Sociolinguistic Artifacts

This video primarily explores assumptions that people make based on simply hearing the phonology of another person's native language (without seeing the person speaking). In particular, starting at 6:54, one of the speakers is speaking Russian and many of the guessers remark on its harshness/anger. However, many people in the comments who claim to be native Russian speakers are offended by his focus on only the curse words and (stereotyped) vulgar nature of Russian that has been a hallmark of prejudice against Russian speakers. We discussed this in class on Tuesday: that languages like Russian or German are no more harsh than any other language is (but here we can see the perception in action). Among a variety of other linguistic topics, a native speaker of Makah, a tribe indigenous to Washington briefly discusses how he is one of only seven people teaching the language (and none of them fluent speakers). This isn't something directly connected to our conversations on accent and L2 accent discrimination, but something that I find really sad/interesting.