Issue #26

SILLY LINGUISTICS THE MAGAZINE FOR LANGUAGE LOVERS
TEAR DOWN THE STATUES

IN OUR VOCABULARIES!
S IS FOR...
GIVE ME
stored in LIBERTY!
memory
THE MAGAZINE FOR LANGUAGE LOVERS : ISSUE #26 : JULY 2020
TABLE OF CONTENTS
3
EDITOR'S NOTE: LANGUAGE
INCLUSIVITY
By Ed Bedford
4 28
S IS FOR … STORED IN MEMORY
By Chris Davy SIGN LANGUAGES: A BRIEF HISTORY
By Emmeline Burdett
8
DIARY OF A STUDENT TEACHER 31
By Giulia Raus NATURALIZATION OF WORDS
By Gil Cohen
12
TEAR DOWN THE STATUES IN 34
OUR VOCABULARIES!
THE INDEFINABLE NEW ZEALAND
By Stefano Nunes ACCENT
15 By Ashleigh Hume
GIVE ME LIBERTY! 37
By David Wells
“YOU’RE BEING TOO WORDY”:
21
RUSSIAN SUFFIXES AND THE
ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN ACADEMIA
By Joe Robinson
WHAT IS AN EDITORIAL TODAY?
42
INSIGHTS OF A SPECIAL GENRE
By Valentin Pradelou
24
DISPATCHES FROM LINGUISTS:
JAPANESE LESSONS
LEARNING A NEW LANGUAGE By M Watts

CAN MAKE YOU MORE TOLERANT
(AMONG OTHER THINGS)
By Inés de la Vina
45
MANHUNT: UNABOMBER: A
REVIEW
By Holly Gustafson
Cover page photo by Liam Edwards on Unsplash; Content page photo by Mat Reding on Unsplash
This week's page numbers are in Maori!
July 2020, Issue #26 Silly Linguistics: The Magazine for Language Lovers
3 \ toru
EDITOR'S NOTE:
LANGUAGE
INCLUSIVITY
By Ed Bedford
As you will see when reading this issue (and To ensure we do not inadvertently perpetuate
others before it), language and its use can be such language usages, we are working on new
problematic, and is often used as an excuse for style and editorial guides, with inclusivity in
discrimination. This is a topic that we at Silly mind, to represent the breadth of English, with
Linguistics Magazine are very keen to explore grammar and spelling viewed as a general
and communicate. All language is political. We consensus, or a way of describing how a
must consciously think about how we use language works, and not a rule book to justify
language and how we view other people's denigrating anything that is not familiar.
language. Simple things that might seem like a
matter of grammar or habit can be oppressive, We would also like to hear from anyone about
perpetuate indefensible views, and exclude instances in which language has been used to
people from opportunities. oppress or exclude people, and any other
response to discriminative usages of language
We feel language should be an inclusive and what can be done to improve things.
medium open to all and so are keen to
highlight and challenge any usages of language As such, the September issue will be focused on
in any discriminative way, be it ableist, ageist, language discrimination and the disregard for
classist, homophobic, racist, sexist, transphobic the true breadth of languages, showing the
or any other form of discrimination. (N.B. this is myriad of ways in which English (and other
not an exhaustive list and has been ordered languages) can be used to discriminate, and to
alphabetically so as not to give greater focus to deconstruct the idea that any one form of a
any one issue.) Although any discriminative use language is inherently better than others.
of language should be challenged, we Submissions for the September issue should be
understand that some issues are currently more sent to magazine@sillylinguistics.com by the
pressing, as discrimination in some sectors is at 20th of August. Feel free to get in touch any
a breaking point, so for now we will focus on time with questions or ideas.
language used to discriminate based on race,
and gender identity. This should not in any way
been seen as a limitation of free expression,
merely that we feel that all content published
by us should be written in good faith and
anything that could be offensive considered
and changed if needed.
4 \ whā
S IS FOR...
D IN
TO RE
S MO RY
ME
By Chris Davy
@chrisdavy1985
Photo by Fredy Jacob on Unsplash
5 \ rima
T he mind is like a jug. It’s only got so much space in it. So, you can think of
the mind of a child like this empty jug; because they haven’t learned or
experienced anything yet. And then as time passes, and we age and
experience things, this jug fills up with stuff. Some of it really sticks in there,
and some of it seems to slip from our memory and evaporate. It just
disappears.

Now imagine water being poured into this jug. And that water is basically
information that gets store in our mind; in our jug. And that water is basically
in constant supply. All the time we are alive there is just information pouring
into our brains. Everything we can sense we have to process. But what
happens when the water gets to the top of our jug? Well, like an actual jug, it’s
going to overflow. Because there is only so much capacity to our jug. We
could try and stop the information coming, but the reality is that’s impossible.
All we can really change is the pace and amount of information that comes
our way; the amount of water. It’s really not much use trying to stop the water
coming altogether. Because, well, it’s coming whether we like it or not.
So, the only thing we can really do is sacrifice some of our memories to make
space for new memories and new information. And all this basically makes up
our short term memory.

Then imagine, something really impactful and significant happening. Maybe
like a birthday, or perhaps something sadder like a funeral. Think of that like
a pebble or an object. And drop that into the jug. That is a solid long term
memory. That isn’t going anywhere. Unless you have some kind of incident
that impacts on your brain, that memory is in their pretty tight. Naturally, that
is going to take up some space in our jug and so that means there is now less
space for short term memory to be stored and processed.
Ok. Stop.
6 \ ono
I’m not saying THIS IS HOW THE MIND WORKS! But when I was growing up, I
was presented with this concept and it fascinated me. And in many ways it
made a lot of sense. Because I could relate to it. Yeah, it would appear I have
a short term memory, and a long term memory. And for someone reason I can
only take in so much information in. Why is that? This is mad? Why are
humans built like this?

Don’t get me started. You can dwell on that stuff for hours trying to figure it
out. Ultimately, I think the healthy and important thing to do is just S is
for...Succumb to where you are at in life. Accept who you are. And respect
what you’ve got. I think that is going to make things a lot easier.
Whatever is going on with people, the mind, and memory, the one thing we
can be sure of is it’s S is for...Something. But instead of only spending time
trying to figure out EXACTLY why things are like they are, I think it’s important
to spend some time applying what we know and trying to put it to good use.
That’s just way more fun and enjoyable.

I guess the most important part of this whole analogy is not how we store
information and how much information we can store. I think it’s fair to say
that from person to person a lot of us accept that everyone is different and
capable of different things.

But what is important is how we share our information and transfer it
between each other.

Like, I could either take my jug of water and pour you a nice little cup of water
for you to drink at your leisure. OR, I could take my jug of water and just POW
it straight in your face and drench you with information. I know which one I
appreciate more.
Do I believe in that analogy these days? Well, yeah I do. But I also believe in
these important things too:
You can change the jug.
7 \ whitu
The can make the jug bigger and smaller.

You can change the water to a different liquid; like one that’s more
concentrated or viscous, so then the information you receive is actually of a
different quality.
You could even have several different types of liquids poured into that jug at
the same time.
You can change those ‘impactful objects’ that get dropped into your jug; those
significant memories that take up space.
You can make them bigger and smaller.
You learn to look at them from a different perspective and actual change what
they are.
You can also order and sorted those impactful longer term objects so that
they fit into the jug more efficiently and you don’t waste so much space.

But you know, I’ll happily entertain a bunch of other analogies about how the
mind is structured and works.

I like to think of it like an S is for...Sponge too. Similar principle but different
way of presenting it.

Why is this important?
Well, I like to think I’m not completely S is for...Stupid. When it comes to

learning and putting things into practise without question one of the most
important parts of a person is their mind and how they go about utilising it.
I think it’s important for us as readers, writers, translators, linguists, artists,

musicians, actors, directors, athletes, lawyers, teachers, coaches, doctors,
politicians, sons, daughters, and so on and so on...whatever...as people...I
think it’s important for us to look after our jugs, look after how we fill them,
and look after what we fill them with.

As ever, the only thing I do know is...your jug won’t look after itself. You
actively have to look after it and maintain it yourself.

I figure that’s why waterfalls and fountains are so cool to look at.
8 \ waru
D iary of a
student
teacher
BY GIULIA RAUS
9 \ iwa
I have decided that the previous article needs more explanation and proof that the best method of
teaching languages probably does not exist. To do so, it was necessary to show you what actually
students think. In the following pages I have collected evidence from British ex-students and an
Italian ex-student. I interviewed them about how they felt about learning languages and what they
thought about the methods used.
Michael, who has been studying French since year 7, is an example of a student who did not have a
choice on which language to study. It was compulsory in his school to study French and the addition
of Spanish was not seen until he had left the school. Year 7, according to the curriculum, is when
students will begin to take languages more seriously. Sophie on the contrary, chose German and
started at the same time as Michael and finally, Benedetta, an Italian ex-student who has studied
English since she was 6, started German at the age of 11 in Middle School and then switched to French
at the age of 14 in High School.
Did you like studying a foreign language? your personality, and it also boosts your
- Michael: Yes, but I would have wanted confidence because you start from the
more of a choice because as a child I was very bottom and work your way up,
more interested in Spanish and had even something which is not found in other
done several years of basic Spanish in subjects because there is always a base
Primary School. knowledge when you begin. Overall then,
- Sophie: Yes, but I found it really difficult! I would say it is the sense of satisfaction
- Benedetta: Yes, I have always when studying languages which is
considered the chance of studying a unrivalled for me throughout education.
foreign language a great opportunity. - Sophie: I liked learning how other
languages were constructed, most are so
What part of studying a foreign language different from English.
did you like the most? - Benedetta: I liked discovering different
- Michael: I felt as though studying ways of saying something, it was funny
another language opened up another seeing the differences between the
world for me, all of a sudden, I genuinely languages I used to study and Italian.
felt connected to another culture and I
found joy in seeing French things which I What part of studying a new language
had either studied or could now was the hardest for you?
understand the context because of my - Michael: For me it was definitely the
education. Also, it was just cool to be grammatical structures which I struggled
different from other people and to be able with the most.
to communicate (even if only the basics at - Sophie: I hated learning sentence
first) with other people. I found that it structure; it was just strange to write
creates or develops another whole side of differently to what I was used to.
10 \ tekau
- Benedetta: The most difficult part was to deepen the language knowledge such as
learning verb conjugations especially in French. exchange programmes.
Why? What would you like to change?

- Michael: Although we study grammar in - Michael: More focus on oral, confidence
English, I do not think enough emphasis was building and informal French. By the time I
ever taken in showing me how to properly moved to France I was fine if I ever wanted to
structure my language. For this reason, it was have a conversation about the environment or
hard to apply it to French because my sustainable energy, but a simple question of
knowledge of English was already weak. This ‘How was your flight?’, completely startled me. I
isn’t to say I was bad at English, but I think that should have been comfortable to answer that
we should have focused on grammatical issues question in full, but for some reason I was not.
further into my education rather than stopping That is why I think there should be a lot more of
when I was 10. oral engagement between students and
- Sophie: Because everything is completely teachers. Emphasis must be added to learning
different from English, I found it difficult to conversational French as well as the
learn all these new language rules. educational side of things. This not only builds
- Benedetta: Because it was hard for me to confidence but also allows us to realize we
understand when to use that specific tense and know a lot more than is initially thought. I found
without knowing when to use it, I couldn’t that once I broke through the barrier of fear
remember it at all. (fear of making mistakes that is), I had a whole
new vocabulary and sentence structuring
Do you think that your educational system ability hidden at the back of mind. In my
helped you learning the language? opinion, it only takes a tad more engagement
- Michael: In some ways yes, I was able to and encouragement to have a go, and we could
develop a strong vocabulary and grammatical see a world of difference. Languages could
structure after several years of hard work. change from being the boring grammatical class
However, when I eventually went to France, I which all students deplore, to a subject which is
discovered that I did not possess enough day- useful and interesting.
to-day French. - Sophie: How languages are prioritized within a
- Sophie: No, I don’t think it did at all. curriculum, I think if we did that it would be
- Benedetta: I think that the Italian education easier to learn a new language, as well as learn
system especially in primary and secondary about other cultures.
school does not support their students enough - Benedetta: I would like to change the
and does not provide sufficient language teachers’ attitude, as during my experience in
knowledge, even if I have to confess it is not school I unluckily never met a nice teacher of
always bad, there are many projects that help foreign languages.
11 \ tekau mā tahi
What would you keep the same? things because of the language. I was able to
- Michael: One thing that I really enjoyed in work in France, study Law at French University
school were the constant vocabulary and tense and graduate from University with Joint
tests that we had, it really engrained the Honours in Law and French. I could not say
knowledge into my brain where other things whether this would have been different if I had
were easily forgotten. Repetition, although dull the choice of another language, but I do know
at times, really did help me to learn. But this that I have really enjoyed the opportunities
may be different for other students. which knowing French has opened up. So, YES.
- Sophie: Nothing, honestly, I think there should I would have chosen the same language again.
be a reform of ideas surrounding this area of - Sophie: I would. I studied German for the
education. longest time at school, and I loved learning the
- Benedetta: As I said before, high schools in similarities and differences between German
Italy give you the chance to spend a year and English. I really liked being able to see that
abroad or just participate to shorter exchange English is a language made up of lots of bits of
programmes, I think these projects are well other languages!
organized and really help us students to - Benedetta: I think I have been one of the
improve our speaking skills. luckiest students since I had the chance to
study many foreign languages but If I had to
If you had the chance to go back would you choose, I would definitely keep studying
choose the same language? Why? German instead of French especially because I
- Michael: As mentioned before was love German culture and I had the chance to
initially really interested in Spanish. But I have live in Germany and get to know that culture
worked with what I had and experienced many way more than I did with the French one.
As you can see, we have three different students with three different experiences, none of them are
completely convinced of the effectiveness of the method used in their country but surprisingly they
also found positives and had a very clear understanding of the problems at the base of the education
system. Michael even ended up choosing languages at University, Benedetta, even though she did
not like her teachers is still enthusiastic about learning languages and Sophie, who does not like the
British system, still thinks that studying languages is important and interesting. As evidence you can
observe how even though Benedetta is Italian she did not refuse to answer in English giving a great
example of her love for languages no matter how bad her experience was.
In conclusion, I would like to say that students are surprisingly talented, and they will remember these
years in school. That is why I believe that sometimes giving more consideration to our way of teaching
might actually improve their relationship with the subject and their desire to learn it.
Might this be the best method?
12 \ tekau mā rua
Tear Down
the Statues
in Our
Vocabularies! By Stefano Nunes
Photo by Alison Courtney
13 \ tekau mā toru
Lenin is said to have remarked that “there are Do you ever wonder why you know the name
decades where nothing happens; and there of Christopher Columbus, the individual, and
are weeks where decades happen”; it would yet nobody ever thought to teach us the
seem 2020 is entirely made up of those name of the people he encountered
weeks. A year that started with Australia and immediately upon arrival? They are Taino, by
the Amazon ablaze, quickly followed by a the way. Secondly, it places the European
worldwide plague, and now, a poverty- man, the individual, into a position of
stricken former British colony is being turned greatness, as a mighty discoverer, an explorer,
upside down by an ethnic minority instead of a genocidal pirate, a mercenary
demanding equal treatment and protesting who just wanted to gain his coin. Last but not
the brutal treatment they receive at the hands less important, the question of “discovery”
of the justice system. places Europe at the very center of
knowledge; anything that Europeans did not
It’s disconcerting when I speak about the USA know about does not exist. It sounds violent
like that, right? Could it be that it’s strange to when I put it that way, but if you express that
call the USA, often referred to as the “world’s an individual discovered an entire continent
leading economy” as poverty stricken? Both that was already inhabited, the hierarchy of
are true, as the US has the largest GDP, but by cultural importance is set, the hundreds of
its own definitions of poverty, almost 100 American natives who populated the land
million people are just one step away from and raised great civilizations did not know
their poverty threshold. Is it strange to refer to they existed, because they had to be
the USA as “a former British colony”? That title discovered by a white man.
is often reserved for countries smaller than
the USA, such as Barbados, Hong Kong. This is We find this type of small semiotic
done much in the same way as referring to a arrangement repeatedly in the teaching of
woman as “the wife of so and so”, a strategy the history of slavery, and I would particularly
used to diminish the importance of the very like to draw attention to the wording of a
subject of our sentence. statement made so widely in the USA and in
Brazil, two of America’s largest slave markets:
Words have weight, they represent a choice. the “freeing” of slaves by the powers in place.
In the same way that it is absolutely necessary In the USA, “Lincoln freed the slaves” or “the
to mark a symbolic gesture by removing republicans freed the slaves”, and in Brazil,
statues of racists, slave traders and genocidal “Princess Isabel freed the slaves”. The problem
warmongers, it is imperative that we remove with this statement is that, as was the case
the linguistic monuments to obsolete world with Columbus, the power to free is in
orders that we have erected across our the hands of one particular individual or small
languages. group, as if by their own kindness they had
woken up one day and decided to sign a law
The teaching of history is rife with small that would grant freedom to thousands of
choices that make extremely large impacts. people formerly considered machinery. The
How many times do we teach our children power, of course, had always lied within the
that “Columbus discovered America”? This dominant structure, so the only people who
small statement, hammered over and over could sign a law that would free the slaves are
into our brains, seemingly innocuous, does those that already detained that power,
three very powerful things. Firstly, in obviously excluding any enslaved persons,
expressing discovery, instead of invasion, it when material inevitabilities of abolishing
completely erases the lives and importance of slavery caught up with them, they signed the
every single native person who already existed law; this is like bottled water congratulating
on the land later to be called “America”. itself for being “gluten free”.
14 \ tekau mā whā
The second problematic part of that In the decades where nothing happened,
statement is the extreme burden of the word little effort was done to quell the racism in our
“to free”. The fact that these were not even cultures, and now we have statements like “all
properly considered people notwithstanding, lives matter”. Words do not exist outside of
there needs to be a reflection on the word power dynamics, and “all lives matter” is not a
“freedom” in order to properly understand spontaneous creation, it was created as an
what is being said. When teaching this part of opposition to “Black lives matter” and cannot
history, it seems that these were extreme be dissociated from it. Thus, “All lives matter”
turning points where the world turned instead of saying “treat all humans as equals”
completely upside down, all of a sudden, after means “erase the suffering of the black
this signature, slaves all over the land were no community, the threats they endure are no
longer enslaved, they were totally 100% free to less harsh than those others endure”; of
live their lives, to pursue their happiness. course, we know there is such a thing as
systemic racism, and white parents do not
This glosses over the subsequent fact that have “the police talk” with their young
Brazil enacted loitering laws almost children. The problem of erasure in language
immediately afterwards, criminalizing the is deep and disconcerting, particularly
entire population that was being expelled because it can be perceived as “well
from the farms where they were housed, but intentioned”. Statements like “I don’t see
also could not find work because the color”, “we are all part of one race, the human
productive structure was still organized race”, “we were all created equal”, all
around unpaid labor. participate not to diminish racism, but
effectively to turn away from the real problem
It also completely obfuscated the apartheid that is racism, and thus to contribute to even
regime that existed in large parts of the USA more decades of nothing happening.
until the 1960s, as well as the conditions in the
13th amendment authorizing unpaid labor as The time has come to tear down these
punishment for a crime, effectively creating statues, and to reflect more deeply on how we
an incentive system to incarcerate people to use the words that we have when addressing
reduce labor costs. What is freedom? Is it the these issues. The time has also come to listen
freedom to be considered a person in order to to people, namely to listen to Black,
suffer the indignities of poverty, exclusion and Indigenous, People of Color, and to have very
repression reserved for second-class citizens frank discussions on how to teach history, on
instead of those with which we treat whose history is being taught, and how
livestock? exactly this affects our daily lives. Words
matter, words have weight, which is the
If we look back to Lenin’s quote, “there are reason some words are wielded as a weapon
decades where nothing happens” is right, (n-word), and some words are wielded as a
after the weeks where decades happen, shield (“all lives matter”), if only to shield our
nothing happens for tens, hundreds of years, own perception form the ugliness of a world
and history marches on, even as things do not we were taught was more colorful than it is.
change. This is the case for what is happening
in the USA today. People take to the streets to
defend as simple a point as saying “Black lives
matter”, a simple statement, almost too timid
in its wording, the message is simple: stop
treating black lives as if they do not matter.
15 \ tekau mā rima
GIVE ME
LIBERTY
By David Wells
Photo by Jacob Morrison on Unsplash
16 \ tekau mā ono
My country, the United States of America, was founded on a series of abstract nouns. Our
Declaration of Independence proclaims that “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are
rights held by every person. In the 244 years since that document was written, “liberty” has
taken on particular prominence in the U.S. The problem is that no one even comes close to
agreeing on what “liberty” means in any practical sense. On top of that, disagreements over
“liberty” are fraught with political divisions.
We see these political divisions in the U.S. in 2020 in the form of protests against lockdown
measures intended to slow the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19. Are these measures
necessary to protect public health, or are they infringements on individual liberty? This is not
a question I intend to answer in this article. What interests me is the way these protests
position an abstract noun like “liberty” as the alternative to measures purportedly put in place
to fight a dangerous virus. I have my strongly-held opinions on all of these matters, but here I
would like to delve into the word “liberty” itself, hopefully in a way that can benefit people of all
political stripes.
The Many Kinds of Liberty
The dictionary is not much help when it comes to understanding what “liberty” means. It could
be a synonym for “freedom,” but that is not the way that many people use the term. Merriam-
Webster breaks “liberty” down into four categories that range from the utterly abstract to the
specific:
1. “The quality or state of being free”;

2. Permission to do something, e.g. “I’m not at liberty to say”;
3. An excessive action, such as a violation of the rules, breach of decorum, or
misrepresentation of fact, e.g. “That book took many liberties with the truth”; or
4. A brief, authorized absence from naval duty.
The first category is the one people mean when they talk about “liberty” in broad, sweeping
terms. Merriam-Webster breaks this category down further, once again offering meanings
with varying levels of specificity. Three of them seem relevant to this discussion:
“The power to do as one pleases”;

“Freedom from arbitrary or despotic control”; and
“The positive enjoyment of various social, political, or economic rights and privileges.”
17 \ tekau mā whitu
Taking these in reverse order, “C” covers what we mean when we use terms like “civil liberties.”
This kind of “liberty” is the ability to participate fully in civil society, whether it is the right of a
person with a disability to have access to public buildings and businesses, the right of a person
to marry the consenting adult of their choosing, the right of a person to worship or not
worship as they see fit, and so on.
“B” covers the kind of liberty that Thomas Jefferson intended to discuss in the Declaration of
Independence. Merriam-Webster points to a definition of “despot” as one who rules “with
absolute power and authority,” or who “exercis[es] power tyrannically.” This sounds like the
description of King George III in the Declaration of Independence. It is the reason why the U.S.
Constitution includes features like separation of powers with checks and balances. It is also
the kind of “liberty” discussed by the philosopher John Stuart Mill in On Liberty, published in
1869. He sought to address “the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately
exercised by society over the individual.”
That brings us to “A,” which is what Mill described as “Liberty of the Will.” Common criticisms
of the lockdown protesters in the U.S. over the past few months claim that they demand the
freedom to do what they want, when they want, without regard for the greater good. Images of
protesters holding signs that read “I need a haircut,” or variations on that theme, seem to
support this view. The protesters themselves often argue that local and state governments
have overstepped their authority by ordering businesses to close and limiting people’s
movement outside the home. This disconnect highlights how different people use the word
“liberty” in very different ways.
Where Did “Liberty” Come From?
Like many English words, “liberty” comes to us from Latin via Old French. The Latin liber
generally means “free” or “unconstrained.” It could also mean “licentious,” which might
explain English words like “libertine.” “Liberal” also derives from liber, but that is a story for
another day.
The Latin word libertatem starts to get into the varying meanings of “liberty” we find in
English. It could refer to political freedoms or an absence of external restraints. From that
Latin word, we come to the Old French liberte, which became the English word “liberty” by the
late 14th century. The use of the word to refer to freedom from external controls developed
about a century later.
18 \ tekau mā waru
“Liberty” vs. “Freedom”
Speakers of 21st-century English, at least in the United States, tend to use the words “liberty”
and “freedom” interchangeably. This is not quite accurate, though, since the words have
different origins and different — albeit subtle — meanings.
In a 2016 article in Religion Dispatches, Stephanie Russell-Kraft notes that “freedom” has
Germanic roots, in contrast to the Latin roots of “liberty.” “Freedom” derives from the Old
English word frēodōm: the “power of self-determination, state of free will; emancipation from
slavery, deliverance.”
Russell-Kraft describes the difference as follows: “freedom is the capacity to do things in the
world, while liberty is the absence of external institutional constraints.” In this sense, “liberty”
could be as simple as a lack of government oversight or control, which sounds like the view of
“liberty” commonly espoused in the United States today. “Freedom,” on the other hand, could
imply some amount of external control to ensure reasonable access to opportunities — think,
for example, of laws prohibiting discrimination in employment, or laws requiring accessibility
for people with disabilities. (See also: “positive” versus “negative” liberty.)
Other Concepts of “Liberty”
The word seems to have developed a somewhat different meaning in modern French. The
national motto of France is, after all, liberté, égalité, fraternité. The English essayist William R.
Greg noted in 1852 that the French liberté refers to “political equality,” while the English
“liberty” refers to “personal independence.”
In Roman mythology, the goddess Libertas was meant to personify the concept of liberty. She
appears on the Great Seal of France, and inspired the design of the Statue of Liberty in New
York City.
American Ideas of Liberty
The concept of “liberty” is far older than the United States, of course. In the London Charter of
Liberties, for example, William the Conqueror granted certain privileges to residents of the
City of London in 1066. King Henry I of England declared that he was subject to the rule of law
in the Charter of Liberties, also known as the Coronation Charter, in 1100. The Magna Carta,
signed by King John in 1215, is among the most famous charters of rights in the history of the
English-speaking world. The United States has put its own spin on the idea.
19 \ tekau mā iwa
“Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”
The Declaration of Independence identified “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” as
examples of “certain unalienable rights” held by all people, although the actual text says “all
men.” In 1776, it was not actually true that all people in the United States had access to those
rights. The “liberty” discussed in the Declaration of Independence was rather limited in scope.
We have achieved milestones like the abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, an end to legal
segregation, and others, but securing those rights for all people in this country is still an
ongoing process.
“Give me liberty or give me death.”
The phrase “Give me liberty or give me death!” is credited to Patrick Henry, in a speech given
on March 23, 1775 to the Second Virginia Convention. He sought to convince the delegates to
pass a resolution providing troops for the impending American Revolution. The quote did not
appear in print until 1817, when biographer William Wirt published Sketches of the Life and
Character of Patrick Henry. Although historians cannot definitively authenticate the quote, it
has become a major part of this country’s founding narrative.
The juxtaposition of “liberty” and “death” was not at all new in 1775. Earlier examples may
have influenced Henry, or Wirt. The Declaration of Arbroath, for example, asserted Scottish
independence in 1320 and reportedly included the phrase “We fight for liberty alone, which
no good man loses but with his life.”
It is also worth noting that the slogan that would become the French national motto was
originally, during the French Revolution, liberté, égalité, fraternité ou la mort. The last part was
eventually dropped. The U.S. kept the “liberty” and “death” parts in its national identity.
“With liberty and justice for all”
This phrase comes from the Pledge of Allegiance, which was originally written by Francis
Bellamy in 1892. After several edits, Congress included it in the U.S. Flag Code in 1942, and
designated it as the official pledge in 1945. It added the words “under God” in 1954.
A document entitled “"A Brief Synopsis of the Story of the Origin of the Pledge Taken from the
Detailed Narrative by Francis Bellamy, Author of the Pledge” offers the author’s thoughts on
why he chose “liberty and justice.” It appeared in the Congressional Record in 1945. Bellamy
20 \ rua tekau
stated that he considered using the French motto, but thought that “fraternity was too remote
of a realization,” and “equality was a dubious word.” He determined that “liberty and justice
were surely basic, were undebatable, and were all that any one Nation could handle.” Bellamy
described feeling a “cheering rush” as he wrote the last line of the pledge, stating that “it
seemed to assemble the past and to promise the future.”
Not to belabor certain points about U.S. history, but Bellamy’s optimistic rhetoric might have
been too optimistic for the times. Congress enacted the legislation that added “under God” to
the pledge less than one month after the Supreme Court handed down its landmark decision
in Brown v. Board of Education. This is the decision that overturned segregation laws and the
principle of “separate but equal.” It took another ten years for Congress to pass the Civil Rights
Act of 1964, followed by the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968. These
laws helped get us closer to a place where “liberty and “justice” are available to “all.”
Liberty Cabbage and Freedom Fries
As a final observation, one cannot discuss the idea of “liberty” in the U.S. without mentioning
its more ironic uses. After the United States entered World War I in 1917, references to
anything German became something of a taboo. On April 25, 1918, the New York Times
reported that “a delegation of vegetable dealers” had petitioned the federal government to
eliminate the name “sauerkraut” and replace it with a name like “liberty cabbage.” Due to anti-
German sentiment, consumption of the cabbage-based product had dropped significantly, and
the vegetable dealers had “enough sauerkraut in stock...to feed a good sized German army.”
Thus was “liberty cabbage” born.
In 2003, France opposed the United States’ plan to invade Iraq. In response, the chair of the
U.S. House of Representatives’ House Administration Committee changed “French fries” to
“freedom fries” in three cafeterias used by members of Congress. Some restaurant owners
around the country followed suit. By 2006, public opinion had largely turned against the war in
Iraq. The new House Administration Committee chair quietly changed “freedom fries” back to
“French fries” in 2006. Some restaurants around the country probably still have “freedom
fries” or “freedom toast” on their menus.
21 \ rua tekau mā tahi
WHAT IS AN EDITORIAL TODAY?

INSIGHTS OF A SPECIAL GENRE
By Valentin Pradelou
very text is framed by its genre. How is this notion used to interpret different
E
Every piece of writing cannot be texts? After having slightly answered this
fully interpreted without being question, we will try to apply genre to
considered within a wider set of pr- editorial. What is an editorial? Starting from
actices, rules, norms, characteristics and so the editorial genre's origins, I’ll try to
forth. introduce this particular genre and its different
characteristics as of today and particularly its
Inside the journalistic paradigm, particularly remoteness from fake news.
today, the internet does change things.
Disinformation can be anywhere, and the era Of course, the editorial has many versions.
of fake news is now. Using eye catching and Editorials can be found in journals,
misleading titles in order to lure the reader in magazines, specialized magazines, etc. Thus,
is now common and builds on the practices of it incorporates different textual features. We
non-institutional media, to target readers with will stick to the main version of editorial, in
specific political ideologies. This is just the general press.
starting point of criticism of the media, for
example, 48% of French people claim that How to define a genre?
they are in front of fake news in medias, used
on purpose against them. As I said before, every text fits into a genre.
Most authors choose to define genre as a
In this particular context, what is the editorial semantic constituent (Bouquet 2011), thus as
genre? a means of interpreting text. But genre can
also be defined inside a socio-temporal
In this article, we will try to provide a brief dimension: genre would be a socio-historical
insight of the idea of genre. What is a genre? regularity. Behind these contextual features of
Photo by visuals on Unsplash
22 \ rua tekau mā rua
genre, how is that directly influencing the text? ment about a current issue. Sometimes very
Actually, the sociologic and historic context violent, it was most of the time it was focused
can determine, or influence the practices, on Politics. It slowly opened to other subjects,
norms, rules, and so on, of a particular genre. such as philosophy, society, economics, and so
on. Thus, it had to be differentiated from
Put another way, social and historical contexts informative articles, bringing new information,
create the tendencies of a genre, reflecting the and opinion articles, using information already
practices of a social sphere. Maybe these covered to provide an argument about it.
elements seem hazy, so let’s give a clear
example. Before the 19th century, in France, I would like to highlight this particular element:
poetry was a genre in which verse was in its history, the editorial has often been
obligatory. Around 1800, with a rebirth of violent! Involving the personal mind of its
poetry, some authors started to publish poems author with a problem and holding a stance
in prose, participating in changing the genre of with violent arguments. It is important, because
poetry. Practices evolved, and poetry, formerly as for poetry, it has changed a bit to become a
considered as a verse genre, shifted to a genre slightly different genre nowadays.
made of verse OR prose. This is an example of
the historical and social features creating and Textual features today:
modifying a genre. Of course, it is very rapidly Thus, it editorials became, until today, an
described, only to make the idea clear. Now, article opened to other opinions, not so violent
let’s apply this to the editorial genre. and in which the personal clues of the author
are hidden in the text.
What is an editorial today?
Hence, editorial is an argumentative genre: its
Its genesis: goal is to change the mind of the reader. It
As described by Grosse (2001), the first takes a position on a subject that involves a
journalistic articles were probably the deep consideration of factors such as, politics,
newsflash and the report. The report allows philosophy, economics etc. It is thus rare to
critical analysis to be born. Around 1805 and find pronouns such as “I” or “You”, as these
1815, we find the first commentaries, and the would mark a proximity between the writer and
first column in 1872. Editorial seems to appear the reader, so would not be acceptable in a
around then, at least by 1856, in France. prestigious article. In editorial, the author has
However, it appears, following its textual some power. They He can choose the subject,
features, in 1790 and 1791 in Les annales interpret it, set the direction of argument and
patriotiques de Carra (an early French get a moral from it, most of the time hidden
newspaper). behind an objective aspect. Here is the
remoteness from fake news, as the author
This particular genre, in the historical context covers a subject after it has been treated and
of its genesis, was supposed to set out an argu- verified in informative articles. We can then
23 \ rua tekau mā toru
think that the informative genre act as a filter Here, editorial is talking about a boycott about
keeping the editorial genre from fake news, at future firings inside a firm. The editorialist uses
least more than informative articles, which tend the contextual frame, here in bold letters, to
to be the majority in a journal. place his text inside an economic frame, the
only one he allows in the event’s analysis. He’s
On this basis, this has to be compared to fables: not taking into account the other contextual
it tells a story (based on an actual event, of features as social problems, for example. His
course), and then gives a moral from it. argument is then framed by this boundary.
Why is this journalistic genre so special? It is interesting, because among articles that are
I would like to add something. If the editorial supposedly objective and describe the reality of
genre is an argumentative genre, it seems events, we find some articles that are editorial,
obvious that some rhetorical techniques are to written by eminent personalities inside a
be used in it. The French author Guilbert journal and written with an authoritative tone,
(2015) led some research on this genre and as if certain.
found something which seems very important.
To conclude
Starting with French speaking editorials, he
found that the authors used what he calls Here is what the editorial genre is like in
Evidence discursive. This last notion plays on today’s press. Knowing the characteristics
the implicit and places the editorial genre in a frame of a genre helps to better understand and
contextual frame making the argument not interpret texts. And, as it is clarified in the last
liable to annulment. And here comes one hell part of this article, discursive evidence can
of an element. To the author, this rhetorical make the editorial genre seem a really
technique is, by putting forward the argument authoritative discourse if one doesn’t know this
as not open to disagreement, a real sign of an argumentative technique.
authoritative discourse!
Of course, there are other textual features in
Let’s quickly analyze an example, also used in this genre, and most of the sources I use are on
the cited article: Feignant d’oublier que la French speaking editorials. I hope you guys
logique de l’entreprise, publique ou privée, enjoyed this article and don’t hesitate to write
celle du développement et de la création to me with questions, comments, or anything
else at vpradelou@gmail.com.
d’emploi, impose de fermer les unités non

rentables. (“Pretending to forget that logic of
Thanks for reading!
businesses, either public or private, the logic of
development and job creation, imposes the
closing of non-profitable companies”).
24 \ rua tekau mā whā
Learning A New
Language Can Make
You More Tolerant
Things)
ng Other
(Amo
Photo by Andrew Ebrahim on Unsplash
25 \ rua tekau mā rima
By Inés de la Vina
Nowadays, due to increased mobility and globalization, using more than two
languages has become usual for many people. Learning a foreign language is
always a great endeavour, it takes time and effort; but it also opens doors to
multiple remarkable benefits. There are many advantages to knowing more than
two languages. For example, it has been shown that learning multiple languages
trains your brain cells, which can help prevent mental decline. The multilingual
brain is also better at filtering out distractions, which makes you more likely to be
able to juggle multiple activities.
Beyond the benefits of using two or more languages for cognition and for the
brain, a growing body of research is now looking at the personal and social
consequences of multilingualism. Non-linguistic, more individual and social
aspects of becoming a multilingual, include greater openness to other languages,
cultures, countries, ways of life, and to new learning itself, higher levels of inter-
cultural competence, enhanced self-confidence and sense of the self, increased
adaptability, and higher tolerance of ambiguity towards linguistic variation, to
name just a few.
Tolerance of ambiguity is a construct that has been widely researched in various

fields. In language learning, this concept is defined as the ability to tackle
ambiguous new stimuli without annoyance (Ellis, 1994). In very basic terms, it can
be described as the comfort level someone experiences when dealing with an
unfamiliar situation. Some learners have a high tolerance, which means they are
excited by foreign situations, while others find these same scenarios to be anxiety-
inducing. Research shows that ambiguity-tolerant language learners learn most
effectively when they are given chance of risks and interactions (Furnham, 1994).
Take the example of a language learning classroom. Using a foreign language
usually means that you are prone to make a lot of mistakes. When you force
yourself to overcome your fears in such situations, you are boosting your tolerance
level which will in turn make real-life experiences easier to cope with.
26 \ rua tekau mā ono
Ambiguity tolerance has clear effects outside language learning. A study by

Dewaele and Wei (2013) with 1,718 adult monolinguals, 422 bilinguals, and 18
multilinguals found that multilinguals and bilinguals scored significantly higher
on tolerance of ambiguity than monolinguals. Evidence also shows that a stay or
study abroad of more than three months was also related to a greater tolerance.
This suggests that continued exposure to a different language and cultural
environment fosters tolerance. Unsurprisingly, the more experience a person has
with language learning, the more comfortable the person gets with ambiguity.
Generally speaking, multilinguals are more aware and tolerant of differing values,
beliefs, and communicative practices. Dewaele and Wei suggest that ambiguity
tolerance and the knowledge of multiple languages ‘‘[reflect] sudden changes in
the sociocultural and linguistic environment of individuals’’.
For this reason, multilingualism is believed to enhance communities, enrich

cultures, and foster social cohesion. In a similar study, van Compernolle (2017)
recruited a total of 379 mono-, bi- and multilingual adults across 45 nationalities,
and found that knowledge of several languages and residence or stays abroad are
related to positive attitudes in linguistic variation. Van Compernolle further claims
that ‘‘[individuals’] sociolinguistic experiences shape, and can be shaped by, [their]
attitudes toward language’’.
Language use involves not only exposure but also an interdependent interaction
between thought and language (Vygostky, 1986). In other words, languages shape
the way we think and help expand our world perspective. The more you are
familiar with foreign languages, the more you expand your world-view and foster
an appreciation for a different culture and its people. Individuals with higher levels
of tolerance of ambiguity have also been found to be more optimistic, resourceful,
and entrepreneurial (i.e., innovative and willing to take risks).
Another interesting individual aspect that has been

explored in relation to multilingualism is personality.
The relationship between language and culture is
complex, and has effects on personality and feelings
on language use. Bilinguals and multilinguals often
report feeling like they have different personalities –
one for each language they speak. This happens
because language learning enables individuals to
shift between the values of different cultures. This
27 \ rua tekau mā whitu
assumption goes all the way back to the Middle Ages when, interestingly enough,
emperor Charlemagne is reported to have said: “To have another language is to
possess a second soul”. In his first book on bilingualism, “Life with Two Languages”
(1982), Grosjean draws on research, interviews, and first-hand reports to address
the nature of the bilingual experience. He continued to examine the notion of
feeling and appearing different when speaking different languages. He reports
the reflections of three bilingual speakers on their shift in attitudes then they
speak different languages:
Bilingual 1: When I’m around Anglo-Americans, I find myself awkward and

unable to choose my words quickly enough ... When I’m amongst
Latinos/Spanish-speakers, I don’t feel shy at all. I’m witty, friendly, and ...I
become very out-going.
Bilingual 2: In English, my speech is very polite, with a relaxed tone, always
saying ‘please’ and ‘excuse me.’ When I speak Greek, I start talking more
rapidly, with a tone of anxiety and in a kind of rude way.
Bilingual 3: I find when I’m speaking Russian I feel like a much more
gentle, ‘softer’ person. In English, I feel more ‘harsh,’ ‘businesslike’
Grosjean (2011) explains that a change in personality is simply a shift in attitudes

and behaviours that correspond to a shift in situation or context, independent of
language. This is known as the “culture frame switching” approach (Koven, 1998,
2001, 2007; Ramirez-Esparza et al., 2006). As such, there is support that the
language we use may change how we think and feel based on the implied
cultural differences.

And that is not all. A 2013 Babbel survey with more than 3,000 respondents found
that 71% of Americans and 61% of Britons believe speaking more than one
language makes a person seem more attractive. Oh là là! So whether you speak
several languages, or you are attempting to learn them, there are many benefits
that transcend just being able to speak with different people.

Learning a language makes you more appealing, tolerant, and creative. And it is
also good for your brain! There is really no downside to learning a second
language, is there?
28 \ rua tekau mā waru
SIGN
LANGUAGES:
A Brief History
By Emmeline Burdett
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash
29 \ rua tekau mā iwa
Q uite recently, the Silly Linguistics Facebook page had a post asking how many
of the page’s followers spoke an indigenous/minority language. There were many
interesting responses, but it was quite striking that nobody mentioned sign
languages. Consequently, this article will be about sign languages. There are many
sign languages in the world today, and, whilst no-one knows exactly how many
there are, estimates range from 138 to about 300! This includes everything from
sign languages spoken by the deaf inhabitants of vast countries like China, to sign
languages which have developed in individual schools for deaf students. In fact,
what is thought to be the world’s first formal sign language was partly developed
this way.

In 1755, a French priest called Charles Michel de l’Epée founded a school for deaf
students in Paris. The language created there – Old French sign language – was a
combination of the informal signs used at home by de l’Epée’s students and their
families, and a manual alphabet. De l’Epée wanted to enable deaf people to receive
the Sacrament and avoid going to Hell: a direct contrast to the theory, which had
been around since the Ancient Greeks, that deaf people were ineducable – in fact,
the philosopher Aristotle had described congenitally deaf people as ‘senseless and
incapable of reason’.
De l’Epée is a somewhat controversial figure, however, because although he is

often described as ‘the man who taught the deaf to sign’, it’s more accurate to say
that he was taught to sign by deaf people, partly because signing already existed
(there was a signing community in Paris, but he considered their signs ‘primitive’,
and also because ‘his’ invention of Old French sign language was to a large degree
only possible because his students taught him the signs they used at home).
This tension between progress and politics has often been a problem with regard
to educational provision for deaf students, and this is particularly the case with
regard to the ‘oralism (speech) versus manualism (sign language)’ debate.
Historically many educators of deaf students have tried to force them to use
speech rather than sign language, and in some countries the suppression of sign
language does still exist. In China, for example, most deaf children are taught at
oralist ‘hearing rehabilitation centres’. Chinese Sign Language still has anything
between one million and twenty million speakers, though, and despite the fact that
it was developed by American missionaries, it is culturally specific to China, for
example, just as Mandarin has no word for ‘brother’, but rather ‘older brother’ and
‘younger brother’, so does Chinese sign language. In addition, the CSL sign for ‘eat’
is not a hand, as it is in ASL, but instead resembles chopsticks.
30 \ toru tekau
This difference gives a clue that sign languages are just as culturally specific as
spoken languages. To the differences between Chinese Sign Language and
American Sign Language which we saw above, we can add the interesting example
of sign language in Eritrea. Although sign language was originally taught in Eritrea
by Finnish missionaries, the Finnish sign for ‘DOG’ (two pats on the upper right leg)
was one of the signs which made no cultural sense in Eritrea, where dogs are not
really viewed as ‘man’s best friend’, but as wild and unsafe. About two decades ago,
the Deaf community in Eritrea began to work on changing signs like this to
something more appropriate.
As with the example of Old French Sign Language, the changing of some signs
because they made no cultural sense in Eritrea challenges the common
misconception that sign languages are invented by benevolent hearing people.
Another common misconception about sign language is that it is simply a signed
version of spoken language, when in fact there are often pronounced differences
between the two. For example, American Sign Language shares more syntax with
spoken Japanese than it does with English!

There are some similarities between sign languages and spoken languages,
however, and two of these are language families and language isolates. The largest
language family is the LSF (French Sign Language) family, which, as well as fairly
unexpected members like Italian Sign Language, also includes, for example, Czech
Sign Language.

These unexpected connections are due to factors like who spread the language to
other countries, and this is the reason why ASL (American Sign Language) is not
related to British Sign Language (BSL) as might easily be assumed), but to LSF. The
ASL ‘cluster’ is a subset of the LSF family, and includes not only ASL itself, but also
the languages which have been strongly influenced by it, such as the many African
sign languages which developed as a result of the spread of ASL by the missionary
Andrew Foster.

In addition, just as Basque is a spoken language isolate – because it’s so old, it isn’t
related to any other extant language – so there are sign language isolates too.
Examples of these sign languages which have developed independently are Turkish
Sign Language and Providence Island Sign Language.

Despite these differences, however, willingness to get along and the universality of
some signs does help – for example, the sign for ‘HELLO’ may not be exactly the
same in every sign language, but it is usually possible to identify it as such, even if it
sometimes resembles more of a salute than a wave.
31 \ toru tekau mā tahi
NATURALIZATION
OF
WORDS
By Gil Cohen
P eople can emigrate from one country to another, and they can acquire citizenship in
that country through a process called Naturalization. At what point does a naturalized
citizen actually become a part of that country? Do they ever? I’ve lived in Israel my
whole life, but from what I hear from people who emigrated here, they don’t always feel
Israeli, be it because of different customs, behavior or language.

But of course, I’m not writing about emigration of people, but of words, or as we call it,
the borrowing of words. All languages that come in contact with other language
borrow words, and obviously, Hebrew is none the stranger.
I started thinking of this subject when I saw a friend write the Hebrew equivalent of
traumatic, which is traumati. Orthography, as we know, is all about conventions: we spell
write with a w, even though we don’t pronounce the w. Why? Because.

The rather widespread convention regarding transliteration of English words in Hebrew
is that th is written as letter X, and t is written as letter Y (not the actual letters X,Y, but
Hebrew letters, and it is redundant to write them here). That friend wrote the second t
of traumati with the letter X, and not Y, against the convention and different from the
way I have seen people spell it.
32 \ toru tekau mā rua
I started thinking of the reason for that, and I But what is this elusive moment of
had an idea, which could explain why in the naturalization? When does a word become an
case of traumati, some people use the letter X actual part of our language and stops feeling
to transliterate the second t of the word, while foreign? Can a word both “feel foreign” and
other use the letter Y for the same t. The be naturalized at the same time? I believe that
word Hebrew trauma (never mind its like many other processes in language, e.g.
etymological origin) was probably borrowed grammaticalization and the ascension of a
from English into Hebrew. These are the 2 new language, we can’t pinpoint the exact
ways I thought of that could create traumati, moment that A became B. Does this moment
an adjective: even exist? Is it the moment when all Hebrew
Simply a borrowing of traumatic – like speakers can recognize, use, and inflect
other words that end in -atic: trauma, or perhaps x% of speakers?
o Automatic -> otomati.
o Problematic -> problemati. Another interesting example would be the
o Traumatic -> traumati. naturalization of the word corona in Persian.
The Iranian deputy health minister, Iraj
Speakers recognized the pattern of
Harirchi Tabrizi, tested positive for COVID-
borrowing for other words that have been
19, and he said corona’i shodam, which
borrowed, and borrowed traumatic in a
roughly translates to I became corona-ized,
similar way.
when he announced his diagnosis. He could
Speakers derived traumati from a possibly have said it in many different ways, and yet,
earlier borrowing of trauma. Trauma is a he chose to incorporate corona in a perfectly
noun, both in English and in Hebrew, Persian construct, which means that at least
while traumatic and traumati are adjectives. for him, corona is a naturalized citizen of
One of the ways an adjective can be Persian!
derived from a noun that ends with a, is
to add a -ti suffix to it, thus creating How long have we known this word, in the
traumati from trauma. context of the pandemic? 5-6 months
The first way would result in spelling traumati (writing this in May)? That is quite a fast
with the letter Y, while the other would with naturalization process, since linguistic
the letter X (since that’s how the -ti prefix is processes are usually slow and gradual.
written). Both ways are plausible, but Perhaps it has to do with how often we speak
regardless of the actual etymology of traumati of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is
in Hebrew, the interesting part of this whole referred to as corona or corona virus in both
prelude is the second way, deriving traumati Hebrew and Persian. Using a word over and
from trauma. Why is it interesting? Because it over, especially in the extreme situation the
means that Hebrew speakers feel that trauma whole world has found itself, might expedite
has been naturalized, and therefore they can the naturalization process, as we’ve seen in
enact Hebrew grammatical rules on it! this example.
33 \ toru tekau mā toru
I told a friend of mine about this piece, and we

started talking about the naturalization process.
After telling him about corona and Persian, we
both thought about whether corona has already
been naturalized in Hebrew. At the same time,
we inflected I became corona-ized in Hebrew,
and we both said hitkaranti (if you’re wondering
why this is the form we both used, you’re more
than welcome to read my pieces about Hebrew
Morphology). This is amazing for two reasons:
It took us less than a second to think of the
inflection according to Hebrew, and we both
said the exact same form.
I believe that this goes to show that speakers of a

language know how to start the naturalization
process of a word in their language, and easily.
Is this kind of knowledge an inherent part of

being humans and speaking languages? Or do
we acquire this skill as we acquire our language
as children?
Perhaps this elusive moment of naturalization of

a word in a language doesn’t exist per se, but
happens for each and every one of us,
separately? Maybe my friend and I naturalized
corona in Hebrew, at least for us, the moment
we both said hitkaranti?
Whatever may be the answer for any of my

questions (if it even exists), languages once
again show us what a wonderful yet mysterious
tool they are.
34 \ toru tekau mā whā
New Zealand
THE INDEFINABLE
Accent
By Ashleigh Hume
Photo by Anton on Unsplash
35 \ toru tekau mā rima
If there’s one guarantee about being a New Zealander, it’s that when you go overseas, no one can guess
where you’re from.

Accents are strange things. I’ve always been fascinated by them; it seems like every country has its own
unique accent, but when you dig deeper you realize that even that accent changes from place to place,
class to class, and background to background.

My interest in this is why, whenever anyone talks, I’m always listening to how they pronounce certain
words – which is how I know that my own native New Zealand accent is nigh on impossible to identify
and replicate.

I’ve travelled many times in my life, and never has anyone managed to guess my nationality. I’ve been
mistaken for Australian, South African, and British – a fair assumption, given that the New Zealand
accent is essentially just those three accents stacked on top of one another, wearing a trench coat. (I
would also like to point out for those that don’t know: New Zealand and Australia are not the same
country. At all.)
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining; on the contrary, I find it rather amusing when people try and
guess where I’m from. The funniest thing is that I myself sometimes can’t identify my own accent.
My friend and I went to Universal Studios in Los Angeles a few years ago. We took a tour of some movie
sets. The minibus we were on contained a TV, helpfully giving us a run-down of the different sets; and
who should appear on the screen than renowned New Zealand director, Sir Peter Jackson?
Naturally, we were excited – another quirk about being a Kiwi is that we’re always excited to see other
Kiwis overseas – and then he started to speak.
My friend and I had the same reaction: “Wait, what? We don’t sound like that, do we?” In amongst the
American accents surrounding us, the Kiwi accent stood out like a sore thumb that hated vowels.
This wasn’t the last time I’d have trouble identifying my own accent, either; while listening to a podcast,
I spent a lot of time wondering what part of England the host was from. She was a Kiwi. What’s
interesting, though, is that while even Kiwis have trouble hearing our accents, we have no trouble
hearing when it’s wrong. A lot of movies over the years have cast non-New Zealanders in Kiwi parts, just
to have them mangle the accent. They often end up sounding Australian or South African. Even those
who do a good job might pronounce one or two words wrong, which leads to the entire performance
sounding a little “off”.
36 \ toru tekau mā ono
Funnily enough, on another overseas trip, I met some Australian travellers who insisted I didn’t “sound
Kiwi”, and then tried to tell me what I should sound like using a mangled New Zealand accent. I
wondered what their reaction would have been had our situations been reversed! I suppose the biggest
issue with trying to imitate the New Zealand accent is the vowels: we don’t have many. We barely open
our mouths to speak, leading to flat vowel sounds and, often, a monotone. That’s not to say that the New
Zealand accent is by any means ugly – in fact, we’re often told our accent is lovely – just that it can often
seem inconsistent to a stranger’s ear.
At the end of the day, the only sure-fire way to check for a Kiwi’s nationality is slang: phrases like “sweet
as” (which can mean many things, usually “no problem”), “yeah, nah” (which means “no”), “nah, yeah”
(which means yes) and “yeah, nah, yeah” (which also means yes, just not as emphatically). You may also
hear sprinklings of te reo Maori – the Maori language – such as “kia ora” (hello/good bye), “haere mai”
(welcome), or “kai” (food). Living alongside Maori culture means that we all know at least a few phrases,
even if we aren’t taught the language outright. It also helps us to pronounce Maori place names, which,
to be perfectly honest, is hilarious to hear non-Kiwis attempt.

Another notable characteristic of the New Zealand accent is how changeable it can be. Speaking with
someone from another country can often leave us mimicking their accent. A few of my friends moved
overseas for only a few months and completely lost their accents – it doesn’t happen every time, but
often enough to be notable. I myself have an American partner, and sometimes can hear myself
pronouncing R’s where I normally would not. Interestingly though, I don’t even hear his accent anymore.

I guess the point I’m trying to make is that accents are strange creatures. You don’t notice your own,
unless some extraordinary circumstance turns your ear. It’s no wonder that some people think they don’t
have an accent at all!
37 \ toru tekau mā whitu
“You’re being too Wordy”:

RUSSIAN SUFFIXES
AND THE ENGLISH
LANGUAGE IN
ACADEMIA
By Joe Robinson
Photo by Surendran MP on Unsplash
38 \ toru tekau mā waru
P icture this: you have secured a place at a top university. Your

hard work has paid off, congratulations. Now let’s also assume
for a moment that you are taking a Humanities subject and are
expecting to write a lot of essays. ‘Fantastic’, you might think,
‘time to put my well-honed eloquence to the test and write
something beautiful’. Yes, indeed I do not use the term lightly.
For me, communication in both the verbal and the written
mediums should not just strive to be informative. Conversely, we
should aim for a joyous expression of the knowledge we wish to
convey by employing some ‘word painting’. But you then get to
your first class and it hits you. The lecturer will insist on a piece
of work that is, above all else, succinct. This is exactly the
situation I found myself in 2016.

So what happened? Well, I enrolled on a Music course and was
told from the get go that I was to prioritise what I would term
‘prose distillation’. Coming from a family which placed great
emphasis on the romanticising of language, what I want to ask is
why? Why is this such a priority even in a creative field? I must
interrupt myself for a moment to highlight that I don’t oppose
learning to write with economy of means in mind. After all, if you
are writing any kind of paper, you will likely be working with a
word count; and if you’re spewing out concepts like a Bebop
Jazzer then you’re going to have a problem. However, this
doesn’t mean that the cold hard facts should subsume the
prose. After all, it’s just as much about the journey as it is the
destination, right?
In my opinion, the beauty of written English lies mainly in the

rhythmic choices we make when writing. I remember being a
child and my mother reading draft versions of two novels she
had written and thinking “I enjoy this”. What I think spoke to me
most about those nights spent with her work was the
meandering nature of the prose. When I say meandering, of
course, I don't mean this in the negative sense. It gave the
narrative more flow, reading it just felt better, more natural.
Writing with such abandon lets you, as Truman Capote once
said, ‘write with your ear’. Writing with my ear has often landing
me in some hot water as I like to be verbose in speech and this
manifests in some pretty long sub-clauses. As a student I have
had to unlearn this habit and must have picked it up from those
books.
39 \ toru tekau mā iwa
Oh, but there was something spectacular about the conversational musings that I read in those
books. Naturally, we need clarity. We can’t expect some eloquently written, colourful and suggestive
prose in every situation. If I wanted to buy a car, I would hope to find a clearly delineated contract
informing me of exactly what it was I was getting myself into. But, when the objective of a piece of
writing is not purely an imperative – that is to solely inform concretely– how should we approach it?
This is what’s known as the ‘aesthetic quality’ of language function and it is something which varies
from society to society. So, what is it that inhibits this drive to expression? For the next section of
this article, I want to look at how the Russian language facilitates greater expression without
becoming bogged down with words and annoying pesky lecturers.
At a base level, the Russian language allows you to express different attitudes and functions
regarding a person or an object with fewer words. It achieves this by offering various suffixes which
add expression (and sometimes description) to a noun. Olga Steriopolo’s study into this interesting
concept breaks them down into two groups: Attitude Suffixes and Size Suffixes. The first is all about
how you feel towards something or someone. An example of this would be the ‘affectionate’ suffix.
You can use this to display, you guessed it, affection towards someone. In this case the suffix ‘ул’ (ul)
is added for example in the word for father папа (papa) becomes папулька (papul’ka).
Photo by Giulia Bertelli on Unsplash
40 \ whā tekau
An example of a size suffix now: we can take the noun meaning

‘house’ дом (dom) and add the suffix ‘ик’ (ik) to the modified
домик (Domik). With this suffix added, the word tells you that this
particular house is rather small and I think it is an endearing
device to use. So, what's happening here is rather interesting
because we are communicating in way that we simply couldn’t in
English without sounding contrived and theatrical. On a similar
note, you can also find this device in German if you add the suffix
‘chen’ to a noun, but this is only a diminutive and the language
doesn’t have the breadth of suffixes you’ll find in Russian.
Can we do this in English? Well, no. You could perhaps say ‘papa
who I love very much’ but this is just weird if you were actually
addressing your dad; also it manifests as a complete statement
rather than a pronoun, so it is not ‘concise’. In that case you could
say ‘dear dad’ or ‘wonderful father’, however strange and
unrepresentative of everyday speech this may be. On the other
hand you could say ‘daddy’ and this is probably the closest
expression that we have to our aforementioned example. But
this too is weird after a certain age... or at least it should be. By
the same token, English doesn’t have a word for a small house.
Sure, you can use adjectives to imply its ‘smallness’ like tiny, mini,
cute. But the language simply doesn’t contain a sufficiently
expressive noun and forces you to use adjectives instead. This
latter case is lot more normal than the attempts to convert the
previous example though, don’t you think? These may only be a
couple of examples, I am by no means an expert in this language,
but hopefully they serve as an indicator of something: you can
express yourself in more detail but use less words.

Because the Russian language is able to communicate in this way,
you could refer to it as a more ‘efficient’ language than English in
terms of expression. There is a reason why my friend wanted to
learn Russian; he told me of the works of Chekov and Tolstoy and
how he wanted to read them as originally intended. If he was
willing to go through the trials and tribulations of learning the
language (he is not a language geek), he must have heard
something about the warm authenticity you could get from
reading those novels in their author’s native tongue. So, there is
an aesthetic drive for him. I’m tying this all together by lamenting
how English’s ‘wordiness’ can hinder you in certain institutions;
you just can’t achieve that level of conciseness whilst being so
expressive and descriptive.
Photo by Dakota Corbin on Unsplash
41 \ whā tekau mā tahi
Going back to the draft novels my mother used read to me as a boy, I must admit that I
have a heavy bias. I have never liked purely descriptive or factual prose that much. I know, I
know, it has its place hence the car dealership scenario I spoke of earlier. I would not want
to see a scientific paper that is a masterpiece in terms of its creative delivery, but tells me
nothing of the subject at hand- how useless that would be! But I enjoy language, the rise
and fall of the text, the tension and release aspect to it, I find it all quite exciting to tell you
the truth. When I have decimated a piece of uni work in the literary sense in order to meet
the word count, I feel something of a fraud. Maybe it’s just me? Sure, the information laid
out is totally accessible, but I can’t help but feel guilty. As a student you read, you read a lot
in fact, and I feel that this should be reflected in the work that we present.

Another anecdote incoming: My ex-house-mate used to forever moan about how her
grades were never as high others on our course. She was definitely not stupid, on the
contrary, but it seemed to me that her priorities lay more towards the aesthetic side. It was
important for her not just to present solid information, but also to create something that
was genuinely a joy to read. The Austrian Philosopher Karl Popper highlighted this when he
explained how something aesthetic (our prose style here) which exists to serve a practical
end (communication) can in fact become an objective independent of the thing it is serving.
My house-mate was doing this, whilst she tried to preserve the practical end and display a
beautiful piece of work at the same time. My mother’s novels inspired this in me also, but I
suppressed it at uni and am now trying to rekindle it.
So what is to be done? Obviously, I am not blind to the fact that this is an enormous
question; I don’t propose any easy answers either. But one likely causation of our problem
is English’s status as the global lingua franca, especially for universities. The academic
credentials of American and British universities lead to a huge influx of international
students. Not only that, but many Universities in non-English speaking countries have
adopted the language. My girlfriend studies in Germany, but classes are mostly entirely
taught in English. The obvious issue here is how to accommodate students who speak
English to high level but simply don’t possess the command of the language that a native
would. My girlfriend (who speaks English to a C1 level), has sometimes rejected some of the
books I recommend her on account of the English being too ‘high’ for her to understand.

Like I said, I don’t have any easy answers for you. Nevertheless, the art of lexical elegance
should not be lost on anyone, nor should you feel locked into a formula. Why did I discuss
Russian suffixes seemingly out of the blue? Because these suffixes allow for greater clarity
and expression in fewer words and because frankly it makes me jealous. If you are a
student of the Humanities and this is happening to you, don’t freak out. Take what you can
from the pointers regarding structure, this is the good stuff. But please don’t sacrifice your
style for the sake of a grade. By all means, try and get the grade, but retain and develop the
verbal character that got you to where you are; it’s what defines you.
42 \ whā tekau mā rua
DISPATCHES FROM LINGUISTS:
JAPANESE
LESSONS
BY M WATTS
Photo by bantersnaps on Unsplash
43 \ whā tekau mā toru
This month's dispatch is from the UK, as M Watts recounts some of his experience
using formally learnt Japanese whilst working in a Japanese restaurant.
There are certain things about a language that self-education and practice cannot
realistically teach you. I discovered this when attempting to learn Japanese kanji for the
first time and found that the cultural, situational and grammatical nuances of their
usage were simply too complex for my amateur brain. Two years into a Japanese
language degree, I had accumulated a lot of academic knowledge about it, including
one vital piece. There are also things that university lecturers and classes cannot
realistically teach you. I discovered this in my first few weeks as a waiter (read: kitchen
porter and general dogsbody) at a Japanese restaurant where none of the staff spoke
English (any speech I include has therefore been translated into English – it was said
originally in Japanese).
Let’s call my boss Tanaka. It is not the case that he cannot speak English, but the fact
that he doesn’t speak English rather sums up his personal culture. He is militant in
maintaining what he believes to be the most proper way of doing things; an interesting
trait when combined with the fun-loving, dad-joking aspects of his personality. This
combination often resulted in a late-night game of ‘let’s teach the British guy some fun
Japanese’ when the restaurant was not busy of an evening.
The first instance of this that I recall, and the first time I truly appreciated that there are
some very basic aspects of language that academia will not teach you, was the noises
made by animals. It’s a simple premise. Whichever language you grow up speaking, you
are likely to learn to imitate animal noises from a very young age; but all languages have
their own sounds for them. Because making animal noises isn’t something adults do in
respectable company, classes won’t teach you how to make them, but that doesn’t
mean that the average native speaker won’t know how to do it.
“What noise does a dog make?” Tanaka asked me one evening, totally randomly.
Naturally, I was confused, but knew the answer in both Japanese and English, and
responded with both. When he then asked, “What about elephants?”, I cottoned onto
what we were playing. At the time, it did not feel at all useful to learn that an elephant
goes ‘pa ōn’ (N.B. all Japanese has been transliterated using Romaji.) and a frog goes
‘gero gero’ but, in hindsight, the accumulation of knowledge deeply rooted in the minds
of Japanese people from childhood, is arguably more useful for fluency than complex
kanji compound words that only Japanese scholars would use in formal writing.
Hay-fever season hit soon after, and the second thing I recall being surprised to learn
came when I repeatedly attempted to bless my colleagues when they sneezed. I asked
at least five different co-workers, each on separate occasions, whether they knew a
44 \ whā tekau mā whā
way to say “bless you”. There simply isn’t one. Not only that, the sentiment just doesn’t
exist as a concept. It makes sense when you consider it; Japan was not hit by the Plague
– sneezing never warranted the blessing of any higher power. Despite this consistency in
logic, it feels exceedingly unnatural to hear a sneeze and not respond with “bless you”.
To the colleagues with whom I am closer, I tend to say “buresu y ū” (a transliteration of

bless you) and they respond with “san ky ū” (thank you). (Ed. The story goes that the
plague of 590BCE in Rome led to the Pope at the time ordering all who sneezed to be
blessed in case they were infected.)
There are also idioms in English that don't translate in meaning or in sentiment. Tanaka
has a persistent lung issue so he tends to break out into random coughing fits. One
empty evening, before he could launch a game of ‘let’s teach the British guy fun
Japanese’, I asked him, “Have you ever heard the saying ‘you have a frog in your
throat’?” I translated the idiom into Japanese in order to ask him and, naturally, he
looked at me as though I were insane. In fact, as I translated it, I felt increasingly
insane.
There is a certain fluidity about idioms that make them feel less like a sentence or
phrase and more like a single word that you insert to mean one, specific thing.
Attempting to translate them by breaking them down into component words oddly
removes the meaning from the original language; after all, to have a frog in one’s throat
would be more likely to result in suffocation than a coughing fit. Tanaka responded that
he had no idea what I was talking about and I explained to him that it was a phrase
used when someone else was having a coughing fit. He drew a comparison to the fact
that I felt the urge to bless people when they sneezed, and I struggled to then explain
why the two were entirely unrelated. We somehow reached the agreement by the end of
the shift that, when he broke into a coughing fit, I would bless him with ‘gero gero’ (the
sound made by a frog that he had taught me a few weeks previously). Our other
colleagues have no clue why I make frog sounds when he coughs, but it cracks them up.
I expect there are plenty of things that I could not learn from the staff in a Japanese
restaurant, in the same way that there are limits to self-learning and university classes.
The fact that I have not yet found a linear way to achieve fluency in a language is both
comforting and terrifying. It might mean that I will live my life wondering whether or not I
have learned enough in my chosen languages to consider myself fluent. Despite this,
even if there were a single track ticket to learn every aspect fluently, I’m not sure I would
use it. Languages are not constructed in a linear way. They are built by a vast variety of
people and cultures, and are perhaps best learned as such. In my opinion, a longer,
more scattered period of time is a small price to pay for being able to make frog noises
at my strict, middle-aged boss.
45 \ whā tekau mā rima
Manhunt:
Unabomber
A REVIEW
By Holly Gustafson
Movies and television shows that feature linguists as the heroes and
heroines, using their knowledge of language to save the day, are
few and far between, so when one comes up, I’m always intrigued.
That’s what drew me to Discovery Channel’s Manhunt: Unabomber,
an eight-episode series based on the true story of James R.
Fitzgerald, an FBI profiler who pioneered the use of linguistic
analysis to catch the notorious American terrorist, Ted Kaczynski.

Between the years of 1978 and 1995, Kaczynski, a former
mathematics professor and all-around anarchist, launched sixteen
bombing attacks, killing three people and injuring over twenty. His
targets were people involved with various sectors of modern
technology, and his message was clear: our reliance on machines
has made us less human, and we must return to a non-
industrialized, more natural, way of life to reclaim our humanity.

In 1995, Kaczynski outlined this message in a fifty-six-page essay
entitled “Industrial Society and Its Future”, which would soon be
known as the Unabomber Manifesto. Enter FBI profiler, James R.
Fitzgerald, former beat cop on the graffiti squad with no formal
linguistic training, who, in the absence of physical forensic
evidence like DNA or fingerprints that could point to the killer,
mined the Manifesto for linguistic clues that might lead to the
identity of the Unabomber.
46 \ whā tekau mā ono
Looking for linguistic “fingerprints”, Fitzgerald examined the idiolect – the speech pattern and
habits particular to one specific person – to point to characteristics that would help him create a
profile of the Unabomber, somebody who had eluded the FBI and terrorized an entire country for
two decades. In one episode, Fitzgerald, played by Sam Worthington, asks his small team of three,
“Who talks like this?” – this, essentially, is the question his profile must ultimately answer.

Throughout the series, Fitzgerald looks for word clues in the Manifesto like a forensics detective
might scour for fingerprints or a single strand of hair. The consistent use of unusual, variant
spellings (like analyse and licence, or skilful and fulfilment), the use of out-dated or “generational”
words (like broad, chick, and negro), and the actual format of the essay, lead Fitzgerald to conclude
that the Unabomber likely grew up in Chicago, was between the ages of forty-nine and fifty-four,
and got a PhD between the years 1967 and 1972. But it was also the words that were missing that helps
Fitzgerald create what turns out to be an amazingly accurate profile: no mention of children, family,
work, friends, computers, phones or pop culture lead him to believe that the Unabomber was
socially, physically, and technologically isolated from the world. Fitzgerald was right.
It was Fitzgerald’s profile and analysis of the Manifesto – in conjunction with help from the public,
who were asked to call in if they recognized the language or any of the ideologies described in the
essay, which was printed in its entirety in The Washington Post – that eventually led to the search
warrant of an off-the-grid cabin in the woods where Kaczynski lived (just as Fitzgerald had
surmised). And that search warrant turned up more than enough physical – that is, non-linguistic –
evidence required to convict Kaczynski.
Although this is a fictionalized account of the events that eventually identified and convicted
Kaczynski, and therefore contains the necessary dramatic scenes between good guy and bad buy,
and even sexual tension between Fitzgerald and the comparative linguistic grad student from
Stanford University that he brought on to help him analyse the Manifesto, the portrayal of linguistic
forensics, in its infancy, rings true. At the time of the investigation, there was very little history of
“using language to solve crime,” and certainly no legal precedent for a search warrant based solely on
linguistic analysis. Indeed, Fitzgerald’s work, and his belief in the “power and specificity” of words,
was cutting-edge. As one of Fitzgerald’s sceptical superiors scoffs, “Fingerprints are forensics. DNA
is forensics. Spelling wilfully with one ‘l’ is not forensics.” Fortunately, and thanks in part to
Fitzgerald, it is now.
Fitzgerald’s construction of a comprehensive idiolectic profile that ultimately leads to the end of
Kaczynski’s seventeen-year reign of terror makes for a gripping saga in itself. But it’s the underlying
story of the establishment of this new form of investigative work – forensic linguistics – that makes
the series extra fascinating, and proves that, like James R. Fitzgerald, not all heroes wear capes.
Some read the Chicago Tribune in-house style guide.

Manhunt: Unabomber originally premiered on Discovery Channel in August of 2017, and is now
available on Netflix.
THANKS FOR
READING SILLY
LINGUISTICS ISSUE
#26
WE HOPE YOU ENJOYED IT!
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have to magazine@sillylinguistics.com
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SILLY LINGUISTICS THE MAGAZINE FOR LANGUAGE LOVERS

TEAR DOWN THE STATUES

LEARNING A NEW LANGUAGE By M Watts

You can change the jug.

The can make the jug bigger and smaller.

Well, I like to think I’m not completely S is for...Stupid. When it comes to

I think it’s important for us as readers, writers, translators, linguists, artists,

Why? What would you like to change?

Might this be the best method?

Photo by Alison Courtney

Photo by Jacob Morrison on Unsplash

The Many Kinds of Liberty

1. “The quality or state of being free”;

“The power to do as one pleases”;

Where Did “Liberty” Come From?

“Liberty” vs. “Freedom”

Other Concepts of “Liberty”

American Ideas of Liberty

“Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”

“Give me liberty or give me death.”

“With liberty and justice for all”

Liberty Cabbage and Freedom Fries

WHAT IS AN EDITORIAL TODAY?

fully interpreted without being question, we will try to apply genre to

forth. introduce this particular genre and its different

characteristics as of today and particularly its

Inside the journalistic paradigm, particularly remoteness from fake news.

today, the internet does change things.

specific political ideologies. This is just the general press.

starting point of criticism of the media, for

example, 48% of French people claim that How to define a genre?

they are in front of fake news in medias, used

Most authors choose to define genre as a

genre? a means of interpreting text. But genre can

also be defined inside a socio-temporal

Photo by visuals on Unsplash

on. Thus, it had to be differentiated from

elements seem hazy, so let’s give a clear

considered as a verse genre, shifted to a genre slightly different genre nowadays.

made of verse OR prose. This is an example of

are hidden in the text.

What is an editorial today?

Hence, editorial is an argumentative genre: its

Its genesis: goal is to change the mind of the reader. It

newspaper). behind an objective aspect. Here is the

remoteness from fake news, as the author

only one he allows in the event’s analysis. He’s

(2015) led some research on this genre and as if certain.

found something which seems very important.

Starting with French speaking editorials, he

as not open to disagreement, a real sign of an argumentative technique.

Of course, there are other textual features in

celle du développement et de la création to me with questions, comments, or anything

development and job creation, imposes the

closing of non-profitable companies”).

Photo by Andrew Ebrahim on Unsplash

Tolerance of ambiguity is a construct that has been widely researched in various

Ambiguity tolerance has clear effects outside language learning. A study by

For this reason, multilingualism is believed to enhance communities, enrich

Another interesting individual aspect that has been

Bilingual 1: When I’m around Anglo-Americans, I find myself awkward and

Grosjean (2011) explains that a change in personality is simply a shift in attitudes

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

De l’Epée is a somewhat controversial figure, however, because although he is