ShmoopTube

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Thank you We sneak and here's your shmoop du jour

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brought to you by linguistics it's the scientific study of

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linguini noodles Yeah here's a question Language is considered a

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cultural characteristic because what and hear your potential answers Very

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those planes All right so you know when you're super

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excited to see your friends and you start blabbing away

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about cool move you saw it last night Well you're

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probably not thinking too much about what you're saying and

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we're pretty confident that you're not thinking that the very

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language you're using even the language we're using right now

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is a cultural characteristic but it isthe question is uh

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well to be you're not to be okay now That's

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not actually the question the real question is why Well

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let's cut right to the chase and eliminate answer c

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because math is a language people it's the language of

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science whether or not you're good at speaking it is

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an entirely different question So that eliminates safe let's Take

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a look at eat Over the years there have been

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lots of studies that link language to economics and topography

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For instance high altitudes have been shown to influence the

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fun ology of a language it's easier to produce Sounds

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such as objective continents of high altitude that's Why people

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are always yodeling up there That's Pretty crazy huh But

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definitely not our answer is language a naturally occurring phenomenon

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Well think About it language is a system of communication

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that is developed and passed on over time Does that

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sound like an observable not manmade event like a rainbow

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or a tornado to you Well no no no not

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really Language doesn't just happen in the forest with nobody

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around to speak it so di is not our answer

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And although linguistics is a subcategory of social science it

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focuses on broader aspects of society and human behaviour Social

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science doesn't define characteristics of a culture so we can

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get rid of choice B that just leaves us with

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a language is a cultural characteristic because well it's part

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of our culture it's created by societies and is a

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distinguishing feature of cultural groups So is the right answer

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And now back to that whole study of noodles thing

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We don't know if linguini is natural or cultural or

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what but if it means we get to eat it

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and we'll gladly study it you're from

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