(Marc van Oostendorp) So this is how we have got more insight
into how the language really works in the brain.
This is how we got more insight in this particular miracle of human language.
We just concluded now another video.
We're just filming now, we're here in the studio filming
basically the last thing we have to film for the new module,
which will be about language and the brain, of this MOOC,
while you have been studying and working very hard on the first week,
and you've been doing great, you've been doing fantastic:
for instance in our discussion forum
there have been many very interesting discussions going on already.
I like particularly the discussion about Esperanto.
Esperanto: a constructed language, meaning a language which didn't exist
until the mid 19th century, when it was made up, basically, by one person,
Zamenhof, and now, there are a few people who speak it natively,
and people have been wondering what does this mean?
Is that now a natural language?
Is it a natural language like any other language?
I have to admit to you this question comes close to my heart,
also because I learned Esperanto as a child myself.
I'm not really a native speaker, but I come quite close, maybe,
to being a native speaker of Esperanto,
so I'm very interested in the question myself.
And it's not true what some of you say that linguists generally think
that it doesn't count as a natural language.
It's a little bit different, but Esperanto, it's true,
it has people who speak it natively or quasi-natively,
it has a community of speakers,
people use it for all different kinds of purposes.
So it definitively, at least, comes very close to being a native human language.
But on the other hand, it is also a little bit different.
We have to admit that.
There is no village, there is no town
there is no community of people living together and using that language
in everyday life.
There is no bakery where people go to and order their bread in Esperanto.
So, this difference between natural and artificial, constructed language
is not just an opposition, it's more like a scale
and Esperanto definitely is somewhere there on that scale.
Some people have also asked about Sign Language.
If we count Esperanto as not being a full human language,
a full natural language, what about Sign Language, then?
And it's true that some of the things I've now said
are also true for Sign Languages.
For instance, also for Sign Languages, there usually is not just some community
of people living together in one place and only using a Sign Language.
There's also very few bakers, bakery shops,
where you can go and buy you bread in Sign Language.
So they have certain things in common.
So Sign Language is just yet another point
on this large scale of natural versus artificial languages.
That's my take on this, it's definitely also not the last word to be said on this:
the last word to be said on this, you can say it.
Go to the forum, go to the Coursera page and talk about this further.
I would love to join, and I'm probably going to join you as well
in this discussion.
And then, see you next week, see you next week for the second module already,
a module where we're going to talk about sounds.