Prof. Katz Explores Language
Dr. Joshua Katz, a visiting Professor of Classics and self-described philologist at heart from Princeton, concluded the first part of his two-week lecture series on Friday. Dr. Katz delivered an assembly last Tuesday, Oct. 10, calling into question our notions of what defines a language. His subsequent lectures covered a range of linguistic topics, from comparative linguistics to the structure of entirely fabricated speech.
“Language is arguably one of the defining features of humanity, and since all of us have deep access to at least one language,” Katz said, “It seems crazy to me that linguistics is not a regular part of the curriculum of schools, colleges and universities!” He pointed to the wide breadth of language across both humanities and sciences as an example of its importance. Senior Harry DiTullio agreed, “Language and communication are a fundamental of being being human, so linguistics is intertwined with history, religion, culture, economics, science and practically any other field one may study.”
“Every normally functioning human has astonishing linguistic capacity: babies learn their native language or languages as though by magic,” Katz said. In his talks, he tries to bring some of that magic to students who may not be able to focus on language in the same way on a regular basis.
“I try to help those who are involved in Classics at Exeter gain a new perspective on the ancient world,” Katz said, but his teaching extends far beyond Latin and Greek. His lectures touched on languages from all parts of the world throughout history, made easily understandable for any student by his humor and interactive speaking. “In all cases my aim is and has been to bring a deeper understanding of language to high-schoolers, who don’t regularly get to explore the subject of linguistics,” he said.
According to Classics Instructor Nicholas Unger, Katz is visiting as part of the Visiting Scholars program, established in 2011 with the help of the Behr Fund. Unger praised his teaching across all his visits. “He certainly dispels the notion of linguistics as a dry, technical subject and instead shows how etymology is part of the history of ideas,” he said.
Dr. Katz has also visited some of Exeter’s Latin and Greek classes. Maxx Murray, who attended the lectures and was in a class Katz visited, said, “He is incredibly knowledgeable, and has shared some riveting concepts concerning linguistics over the past week.” Murray was also fascinated by Katz’s “What is Latin?” lecture, where he demonstrated, “the severe changes that a language can undergo while still being considered the same language.”
“I have loved his talks so far, particularly his lunch lecture on the Indo-European language family,” DiTullio said. “Physically mapping out the connections between what Dr. Katz calls "genetically related" languages and applying rules to uncover their commonalities is always very intriguing to me.”
Katz elaborated on these thoughts on Wednesday night. In his linguistic speech, Katz compared different languages to English. He made the point that words resembling the English language could be identified with English, despite a few variations. Prep Dennis Aydin found this point interesting, claiming that although Dr. Katz “was very knowledgeable about languages,” he was “wrong to classify messy words as English just because it remotely resembles English.” He stated that although the English language is broad, a language should be identified with their original language “no matter how messed up the actual words are.”
With the first week of lectures on identity of languages and comparative linguistics behind him, Katz will focus on constructed languages in the next series. His Tuesday lunch lecture will focus on Esperanto, created by a Polish physician to be an international second language. Subsequent talks will cover Tolkien’s elvish languages and eventually even Klingon, an artificial language spoken in Star Trek films.
“I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t love it: the students, the teachers, the environment through and through,” Katz said, even on his fourth visit to campus.“I knew from his previous visits that he had the energy and temperament to engage fully with our students and find out what they wanted to know,” Unger said. “In so doing, he remains true to Exeter’s pedagogy of student-centered, discussion-based learning.”