Semantics: Crash Course Linguistics #5

If you want to know what a word means, all you have to do is look it up in the dictionary, right? Actually, it’s a little more complicated than that. This episode of Crash Course Linguistics is all about semantics, or the area of linguistics concerned with meaning. We’ll learn about different types of semantic relationships, how different languages define these relationships, as well as different approaches to semantics. And we’ll discover that the humble definition may be more complicated than we think.

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Catherine Conroy, Patty Laqua, Leonora Rossé Muñoz, Stephen Saar, John Lee, Phil Simmons, Alexander Thomson, Mark & Susan Billian, Junrong Eric Zhu, Alan Bridgeman, Jennifer Smith, Matt Curls, Tim Kwist, Ron Lin, Jonathan Zbikowski. Jennifer Killen, Sarah & Nathan Catchings, Brandon Westmoreland, team dorsey, Trevin Beattie, Eric Prestemon, Sam Ferguson, Yasenia Cruz, Eric Koslow, Indika Siriwardena, Khaled El Shalakany, Shawn Arnold, Tom Trval, Siobhán, Ken Penttinen, Nathan Taylor, William McGraw, Justin Zingsheim, Andrei Krishkevich, Jirat, Brian Thomas Gossett, SR Foxley, Ian Dundore, Jason A Saslow, Jessica Wode, Mark, Caleb Weeks, Sam Buck
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Want to find Crash Course elsewhere on the internet?

[dillonmyers]

I feel like Linguistics is such a deep topic and I'm soo glad there's now a Crash Course series about it. Thanks, you guys!

[Artur_M.]

I'm disproportionately and unreasonably happy that this episode contained an example from Polish.

[amykelley]

1:05 Don't forget contronym: one word with two or more contradictory/opposite meanings. I.e the verb "dust". As in "I dust the house", which means to remove particles from the house and "I dust for fingerprints" to add particles to see fingerprints.

[QuestionEverythingButWHY]

“I personally believe we developed language because of our deep inner need to complain.”
― Jane Wagner

[novrdd]

i gotta be honest, back in the day I have to read through books : a journey with words and boring pages, to be able to have a certain amount of understanding of semantic and its branches. This video gives me a lot of hope, joys, and happiness for how fun it is for people out there to obtain this kind of knowledge nowdays. Thank you so much Crash Course for your works. I adore it so much.

[benshahon]

Even CrashCourse is getting in on the "Is a hot dog a sandwich?" debate.

[radagastwiz]

Taboos and euphemisms can go so far that they erase a word from usage. 'Bear', in almost every European language, means 'brown thing'; they have determined that this is a euphemism to avoid saying the animal's real name and avoid its wrath. It worked so well that that real name is no longer known.

[QemeH]

"How do we know what words mean?" - "Look it up in the dictionary!"

is the linguistics version of

"Where does electricity come from?" - "The wall socket."

[samissoodd]

These videos are making me so excited to learn more about Linguistics.

[artesiningart]

In Philippine English or the English dialect used in the Philippines by Filipinos, a toilet, toilet room, bathroom, or a wash room, is called a "comfort room" or abbreviated as a "C.R." or "CR". It's maybe because we Filipinos find this particular place as a place where you can be comfortable or where you can feel comfort, but I just don't know the exact reason why and its specific origin and history.

[Nemo_Anom]

Semantics is one of my favorite branches of linguistics, along with phonology and historical linguistics.

[JD-DJ-JJ-DD]

I'm so happy this series exists! ☺

[whelanky]

Presentation, editing, and content are stellar. Keep up the good work :)

[zombiesevadude]

“Arguing semantics“ is one of my new favorite phrases, right up there with “waxing poetic”.

[MakeMeThinkAgain]

This is shaping up to be a great CrashCourse. I would love it if an episode was devoted to how new languages are created. I love the theory -- from Hawaii -- that it's bored children who create new languages.

[mhill]

Semantics is everything, or else everyone would be on a different page

[Life_]

I love CrashCourse videos! Every school should have them!

[rrrosecarbinela]

Love this series. And others who love it would also probably love the podcast A Way With Words. Wish you could invite them on board, Taylor. That would be a cool interview session!

[lapillity]

this series continues to make my Fridays better TT

[BardovBacchus]

I used to collect reference books. I was surprised to discover that the word computer was listed in a 1921 unabridged English dictionary. I was amused to read that it described someone's job, adding up columns of numbers and/or doing other mathematics or computations.