsky
uh, speeds at which, uh, the language can be s-
- TNTrevor Noah
Speeds.
- LBLera Boroditsky
It's like that
- TNTrevor Noah
I like that. So here's, here's the question I have for you then. In the world we're living in today-
- EUEugene
Mm-hmm
- TNTrevor Noah
... is it possible that we are all fighting with each other? I say all, but I mean, let's just say people online/whatever.
- EUEugene
Mm.
- TNTrevor Noah
Is it possible that we're all fighting with each other just because we don't understand each other? And I mean, like, language-wise as opposed to we actually disagree. Like, I mean, like, half of the political fights happening online, you know, half of the arguments that people have with their family members, people have in romantic relationships.
- EUEugene
Mm-hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
Could it be that a large number of those just come from us not speaking the same language to each other, even though we think we are speaking the same language?
- LBLera Boroditsky
I think sometimes misunderstandings happen because we're using language to communicate, and we believe language to be a real thing.
- TNTrevor Noah
Mm.
- LBLera Boroditsky
So let me give you an example. Suppose we have a word like freedom. Now, language convinces us wrongly that there is such a thing that is freedom that the word points to.
- TNTrevor Noah
Mm.
- LBLera Boroditsky
And so if I say freedom and you also say freedom, we must be pointing to the same thing.
- TNTrevor Noah
Oh, damn.
- LBLera Boroditsky
But I could be pointing to a different idea than you are. And so-
- TNTrevor Noah
You're pointing at a potato.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Exactly. But freedom is a very complex idea, and it could mean m- many different things in many different contexts.
- TNTrevor Noah
Wow.
- LBLera Boroditsky
And so just because we're using the same words, we think we should be talking about the same thing. But often we're not talking about the same thing at all. And even as you shift from context to context, what freedom means, what privacy means, those things will change, and you don't notice that you're now talking about a different thing because you're using the same word. It creates the illusion, the word creates the illusion that it's something real and solid that you're talking about, like a potato, when in fact what you're talking about is something abstract and amorphous.
- TNTrevor Noah
This is crazy. Do you remember I said this to you back in the day when Trump was still running, and I said to, I said this to Dave, not that you didn't, like, know, but I remember saying to you at some point, "I feel like," and it was you and I in, in sp- specifically. So we, we were working at The Daily Show at the time, and, um, Dave and I were there and we're chatting, and then we both watched, like, a, a, a rally or something of Donald Trump's, and then we said, "Man, this guy's really making inroads with people."
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm-hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
And then some of the people we were working with were like, "Are you crazy? There's no inroads being made here. He said the dumbest thing ever." And then I was like, "Oh, I didn't, like, I didn't hear it like that. It just seemed like he didn't use sort of like politician-y words to approach this topic."
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm-hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
"But I think he did a good job of putting his case forward." And they're like, "Nope, nope, nope. That was a completely stupid thing. That was, that was crazy." And then I, I said to Dave, we're having the conversation, I said, "Ah, maybe it's because we grew up in a world where, like, our parents didn't have English as a first language, that we grew up learning to hear what the person is meaning versus the words that they're actually-"
- LBLera Boroditsky
They're saying
- TNTrevor Noah
... actually using.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm-hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
You know what I mean? So when my mother used to say, or my, my uncle rather, would be like, "Put volume on the TV." He'd be like, "Put volume, put volume."
- 43:00 – 47:00
Is AI Actually Intelligent?
- LBLera Boroditsky
I, I'm fascinated by human intelligence-
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah
- LBLera Boroditsky
... uh, and how human-
- TNTrevor Noah
Or lack thereof
- LBLera Boroditsky
[laughs] Let's say human intelligence.
- TNTrevor Noah
It's still [laughs]
- LBLera Boroditsky
[laughs]
- EUEugene
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
I just wanted to see what would happen if she was gonna be like, "You're damn right, those dumbasses."
- EUEugene
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
No, she's a professional. She's like, "Let's just say human intelligence."
- EUEugene
She's another scientist for that department.
- TNTrevor Noah
Uh-huh.
- LBLera Boroditsky
So humans have accomplished incredible things with their minds. We're gifted with these brains that create symphonies and create mathematical systems and create these whole complex societies. We build them out of, um, really simple physical interactions with the world.
- TNTrevor Noah
Mm-hmm.
- LBLera Boroditsky
So we get, you know, photons in our eyes, pressure in our ears. We can press against surfaces with our, with our fingers. And from that, from that physical set of components, we build these incredibly complex abstract ideas. That is incredible, and I would like to understand how we do that. And the more we understand how humans build complex knowledge, the better we can actually make our own thinking, the more complex, more interesting, more abstract the thoughts we can make. Uh, you could argue artificial intelligence is another, uh, example of that. It's another kind of really complex intelligence that is building its own thinking now, and that, that's another set of questions that you could ask. Okay, how is it constructing all these complex-
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah
- LBLera Boroditsky
... interesting, abstract ideas?
- TNTrevor Noah
AI always confuses me because the argument about AI is people will be like, "It's not intelligence."
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm-hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
'Cause all it is is a machine that figures out which word would generally come after the previous word based on likelihood.
- EUEugene
Yeah.
- LBLera Boroditsky
That's what your brain does. [laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah, that's my problem. Then I go, but isn't that what our brain is doing all the time?
- EUEugene
Mm-hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
That's why we say um and uh and, 'cause we're also, like, searching for the word, and sometimes we'll even say, "Um, you know, um, uh, the thing-"
- EUEugene
What's the word? What's the word?
- TNTrevor Noah
"Uh, what's the word for, uh, that's..." So I'm ... So then I wonder if we will ever be able to know when AI is actually being intelligent or not because we know how it works, but we don't know how we work. And then, like-
- LBLera Boroditsky
Yeah
- TNTrevor Noah
... what, what if that's all we are? What if we are just large language models randomly predicting the next word in a sentence and, and then we've always thought, like, we're special, but we're not? We're just ... You know?
- 47:00 – 54:00
The Language That Changes How You See Space
- EUEugene
Speaking of ankles-
- TNTrevor Noah
"I feel like I could die." And then someone went, "Speaking of ankles." [laughs]
- EUEugene
[laughs]
- LBLera Boroditsky
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
Know which one I hate? Know which-
- EUEugene
Have you ever wondered why the foot and the ankle are always in the same vicinity?
- TNTrevor Noah
I just, I was just thinking ... Sorry, I apologize.
- EUEugene
Yeah, speaking of is better.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Speaking of.
- TNTrevor Noah
You know what I hate?
- EUEugene
By the way. And then they're like, "By whose way?"
- TNTrevor Noah
This ... So, sorry, Dave.
- EUEugene
Anyways, continue, Dave.
- TNTrevor Noah
Speaking, speaking of ... Sorry, Dave.
- EUEugene
Give him a taste of his medicine. [laughs]
- LBLera Boroditsky
[laughs]
- EUEugene
He doesn't like it.
- TNTrevor Noah
No.
- EUEugene
He's like, "This is what you guys go through." [laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
No. Speaking of, speaking of watching things. No, I don't even know what to watch, watching was.
- EUEugene
That's what we go through. [laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
I watched way back when, when your u- you, when your TED Talk went huge, I watched it, and one of the things that, um, I found interesting was the, the Kuuk Thaayore people.
- EUEugene
Mm-hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
You could tell us their logline, please?
- LBLera Boroditsky
Uh, the, so there are languages in the world that don't use, uh, relative terms like left and right to organize space, and instead everything is done in some kind of absolute space, so for example, cardinal directions like north, south, east, and west. Um, and, uh, when I say everything, I mean everything. So in some languages you would say, "Oh, there's an ant on your southwest leg," and if you move the leg, uh, obviously it's no longer your southwest leg, so now you have to recalculate. So, uh, imagine doing the hokey pokey, uh, in a language like that. You know, you put your north leg in.
- TNTrevor Noah
[laughs]
- LBLera Boroditsky
You take your east leg out. [laughs]
- EUEugene
Yes.
- LBLera Boroditsky
You're constant- you're constantly recalculating. So in Kuuk Thaayore, the way you say hello is you say, "Which way are you going?" And the answer should be something like, um, "North northwest in the far distance. How about you?" Uh, and so as you walk around you have to stay oriented. Um, even small children are oriented all the time. Do you want, do you want me to ask you which way-
- TNTrevor Noah
Wait, no, no, what do you mean by that?
- 54:00 – 56:00
What Other Cultures Can Teach Us About the Brain
- EUEugene
Hmm.
- DADave
Can we go back to the Kuuk Thaayorre?
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm-hmm. Kuuk Thaayorre, yeah.
- DADave
So thank you, by the way, Dave, for bringing that up. What are the advantages to them perceiving the world like this? Like, what, what do they have that we don't have, just in general? Are there, are there any benefits, or is it just, like, like a certain swag of living?
- LBLera Boroditsky
Well, uh, any way that you think of space will have some advantages-
- DADave
Yeah
- LBLera Boroditsky
... and some disadvantages, right? So, uh, if you're able to stay oriented, uh, better than we used to think humans could, uh, which is what the Kuuk Thaayorre and many other groups like them do, that's an incredible human gift. And, uh, when I say better than we used to think humans could, what I mean is scientists generally study undergraduates-
- DADave
Okay
- LBLera Boroditsky
... at universities, and we call those humans. And then we say, "This is what humans can do, and this is what humans can't do." And so for decades, scientists would say, "Well, humans can't orient very well," because we studied undergrads at North, uh, North American universities.
- DADave
Oh, damn
- LBLera Boroditsky
And then we went to other locations and found humans who not only could do the thing that we thought was biologically impossible for human brains-
- DADave
Yeah
- LBLera Boroditsky
... but the little kids could do it, and it wasn't even that hard to learn. And so to me, that is an incredible example of The things that we think are possible are often just the things that we're used to.
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Their brain is capable of doing so much more, uh, and sometimes it's not even that hard to get there. We just have to imagine and want to try, [laughs] right? Uh, and this is a case for me where this group of people have this incredible cognitive skill where, as I'm describing it to you, you're like, "Whoa, they do it all the time at that level."
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah, yeah, my brain-
- LBLera Boroditsky
Like it's-
- TNTrevor Noah
Yes
- LBLera Boroditsky
... yeah, they do it all... But it's not actually even that hard. Like, if you wanted to, uh, learn how to do it, you could do it in a week, and, uh, you would start to organize
- 56:00 – 1:00:00
Are Some Languages Better at Expressing Certain Things?
- LBLera Boroditsky
your whole life, uh, in that way. And then you would have a new cognitive skill. You would know where things are. You would have a, a mental map of things in your house-
- TNTrevor Noah
Mm
- LBLera Boroditsky
... uh, that are organized, uh, in north, south, east, west coordinates. Uh, you would just have a different way of looking at, looking at your whole physical space.
- TNTrevor Noah
Is there, is there a language you've come across that's more effective at conveying information than others? Like, are, are there, are there languages that are particularly good at... Like, like could you say some languages are better at conveying an emotion, and some languages are better at conveying in like hardcore data and information, and then some languages are better conveying even like-
- DADave
Humor
- TNTrevor Noah
... even humor or anger or-
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm-hmm
- TNTrevor Noah
... or does each language have that in them and all la- all languages are, are equal?
- LBLera Boroditsky
Languages have specialized vocabularies for different things.
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah.
- LBLera Boroditsky
So some languages have more color words, and so it's easier to convey color distinctions in those languages. Other languages have more smell terms.
- TNTrevor Noah
More smell terms?
- LBLera Boroditsky
Yeah. So-
- TNTrevor Noah
[laughs] Which language do you-
- DADave
Melton Delta.
- TNTrevor Noah
Well, well, well. [laughs]
- DADave
[laughs] You know you-
- TNTrevor Noah
[laughs]
- DADave
Sorry, yes. [laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
[laughs] What I meant about this mischief.
- DADave
Sorry.
- TNTrevor Noah
[laughs]
- DADave
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
You see what I meant? It was all fun and games, intellectual and English.
- DADave
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
So which other languages and then-
- DADave
Oh my God. [laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
You see? This is what I go through every day.
- DADave
Oh, man, I'm sorry.
- LBLera Boroditsky
What a-
- 1:00:00 – 1:07:00
What Happens When a Language Has No Numbers?
- LBLera Boroditsky
communities that have been tested, they can't. Uh, that's not their, that's not their way of organizing space. And sometimes even, um, if they look at left/right mirror images of, uh, something that's decontextualized like a, like a little figurine of a girl sitting under a tree or whatever, and they see a mirror image, they'll say it's the same. Uh, because to them it's not, it, it's not placed in any physical context that they can recognize, uh, geographically, so they say it's not, it's not meaningfully different.
- DADave
So the, and that brings me to a, speaking of... It's not a speaking of, but this, another thing you had was, if I'm not mistaken, was s- some people don't count distinctly. Am I m- because of their language.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Some languages don't have number words, yeah.
- DADave
So, okay. Now that one, 'cause I can get the-
- TNTrevor Noah
Wait, wait, wait. So like the word one, two, three, some languages don't have-
- LBLera Boroditsky
Some languages don't have any exact number words.
- TNTrevor Noah
Okay.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Some languages have number words up to about two or three or four, and then after that it becomes few or many. Um, some languages count in base 13 or base 87 instead of base 10, um, or base 27. Some count in a version of binary times 10.
- DADave
Yeah, so it's the same But that I get You count up to nine?
- LBLera Boroditsky
Yeah.
- DADave
And 10, and then after that is 10 and one-
- LBLera Boroditsky
Oh, 10 and one, 10 and two
- DADave
... 10 and two
- LBLera Boroditsky
20.
- DADave
Yeah.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Okay.
- DADave
Two and three. But that's more. But- Oh ... the people who do the many-
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm-hmm
- DADave
... like, I mean, in the sense of w- they don't have one, two, three.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm-hmm.
- DADave
They don't.
- LBLera Boroditsky
No, they just have relatively few, relatively more, yeah.
- DADave
Okay. So now, in terms of from a language point of view, the thing, I don't know if you ... The thing that they are observing. So they, so I see five cats here.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm-hmm.
- DADave
They're not five cats, obviously. I'm not losing it. [laughs]
- LBLera Boroditsky
[laughs]
- DADave
[laughs] You know? But I see five cats. They, a person from that language, what happens? What are, what do they see?
- LBLera Boroditsky
They see some cats. Um, and I'll tell you, uh, so very often people will ask questions. Like, I asked this question when I first heard about, uh, this language. I said, "Well, but some, some of these people have, you know, seven kids. How do they keep track of their kids?" And I was immediately told, "You must not have children, because you don't actually keep track of your children by counting them." Uh-
- DADave
Mm. Oh
- LBLera Boroditsky
... you don't just need to achieve a certain number of short people. You know them as individuals, right? There needs to be Timmy and Bobby and so on. And so, uh, when people need to keep track of a certain number of things, so for example, you have your ax with a notch in the handle, and the ax that has a red handle, and the ax that your brother gave you. You, you know them as individuals.
- 1:07:00 – 1:15:00
How Language Changes Blame
- DADave
Holy smokes.
- LBLera Boroditsky
[laughs]
- DADave
That's a bit ... That was good. That was good. That was good. [laughs]
- LBLera Boroditsky
[laughs]
- DADave
It, it was. Yes, it was. I was so ... You al- 'cause I, I did think about this one. You d- you, you said that blame is different in different cult- in different, like, Spanish, you use Spanish and English.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm.
- DADave
Could you explain to us, if you still remember?
- LBLera Boroditsky
Sure. So, um, in some languages, uh, like in English, it's normal to Put yourself as an agent of an event even if it was something accidental. So, uh, if I knocked over this glass and it broke, it would be completely normal for me to say, "I broke the glass," even if it was a complete, complete accident. I can even say in English, "I broke my arm." That's the normal way to say it. Uh, in other languages, you would say, uh, "The glass broke," or, "The glass broke itself," or, to me, it happened that the glass broke, or my arm broke, the arm broke on me. All kinds of other constructions you can imagine. And so some languages distinguish much more strongly between things that are accidents and things that are, are intentional actions. And what we find is that English speakers are much more likely to look for the agent of, uh, an event even if, um, there isn't one visible or even if it's an accident. They look for the agent. They blame the agent more, and they remember who the agent is compared to other languages. Or even just in English if you say, if we watch the same event and I say, "She broke the glass," as opposed to, "The glass broke," you're gonna wanna charge me more for the glass if I said-
- DADave
You know-
- LBLera Boroditsky
... she broke the glass
- DADave
... it's actually funny because in isiZulu, uqolo means peace.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm-hmm.
- DADave
Right? And when you say I'm sorry, you say, ngiyaxolisa, so which means I'm asking for peace.
- TNTrevor Noah
Ah.
- DADave
So there's no word that says I am sorry.
- TNTrevor Noah
Mm-hmm.
- DADave
So you asking for peace.
- TNTrevor Noah
Mm.
- DADave
So ngiyaxolisa.
- TNTrevor Noah
You're just saying, "I wish for this conflict to be ended."
- DADave
Ended, yes.
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- DADave
And for peace.
- TNTrevor Noah
I'm asking for peace to return.
- DADave
Yes. So I'm asking for peace.
- TNTrevor Noah
I also love it with, I mean, I guess it's in a few languages, but ke tshwere ke tlala-
- DADave
Yeah
- TNTrevor Noah
... means I am held by hunger.
- DADave
By hunger, yeah.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm-hmm.
- 1:15:00 – 1:19:00
Can Language Change How We Assign Responsibility?
- TNTrevor Noah
we are so sorry.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Let, let me give you an example. So, um, in English-
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, we need a moment. Sorry.
- EUEugene
[laughs] I'm so sorry
- TNTrevor Noah
Let's gather. Let's also get a chance to gather ourselves
- EUEugene
Oh, my goodness. I'm so sorry.
- TNTrevor Noah
Uh, we are so sorry.
- EUEugene
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
Yesterday, we were on form.
- LBLera Boroditsky
This is, this is perfect.
- TNTrevor Noah
Ah.
- EUEugene
Oh, my goodness.
- LBLera Boroditsky
So, uh, take, uh, Romeo drank the poison, Socrates drank the poison, Caesar drank the poison. In English, all of those are s- the same grammatical construction. You can say "drank the poison" in all three cases. Socrates knows he's drinking poison. He doesn't want to be drinking poison. He's been sentenced to death.
- TNTrevor Noah
The hemlock situation
- LBLera Boroditsky
Yeah. Caesar doesn't know he's drinking poison. He thinks he's drinking wine. Someone has poisoned his wine. Romeo wants to be drinking poison and believes he's drinking poison. In English, those are three grammatically the same.
- EUEugene
Huh.
- LBLera Boroditsky
There are some languages like Divehi where those would be three different constructions because one is volitional, one is unintentional, one is, uh, accidental, and so on, right? And so speakers of those languages have to think, "Is this person intending to do it? Are they doing it volitionally? Are they doing it knowingly?" And so you have to break down the, the, the event, whether it's drinking poison or, uh, letting something escape your body, uh, in a particular way.
- EUEugene
You know what? It's the same way, uh, in isiZulu, a king doesn't die, he bows.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm-hmm.
- EUEugene
So they look at it as an involuntary action.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm-hmm.
- EUEugene
A common man dies.
- TNTrevor Noah
Oh, wow.
- EUEugene
Right? So ""which means the person has died.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm-hmm.
- EUEugene
But ""which means the king has bowed.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
Wow.
- EUEugene
So you're right. It just... It's the same action or same result, but viewed from a different lens, and obviously described a different way.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm-hmm.
- 1:19:00 – 1:24:00
What Is Justice? Punishment vs. Forgiveness
- TNTrevor Noah
like, is, is it, is it actually hardwired into the language itself? Because if one culture doesn't think that you killed somebody-
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm-hmm
- TNTrevor Noah
... or you, you, like, like in some languages, it feels like there's almost super agency. I have done everything. I crashed my car, and I killed your family, and I broke my ribs in this accident.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm-hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
And I went to the hospital, and I had surgery.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm-hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
And I healed, and I went home.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm-hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
I am the master of my entire destiny in this-
- EUEugene
The universe
- TNTrevor Noah
... in this world, right?
- EUEugene
Yeah.
- TNTrevor Noah
And then there would be another culture, by your example, where they're going-
- LBLera Boroditsky
Until you want to shirk responsibility, in which case you say, uh-
- EUEugene
For insurance
- TNTrevor Noah
Yes, yes, yes.
- LBLera Boroditsky
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
But, but then there would be some cultures where somebody would go, "While driving, my car was in an accident. Those people's lives ended because of the accident that occurred." I was taken to a hospital, surgery was performed upon me because my rib had decided that it was broken, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera
- LBLera Boroditsky
So, so, so here's a, a question I often ask my students. I say, um, suppose, uh, something, uh, terrible happens to a person.
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Um, how do we achieve justice? Uh, suppose we find the person who did the terrible thing and we punish them appropriately. Has justice been done?
- TNTrevor Noah
Hm.
- LBLera Boroditsky
And American students say, "Yes, that is what justice is. You find the person who did wrong and you punish them."
- TNTrevor Noah
Right.
- LBLera Boroditsky
And then I say-
- TNTrevor Noah
[clears throat]
- LBLera Boroditsky
... "Well, what about restitution for the victim?"
- TNTrevor Noah
Mm-hmm.
- LBLera Boroditsky
"Maybe what we should worry instead about is offering appropriate restitution for the victim." And they sort of secondarily say, "Yeah, yeah, maybe that's also something to think about."
- TNTrevor Noah
Oh.
- 1:24:00 – 1:28:00
Why English Speakers Blame People More
- TNTrevor Noah
that blame is necessary.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Let me give you even a small example. If you, uh, show a video of a ball rolling onto the screen and it knocks into a vase and the vase falls, you ask English speakers to describe it, they'll say, "Someone rolled a ball into a vase." There's no someone on the screen at all.
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah. They will automatically assume blame.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Apparently. Yeah. Speakers of other languages-
- TNTrevor Noah
[laughs]
- LBLera Boroditsky
... will say, "A ball rolled into a vase," or, "A ball knocked over a vase," right? And so there's something about English that has trained us that most things happen because of human agency, except, you know, acts of God, weather and so on. Uh, but there, it's the normal way of saying it, so it becomes a habit of mind. And so you look at a video where there is no agent present, but you still infer one. You say, "Well, some numbskull knocked, knocked the vase over with a ball."
- EUEugene
Yeah, it's like in, I've seen when there's a car accident of two different races or two different cultures.
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah.
- EUEugene
Some cultures will be like, "What an idiot. What did you do to my car?"
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah.
- EUEugene
And some people will be like, "Are you okay?"
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm-hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
Just because that's the first thing you're supposed to be thinking of.
- EUEugene
The first thing that, yeah.
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah, yeah.
- EUEugene
You assign blame before you can show care, right?
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah, no, I hear you completely.
- EUEugene
Some people think like that based on how they grew up, what language they speak, and what they hold valuable. And when you were speaking about the people who look at life in directional form, I couldn't help but think, and those who can't count higher to assign a certain number of value to things, I was thinking to myself, they must be deeply, um, I don't want to say religious, but spiritual people, because I think they're very much more present than we are. Because once we assign a number to things, they can be infinite things that we don't use and we don't know where they are, but we still hold dear. But for them, knowing what that thing is and what it looks like is much more important than knowing how many they are, right?
- LBLera Boroditsky
Um, I, I think there are many different cosmologies that can coexist with a number system or a-
- TNTrevor Noah
Hm
- LBLera Boroditsky
... a directional system.
- TNTrevor Noah
Okay.
- LBLera Boroditsky
And one of the things that we see around the world, so there are 7,000 languages spoken around the world and, um, some historical linguists say there could have been 500,000 languages in the past.
- TNTrevor Noah
Jeez.
- EUEugene
Is that tracking there?
- LBLera Boroditsky
Uh, it's just a huge amount of areas.
- TNTrevor Noah
It is now, I guess, 'cause they made it.
- EUEugene
Yeah.
- DADave
So-
- LBLera Boroditsky
Sorry
- 1:28:00 – 1:34:00
Could We Create a “Super Language”?
- LBLera Boroditsky
the first generation of a language, the second generation-
- DADave
Hm
- LBLera Boroditsky
... the third generation.
- DADave
That's really fascinating.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Because we can't do that for spoken languages. It's way gone in the past. But for these sign languages with natural-
- DADave
We get to see how it actually began-
- LBLera Boroditsky
The birth. Yes, the birth of the language
- DADave
... and why it began and...
- LBLera Boroditsky
And you see how languages start to regularize and how they make their decisions-
- DADave
Hm
- LBLera Boroditsky
... about which way they're gonna go, and it's, it's super fascinating work.
- DADave
Damn. Do you think that there could be a, like, almost like a, if you got the best of each language, like, for the justice system- Mm-hmm ... it seems like the one is better than the other. You know, the English one is more punitive and- Yeah, yeah, yeah ... worse than the other one, which is more- Restorative ... nuanced and takes more into consideration. Do you think that there could be, like, a, like, when AI wipes out, like, 300- [laughs] When AI starts wiping the people out and comes with a new one, d- new language. Joke, obviously. But do you think that they, in a thought experiment, could be, like, a best of, which is the best of, like, each language, you know? Hm. And put together, and then this language, this language would then s- solve all the problems we have because it would have all the- The new AI language, you mean? Well- Super language. The sup-
- LBLera Boroditsky
Yeah
- DADave
... the super language- Yes ... would, 'cause contained within language are solutions to problems. Mm-hmm. So within it, this language, super language, would then, if you had that super language, s- it, the problems would just almost, like, evaporate, 'cause you'd just know how to deal with them.
- LBLera Boroditsky
So, so being-
- DADave
[speaks foreign language] Thus is possibly. No, from, from, from how Dave described, I don't want the super language. [laughs] You see now.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Being, being Eastern European-
- DADave
This is why I take clothes
- LBLera Boroditsky
... I, I can't imagine a world without problems. Uh-
- DADave
[laughs]
- LBLera Boroditsky
That's, uh, you lost, you lost me there. Um-
- DADave
[laughs]
- LBLera Boroditsky
But, uh, I think that, uh, rather than try, trying to say that one language is better than another, uh, you could say, "Well, what if we combine, uh, both ways," right? So sometimes it's nice to have, um, more precise terms where you say, "Okay, I w- want to call this color light blue, and I want to call this color dark blue, and I want to have names for all of the different shades of blue."
- DADave
Turquoise.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Other times you just want to say blue and move on with it. Uh-
- DADave
Hm
- LBLera Boroditsky
... and there are going to be lots of times where you're not sure. So, uh, let me give you an example with, um, arms and hands in Russian. So in Russian and lots of other languages, there's not a distinction between hand and arm. It's w- this whole appendage is called by one word, ruka. Now, often when I talk to English speakers, they say, "But that's impossible. Russian speakers must know which one they're referring to, either the hand or the arm." And what I point out is that almost everything you do with the hand, the arm is also involved.
- DADave
Mm-hmm.
- LBLera Boroditsky
And almost everything you do with the arm, the hand-
- DADave
Yeah
- 1:34:00 – 1:39:00
No Language Can Capture Reality Perfectly
- LBLera Boroditsky
things. But languages are just tools for communication and for thought. None of them capture the entire world perfectly.
- DADave
Mm.
- LBLera Boroditsky
None of them capture what all the possible thoughts we could want to think-
- DADave
Mm
- LBLera Boroditsky
... uh, perfectly. And that's why we have such bitter debates about language-
- DADave
Mm
- LBLera Boroditsky
... because, uh, all of us at some point feel like the language we speak is not perfectly capturing the reality as we see it or the reality that we want to live in. And we say, "Well, why should I have to use gender pronouns," for example, or, "Why should I have to use this word instead of that word?" And that's where we start to negotiate with other speakers of the same language-
- DADave
Yeah
- LBLera Boroditsky
... because we want the language to reflect the way that we think. But there is no language, there's no one language that perfectly captures already all the thoughts that you-
- DADave
Right, right
- LBLera Boroditsky
... could possibly want to think.
- EUEugene
Yeah. I sometimes think of language as, like how you said, sometimes words can encapsulate how we feel.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm-hmm.
- EUEugene
Like, sometimes when I look at something and I'm like, "That looks nice," and I take out my phone, take a picture, and then I'm like, "The picture almost looks like the thing that I saw."
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm-hmm.
- EUEugene
Right?
- DADave
Yeah.
- EUEugene
The eye has something that the camera does not have.
- DADave
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
- EUEugene
Yeah, so I get that with language. Sometimes you just wanna say something, but it just doesn't come out.
- DADave
The word doesn't match the thing-
- EUEugene
It's like you're having that mini choking-
- DADave
Yeah, yeah
- EUEugene
... in between.
- DADave
Yes.
- EUEugene
But your thoughts are like, "It's happening in rapid speed." And your throat is like, "Ah." [laughs]
- DADave
Yeah.
- EUEugene
"This is never happening."
- DADave
Like the, like the word blech, like it's not even a word, just like blech.
- EUEugene
It's not-
- 1:39:00 – 1:43:00
How to Argue Without Making Things Worse
- LBLera Boroditsky
and crosses them out, and he's like, "Impetus, energy, no, no, no," and he goes back and, and writes it over and over and over again, and over pages he develops a way to talk about it at the same time as he's developing a way of thinking about it. So we're all- we're always doing that in language. Obviously Newton was doing it in a slightly elevated way. [laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
I- if you don't mind me asking-
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm-hmm
- TNTrevor Noah
... f- for yourself, when you're engaging with people, you know, on a personal level, do you, do you think you have a, like, a higher level of being able to achieve this? Are you ... So if somebody's trying to argue with you, for instance, w- do you see beyond where most people would end naturally? Does, does your-
- LBLera Boroditsky
Of course. [laughs]
- EUEugene
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
No, no, no, I wonder if, like, you're training. No, really. I-
- EUEugene
Basically, Trevor is trying to figure out if whenever you argue with people, do you think I'm better than you?
- TNTrevor Noah
No, I'm not thinking that.
- EUEugene
That's basically what he's saying.
- LBLera Boroditsky
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
She knows she's better than them. That's not the question.
- EUEugene
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
I'm asking more, like, in the same way a boxer, for instance-
- EUEugene
Uh-huh
- TNTrevor Noah
... if you tried to punch a boxer, your punch is coming at them a lot slower than most people-
- EUEugene
Yeah
- TNTrevor Noah
... are perceiving a punch.
- EUEugene
Yeah.
- TNTrevor Noah
Most people are surprised by a punch. A boxer, if you try as just an amateur to punch them-
- EUEugene
They're expecting a punch, yeah
- TNTrevor Noah
... they're just like w- "Well, that was very slow and adorable," right? I wonder if, like, you experience that as somebody who spends so much time working with language and communicating, all of that. When you're speaking to somebody, do you also find that for yourself if they're even, like, trying to argue with you?
- LBLera Boroditsky
Well, I, I am a lot more aware of how much of the disagreement is coming from language itself.
- TNTrevor Noah
That's ... Yes.
- LBLera Boroditsky
And, and so then I have to hold myself back from giving a lecture on lexical semantics and saying, "You know, this is how words mean, and it's not the way that you think words mean, and this is..." But it's not actually helpful in creating better friendships.
- EUEugene
No way to live.
- LBLera Boroditsky
So I don't, I don't recommend. [laughs]
- EUEugene
[laughs] It's no way to live.
- TNTrevor Noah
Well, yeah, yeah, but I mean, yeah, but I wonder, like-
- EUEugene
[laughs] Hey, Lera
- 1:43:00 – 1:45:00
Which Language Is Best for Getting Angry?
- TNTrevor Noah
a, is there a language that you find you enjoy being angry in the most?
- EUEugene
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
Like, what is your most effective angry language?
- EUEugene
Question.
- LBLera Boroditsky
You know, any language that you're good in is going to be the best language to be angry.
- TNTrevor Noah
No, but that's what I'm asking you, which one is, like, if you go, "I, like, I'm angry, this is the language I'm going in."
- LBLera Boroditsky
I'm, uh, I'm most fluent in English, so English I can really cer- make a surgical strike in English.
- TNTrevor Noah
[laughs]
- LBLera Boroditsky
Uh, but I have had experiences where I was frustrated in Spanish, and I felt like I was being treated like a child. But I also could only speak like a child at the same time, so it's extra frustrating when you're like, "No, I speak good. I good swimmer. You can't swim." [laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
[laughs]
- EUEugene
[laughs]
- LBLera Boroditsky
So it just makes you more and more angry. So I would recommend expressing anger in the language that you're particularly adept in. [laughs] But then you can make exactly the-
- TNTrevor Noah
Huh. Okay.
- EUEugene
You know, from, from this conversation, especially from the question that you asked about what happens when you're engaging with people that you know far more better than-
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm-hmm
- EUEugene
... is from what I'm getting from you is it is actually a big adventure walking into those misunderstandings because you get to learn so much about yourself and the person. And how you're describing about the direction that psychotherapy is taking, and I actually love it, it can be encapsulated into Two phrases. You can control what you can control, and do what you can do. So it's do you, boo-
- TNTrevor Noah
[laughs]
- EUEugene
And it is what it is. Basically, if every psychotherapist would tell their patients that, I think we'd have a better world out there, 'cause it is what it is-
- TNTrevor Noah
If, if I-
- EUEugene
And do you, boo
- TNTrevor Noah
... if I paid for therapy-
- EUEugene
And I said that
- TNTrevor Noah
... and then my therapist said to me, "Uh, it is what it is, and do you, boo"
- EUEugene
That's all we've got time for. Uh-
- TNTrevor Noah
[laughs]
- EUEugene
I'll see you next week
- TNTrevor Noah
I'd be like, "There will be no next week."
- EUEugene
Yeah, if the pilot, if the pilot says-
- TNTrevor Noah
Because
- EUEugene
... "We're gonna be experiencing turbulence at about 30,000 feet," you're like, "It
- 1:45:00 – 1:47:00
Why Lera Became a Cognitive Scientist
- EUEugene
is what it is, man."
- TNTrevor Noah
[laughs]
- EUEugene
And he's like, "I'm gonna take a slight left turn," and you're like, "Do you, boo."
- TNTrevor Noah
Do you, boo. [laughs]
- EUEugene
[laughs] Lera, Lera-
- DADave
Lera, Lera
- EUEugene
... this, this, this-
- DADave
Whoa, hold, hold on. What g- what got you into this language, the love of language and brain?
- LBLera Boroditsky
Um, well partially it was the experience of moving from a, a Russian-speaking environment to an English-speaking environment, of course. Uh, you, I went from a world where, uh, one set of things were true to a world where exactly the opposite set of things were true, right? So moving from the Soviet Union to America, all of a sudden I was in a completely different conceptual universe. But also, I was just a very argumentative kid, and, um, I started noticing as a teenager that so many of the arguments I would get into really, uh, were pinned on how people were using words. That one person was us- u- we were using the same words, but we meant different things by them.
- DADave
Mm.
- LBLera Boroditsky
And then I thought, "If we study language, we might be able to get to the underlying truth." It turned out to be that the more you study language, the more you realize language doesn't reflect an underlying truth.
- DADave
Sure.
- LBLera Boroditsky
It's just a tool for communication. It's a tool for thought. It's, it's useful, um, but it allows you to understand how humans actually became as smart and sophisticated-
- DADave
And complex
- LBLera Boroditsky
... as we are. Yeah.
- DADave
And then w- okay, and it's almost like, what do you hope to give us? I mean, that's a, you know, like-
- TNTrevor Noah
That's a big assumption that you want to give us anything
- DADave
... no, not, not big. No, I feel like, what-
- TNTrevor Noah
[laughs]
- DADave
... what do you-
- EUEugene
Lera was there going like, "Who the hell are you?"
- DADave
No.
- TNTrevor Noah
[laughs]
- EUEugene
"Who the hell are you, boo?"
- DADave
Like, I'm giving-
- EUEugene
Like, uh-
- DADave
What do I want to give you?
- EUEugene
You think, boo?
- DADave
You guys are lucky that I even showed up.
- EUEugene
[laughs]
- 1:47:00 – 1:49:00
Are We All Trapped by the Languages We Speak?
- DADave
and we should look at that be- almost like you said, with w- look at that before we get to the person? Like, there might be this invisible sort of like thing that's determining how we think, but we are unaware that it is determining how we think. So it's not all them, and it maybe not all us. It might be this middle thing.
- EUEugene
That would make life very complicated.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Yeah. So definitely that the more aware you are of how much you're being shaped by, how much you're being funneled into certain ways of thinking by your language, by your culture, by your experience, that once y- once you become aware of it, you're free to then look out of the trench and see are there other ways of thinking about it that I might enjoy, that might be helpful to me? But also, often when we're talking about these examples where these other people elsewhere think differently, it can kind of seem exotic. Like, oh, these other exotic people elsewhere, they, they think in these funny ways, when in fact all of us are being influenced by the languages that we speak, right? So it's an opportunity to turn the mirror on yourself and say, "Why is it that I think the thoughts that I think? Are those the thoughts that I necessarily need to think? Could I think differently? What are the opportunities for me to go beyond-
- DADave
Mm
- LBLera Boroditsky
... the ways that I think now?" Because all of our brains are capable of so much more than the simple routines that we put them through every day. And so the more aware we become of the things that have trained us, the more we can actually use them as powerful tools to create the kinds of thoughts that we want to build.
- DADave
Thank you.
- TNTrevor Noah
Damn.
- EUEugene
You know, this is a very serious question. Since you walked into the studio, I was wondering to myself, the dress.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm-hmm.
- EUEugene
Wool or cashmere?
- LBLera Boroditsky
Wool.
- EUEugene
It's fantastic wool.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Thank you. It's, uh, it's from the '40s.
- EUEugene
No way.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Yeah.
- EUEugene
Vintage?
- LBLera Boroditsky
Yeah. It somehow has survived this whole time, it-
- EUEugene
You thrifted it, or was it passed down?
- LBLera Boroditsky
Thrifted, yeah.
- EUEugene
No way. Looks fantastic.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Thank you.
- EUEugene
Yeah. It's got great energy.
- LBLera Boroditsky
Thank
- 1:49:00 – 1:51:32
“Your Vocabulary Is Like Clothes in a Suitcase”
- LBLera Boroditsky
you. Thank you for noticing it.
- EUEugene
Yeah, absolutely. That's what she said.
- DADave
I also noticed, but I thought we're not allowed to say that.
- TNTrevor Noah
[laughs]
- DADave
But I mean, come on. You didn't notice shit.
- EUEugene
[laughs]
- DADave
You just heard about cashmere for the first time now.
- TNTrevor Noah
[laughs]
- EUEugene
Dave was literally there like cash, like, "Cash me outside."
- TNTrevor Noah
[laughs]
- DADave
"Cash, cash me, cash me where?" Lera, this has been great. Thank you.
- TNTrevor Noah
[laughs]
- LBLera Boroditsky
Thank you so much for having me.
- EUEugene
Thank you so much.
- TNTrevor Noah
As, as a, as a room of, of bilinguals. By the way, does, do you just say bilingual if the person can speak more than, or do you just-
- LBLera Boroditsky
Multilingual.
- EUEugene
Multilingual.
- TNTrevor Noah
Oh, you'll just go m- multi, and then beyond that you don't-
- LBLera Boroditsky
Mm-hmm
- TNTrevor Noah
... we don't use the numbers. So as a room of multilinguals-
- LBLera Boroditsky
You could say quadrilingual or whatever
- TNTrevor Noah
... no, no, we don't need to. We don't need to
- LBLera Boroditsky
... septalingual, whatever.
- TNTrevor Noah
No, no, no, no. It's not necessary.
- LBLera Boroditsky
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
As a, as a room of few linguals, we appreciate you.
- EUEugene
Few linguals? [laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I, I-
- EUEugene
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
Look, I mean, I, I love it selfishly because it, it helps me understand, like, how my brain processes this stuff.
Episode duration: 1:51:33
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