What Now? with Trevor Noah - Lera Boroditsky: How Language Secretly Changes Your Personality

Episode Date: August 20, 2026

Does the language you speak shape how you see the world? Cognitive scientist Lera Boroditsky joins Trevor, Eugene, and Dave to explore how our native tongue can influence everything from our personalities to who we blame when things go wrong, and why bilingual people can feel different depending on which language they're speaking. They dive into cultures that navigate using north, south, east, and west instead of left and right, the relationship between language and thought, and why we're all susceptible to the illusion that we're better at communicating than we actually are. It’s a funny, mind-expanding conversation about how the words we use may shape far more of our world than we realize. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

So you speak Russian? I speak Russian. Why do you speak Russian? I grew up in Ukraine and Belarus. Huh. And so, wait, in Belarus, don't they speak? Oh, I'm going to expose myself. I've always thought it was like Belarusian.

No, Belarusian is how I've always said it. Both Russian and Belarusian are spoken in Belarus. But it was mostly Russian when I lived there. Wait, so did you grow up speaking Russian? I grew up speaking Russian, yeah. Oh. And then at what age did you start? speaking English.

When I was 12. Wow. I don't pick it up at all. Normally I can hear when somebody has like... 11 and a half. No, really. That's when I... Genuinely.

I can normally pick up when somebody started speaking another, like especially English at a much later, because there's like little small ticks that they'll give away in the language where you're like, oh no, that's from that other language. But you don't have that at all. I went to spy school. You say that as... And could be very true. Could be true.

That's not. Absolutely true. We've just got to say as a disclaimer right now, A, that's probably a joke and B, if it's true, we had nothing to do with this. We didn't know.

Here's a question. We did not know at all. This is What Now with Trevor Noah. So, okay, this is an honest question, honest question. Honestly, how you guys think. When you're using,

like, when you're using like a bathroom, right? Yeah. Okay, and then you're washing your hands. Who says wash your hands? Let's just imagine you wash your hands After using the bathroom Okay

What do you think is more natural Soap first Then lotion Or lotion first Then soap And what I mean is not in order of use I mean how people place the bottles Yes yes

Should they place the soap Closest to the sink Yeah soap on the right In relation to you So further from the tap Yeah Is the soap supposed to be closer To the taps or further from the tap

Or should the lotion be closer or further? No further from the tap. the tab because I move inwards. Wait, wait, wait, wait. So say what you want? So lotion, so tap, lotion, soap. Because after washing, I'll go,

I mean, then I'm out. Wait, tap, yeah? lotion. Yeah, water. I mean, soap.

So soap furthest. You know how they do to the dessert spoons and dessert forks? This is crazy to me. Yeah, but I want the soap to be further. So I can work my way inwards. This is crazy. Because remember I'm going to work my way inwards

to closing the tap. No, this is crazy to me Okay, so explain this to me Okay, so you get to the sink I open the water You get to the, you open the water Yeah, but I first pre-prope my hands Okay, so it's fine, you go soap

Yeah You've opened the water You wash your hands, you wash your hands You now rinse your hands Yeah Then A lotion You turn off the tap

Yeah Then the lotion is next to you Yes It closes to the tap Because I need to have just Yeah And I want the paper to be You're crazy in my head

What do you want it to be? You are crazy in my head. Dave? I don't like to, and I'm not being strange, and you know this about me. I don't like to talk about bathrooms because of my thesis phobia. But now. Thesis? Fesis phobia. I want you to say it again so you can lose yours off.

No, I thought of it now. I thought it because I was trying to be succinct. But if I had to think about it, to tell the truth, I don't use lotion after washing my hands. I knew it. Because you knew it. What does that mean? You look like the type. You are just as, you're just, this is like just as crazy to me.

Yeah, but sometimes the bottles are unmarked and then you end up washing your hands with a lotion. And I don't. Yeah, but that wouldn't be a problem. Yeah. Is, oh, Lera's, yeah. Please, no, Lira is here. Yeah. This, this wouldn't be a problem for me.

What? This, if people like you didn't exist, this wouldn't be a problem in the world. We wouldn't need to label it. Lera, how are you? I'm well. How are you? You're actually the perfect person to jump into this. I have strong opinions.

You do have strong opinions about soap or in life? Well, first of all, you can't soap your hands before you turn on the tap. Now you've made the tap soapy. You're going to have to wash the whole tap again. Thank you. That doesn't make any sense. Yeah, but I do a little bit of a pre-soak before. You know how you you moisten your tooth brush before?

How long are you in a bathroom for? But then are you washing the tap after you've done the whole... I've never touched that thing ever again. me and that thing will never meet ever. This is the last time I've seen. So to me, Dave is more normal to me. Let me say, let me just take away

that day when Dave is more normal than you. What I don't like, personally. Forget the soap, lotion, whatever. I don't like the performative washing of hands that happens when you are with. Someone's watching. Yes. You know, like sometimes you go to the bathroom. Yeah.

Especially like, and it can happen at work. You go to the bathroom. You take a number. With boys, you take a number two. It's pretty simple. then you wash your hands, then you dry them, then you leave. Sometimes you even dry them on your pants. If we're being real here, you just keep it real.

But then sometimes there's a person who you go in and then because they, I don't know what they are doing, but they decide to do a whole show of washing their hands. Like they're going to perform surgery. Yes, it's that, that perform surgery thing where you're like, bro, you do not. Wash your elbow. Why are you? Yes. They're washing their whole.

You know that thing. I don't know if it happens in ladies bottles, but you're like then the whole, they're washing, washing, hard. You know, I wash my hands like that. You know,

hard washing, like perform surgery. You know I wash my hands. You know I wash my hands like that. I don't know. I wash my hands and I sing happy birthday when I wash my hands. So you have enough time. Because I was told once that if you sing happy birthday,

then that's the amount of time you're supposed to be washing your hands for. Do you choose a different person to say? saying happy birthday too each time. I actually say hands every time. That's a crazy question. That question is insane. Because you should choose who you're sending these beautiful benedictions. No, I sing it to my hands every single time.

You said I'd messages in a bottle. Wait, but okay. You should do this on Patreon. People should pay you. To sing them happy birthday while I wash my hands. You don't. Wait, but I want to know, I want to know a newest thing. You see that statement you made there.

That statement is, have you ever watched a court case where there's one person's on trial? And then they, then they go, then they, you know, the lawyers attacking them. Then they bring the other person. And then you realize both people are criminals here. That statement you made of who do you sing happy birthday to makes me not trust any of you. Any of you at all, at all. At all, I don't, I don't trust any, like anything. thing you say now, I don't believe, I don't trust in you.

I was a welcome question because I do sing hands in my head. So I don't sing it. If I'm alone, I sing it out loud. But then I sang it out loud once in public and then I noticed it made people around me uncomfortable. Oh, really? Because I literally was like, happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear hands.

Happy birthday to you. you and then when I looked up the other guy in the mirror was looking at me and then I could see in his defense he was going through many things one was probably him thinking does this person only wash his hands once a year which is a possibility

now and then the other one was just who sings happy birthday to their hands and the third one why is his name hands and even a fourth one how does he know it's my birthday imagine if someone in the store shouts hip hip hip So wait, Lira, what would you go with?

Lotion, which way do you think it should be laid out? I want the soap closest to the tap. Thank you. And this is why you are a guest on the show. We only want to speak to experts who know how life is supposed to be, not morons who happen to be friends with Trevor Noah. In the words of David Kibuka, I knew I couldn't trust any of you.

But you know, the reason this came into my head genuinely was because I was looking at your work, right? And I was like, it's interesting to be a cognitive scientist doing what you do because you have to spend most of your time thinking about like how people perceive the world versus like how the world is supposed to be or isn't supposed to be or like literally just like in this week because I knew you were coming. I was like, oh, I'm just going to think about all the things that. seem one way in my head, but then to somebody else could be completely different. I never would have thought that you were like a lotion away person, though. No, no, no. I've even planned on how I want to be dressed because, you know, because let's say someone died in the 80s.

And then I die in the 2065s. Yeah. So that's how long I'm planning to live. Nice. Good choice. And then I'm wearing something that I think is cool for 2065. Yeah. And then they meet me as a spirit, but they're dressed in 1985.

Yeah. So I've been thinking far ahead because I'm like, I want to have a timeless outfit as a spirit. And do you dress yourself in that timeless fashion every day? Do you dress yourself in that timeless fashion every day? No, no, no. Every day I take chances. But as a spirit. No, but as a spirit, I've even thought.

I don't want chew laces as a spirit. Wait, but who's dressing you? In life or as a spirit? No, as a spirit. No, it's going to be at the morgue. So my final and what-what outfit is already set out. Because I want to be timeless. Because I don't want to walk in and people go, he's from now.

Nah, uh. You want to have a timeless vibe. Timeless vibe. People want to be like, who's that man who died now? When is he from? He could be from whenever. I mean, he came now. So I'm assuming he's from now.

No, uh, uh, uh, uh. So cognitively I'm like, no, I want to be perceived a certain way as a spirit by other spirits who are there before me. Even the ones that find me there, they must be like, do you, do you think that like heaven is like jail where it's like when you knew you get bullied and stuff? Of course you do. Because this is how it feels like you're talking about, like, heaven or wherever this place is, is you're going to arrive as a spirit and then people are going to be like, oh, who we got over here? Of course. Mr. 2020, 265. There's no way that people who have been there longer than you don't treat you differently.

Remember preschool it was like this as well? But it sounds like you're trying to impress people who are from times before. Yeah, 100%. What about people from the future, people who will die after you? Won't they be cooler? Won't they be even more hip? I thought you said that. You should try to impress them.

That's why a neutral color crocs. Crocks. Set on sports mode. For sure. You got to go fast in the future. With giblets. Wait, wait, wait. Who am I initial?

Wait, what is sports mode? It's when the little hook is hooked to your heel. Did you just say crocs set to sports mode? Neutral. And you refer to sports mode as when that little rubber thing at the heel. Hooked to your heel. Yeah, that's what is sports mode. And then I'll have those.

Ghibli's... He's ready to go fast. Ghibli's that have my initial so that when someone looks at my neutrally toned crooks, goes, oh, E.K., it's Eugene Kosa. They'll be like, of course it is him. Of course. What else could E.K. stand for? But these must be tailored kind of jeans

where they're not too low, not too tight, not too... You know, so it's just perfect. So if maybe I want to wear something... Yabo? But in a classic box-cut white t-shirt. So I want to be like timeless class. I think.

He's got to look fresh in the afterlife. I'm going to ask you this as an expert in the field. Is it possible for anyone to exist normally through all time? Human cultures change all the time. First of all, across the globe right now in present time, human cultures are super different from one another. But of course, across time, they change remarkably. So that's why I asked my question about the future.

We expect future humans to be yet more different than we are now. So preparing for how future humans will see you in your outfit, most importantly, in the afterlife, I think it's a very challenging task. It's a fool's errand. But maybe the approach should be to stay like really fresh in the inside. So they see your spirit and they're like, it doesn't matter how he's dressed. But they can't see your spirit if you are a spirit. My whole thing is a spirit. They feel your spirit.

Oh, they feel the spirits of the spirits. You know what breaks me is when you see those mediums that say we are orbs, and I'm like, I don't want to be an orb. What do you want to be? I want to be six foot fully beard-oiled, fresh cut. I've already chosen my hairstyle. My eternity has. I'm like, I really want to represent myself well.

You ever seen those pictures of older people and they say this person was 24? You're like, there's no way. That they were 24 in this picture. Yeah, you're like, no, life was tough on you. I don't ever want to present like. that as a spirit. I want people to go like, he was 60?

And then they'll be like, yeah. And then they'll show, they'll call another spirit that died at 60. They'll be like, hey, Viking. Then he would show up with a pedal accent. Thorfin, show your face.

This is what 60 looks like, Thorfin. Not you. You look like you've been plundered to death. I wonder if like So one of the reasons your vocation fascinates me is because I feel like we all live in it here, right? I think everyone lives in it,

but some people I feel like live in more than others. So we all speak multiple languages. We've all grown up in different cultures where the languages and the cultures are different and the people act completely differently. And when I was like consuming your work, I was like, oh, this is somebody who actually studied. the very idea of what normal is

or what people perceive as normal. How do you speak to your parents? How do you speak to your loved ones? How do politicians speak to the constituents? How do people in different political parties speak to each other? Like all of that, I won't lie. When I read through your work,

I found myself going, this is impossible. It's almost like the worst thing that could have happened to us is living in a world where everyone, where everyone can communicate, because if I'm understanding your work correctly, no one communicates the same, even if we're using the same language. My favorite quote on communication is the biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place. Damn.

We often think we have communicated, and all of us have had this experience of, oh, but I said clearly, and then you realize, oh, communication is actually about the receiving end, not about the sending end. Yes. Right. So just because you said something doesn't mean. the person understood it the same way that you meant it or even understood it at all. They could have understood exactly the opposite sometimes.

But all of us live in a constructed reality, a reality that our brain constructs with the help of language and culture, but we all believe that we are experiencing reality directly. And objectively. And objectively. And everyone is experiencing a different reality. And so when we come across people who see things differently from us, our first instance is to say, oh, well, they haven't been exposed to the right information.

I'll just give them the right information and that'll convince them. And then you try to do that and it still doesn't work. You still disagree. Then you say, well, they must be stupid or biased and you give up. Instead of saying, well, maybe I see things the way I do because of my history and my own set of experiences. And so maybe I can learn from this misunderstanding or I can learn from this miscommunication and broaden the way I see things as well.

But there's an infinite set of ways to see any issue, no matter how small or how large. Are you thinking this, do you use the internet? Like, do you use social media? Sometimes. No, no, no, because I was just like, wow, like if you use the internet with this level of intellect and grace, it would take long to like scroll even one page

because the person's going to say something, then you're like, damn, this is misogynistic or racist. but let me put myself in their shoes where did they grow up and what were their experiences how did they experience the world who are their influences I can now see what they possibly meant with this

all right next tweet this is perfectionistic and racist wait hold on hold on how did they grow up like is that what you're doing all the time are you able to like switch it off switch it on is it I'm saying this is like it's a superpower but it's not something you actually like work on

forgive me well there's some there's certainly some experiences that are more worthwhile than others, right? So there's certain disagreements or miscommunications you enter into that you think, oh, this is going to be really worthwhile for me to learn something. This is a good learning moment for me. When I travel a lot, for example, I travel to small communities all over the world where people are very different from me. And those experiences are often challenging. And it's in those moments of challenge that you're going to learn something. Right. That's what, that's right when you think, oh, I'm frustrated.

I'm about to have a sense of humor failure. That's when I think, all right, this is the time for me to really expand what I think is possible in the world, expand how I see the world, really see something from another point of view. How would you describe what you do? Because your job title is like a paragraph long. I study how humans think, and I study how humans get so smart, not individually, but, you know, as a group. Oh, you see, I wish like your bios is so much longer. Cognitive scientists studying the connection between human language and evolution and societal understandings of reality and cognitive-based.

And I was like, man, this is, I like the way you just said it. How humans think and? How humans get so smart. And a big part of that is language and culture. The languages and cultures that we all marinate in teach us what thousands of years of the humans before us have developed. It's intellectual property that is contained in languages developed by ancestors and ancestors and ancestors. And we as children are given it, take it completely for granted, as if it's just part of the air that we breathe. But of course, each person with their own history, their own linguistic experience, gets a different set of cognitive basics to work with.

And yet we all walk around thinking that we see the world exactly as it is. We see the world purely as reality when everyone else is using their own set of filters and their own set of experiences. Question. Yes. If you had a person who is born in like two different languages, like let's say English and Chinese, let's say. Mandarin. Mandarin. Thank you.

Everyone's now on best behavior. There's a linguist. Have to name the languages properly. You don't even understand. And for all intents and purposes, I don't know how to make everything equal, but for all intents and purposes, they were like identical environments, let's say.

But just the languages were different. Would they be according to you? Yes or no, I don't know if it's, you know, would they be like different people? Because language is so part of like our personality. Would just switching the language make the person? a different person? Yeah, you can actually do that with bilinguals.

You can do studies like that with bilinguals where you make them do a task in one language or another. And you can see that they think differently, depending on what language they're doing it in. And many bilinguals will tell you, and I feel this too, like you're an almost different person when you're speaking two different languages. Now, there may be some parts of that personality that shift because of the context in which you use the language. So for example, one language.

which might be the language of childhood, another the language of work, another the language of something else, right? So there could be contexts, but there are definitely structural elements of language that lead you to think one way or another, depending on which language you're using in the moment. So, sorry, just to, no, just because in my mind, a bilingual person is sort of like, I might be wrong, but it's sort of like the same person using two different, like, outfits or something. Do you know what I mean? Like they're just dressed differently in a way.

No. No, I'm not saying it. I'm asking. No, I'm answering as a linguistic expert. Thank you so much. You know what I've noticed. When him and I are speaking in English, we are... No further questions.

I just got an honorary doctorate. You know what Eugene United is like you were in court, right? And then you asked the defendant on the stand, you asked, on the night of the murder, Mr. Watkins, what were you doing between the hours of 6pm and 8 p.m.? And then as Mr. Watkins was about to say something, Eugene shouted from the gallery was just like, nothing. Now, as I was saying,

we're talking okay so there's two parts to what I want to say we're talking to this other friend of ours and then we're talking about how his wife grew up with three other siblings right yeah then the other siblings spoke a different language because the mom insisted that they speak this language then the other ones did not speak that language and we were trying to figure out how different they are as human beings

but I've also realized with us when we speak English we become more structured and we know what to say but then when we switch to Zulu we are more mischievous and human beings humorous. Like him and I, we just go, and then we come back again. So to your point, it's almost like a persona that comes on based on the language and why it reminds you of and where you draw it from.

Because there was never anything traumatic about us speaking the way we, it's actually very nostalgic. But I would even argue this on top of that. I think what I found is the language itself, like language itself contains information, right? And this is what I'd love to learn from you on an expert level is, the way I understand it is when I think of words that I speak

in every language, the word itself comes with information encoded within it. So beyond like the just the word, like the meaning of the word. So sort of to your question, Dave, it's like I find that the, okay, so let's say for instance, I miss you. Let's say a sentence like, I miss you,

right? Never say those words to me. Yeah, but when I say, me kumbulil. Oh, yeah, it's infanass. You see? So like, I miss you. it has its meaning but then it's more like to remember somebody and while they both share the same space if they want a diagram

you would say yes missing someone and remembering them but it actually like means something different being hungry in some languages is very different to being hungry in other languages when you look at the words and I often think to myself it might be because those peoples had a different period of hunger that influenced the making of their word for

hunger and then these people had a different period of hunger. And so their word for hunger doesn't contain the same like gravity. Yeah, it doesn't have the same level of like gravity in hunger. Is that like even in the right ballpark? So every like what you're pointing out is that every language is its own complex system. And all the words in that language relate to other words inside that language. They exist in relation to another. Yeah. And so when you try to translate to a whole other system, there's never going to be a perfect translation because you might. You might. pick a word that's kind of similar, but it lives in a set of relationships to other words. In the system, the shape of the whole system is different. So it's like saying, you know,

what is the equivalent of a rook from chess in ice hockey? Well, there isn't an exact equivalent because they're two different systems. They have different kinds of players and different rules and so on. So there can never be a perfect translation because each language is such a complex interconnected system with hundreds of thousands of words that have to relate to each other and are covering the entire conceptual space that people in that language group want to talk about. So that process of translation where you feel unsatisfied when you want to say something in another language and you're like, oh, it's not exactly right. That's because you're now using a completely different system and it's not going to be exactly

the same. So Chinese Dave, I was about to ask you question. So Chinese Dave can never be English, Dave, is what you're saying. Well, fundamentally, they're going to be different ways, different systems of thinking. But for a bilingual, what's interesting is people who've learned both Mandarin and English don't act like monolinguals of either language. They act like a blend of the two. More like a Mandarin speaker when they're speaking Mandarin, more like an English speaker when they're speaking English. but never quite like a monolingle of either.

So once you learn a second language, it's adding something to your cognitive system that you can't just turn off completely. Also, in different languages, we meet sort of like similar characters. If you know people from different languages, I mean, like, so let's say you have Russian friends and English friends.

You'll have an English friend who is happy-go-lucky and, you know, personality-wise, but a Russian friend who's also happy, Happy or lucky personality wise. Does that make so it's almost like how much... I think it was confusing because you said Russian and Happy Go Lucky. Yes. I think your example didn't help us.

Yes. Because if you said like Russian and like hardcore, then I would be like I know exactly what you're talking about. Because I think I understand your question completely. I just think you threw us off by saying Russian and happy go laugh. I did throw you off. I don't think I've ever met a happy go lucky Russian. I did. In fact, I had a friend

It's not typical for Eastern Europeans Yeah, but I had a friend who said something to me Like one of the craziest things ever Russian guy who said to me Because I was making a joke with him And then I was like, I was like, oh, of course you I said that's racist But of course you'd be racist, you're Russian

But this was a complete joke amongst friends And then he said, yes, but we are Because our language is like that And then I was like, what do you mean? And then he said to me that in Russian I don't know how to, he said He said something like The prejudice towards colors is more apparent

in Russian than it is when he's speaking English and I was like I don't even understand what that means but it's stuck with me forever he said yes the way we speak about color is is that like a real thing or was he just trying to hide his racism I don't well I speak Russian

I can't immediately connect a linguistic fact to that claim yeah you must because I mean people just say things to you you can just say because now he was Russian what was I going to do fight with him be like you're lying you that's not a thing but I didn't but I can confirm that Eastern Europeans are not happy-go-lucky as a standard personality trait. Only an idiot would be happy in a world such as it is today.

Wow, wow, wow, wow. The proper state is to be in a reflective melancholy. Oh, wow, wow, wow. Wow. I hope that explains it. So you speak Russian? I speak Russian. Why do you speak Russian?

I grew up in Ukraine and Belarus. Huh. And so, wait, in Belarus, don't they speak? Oh, I'm going to expose myself. I've always thought it was like Belarusian. No, Belarusian is how I've always said it. Both Russian and Belarusian are spoken in Belarus. But it was mostly Russian when I lived there.

Wait, so did you grow up speaking Russian? I grew up speaking Russian, yeah. Oh, and then at what age did you start speaking English? When I was 12. Wow, I don't pick it up at all. Normally I can hear when somebody has like... 11 and a half. No, really.

That's when I... Genuinely. I can normally pick up when somebody started speaking another, like, especially English, at a much later, because there's like little small ticks that they'll give away in the language. Are you like, oh, no, that's from that other language. But you don't have that at all. I went to spice school. You say that as...

Could be very true. Could be completely true. We've just got to say as a disclaimer right now, A, that's probably a joke. And B, if it's true, we had nothing to do with this. We didn't know. Here's a question. We did not know at all. What language do you dream in?

You know, the language I dream in changes a lot depending on where I am. So, for example, I speak Spanish badly, but if I'm in a Spanish-speaking environment, I start dreaming in Spanish. And all of that din in my head immediately switches into Spanish. And frustratingly, the din in my head is so much better Spanish than the Spanish I can speak out loud. My French in my head, accentless, perfect. When I try to speak it out loud, totally different. But I think that the language you dream and can switch very, very quickly, even for languages that you don't speak that long.

At least that's what happens for me. So I've always thought, and this again is just me and my own amateur scientist world. Amateur? I've always thought, thank you. Did you call yourself? Thank you, Eugene. you're very kind I'm just too high by the way

yeah it's very high so I've always thought that the reason the languages you aren't necessarily the most fluent in are fluent in your brain is because your brain actually does know those languages

fluently but the tongue can't achieve them fluently because remember language exists in two places it exists in your mind and it exists in your mouth so sometimes you can you can hear perfectly you can dream it perfectly

and then when you speak it your your tongue is like okay let me let me think let me put it this way imagine yourself doing a backflip right now just imagine it you know how many girls would have I love that in your world

you've kept like great six standards for getting killed that how we got here the first thing great six standards oh man so imagine yourself

doing a backflip just literally try it now Imagine yourself doing a backflip. You can, right? Now do it black flip. Do it. It's impossible.

Imagine how many girls would lose. No, what I'm saying is. If we tend to back flip, what I'm saying is, I always feel like language is the same. I think there's a lot of language that we really do know in our heads without even realizing how much of it we know. Someone will speak something. So you'll go like, oh, I don't speak Spanish well. But someone will speak Spanish and be like, wow, I understand so much more than I thought. Well, there's comprehension and there's production.

and those are two different skills. Okay, what I'm talking about. Wait, wait, break it down first. The production part? Production is being able to actually speak. So that's the being able to do the backflip, being able to dunk a basketball. I can understand when someone else dunks a basketball.

I can't myself dunk a basketball. That's the production part. Okay, got it. In language, you have a lot more practice doing comprehension because people are speaking all around you than you do production, actually speaking the language. So the reason that we feel like we understand a language a lot better than we can speak it is just an imbalance of practice. You have a lot more practice trying to understand it than you actually have producing it.

We hear it more than we speak it. Is English really the easiest language to speak? I've always heard it referred to as the bastard tongue and they say it makes it the easiest language to learn. Why are you looking at me like that? They call it the bastard tongue. They. I've always heard English refer to as the bastard tongue because it has all these other languages in it.

And when you speak, because it is such a bastard tongue, you can speak it. You can speak it. From what I understand, you can speak English the worst and still be understood the best versus most other languages. You can butcher it. You can completely butcher it. Get away with it.

Yes. That is a good point because English speakers are used to hearing English spoke in so many different ways because there are so many second. language speakers of English. There are other languages that no second language speakers even attempt, right? So very few foreigners attempt to speak Albanian. And so Albanians, if you go there and you try to speak Albanian, they will look at you funny, like, what are you even trying to do?

Because they aren't used to people speaking it badly. Yeah, they've never heard someone speak it badly. You either speak Albanian or not, whereas English you hear, there's so many second language speakers, many more second language speakers than native English speakers. You've heard it every which way. So your range of understanding has had to broaden what you allow as the possible hypotheses of what someone might say has to broaden. Okay. So that doesn't mean it's the easiest to learn. That just means that the ears that it's falling on, especially people in urban areas. Yeah. We're in New York, right? Here in New York, people have heard people speak English in all kinds of ways.

there are certain parts of the country you can go to where you won't get that same kind of grace because they just haven't heard all the different accents and all of the different speeds at which the language can be. I like that. So here's the question I have for you then.

In the world we're living in today, is it possible that we are all fighting with each other? I say all, but I mean, let's just say people online slash whatever. Is it possible that we're all fighting with each other just because we don't understand each other. And I mean like language-wise, as opposed to we actually disagree. Like, I mean, like, half of the political fights happening online,

you know, half of the arguments that people have with their family members, people have in romantic relationships. Could it be that a large number of those just come from us not speaking the same language to each other, even though we think we are speaking the same language? I think sometimes misunderstandings happen because we're using language

to communicate, and we believe language to be a real thing. So let me give you an example. Suppose we have a word like freedom. Now, language convinces us wrongly that there is such a thing that is freedom, that the word points to. And so if I say freedom, and you also say freedom, we must be pointing to the same thing. Oh, damn. But I could be pointing to a different idea than you are. You're pointing at a potato. Exactly. But freedom is a very complex idea. and it could mean many different things and many different contexts. Wow. And so just because we're using the same words, we think we should be talking about the same thing,

but often we're not talking about the same thing at all. And even as you shift from context to context, what freedom means, what privacy means, those things will change. And you don't notice that you're now talking about a different thing because you're using the same word. It creates the illusion. The word creates the illusion that it's something real and solid that you're talking about, like a potato when in fact what you're talking about is something abstract and amorphous. This is crazy. Do you remember I said this to you back in the day when Trump was still running

and I said to, I said this to Dave, not that you didn't like know, but I remember saying to you at some point, I feel like, and it was you and I specifically. So we were working at the daily show at the time and Dave and I were there and we're chatting and then we both watched like a a rally or something of Donald Trump's. And then we said, man, this guy's really making inroads with people. And then some of the people we were working with were like, are you crazy? There's no inroads being made here. He said the dumbest thing ever.

And then I was like, oh, I didn't like, I didn't hear it like that. It just seemed like he didn't use sort of like politiciany words to approach this topic. But I think he did a good job of putting his case forward. And they were like, nope, nope, nope, nope. That was a completely stupid thing. That was crazy. And then I said to Dave. we're having the conversation.

I said, ah, maybe it's because we grew up in a world where, like, our parents didn't have English as a first language that we grew up learning

to hear what the person is meaning versus the words that they're actually, actually using. You know what I mean? So when my mother used to say, or my uncle, rather,

would be like, put volume on the TV. It'd be like, put volume, put volume. I knew what he meant. You know what I mean? Like, he meant increased the volume. Do you get what I'm saying?

So, like, put volume. I wasn't going to sit there and be like, oh, ha, ha, there's no volume to be put here, uncle. You could have tried it. Yeah, my friend.

But we know podcast? Yeah, but you get on saying. You learn to be a cooperative listener and understander. Right. You want to actually... That's actually a thing. Being a cooperative listener.

Have you tried it? No. Eugene is the most cooperative cooperative listener you'll ever come across. Do you ever think that then, okay, this is then what I wonder is like, cooperative listener

but how do you know when you're being a cooperative listener or not? What if you're cooperating so much that you're just now giving them a message that they aren't giving? The only way to find out

if there's a miscommunication is to continue talking, right? So if I say, past the salt, and I get salt and there's more salt on my food, a moderate amount of success has been achieved. Now, you may have had a very different idea

of what salt is or what it's for, why I asked for it. We could have had miscommunication on all kinds of levels, but the modest goal of me having more salt on my food has been achieved. But for anything more complex, you're going to have to keep talking. You're going to have to keep asking questions. You're going to have to keep expanding. And so nothing is ever fully communicated in a sentence or a paragraph, right? It's always lots and lots of conversations.

In families and relationships, in political careers, all of these things just have to continuously be developed and examined and built. And there's never an end to it because what you're trying to do is build a very complex conceptual world with someone. You're trying to build a set of ideas that probably haven't existed before. Like in this conversation so far, we have all uttered sentences that no humans have ever uttered before. Ever. Ever. So we are building a complex conceptual world.

the structure that can't easily be replicated in any other context. And the only way to find out if we're achieving understanding is to continue talking, right? To continue examining the parts of the structure and saying, is this what you meant? Is this what you meant? Can I go over here? Someone might object and say, wait a second, that wasn't possible in the world that I had in my mind. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why would you think you could go over there?

Don't go anywhere because we got more what now after this. So what would you say is like the end, I mean, I say goal, but like, what are you trying to achieve with your work? Like what is the, if you could sort of fast forward and travel through time to a place where you have reached the ultimate conclusion and you've discovered it all, what is, what is that discovery? Well, I'm fascinated by human intelligence. Or lack thereof. Let's say human intelligence. It's still there. I just wanted to see.

would happen if she was going to be like you're damn right those dumbasses no she's a professional she's like let's just say human intelligence so humans have accomplished incredible things with their minds we're gifted with these brains that create symphonies and create mathematical systems and create these whole complex societies we build them out of really simple physical interactions of the world. So we get photons in our eyes, pressure in our ears. We can press against surfaces with our fingers. And from that, from that physical set of components, we build these incredibly complex, abstract ideas. That is incredible. And I would like to understand how we do that. And the more we understand how humans build complex knowledge, the better we can actually

make our own thinking, the more complex, more interesting, more abstract, the thought we can make. You could argue artificial intelligence is another example of that. It's another kind of really complex intelligence that is building its own thinking now. And that's another set of questions you could ask. Okay, how is it constructing all these complex, interesting, abstract ideas? AI always confuses me because the argument about AI is people will be like it's not intelligence because all it is is a machine that figures out which word would generally come after the previous word based on likelihood.

Yeah. That's what your brain does. Yeah, that's my problem. Then I go, but isn't that what our brain is doing all the time? That's why we say, um, and, uh, because we're also like searching for the word. And sometimes we'll even say, um, you know, um, uh, what's the word for?

That's, so I'm, so then I wonder if we will ever be able to know when AI is actually being intelligent or not, because we know how it works, but we don't know how we work. And then like, what, What if that's all we are? What if we are just large language models randomly predicting the next word in a sentence and then we've always thought like we're special

but we're not. We're just, you know? Right. I mean, how do you know that I'm thinking right now at all as opposed to just producing the next most likely word in a sentence? You really sound like a spy, Leera. Some of the things you say,

I'm just like, I feel like we're going to look back on this interview and we're going to go like she was a spy the whole time and then they're going to put us up. That's the worst thing these days. It said that in my bio. You didn't finish up about it. I don't know if you think about, I think about this all the time.

I go, you know how, like, people will put up clips when someone is, like, exposed for something. Yeah. They'll go, like, The Secret Life of Lira Bardinsky, Spy, and they'll put that. And they'll be like, she was welcomed everywhere. And then they'll put us up.

Hello, Lira. Oh, nice to have you. And then, like, in that documentary or in the streets, people like, you welcomed her. Then you're like, I didn't know. I hadn't watched this documentary because it hadn't come out yet. I didn't know that she was a spy. And then they will say clips being like, I am a Russian spy.

There you go. Speaking of watching things. Speaking of watching things. Way back when you know you have the TED talk, that's the huge TED talk. Sorry to interrupt you. Can I just say this? Wait, wait, no, no, I am. Can I tell you why?

I wonder who the first person who was. You are sorry. No, I promise you. I'm sorry. I promise you, I'm sorry. No, but I promise you I'm sorry. But I was thinking this, I was doing, I wonder who the first person was to say, speaking of.

They just took a thing and then they were like, I want to go on my own tangent. And then they just, because clearly they were not talking about what the other people were talking about. Yeah, yeah. So someone walked into a house somewhere and went, my gosh, it's cold out there. My boots are frozen to my ankles.

I feel like I could die. And then someone went, Speaking of ankles. Have you ever? Have you ever wondered why the foot and the uncle are always in the same vicinity? I just, I was just thinking, sorry, I apologize. Yeah, speaking of, you know what I hate by the way? And I'm like, by whose way?

So, sorry, Dave. Speaking of, sorry, Dave. Give me a taste of his medicine. He doesn't like it. He's like this, what you guys go through. Speaking of, speaking of watching things. Now, I don't even know what the watch. That's what we.

I watched way back when when your TED Talk went huge, I watched it. And one of the things that I found interesting was the Cooktire people. You could tell us their log line, please. So there are languages in the world that don't use relative terms like left and right to organize space. And instead, everything is done in some kind of absolute space. So, for example, cardinal directions like north, southeast, and west. And when I say everything, I mean everything. So in some languages, you would say, oh, there's an ant on your southwest leg.

And if you move the leg, obviously, it's no longer your southwest legs. So now you have to recalculate. So imagine doing the hokey-pokey in a language like that. You know, you put your north leg in, you take your east leg out. you're constantly recalculating so in kuktya the way you say hello is you say

which way are you going and the answer should be something like north-northwest in the far distance how about you and so as you walk around you have to stay oriented

even small children are oriented all the time do you want me to ask you what do you mean by that yeah close your eyes in point southeast you mean like right now

it's a visual I mean, I can't, but I'll try. Wait, let me think so. I'm going to go there. Open up your eyes. So you went, well, I don't know which way it is, but you guys haven't helped me. I'm going to go this way. I'm like south and I was like a little bit.

Yeah. So there are places in the world where people have no trouble with this question, even small children will be able to. All the time. Because in order to speak the language, you have to be oriented. All the time. Like, you can't even say we're going to lunch. You have to say we're northwesting to lunch.

Every motion verb carries a direction. So, question. Forgive my ignorance here. Wait, wait, wait. You've just thrown us into a fantastic rabbit hole. Do they have, like, is this even indoors? Even indoors, yes. People who speak languages like this live in all kinds of different environments.

Some live in forests. Some live in deserts. There are all kinds of physical environments. Some are flat. Some are mountain. the only thing is they don't tend to live in cities. Cities tend to be dominated by these massive languages that use left and right. But it's about a third of the world's languages that use absolute directions of some kind primarily.

Not a third of the world's speakers, but a third of the world's languages. So they tend to be smaller languages. Damn. But it's a completely different way of organizing yourself in the world. And one experience I had when I was spending time with the cook tire is I started seeing myself from a bird's eye view. And I was like a little red dot that was traversing the landscape. And then as I turned, the little window that had opened up in my mind, rotated in my mind, but stayed locked on the landscape. And as soon as it did that automatically, I thought, oh, well, that makes it so much easier.

Now I have this automatically updating map. And I kind of sheepishly confessed it to someone there. I said, you know, this weird thing happened. And they said, well, of course, how else would you do it? It's obvious. And then if you look at all the artwork from folks in that area, it's all done from a bird's eye view. No. They just, that's just how they see the world.

So, they've figured out the whole system. This is a random, this is a, I mean, this, I'm just thinking of this now, is, you know, crop circles? And they have those, you know, those, sometimes they're birds. not only crop circles. Those structures that you can only see from above. See from above. So do you think that someone who grew up in that kind of language, if they walked around it,

because if we walked around, I assume we would just be like, we would have no idea that there was a bird if you were above. Do you think that they would have some semblance of, wait a minute, I just walked around a shape that is a bird? That's a really great question. No one has done a study exactly like that,

But people, when speakers of those languages are taking to new environments, they continue to stay oriented really well. And they continue to maintain a sense of where they are relative to all kinds of unseen locations. So you can take them to a new location out in the bush. They've never been no visibility and say, can you point to Melbourne or can you point to Sydney? And they can do that. And the only way to do that is to keep track of how far you've traveled. and at what speed

and to continue to maintain a geometry in your mind. Those people never make great kidnap victims get a hoodie over them and drive them, they'll be like, yeah,

and then they take the hoodie off and then read this out to your family. Hey, I'm here at North, North, Northwest and they've taken me and you guys are south, south, west of South, south, east of me now come and get. But here's the language that I'm most interested in. And I've heard this question asked before,

the one that Dave asked about what language do people dream in? And in most case, I can't answer that question because I don't feel like there's a language in my dreams. I feel like I just understand. I interact with someone and I'm like, yeah, some form of telepathy, it's what makes friends great friends is the words that are not spoken between them.

It's actually what, when they look at each other and go, I know, you're also hungry? I was feeling hungry too. So I'm thinking when we recognize other languages, even recognize sign language and body language, do we recognize telepathy as a language? the fact that we understand without speaking? Well, certainly it's not fully telepathy in the sense that there's still a body language component to it.

There's still a context around it. But all of that is part of communication, right? So even the way we move our bodies, the way we gesture, our facial expressions are all very rich channels of communication. And they also differ between language groups. So what a gesture means for one group of speakers is going to be something different for another group of speakers. Can we go back to the Kuptai? Cooktai, yeah.

So thank you, by the way, Dave, for bringing that up. What are the advantages to them perceiving the world like this? Like what do they have that we don't have, just in general? Are there any benefits or is it just like a certain swag of living? Well, any way that you think of space will have some advantages and some disadvantages, right? So if you're able to stay oriented, better than we used to think humans could,

which is what the Cooktire and many other groups like them do, that's an incredible human gift. And when I say better than we used to think humans could, what I mean is scientists generally study undergraduates, universities, and we call those humans, and then we say, this is what humans can do and this is what humans can't do, And so for decades, scientists would say, well, humans can't orient very well because we studied

undergrads at North American universities. Oh, damn. And then we went to other locations and found humans who not only could do the thing that we thought was biologically impossible for human brains, but the little kids could do it. And it wasn't even that hard to learn. And so to me, that is an incredible example of the things that we think are possible are often just the things that we're used to. Yeah.

Their brain is capable of doing so much more, and sometimes it's not even that hard to get there. We just have to imagine and want to try. Right. And this is a case for me where this group of people have this incredible cognitive skill, where, as I'm describing into you, you're like, whoa, they do it all the time. Yeah, yeah, my brain, yes. Yeah, they do it all.

But it's not actually even that hard. Like if you wanted to learn how to do it, you could do it in a week and you would start to organize your whole life in that way. And then you would have a new cognitive skill. You would know where things are. You would have a mental map of things in your house that are organized in north-south, east, west coordinates. You would just have a different way of looking at your whole physical space. Is there a language you've come across that's more effective at conveying information than others?

Like are there languages that are particularly good at... Like could you say some languages are better at conveying an emotion and some languages are better at conveying like hardcore data and information and then some languages are better at conveying even humor or anger or does each language have that in them and all languages are equal? Languages have specialized vocabularies for different things.

Some languages have more color words, and so it's easier to convey color distinctions in those languages. Other languages have more smell terms. More smell terms? Yeah. Which language? Smeltage. Well, well, well. You know, you go up and do a language.

Sorry, yes. what I meant about this mischief. Sorry. You see what I meant. It was all fun and games, intellectual, in English. So much other languages. You see, this is what I go through every day. Oh, man, I'm sorry.

What a delightful work environment. He's so north-east, west, this guy. But there's some things that may seem ineffable in one language. Like in English, we don't have a lot of smell terms, and so people say, oh, well, smell is ineffable, but then you go to another language, and they have tons of smell terms. So it turns out the ineffable can be effed, depending on the language that you speak. So different languages will have specialized vocabularies for different kinds of things. There's not one language that is like, yes, it's easy to communicate all the things in this

language. There are tradeoffs. Another question. I want you to start making it. I want you to start making statements. Yeah. Just to vary it up. Yeah. I just feel like as an audience member, I'm just like, all this guy comes, you know, when they're like those people who just come with empty hands, all they do is come here, hands, hands, question, question.

What about statements? I've come with the mind of a student, not the mind of a master because I'm here with a master. That was a beautiful statement now. You see, that was beautiful. I've come with the mind of a student and not the mind of a master. Because I'm in the presence of a master. That was wonderful.

But can you call a female master and mistress? Is that what it is? I don't think that's the evolution of the word. You can, you can, you can't? I'm not sure if that's... If someone is a master and they're a male, make sense. What was the female version of a master? Do you know off the topic here?

I don't, no. I'm going to look this up. This next topic was brought to you by misogyny. No, I want to see, but this is something I want to see. The question... Yeah, you ask your question, Dave. Yes. they have an

that is an additional cognitive skill like almost like we don't have it they're not missing one like what do we use do you know what I mean they're not missing one well so using left and right

is a different kind of cognitive skills our one is left and right yeah so you have to learn the difference between left and right and you have to be able to apply left and right in lots of different orientation So like it could be your left, my left.

So I have to be able to do the mental rotation to say it's on your left as opposed to on my left. Which is more simple then. Yeah, it's just a different skill, a different reference frame to think in. Can they do that? In many communities that have been tested, they can't. That's not their way of organizing space. And sometimes even if they look at left-right mirror images, something that's decontextualized,

like a little figurine of a girl sitting under a tree or whatever, and they see a mirror image. They'll say it's the same. Because to them it's not placed in any physical context that they can recognize geographically. So they say it's not meaningfully different. So, and that brings me to a, speaking of, it's not speaking of

but this another thing you had was if I'm not mistaken was some people don't count distinctly because of their language some languages don't have number words yeah so okay

now that one because I can get wait wait so like the word one two three some languages don't have some languages don't have any exact number words some languages have number words up to about two or three or four and then after that it becomes few or many. Some languages count in base 13 or base 87 instead of base 10 or base 27.

Some count in a version of binary times 10. Yeah, as soon as the same. But that I get. You count up to nine and 10 and then after that is 10 and one. 10 and one, 10 and two, 20, okay. Two and three. But that's more, but the people who do the many, like, I mean, in the of they don't have one, two, three.

They don't. No, they just have relatively few, relatively more, yeah. Okay. So now, in terms of, from a language point of view, the thing, I don't know if you, the thing that they are observing. So I see five cats here. They're not five cats, obviously.

I'm not losing it. But I see five cats. They, a person from that language, what happens, what do they see? They see some cats. And I'll tell you, so very often people will ask questions. Like I asked this question when I first heard about this language. I said, well, but some of these people have, you know, seven kids.

How do they keep track of their kids? And I was immediately told, you must not have children because you don't actually keep track of your children by counting them. You don't just need to achieve a certain number of short. people, you know them as individuals, right? There needs to be Timmy and Bobby and so on. And so when people need to keep track of a certain number of things, so for example, you have your axe with a notch in the handle, an axe that has a red handle, and the axe that your brother gave you, you know them as individuals. But then in other cases, having the number is actually

completely unimportant in the natural world. Like three fish doesn't equal three fish, because is each fish is a different size and freshness and tastiness than every other fish. What's important is how good of a meal you're going to have. Three fish certainly doesn't equal three tomatoes in any important sense. The exact numerosity only matters once you start using money. So then you need to have an abstract unit and you have to be able to count things. But up until then, having an exact, like I have seven children, that's not the important. You don't want to have seven children.

You want to have all of your children, all of your children. and all of your axes and so on. But like the thing you're saying about, you also said a thing about, uh, some cultures have, we have a forest and then they can't comprehend a forest or something along those lines. They comprehend separate trees.

Am I? I don't remember saying that. It's almost, well, it's almost to the same idea. What I'm trying to say is like, I get what you say. It's a question. So from,

okay. see three people here. Some people just see a few people. They never go three. It never occurs that they go three because that's not part of, like, almost like, you know, I don't want to say a baby, but if you haven't, if your brain doesn't do that, then it doesn't do that. Is that basically what you're saying? Yeah, to get to the idea of three, or especially once we get to slightly larger numbers like seven or nine, What we normally do is count. And so you apply this list of words that you learned as a kid, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and so on.

And you name all of the objects in the array. So I'm going to name. One, two, three, four. That number is a name. Yes. And the last word that you say, that's the number of items. So there are one, two, three, four, four people. That's how I know.

That's a little skill that we learn as kids. So once you have to get an exact number, of anything above three or four. Three, you can kind of do visually, but like seven, it gets harder. You start applying this little linguistic trick that you learned. But if you don't have number words in your language and you never learn that linguistic trick, then you just say, okay, there are a few. And you can approximately say there are a few more here than there, but it's not exact.

It's not exact. Okay, great. So now, sorry to hug the mic, but actually, I'm not sorry. the uh because you said don't say sorry unless you are which i'm not the um uh the also with the time you know is it arabic the one way it goes right to left or like letters right to left right to left this is just a simple question do you think that it it was like a quirty kind of situation you know like you read right to left in one language left right another language do you think it was like a quirty kind of situation you know quirty the keyboard is that somebody basically went

Guys, it's easier to do it this way and then everything went that way. Is it like that? Writing systems got developed in different directions based on the kinds of tools that people were using for writing. So if you're primarily writing by chisling on stone, you have your dominant hand for holding the precise instrument and the other hand for hammering. But if you're going to be writing with ink, then you want to write in a way that doesn't smudge the ink as you go. So you end up with different writing directions based on how predominantly people were using, were doing the writing, what tools they were using. And then they just sticks around for centuries, yeah.

Okay. Then here's my last one, so to speak. Hopefully not the last one. But there's another one, so to speak. You said. You can just say the last few. Yeah. Lost few.

You have a number attached to. Never. All we, folks. That's a hell good. That was good. That was good. It was. It was.

Because I did think about this one. You said that blame is different in different cult, in different, like Spanish. You use Spanish and English. Could you explain to us if you still remember? Sure. So in some languages, like in English, it's normal to put yourself as an agent of an event, even if it was something accidental. So if I knocked over this glass and it broke,

it would be completely normal for me to say, I broke the glass, even if it was a complete accident. I can even say in English, I broke my arm. That's the normal way to say it. In other languages, you would say the glass broke or the glass broke itself, or to me it happened that the glass broke, or my arm broke, the arm broke on me, all kinds of other constructions you can imagine.

And so some languages distinguish much more strongly between things that are accidents and things that are intentional actions. And what we find is that English speakers are much more likely to look for the agent of an event, even if there isn't one visible or even if it's an accident. They look for the agent, they blame the agent more

and they remember who the agent is compared to other languages or even just in English, if you say, if we watch the same event and I say she broke the glass as opposed to the glass broke you're going to want to charge me more for the glass if I said she broke the glass

It's actually funny because in Isizulu Ucala means peace right and when you say I'm sorry you say Nia colisa so which means I'm asking for peace so there's no word that says I am sorry so you're asking for peace You're just saying I wish for this conflict to be ended

ended yes yeah yeah I'm asking for peace to return Yes, so I'm asking for peace. I also love it with, I mean, I guess it's in a few languages, but it's sort of getala. Yeah. Means I am held by hunger. Yeah. You don't say I'm hungry. You are not hungry.

Hunger is holding you. Yes. Like the hunger has you. Yeah. Because you are not the person who is hungry. And the hunger is like doing a thing to you. And so this, this, if the cultures are not like in a city with everybody together, it really informs what is. going on.

Because now we're in a multicultural society, you know. So we're like, okay, we can go like, you can have that discussion about different languages. But if there's only one language, then people are like, no, hunger is not a thing that, what did you just say about hunger? Sorry? Yeah, I'm saying, I'm saying you are not, you're giving hunger its own agency in a way. Because you are not hungry. So in the culture as a thing, like, almost like historically, they'll be like, we gave hunger an agency. Yes.

which now that I think of it is with um are you buffering yeah that was crazy i genuinely thought we were like watching a video there for a second did you see that yeah it was real life okay no because i didn't leera was like no i don't just happen because i got because i got i got i got people are saying that i am all over the place who are these people so now what i try and do is I try and do is I try and form the initial sentence first. But while saying a sentence, that was crazy. Yo, I'm glad there were other people here. While he was talking, I was like, he buffered.

We were watching you. And then I thought my real life internet, I don't even, you, you, you, I was so thrown there that I was like, am I the only person witnessing this? You were also completely still. Yes, I was still. No, you didn't move, Dave. Yes. You didn't like, you didn't blink. My own way of living.

My own way of living is to just to talk. But then people are like, you're just saying wild things. So now I'm like, okay. But you wouldn't say that to him though. No, no, you didn't say it. He would just be it. No, just in general. No, just in general. So then I'm like, okay, if I'm just saying wild things all the time,

maybe I should pause for one second and then think about the thing I'm going to. Wait, wait, what's the name of that culture? The goopta, was it? The kuktai. The kuktai. The kuktai. The kuktai. Cooktai.

Cooktaior. Cooktaior. Yeah. Dave was like a teller at a bank and cooktayor. He was like, one, two, three, four, five. It would have been better if he did. It would have been better if he did that. No.

He didn't even. This is an international sign of there's something that's about to happen. He chose no language of, like, letting you know, something is still going to happen. So, you know, normally people go like, you know, I was thinking about how, how, so this is the international sign. continue listening because something is still happening. You're holding space.

Thank you. His language that he chose was complete. Because I'm doing it. And utter silence. It's new. I'm gathering myself. I'm gathering my thoughts. Because sometimes my thoughts are too wild.

So I'm trying to make. But we didn't know there was any gathering happening. Sorry. Okay. Here's the thought. Because you, because I'm trying to say in the, here's the thought. Okay.

Okay, say the thought. Okay. I'm gathered. Yes, we're ready. Ah, eh. Here, here, here. Here's it goes. Here's a question.

Okay, here, we're listening. If I farted right now. Wow. After all of that. This is the gathered thought. Wait. Jesus, Lera, I'm so sorry. If I can't apologize enough.

You did try. You did try. If I fought it right now. Oh, goodness. There's a question. There's a question. Who would you blame? You told us you farted.

Well, um, Different cultures that approach is different. That's what I'm saying. So now because, this is what I'm saying. Because arguably, sometimes I didn't want to take it here. But arguably, arguably, sometimes when you fart,

you are farting. Do you know what I mean? You're going, we all, have you farted before, have you farted before? You've actually done something very brilliant here. Yes. I see what you've done here. Yes.

So sometimes we go, I am actually farting. Cool. Yes, I am the fart. I'm the passer of air throughout, yes, through my body. Yes. Then other times I'm not farting. Yeah. But my body's farting.

Yes, a fart has escaped. You know, I'm being, you know what I mean? Yeah, this is true. You know, that kind of thing. And another time, sometimes my body has refused to stop farting. You know, that kind of thing. You're like, guys, and we flattered. You would make a fantastic field linguist because you're able to delineate all of these different ways of causal involved.

Yes, that's what I mean. Yes. So some languages will make very different grammatical constructions for those different kinds of expulsions. Yes. So in certain languages, in certain languages for real, they would be like, you know, what does that smell? My body farted.

Yes. Like literally, it wasn't me. I am a gentleman. I would not fought in public. Well, I fought in front of you guys, but not in front of a lady. Why are we so unlucky? Why? Why us?

A self-res spirit escaped. A self-reflective fart is the worst kind of fun. The owner, insufferable, the fat you are now. Let me give you an example. Here's an example. Dave. Here's a professional example. Yes.

You know what? Professional example. The fat? No. You're not going to fart right now. You know what, Dave, please, we are so sorry. Let me give you an example. So in English.

Sorry, we need a moment, sorry. I'm so sorry. Let's also get a chance to gather ourselves. I'm so sorry. We are so sorry. Yesterday, we're on form. This is perfect. Oh, my goodness.

So take Romeo drank the poison, Socrates drank the poison, Caesar drank the poison. In English, all of those are the same grammatical construction, you can say, drank the poison in all three cases. Socrates knows he's drinking poison. He doesn't want to be drinking poison. He's been sentenced to death. The hemlock situation. Caesar doesn't know he's drinking poison. He thinks he's drinking wine. Someone has poisoned his wine.

Romeo wants to be drinking poison and believes he's drinking poison. In English, those are three grammatically the same. There are some languages like Devehi where those would be three different constructions because one is volitional, one is unintentional, one is accidental, and so on. And so speakers of those languages have to think, it's this person intending to do it. Are they doing it volitionally? Are they doing it knowingly? And so you have to break down the event, whether it's drinking poison or letting something escape your body in a particular way. You know what? It's the same way. In Isizulu, a king doesn't die,

he bows. So they look at it as an involuntary action. A common man dies. Oh, wow. Right? So umundu Ufile, which means a person has died, but in course I quaterme, which means

the king has bowed. Wow. So you're right. It's the same action or same result, but viewed from a different lens, and obviously described a different way. Because the king is not seen as wanting to leave his people, he just bows. So now what this makes me wonder is, and by the way, to answer your question,

mistress is the original female of master, but then it wasn't used because over time it started to denote negative, but it is in fact mistress. If I had a hat. Don't press anything. We've got more. What now after this? So this makes me wonder then. Does our language influence our societies,

ability to forgive or blame or like is it is it actually hardwired into the language itself because if one culture doesn't think that you killed somebody or you like like in some languages it feels like this almost super agency i have done everything i crashed my car and i killed your family and i broke my ribs in this accident and i went to the hospital and I had surgery and I healed and I went home. I am the master of my entire destiny in this world, right? And then there would be another culture by your example where they're going. Until you want to shirk responsibility in which case you say.

Yes, yes, yes. But then there would be some cultures where somebody would go while driving. My car was in an accident. Those people's lives ended because of the accident that occurred. I was taken to a hospital. Surgery was performed upon me because my rib had decided that it was broken, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

So here's a question I often ask my students. I say, suppose something terrible happens to a person. How do we achieve justice? Suppose we find the person who did the terrible thing and we punish them appropriately. Has justice been done? And American students say, yes, that is what justice is. You find the person who did wrong and you punish them.

Right. And then I say, well, what about restitution for the victim? Maybe what we should worry instead about is offering appropriate restitution for the victim. And they sort of secondarily say, yeah, yeah, maybe that's also something to think about. And I say, well, what about coming up with some kind of restorative justice where both parts of can now live peacefully together in finding some way for them to continue to coexist in society. And that's even further from the normal American model, right? But there are models like this, models of justice like this, that exist around the world

where people think the primary mode or the primary role for justice is not just to punish the person who did wrong or not just to restitute the victim, but maybe also to achieve some kind of peace between the parties. And of course, that's not the most native model for American English speakers. Yeah, and that's what I was about ask you. Is a lot of that contained in the language itself? It's hard to know for sure because, of course, justice systems evolve in very complex ways. But in small experiments, you can see that people have different desire to punish agents

depending on the language that they speak. So now let's extend that to interpersonal communications. if you grow up speaking a language or you just you speak a language that doesn't necessarily automatically assign guilt does that then affect your ability to connect people to an action that has been done to you or an action that has occurred because of the other person that like does that separation actually happen between people on an interpersonal level you know so so some languages may be like oh eugene you left me and then in a number another language it might be you were gone.

You are gone from this space, but you didn't leave me because you can't leave me, but you went from the space and now I am without you, but you didn't leave me. Like, do you find when you're studying this that it changes how people are actually able to connect with each other in an interpersonal setting? Well, people have different models of what causes things in general, right? So some people believe in fate. So they're very fatalistic cultures where the universe controls all. of our actions. And so it's not you deciding to leave. It's just that's what fate foretold.

It was written. In the great book of the universe, it was written that you would leave and then at some point you would come back and so on. And so where causality and agency comes from will differ from culture to culture, exactly pinning down that to a feature of language is challenging because there's so many things that create our model of causality. But when we look at those, okay, let's say we don't look at it as causality or not, do we find, or has anyone even looked at whether or not some languages or the people who speak certain languages are more or less forgiving than other people who speak other languages? In small experiments, you can find differences in how much people want to blame and punish an agent

in the case of an accident. So when it's something that is an unintentional action, English speakers are more likely to want to blame and punish and remember more who did it. Damn. That's a big one to think that because your language has told you blame has to be assigned, you then assume that blame is necessary. Let me give you even a small example. If you show a video of a ball rolling onto the screen and it knocks into a vase and the vase falls,

you ask English speakers to describe it, they'll say, someone rolled a ball into a vase. There's no someone on the screen at all. They will automatically assume. Yeah, speakers of other languages will say a ball rolled into a vase or a ball knocked over a vase, right? And so there's something about English that has trained us that most things happen because of human agency, except acts of God, weather and so on.

But it's the normal way of saying it, so it becomes a habit of mind. And so you look at a video where there is no agent present, but you still infer one. You say, well, some numskull knocked the vase over with a ball. Yeah, it's like, I've seen when there's a car accident of two different races or two different cultures. Some cultures would be like, what an idiot? What did you do to my car? And some people would be like, are you okay? Just because that's the first thing you're supposed to be thinking.

Yeah, yeah, you assign blame before you can show care, right? Some people think like that based on how they grew up, what language they speak and what they hold valuable. And when you were speaking about the people who look at life in directional form, I couldn't help but think, and those who can't count higher to assign a certain number of value to things, I was thinking to myself, there must be deeply, I don't want to say religious, but spiritual people, because I think they are very much more present than we are. Because once we assign a number to things, there can be infinite things that we don't use and we don't know where they are, but we still hold dear.

But for them knowing what that thing is and what it looks like is much more important than knowing how many they are, right? I think there are many different cosmologies that can coexist with a number system or a directional system. And one of the things that we see around the world, so there are 7,000 languages spoken around the world. And some historical linguists say there could have been 500,000 languages in the past.

Jeez. It's just a huge amount of... It is now, I guess. because they made it. Yeah. So Dothraki, it would be in, right? Because someone's made it. There are, yeah, you could, some linguists wouldn't include it because it's not a naturally occurring language.

But you could, you could invent any number of new languages. How would they define naturally occurring, though? Something that God developed in a natural process of humans wanting to communicate with one another. No, and I don't mean this to be facetious, but I'm like, how do they know that all of them were created? What if somewhere along the line someone made a language for this type of purpose? And then it just people started speaking it.

Do you get what I'm saying? Yeah. And there are some languages like that that have like a register that is, for example, a special secret register that you only speak under certain circumstances. Yes. No way. Are you serious? Yes.

Like during periods of morning or there's a language where only women speak this version of this language. under these particular circumstances. Wow. So there are things like that in the real world. Because I've always wondered why in law or in medicine, the more complicated terms are in Latin. You could have just said this in English. Ipsophectum.

But there are natural languages being invented right now. Many of them are sign languages. So there are people around the world who are born deaf and deafness is hereditary. And so if you're born in a real, really remote community where there isn't already a deaf school or some kind of deaf education. You will just encounter some other deaf people and want to communicate with them. And so all of these different sign languages are emerging.

And so some of the most fascinating work on language development is looking at the development of sign languages around the world in these tiny little communities where you can see the first generation of a language, the second generation, the third generation. That's really fascinating. Because we can't do that for spoken languages. it's way gone in the past, but for these sign languages, we get to see how it actually began and why it began. And you see how languages start to regularize

and how they make their decisions about which way they're going to go. And it's super fascinating work. Damn. Do you think that they could be almost like if you got the best of each language, like for the justice system, it seems like the one is better than the other. You know, the English one is more punitive. and worse than the other one, which is more nuanced

and takes more into consideration. Do you think that they could be like a, like when AI wipes out like 300, when AI starts wiping the people out and comes with a new one, new language, a joke obviously, but do you think that they, in a thought experiment,

could be like a best of, which is the best of like each language, you know, and put together? And then this language, this language would then solve all the problems we have because it would have all the... The new AI language you mean.

Well... Super language. The super language would... Because contained within language are solutions to problems. So within it, this language, super language would then...

If you had that super language, the problems would just almost like evaporate because you're just not to deal with them. I had to be... I am Iqabanga churi, that is possibly. From how Dave described, I don't want the super language. Being Eastern European, I can't imagine a world without problems. You lost me there.

But I think that rather than trying to say that one language is better than another, you could say, well, what if we combine both ways, right? So sometimes it's nice to have more precise terms where you say, okay, I want to call this color light blue and I want to call this color dark blue and I want to have names for all of the different shades of blue. Tuquoise. Other times you just want to say blue and move on with it. And there are going to be lots of times you're not sure. So let me give you an example with arms and hands in Russian. So in Russian and lots of other languages, there's not a distinction between hand and arm.

This whole appendage is called by one word, Rukkla. Now, often when I talk to English speakers, they say, but that's impossible Russian speakers must know which one they're referring to either the hand or the arm. And what I point out is that almost everything you do with the hand, the arm is also involved. And almost everything you do with the arm, the hand, when you go to shake hands, you're not just using your hand. You're using your arm. When you do arm wrestling, you're not just using your arm, you're also using your hand. So almost anything you can think of that involves one that you would call a hand action or an arm action in English actually also involves both. So it's an artificial distinction that English has made.

And once you make that distinction, you believe that it must be true. And it must be that you really mean one or the other. So what would be the best solution? Well, why not just have both? You can have a superordinate term that includes the entire appendage. And then you can have whatever other smaller categories you want, right? So I would always choose an option that allows that kind of flexibility that allows you to be as specific as you want and also as general as you want because different situations call for different things. As an aside, isn't it quite amazing that Russians did not over like, you know, Russian is old, thousands of years or, you know, come someone say that what about my, kick at my guns.

Do you know that kind of like, look at my guns? What? Well, there are words for, you know, the palm and the wrist and the fingers and the guns, of course. Oh, but just not. Just not specifically this distinction between the hand and the arm. I think we're making progress if we're farce to guns. No, we really haven't proved. I mean, we've made, we made leaps for it.

Leaps and bounds forward. Could we, now I'm wondering, though, if it's, if it's. It's not the fact that a language cannot be perfect. It's the fact that like... It shouldn't be perfect. Yeah, but I was also going to say that the human brain cannot... Because I don't know anyone who knows every word in the dictionary. I would argue that we have all these specific things to your point.

It is infinitely, you know, as big or as small as we need it to be. So if you go to, you know, a doctor who needs to operate on your head, they're not just going to be like, the finger part of his arm is broken. They'll go into like the specific bones. They'll really break it down. So they do have that intricate knowledge. And then a child can say my arm is sore

and you don't need to be like which part of your arm, right? So could it just be then that we have it all but our brains either can't or don't feel that it's necessary for us to know all of the words then? I'm saying is could it be that the super language already exists because it's continuously expanding and has been expanded and has, do you get what I'm saying?

Someone has really zoomed in. someone is completely zoomed out but we just could never or would never need to possibly have a super language does that make sense 100%. It's like memories I'm sure right? I think any human language is the product

of thousands of years of work right and languages have expanded and have contracted so history of English is a history of constantly adopting and borrowing things from lots and lots of other languages and dropping parts and getting new parts in and so on. Boston.

So all languages are living things. But languages are just tools for communication and for thought. None of them capture the entire world perfectly. None of them capture what all the possible thoughts we could want to think perfectly. And that's why we have such bitter debates about language, because all of us at some point feel like the language we speak is not perfectly capturing the reality. as we see it or the reality that we want to live in and we say, well, why should I have to use gender pronouns, for example, or why should I have to use this word instead of that word?

And that's where we start to negotiate with other speakers of the same language because we want the language to reflect the way that we think. But there is no language. There's no one language that perfectly captures already all the thoughts that you could possibly want to think. Yeah. I sometimes think of language as, like how you said, sometimes words can't encapsulate how we feel. Like sometimes when I look at something and I'm like, that looks nice and I take out my phone, take a picture. And then I'm like the picture almost looks like the thing that I saw.

Right? Yeah. The eye has something that the camera does not have. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I get that with language. Sometimes you just want to say something. The word doesn't match the thing. It's like you're having that mini choking in between.

Yes. But your thoughts are like, it's happening in rapid speed. And your throat is like, yeah. Like the word blech. Like, it's not even a word, just like, is a better description for what you might be experiencing sometimes with a taste than any word that someone could write to you.

You know what I mean? But I can't get the thought of Dave's fart. Can we? Yeah. Well, when we speak to HR, can we also decide? Speaking of Dave. Like what words can make into the episode? Speaking of Dave.

Are there languages that are, that have a default setting with, like the ones? you're saying about where you say that the world is just like happening to you. You know, the negative thing is that you're a victim of the world, you know, and then another language gives you the idea that you don't have to have the world happening to you. You can also happen to the world. That's Buddhism. Yeah, but do you think that that it's almost like, do you think that when you're in a language,

there's a underlying placement between you and the environment that you don't even notice? That definitely is the case, but you can also think of that happening even within a language. So a lot of work that psychotherapists do with their clients, for example, is to allow them to release agency for things that it seems unhealthy for them to think that they're really causing. and then to take agency for things that they can actually do and have some kind of causal power over, to learn to say, I can do this, and to learn to say this happened to me as opposed to I caused all of these terrible things. So even within a language, you can choose to use the language one way or the other to place yourself as an agent, which is not always good, right?

or place yourself as a passive observer or absolve yourself of responsibility, which could also be very psychologically healthy sometimes. In simple terms? But that idea must be in the language. There has to be some way of expressing it. Yeah, there has to be. And there might be new ways that we have not yet invented that, because people invent things. Oh, for sure.

That, you know, someone will be like, oh, there's this thing. And then we'll be like, that solves all of our problems, which we didn't have. for. So basically what I'm saying is that as infinite as language seems, currently, it still is finite because we haven't like invented everything in language yet. Oh yeah. There's an infinite opportunity for creating more new languages. Languages are all evolving and changing all the time and that's a lot of the conflict that we encounter in political debates is that people want to fight about what the new way of talking is going to be like. But in every field of science and every field of expertise, people are developing ways of talking alongside ways of thinking. If you look at

scientists' notebooks, they're developing ways of describing the thing that they're trying to think about for the very first time at the same time as they're trying to think about it for the first time. Oh, damn, I didn't think about that. So like Isaac Newton kept impeccable notes. And if you look at his notes, when he's formulating the idea of force or gravity, those are ideas that existed, right? So he's just thinking through what this new invisible thing is that he's thinking about. You see, he writes things down and crosses them out. And he's like impetus, energy, no, no, no. And he goes back and writes it over and over and over pages.

He develops a way to talk about it at the same time as he's developing a way of thinking about it. So we're always doing that in language. obviously Newton was doing it in a slightly elevated way. If you don't mind me asking for yourself, when you're engaging with people, you know, on a personal level, do you think you have a higher level of being able to achieve this? Are you, so if somebody's trying to argue with you, for instance, do you see beyond where most people would end naturally?

Does your... Of course. No, no, I wonder if like your training, No, really. Basically, Trevor is trying to figure out whenever you hug you with people, do you think I'm better than you? No, I'm not thinking that she knows she's better than them.

That's not the question. I'm asking more like, in the same way, a boxer, for instance, if you tried to punch a boxer, your punch is coming at them a lot slower than most people are perceiving a punch. Most people are surprised by a punch. A boxer, if you try is just an amateur to punch them.

They're just like, well, that was very slow and adorable, right? I wonder if, like, you experienced that as somebody who spends so much time working with language and communicating all that. When you're speaking to somebody, do you also find that for yourself if they're even like trying to argue with you? Well, I am a lot more aware of how much of the disagreement is coming from language itself. And so then I have to hold myself back from giving a lecture and lexical semantics and saying,

you know, this is how words mean and it's not the way that you think words mean. But it's not actually helpful in creating. better friendships. So I don't, I don't recommend. It's no way to live. Yeah, but I mean, yeah, but I wonder, like, because I know a lot of people, I know a lot of people struggle with this like interpersonally is someone, someone will go, they'll say like, you know, it just happens between people. They'll be like, you blah, blah, blah, you ignored me is a great one, for instance. Let's say, someone goes, you ignored me.

You ignored by something in the world. No, you felt ignored. Or someone calling you and rings twice. Or you. you felt ignored or you did not feel attention was paid to you even, is even like different to being ignored. And then like, so that I was wondering like if you then, but now what you've basically said to me is you don't then say to them,

ah, no, your use of language isn't necessarily. What do you, so in that situation, do you just say like, sorry? And then you act like you don't know the answer. Well, I haven't. I haven't found it useful to bring out my laptop and start giving them a lecture on how words mean. That has not been the best way to make friends. So what do you do then? Because you know the answer, though. But often you can say, you know, there are many different ways to frame this situation and hear all the ways that I can think of and hear all the, and

the more you open up the channels of communication and the more you allow people to see all of the different perspectives, sometimes the light bulb does go often. I say, hey, wait a second. I was only thinking about it from this perspective, but now I also do see that there are these other ways of thinking about it. And for me personally, like, let's say I'm upset about something. If I suddenly see another perspective to think about it from that allows me to not be upset, I'm so thankful.

It just releases me from whatever that frustration is where I'm like, oh, that person didn't mean that. There's a possibility that this. that this was or how I saw it. This situation is not a big deal, actually. And if you can give that gift to someone, then great if they're able to receive it that way.

Not if you're just denying their reality or their feelings. Okay, okay. And then is there a language that you find you enjoy being angry in the most? Like what is your most effective angry language? You know, any language that you're good in is going to be the best language to be. No, but that's what I'm asking you, which one is like, if you go, I'm angry, this is the language I'm going in. I'm most fluent in English, so English, I can really make a surgical strike in English. But I have had experiences where I was frustrated in Spanish and I felt like I was being treated like a child,

but I also could only speak like a child at the same time. So it's extra frustrating when you're like, no, I speak good. A good swimmer. You can't swim. It just makes you more and more angry. So I would recommend expressing anger in the language that you're particularly adept in. Then you can make exactly the... You know, from this conversation, especially from the question that you asked about,

what happens when you're engaging with people that you know far more better than? From what I'm getting from you is it is actually a big adventure walking into those misunderstands. understandings because you get to learn so much about yourself and the person. And how you're describing about the direction that psychotherapy is taking and I actually love it, it can be encapsulated into two phrases. You can control what you can control and do what you can do. So it's do you, boo, and it is what it is. Basically, if every psychotherapist would tell their patients that, I think we'd have a better world out there because it is what it is.

And do you, boo? If I paid for therapy. And I said that. And then my therapist said to me, it is what it is. And do you, boo? That's what we've got time for. I'll see you next week.

I'd be like, there will be no next week. Yeah, if the pilot says, we're going to be experiencing turbulence at about 30,000 feet. You're like, he is what he is, man. And he's like, I'm going to take a slight left turn in like, do you, boo? Lara, this is. Hold on.

What got you into this last? language, the love of language and brain? Well, partially it was the experience of moving from a Russian-speaking environment to an English-speaking environment, of course. I went from a world where one set of things were true to a world where exactly the opposite set of things were true, right? So moving from the Soviet Union to America, all of a sudden I was in a completely different conceptual universe.

but also I was just a very argumentative kid and I started noticing as a teenager that so many of the arguments I would get into really were pinned on how people were using words. That one person we were using the same words but we meant different things by them. And then I thought if we study language we might be able to get to the underlying truth. It turned out to be that the more you study language, the more you realize language doesn't reflect an underlying truth. It's just a tool for communication. It's a tool for thought. It's useful. But it allows you to understand how humans actually became as smart and sophisticated as we are.

And then, okay, and it's almost like, what do you hope to give us? I mean, that's a, you know, like. that's a big assumption that she wanted to give us anything. No, not me. No, I feel like, what? What? Leo was there going like,

who the hell are you? No. Who the hell are you, boo? He's like, I'm giving, what do I want to give you? You guys are lucky that I even showed up. No, is our takeaway that our engagement, that there's this thing that sits in the middle,

language, and we should look at that, almost like you said with, look at that. before we get to the person. Like there might be this invisible sort of like thing that's determining how we think, but we are unaware that it is determining how we think. So it's not all them, and maybe not all us,

it might be this middle thing. That would make life very complicated. So definitely that the more aware you are of how much you're being shaped by, how much you're being funneled into certain ways of thinking by your language, by your culture, by your experience, that once you become aware of it, you're free to then look out of the trench and see, are there other ways of thinking about it that I might enjoy, that might be helpful to me.

But also often when we're talking about these examples where these other people elsewhere think differently can kind of seem exotic, like, oh, these other exotic people elsewhere, they think in these funny ways, when in fact all of us are being influenced by the languages that we speak, right? So it's an opportunity to turn the mirror on yourself and say, why is it that I think the thoughts that I think? are those the thoughts that I necessarily need to think? Could I think differently? What are the opportunities for me to go beyond the ways that I think now? Because all of our brains are capable of so much more than the simple routines that we put them through every day. And so the more aware we become of the things that have trained us, the more we can actually use them as powerful tools to create the kinds of thoughts that we want to build.

Thank you. Yeah. You know, I was a very serious question since you walked into the studio. I was wondering to myself, the dress, wool or cashmere? Well. It's fantastic. Thank you. It's from the 40s.

No way. Vintage? Yeah. Somehow has survived this whole time. You drifted it or was it passed out? No way. It looks fantastic. Thank you.

Yeah. It's got great energy. Thank you. Thank you for noticing it. Yeah, absolutely. I also noticed but I thought we're not allowed to say that but let me tell you didn't know the shit

you just heard about cash me for the first time now Dave was literally there like cash like cash me outside cash cash me cash me where Larry this has been great thank you thank you so much as a room of bilingual

by the way do you just say bilingual if the person can speak more or do you just multi or you'll just go multi and then beyond that you don't we don't use the numbers so as a room of multilingual You could say quadrilangual.

No, no, no, we don't need to. We don't need to. Except a lingual. No, no, no, no. It's not necessary. As a room of few linguals, we appreciate you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I, I, look, I mean, I love it selfishly because it helps me understand, like, how my brain processes this stuff.

But sort of what Dave was alluding to, and then Eugene as well, is like, it's just, it's interesting to realize that we are all, I like that you said, we're at the mercy of the tool that we're using, thinking that we use, we express. ourselves when we're actually being used using a tool to express ourselves. So if you're only given a hammer and then I go like express yourself with it, you might break a few things because it's the only tool you have to express yourself. And you may never think that the hammer is the reason. And so if we only have the words that we have, we may struggle to understand why the world is reacting to us the way it is or why we are impacting the world the way we are.

But it's just because of the tool that we have access to. Yeah, my English teacher used to say vocabulary is your vocabulary is like clothes in a suitcase and sometimes you pack the rum clothes. Damn. What a great quote. That's a fantastic quote.

What did you get in English? What was your grade? Hey, hey, yeah, baba. Hey, you could have left it a grade. No, that was great, Eugene. Thank you so much for that. Lira, thank you again for joining us. Thank you so much for that.

It was really wonderful. I appreciate it. Really fun. So fun. What now with Treveld Trevor Noah is produced by Day Zero productions in partnership with Sirius XM. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sanaziamen, and Jess Hackle. Rebecca Chain is our producer. Our development researcher is Marcia Robiu.

Music, mixing, and mastering by Hannes Brown. Random Other Stuff by Ryan Hardoof. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next week for another episode of What Now?