#obviously a lot of it depends on one's cultural background and the broader context but

[smute]

the way some people talk/post about their therapists oh my god. like i know many of them are probably exaggerating their stories, and a lot of technically """unethical""" stuff can be perfectly fine in the right context, but im sure there are still a lot of people who think being friends with your therapist is normal or okay or in any way helpful. and tbh seeing enough posts that reinforce that impression might just prevent someone from recognizing a boundary violation when it happens to them

[thevalleyisjolly]

Ok, I’ve rewritten this post several times because I really want this to be a productive and respectful discussion, but this is a conversation that does need to be started.  I’ve been thinking about the whole cultural appropriation story line in this season of The Unsleeping City so far, and of course I think it’s great that Cody is starting to realize why that’s wrong and that Murph is making it explicitly clear that it is wrong, but I want to reorient the conversation away from Cody now and talk about Ricky as a Japanese-American character.

Because when Zac went “Just to paint a picture for you...” during the museum fight episode, there was quite a bit of surprise from non-Asian people in the fandom that this was really a serious issue, and one that Ricky would be bothered by or speak up about.  But why wouldn’t he?  I mean, the character is Japanese-American, and so is the player.  Doesn’t it make perfect sense that he would at least be a little bothered by a white person appropriating Japanese culture?  Asian fans certainly noticed and pointed it out before that episode aired.  Ricky/Zac certainly noticed - go back through the episodes and observe how every time Cody pulled out a kunai or threw a shuriken, Ricky was cringing or facepalming with an uncomfortable laugh.  Even with seven different camera perspectives to watch at the same time, it should have been pretty clear in the fandom that this was an ongoing issue that would bother and was bothering Ricky.

And I think there are several different facets to this, but the one I want to address is how there’s a tendency in fandom to ignore or erase Ricky’s Japanese heritage.  Not literally (although there is a particular sting every time I see another Ricky fancast where the actor is of another Asian heritage than Japanese - Asian people are not interchangeable).  But especially prior to Season 2, there was a general trend in the fandom that liked to simplify Ricky’s character and overlook him as a complex player character because of traits that are very common in East Asian immigrant cultures.

Perhaps it’s because my heritage is East Asian and I’ve had more exposure to general cultural customs and behaviours among East Asian immigrants, but Zac’s portrayal of Ricky has always read as a very obvious Asian-American child of immigrants to me (and, y’know, Zac and Ricky are actually Asian-American children of immigrants).  Not expressing negative emotions out loud, not verbally articulating thoughts and feelings but expressing them through actions, deferring to other peoples’ needs first instead of expressing his own wants because it’s not about him.  With the caveat that I’m Chinese and not Japanese, these are common practices that I’ve observed in my own family, among friends and acquaintances (of various Asian heritages including but not limited to Chinese), in broader experiences with other East Asian immigrants.

(Asia is not a monolith and I’m not familiar with the immigrant cultures and experiences of people from other Asian heritages.  I specify East Asian here because that is broadly what I can speak on and because Ricky is Japanese, but other Asian people please feel free to discuss your experiences as well)

And obviously, these are not monolith traits observed at all times, I’ve definitely met plenty of East Asian immigrants who did express their emotions loudly, who used their words, who were assertive about their own needs and wants (this is not the post to be getting into different generations of immigration and the culture differences between those generations).  And it also depends on the context - from my own experience, in private within families, both emotions and words can get extremely loud (if you dare to risk the wrath of your elders by arguing with them!)  But my point is that the habits I pointed out above are still relatively common in East Asian immigrant cultures, even if not all individuals follow them at all times.

Particularly prior to Season 2, there was a common perspective in the fandom, usually couched in “uwu, I love that Zac is playing a hot dummy!!” that would go along the lines of “Ricky doesn’t have a character arc, he doesn’t get into conflicts with other people, he doesn’t say anything and is just happy to be there, he’s a shallow character who’s just a himbo.”  All of which I’d dispute, (*insert post here about Ricky as a character reclaiming Asian masculinity*), but I want to focus on how the main traits -refraining from overt emotions, remaining reserved in speech, not bringing up his own needs and wants- that were brought up and used to simplify and dismiss Ricky’s character were traits which are commonly found in East Asian immigrant communities.  The whole “remaining reserved/trying to avoid conflict” is something a lot of East Asian-American kids pick up at home because what you say or don’t say isn’t as important as what you do or don’t do.

And I mean, so much of Ricky is about doing things for people, showing his feelings through his actions, not his words.  Just because he wasn’t getting into PC conflict in Season 1, or expressing his emotions in the same ways as other PCs, doesn’t mean he was just a silent, cheerful himbo.  Which there’s nothing wrong with being a himbo, and it can be particularly empowering in Ricky’s case as an Asian man (see above linked post about Asian masculinity), but that’s not all there is to Ricky’s character!  And don’t get me wrong, I personally love that part of his ongoing character arc in Season 2 is speaking up about his feelings and expressing to other people what he wants (because there’s the “American” part of the Asian-American experience that’s not just about having Asian heritage but is also about negotiating that relationship in a place with different norms and customs).  But it doesn’t negate the “Asian” part of “Asian-American” either, which does impact and shape the way Ricky interacts with people and the world.

In hindsight, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that interest and meta in Ricky skyrocketed once he did start being more vocal and assertive in Season 2, which are common traits in many Western cultures.  And it’s not the only reason that there’s a deeper interest in Ricky now (shout out to all the Asian fans and allies who’ve been really diving into Ricky’s character this season!) and I choose to believe in good faith that it isn’t intentional or malicious (audiences do tend to gravitate more towards tangible moments of conversation and conflict rather than background acting).  But I think we as fans need to start questioning why as a whole, we really didn’t start giving deeper thought to Ricky until he began displaying more typically Western traits, because I think it’s emblematic of how, very subtly and unconsciously, we are used to privileging white “American” behaviour and ignoring or glossing over Asian (immigrant) traits.

In many ways, Ricky prior to Season 2 (and very arguably up until the museum fight), has been perceived in the general fandom as a sort of post-racial American-melting-pot character.  Fans don’t wholly ignore that he’s Japanese-American, you can’t really do that when his family name is “Matsui” and when the Season 1 finale showed that his interactions with the American Dream pretty strongly involved his parents’ immigrant experience.  But knowing intellectually that Ricky is Asian doesn’t always translate to actually perceiving him as an Asian person with all the implications and racial dynamics that entails.

An example of how this manifests: Ricky and Esther become a canon couple.  Numerous posts begin to appear (and periodically still do) that express opinions along the lines of Ricky/Esther being the only tolerable “het” couple.  Ignoring the fact that we don’t know Esther’s sexuality and we only have an offhand Ztream comment for Ricky, Ricky/Esther is a canonical interracial relationship between two non-white people, a Japanese man and a black woman.  Interracial relationships are already extremely poorly represented in media, to say nothing of interracial relationships between non-white people.   Yet we overlook the racial dynamics and only focus on the perceived queerness (or not) of the ship.

Or, for another example, taking the discussion on cultural appropriation and making it all about Cody’s flaws and character development, rather than considering how it affects Ricky as a Japanese man to see a white man disrespecting a part of his cultural heritage.

Anyways, I really urge D20 fans, especially if you’re not Asian, to start questioning and challenging how you really perceive characters, what kind of characteristics you tend to privilege and be drawn to and why, and what kind of fandom environment you shape in your interactions with the show and with other fans.  This is not to say that Ricky should be everyone’s favourite character or that you can’t dislike him, but it is important to think about why we have the preferences that we do.  I especially urge you to remember that Ricky Matsui is a Japanese-American character, that this was a deliberate choice which has been repeatedly brought up by Zac (who is a Japanese-American actor), and that you cannot and should not ignore Ricky’s heritage when you think and talk about him. 

(And if you think Ricky is being an “asshole” to Cody just for being, frankly, mildly perturbed in his direction because Cody spent most of the season so far being very offensive to Ricky’s cultural heritage, I really encourage you to think critically about your opinions and why you hold them.  And if, after thinking critically, you still don’t see why they’re wrong, please don’t let the door hit you on the way out.  Your conscious racism is not something that is welcome in this fandom, and Asian fans are not here to teach you better)

((White and non-Asian people can and should reblog this, but don’t clown around.  Productive, respectful discussion is welcome.  Asian fans are more than welcome to add their perspectives/agree/disagree, especially people with Japanese heritage))

[mamamittens]

Long Awaited LoZ Thoughts

I’d like to start this off by explaining my background. I have a BA in English with a minor in Humanities. I have lived all my life in the Bible Belt of America, so my PoV of this series is inevitably going to be, at least in part, from the perspective of a Western-centric, Christianity-influenced woman. I have grown up with a deep interest in folk tales and mythology though, and took several classes on ancient cultures, so my base knowledge of religion all over the world is broader than what you’d probably expect. I am not religious myself, I’m actually agnostic. And this is just an in-universe look at the very strange religion of Hyrule. So, to make things easier, let’s just put aside the obvious meta issues with this world. The wonky timeline, complex lore changes between said timelines, and the fact that the whole series has clearly grown wildly over the course of its development without an overarching plot. The game mechanics being game mechanics. All of it. This whole thing will just be me trying to make sense of the world without the ‘it’s just a game, bro’ crutch. I will be drawing on what I know from the many games I’ve played myself, so if I don’t mention a big piece of lore from a specific game, it’s because I didn’t play it. Go ahead and rule out the early games before Ocarina of Time, as that’s the first game in the series I can remember playing. I was legitimately too young to have ever played anything prior to that, having been born in 1996. Now let’s get started, shall we?

 So, obviously everyone knows that the LoZ world is said to begin with the three goddesses. Din, Nayru, and Farore came together to create the world and before they yote themselves out of the narrative as direct players, they created the Triforce. A powerful artifact capable of granting a wish and giving their respective bearers undefined power. This is directly from Ocarina of Time and we see their symbol, the Triforce, all over the many games with very few exceptions. Now, to be clear, having a polytheistic religion with three main gods is hardly new. Hinduism has three main gods after all (Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva), and depending on your flavor of Christianity, you have the holy trinity (God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit). There’s even the Celtic goddesses that come specifically in threes (collectively called The Morrigan; Eriu, Fodla, and Banba). This isn’t an exhaustive list of three divine beings, by the way, just know that three is a weird trend in western-centric stories, including religion. But what’s different about the three Hyrule Goddesses? Well, they’re weirdly small for big shot gods. Let me explain.

        So, the three Hindu gods I mentioned earlier each handle a specific aspect. Creation, destruction, and preservation, not necessarily in that order though (which god does what isn’t the point, so just roll with me here). These are very broad and powerful subjects. Christianity is much the same, even though it’s a monotheistic religion. God is literally an all-powerful, omniscient, omnipotent deity. Jesus is his son who gave his life to basically forgive all sin. And I’m not totally clear on the Holy Spirit, but these three are clearly Big Deals with Big Ideas behind them. A good rule of thumb for old religion is that the older the deity, the wider the scope of their job or what they represent. Which makes sense. If you had to personify the forces of the universe, you’d probably start with the sun instead of like… whatever god is responsible for the creation of rice specifically. The bigger and scarier the natural force, the bigger deal that god usually is, putting aside politics and cultural trends. Egypt is a good example of this, as their roster of gods tended to change a lot depending on who was Pharaoh at the time and wherever the city center was. Horus is the god of the sun, or at least one of them, and is generally considered king of the gods. Which makes perfect sense for a land largely made up of a desert.

But what are the three goddesses’ rulers of? Power, Wisdom, and Courage. Each with clear elemental associations and people that are obviously affiliated with them. Nayru, Goddess of Wisdom, is clearly associated with water and likely has a close connection with the Zora. Din, Goddess of Power, is associated with fire and has clear connection with the Gerudo (unclear if the same goddess as the one present in the desert temple in Ocarina of Time). Farore, Goddess of Courage, is associated with all things green and of the earth, including the child-like race of Kokiri who perpetually inhabit the forest. Sure, these are broad topics, but not really… the first thing you’d think of for creators of the universe, are they? And it raises the question about the Hyrule people, who are said to be able to hear the gods due to their pointed ears… let’s put a pin in that and move on.

So, we know there are many gods in this universe, primarily because we meet them. For example, Zephos, God of Winds, in Wind Waker. But he’s clearly a fairly forgotten god, as he shares a shrine with Cylcos, God of Cyclones, which is about as bare as it can be. Just what appears to be a Tori gate with two stone monuments with the simple notes to summon them, almost completely out of the way. Which… I mean, I don’t know many gods with their extension number written on their monuments. That would kind of like going to church on Sunday and seeing “Hit me up if you need me, J-Boy 555-TAKE THE WHEEL” written on the podium. And remember, this is a world and game where the gods actively flooded the world and would therefore hold or have held enough power to directly interfere with Hyrule.

And Skyward Sword clearly has divine beings, one of which even flooded a whole area, though they’re subservient to Hylia. Who we will get back to later, I promise. The three dragons (again, that magic number), capable of divine power, though where that power comes from in unclear. The dragons are of a high status though, as evident by their servants and clear reference to high-class dress of their clothes. These dragons are revered, but clearly not worshipped, much like nobles in that regard. A curious note is the parallels to the three goddesses, and how the symbols are muddled and mixed for these dragons.

Lanayru clearly has the symbols associated with the Zora, and by extension Nayru, but is yellow. He also is saved by time travel used to grow a magic fruit, which Link often uses (time travel) in many games to advance the plot himself (and wouldn’t you know it, but mixing blue with yellow does produce green. Weird). Faron is the water dragon who flooded an area, and she is almost entirely blue (as well as unsettling to look at), surrounded by a species clearly related to the Zora though closer to octopi. But her name is Faron, which is weirdly close to Farore’s name, not Nayru. I mean, they are close to locations that resemble their names of course, but it’s still an interesting note. Finally, there’s Eldin, clearly bearing a symbol associated with the Gerudo without any strange mixes of symbols for the series. Oddly, he’s also the most open of the three dragons, especially considering the Gerudo’s traditional stance of being a ‘no-sausage’ club. Not terribly relevant, but I just thought it was interesting to point out. You can consider the Giants in Majora’s Mask on the same level as them, though their status is unclear (Since they’re summoned by a song and can stop the moon from falling, they probably straddle the line between mortal and divine).

Now, spirits also exist in this world, both as the ghostly variety and the more pseudo-divine. Not to be confused with actual divinity. Divine being can be spirits, but not all spirits are divine. In this context, spirits can be defined more as being of power capable of granting aid in return for something. Zephos can change the winds if called upon, but you don’t need to feed him, for example. But the spirits in Twilight Princess need aid before they can help you. And they’re also not very independent and are able to be fooled easily, which isn’t usually a god-like quality. While more physically present than the three goddesses, they’re also not strictly tangible, and seem to be extremely limited to their location. At best, these spirits could be classified as minor deities below the gods we see in Wind Waker. They also share the same abilities in keeping the realm of Twilight from falling over the land of Hyrule, as well as their weakness to parasites of undetermined origin. An interesting note is that they all seem to live in bodies of water. Let’s put a pin in that one too.

Someone that also counts as a spirit would be Fi and her counterpart, Ghirahim. Literally two halves of the same coin, these two are both very limited in power and function. They don’t represent anything on their own and are very dependent on others to achieve results. How or why they were made is unclear, but it is obvious that both were forged at some point, and clearly gained sentience. Even their personalities and allegiances are a bit odd. Fi for her sci-fi appearance and calculating personality in a fantasy land, and Ghirahim for his… well, everything. I don’t know why the root of all evil would make his weapon a full-tilt diva, let alone on purpose. Ghirahim always struck me as odd since his bombastic personality seemed to clash with his ultimate fate of just being a weapon for Demise.

Okay, so the Great Fairies are weird, okay?! Like, really weird. They act as spirits (I can’t think of any that aren’t restricted to a body of water in some form), but are very independent. They also don’t necessarily need anything from Link to offer assistance. Sometimes, just opening the fairy fountain is enough to gain items needed to progress. And there’s also the fact that fairies heal you upon ‘death’, though with a limited heart capacity. Sometimes they need you to do something though, like the Breath of the Wild fairies need rupees to function or items to upgrade equipment. They also usually look human, like Majora’s Mask Great Fairies are clearly just… giant women with color coded accessories. But like, they float. Where Great Faires come from, or even just regular fairies, is unclear. Until Wind Waker, Great Faires were adults. But when you finally meet the real Great Fairy in Wind Waker it’s… a child. With a doll that looks just like the ‘Great Fairies’ you’ve seen along the way. This sort of implies that Great Fairies age and die, though clearly with a different lifetime than most races in Hyrule (the child Great Fairy also only looks somewhat human compared to other Great Fairies, so make of that what you will). And it also implies that all the adult Great Fairies are dead (you’re welcome for that depressing thought), with the last one trapped in a hollow tree only accessible by the power of a God.

In Breath of the Wild, the Great Fairies are both diminished but more powerful. They literally are stuck in a giant flower with water in it, with few fairies around them, and require riches to get stronger. The connection to their new restrictions to this need for material wealth is unclear. It’s also interesting to note that their fountains are no longer places that appear to be man-made holy temples and they seem to be out of the way… well, for a given value of ‘out of the way’ (looking at you ninja village). These fairies can accomplish more tasks, but certainly won’t be doing it for free or with minimal effort. A far cry from their first appearances (no, I don’t consider using explosives a difficult task).

But Fairies are also companions with nebulous tasks, such as in Ocarina of Time, where Tatl follows Link until the end of the game. And Kokiri have their own fairy as a sign of whatever accounts for adulthood in their race. The Skull Kid in Majora’s Mask has two fairy friends who seemed to have been either lost or abandoned. Who or what gives them purpose and life is unclear, though the Great Deku Tree from Ocarina of Time can give commands, it doesn’t seem to be something he does normally? As a side note, it’s really not clear what, if anything he can actually do. Though the relative safety of the surrounding area is clearly tied with his wellbeing in all iterations, he doesn’t seem to directly influence it, or be capable of self-defense.

Now, onto the elephant in the room! Hylia! Who the hell is this?! A more recent entry to the series, her divine roll is unclear (though she clearly guards the Triforce in some capacity). It can be assumed that she’s somehow a goddess tied directly to the Hylian people, but when she appeared is up for debate. Timeline wise, it’s almost like knowledge of her was suppressed for some reason, giving rise to the Triforce mythos we all know and love without hide or hair of her seen. We know that she favored the original Link greatly, enough to shed her divinity to be reborn as a mortal and assist him. How or why is also unclear, though it wouldn’t be unfair to assume she loved him, as divine ladies holding an affair with a mortal isn’t uncommon in mythology (or even male gods doing the same, before anyone brings up Zeus). But she makes a resurgence in Breath of the Wild, with statues and everything, with the three goddesses left to only vague references in the background. Which is super weird, though not uncommon for places like Ancient Egypt. The fact that the ruling family was literally descendant from a goddess is what makes it weird though, since any monarchy worth their salt would milk that until the peasant folk revolted and made a new religion to justify killing a god.

Zelda in every incarnation is literally descendant from the original and still held at least a fraction of that divine power. So much so that a cornerstone of a powerful religious artifact inevitably ends up in her hands (or on the back of her right hand, as it were). But what is Hylia a Goddess of? We don’t know. It’s never said. Anywhere. And that’s super weird, even for a ubiquitous deity. Sure she’s a Goddess of Hyrule but… what does that mean? That can’t be all she is? Her reincarnation is literally locked in a generational struggle against the forces of darkness! What can she do as a Goddess? Well, she makes Link stronger in return for items, but that seems to be it. In Ocarina of Time, Zelda was capable of sending Link back to the past, but that was with a magic item. And we know Hylia isn’t the Goddess of Time, because Zelda references her in Majora’s Mask (sequel to Ocarina of Time, therefore implying that there are more gods unmentioned at that time), when Hylia should be mortal or at least fragmented (because Zelda exists at the time with powers and a Triforce piece). The Guardian of Time in Hyrule Warriors also fell in love with Link before splitting into Cia and Lana (and was unable to fuse back together again), so it’s unlikely that she’s the Goddess of Time Zelda was referring to, though that detail is interesting to note. No, I will not discuss if Hyrule Warriors is canon (either game), as this is already long enough as it is.

So, that brings us to Ganon, or in his original form, Demise. Which… what’s up with that? Who is this guy? He directly opposes the gods and just… gets away with it! Repeatedly! Sure, he loses most of the time, but still. It’s unclear where Demise came from, or even what he is, though judging by Ghirahim’s ‘Demon Lord’ title, it can be assumed that he is some type of demon himself. And that the many monsters we see are also considered demons, which makes sense with how they always work for Demise (or his many iterations) in some form or another. Considering how much it takes to simply seal him away, he can’t be just a demon though.

        Demise obviously pulled the same trick Hylia did, which directly sets him up as a counterpart to her, but what does it mean? Why would he do that? What is Demise that he can’t be beat with the power of a Goddess alone and needs not only a brave knight but a blade literally made to counter him? Within the context of religion, the best guess I can make is that he’s some form of a God of Darkness, possibly also Temptation, Greed, and Pigs Corruption. It fits within the narrative since power is often the strongest form of temptation and we know that demons capable of opposing the gods exist. The Horned Statue literally takes Hylia’s blessings in exchange for wealth, and was turned into a statue for it. What it stands to gain from any of it is unclear, but interestingly enough, Hylia doesn’t mind that it closely resembles her own statues. So, this raises the question… why isn’t Demise a forgotten statue somewhere along a dusty road? How did he curse(?) both a reborn goddess and a human in an eternal struggle for the fate of Hyrule?

        Being a god is about the only explanation for why he can do the things that he does. It explains why, in every incarnation, he ends up a rule (like Zelda). How he controls so many different species with ease. He corrupts the conflicted as easily as breathing. An interesting note is how Demise in his many forms usually ends up corrupting once good forces in some way, typically with parasites or evil spirits. And with this context, Hylia must be a Goddess of Light, and possibly some form of Will and Purity to oppose Demise’s power. It would also make her a good candidate for looking after the Triforce in that case. And yet we don’t know any of this for sure either, which is, again, very strange considering their presence from the very beginning. Literally.

Now, I want to mention the temples as a last point before wrapping this up, because it has bothered me since I was a wee little whipper snapper. For a place of worship, they sure are hard to navigate, even when they’re empty of monsters. And it’s not like Hyrule doesn’t get this, because the Temple of Time in Ocarina of Time is straight up a church. Just… without pews, so clearly not perfect, but it is possible for people to come in and… worship time, I guess. And no, not the Goddess of Time, because there’s no statue for that. I mean, I know it’s secretly hiding the Master Sword, but it is definitely a church otherwise. What a normal service looks like I can’t say for sure, but it’s definitely not like literally any other temples we see.

        Now, I know it’s a little hard to remember, but temples are usually places where one goes to worship the gods (or even just a god). And we know gods exist in a very real way in Hyrule! They still manage to name Zelda the same thing despite having seemingly buried their divine origins, so some knowledge of gods walking the mortal realm exists. But the temples/dungeons we see usually don’t have much in the way of religious iconography, with a few exceptions (interestingly it’s typically the desert area that actually has statues and could feasibly have had a real capacity for worship). You want to be a devout follower of a god anywhere else? Well, fuck you. Hope you brought a sword and a good pair of boots. If you’re allowed inside at all, since it’s usually the local leaders that are only allowed inside for some reason. And most games don’t seem to have very religious people, despite all the references to divinity. Not like we’d expect them to, at least. And I personally can’t blame them. If I tried to join a religion but found only a wall as an entrance, I’d be pretty disheartened too. Then I’d be pretty pissed to find out I needed not only a royal instrument handed down the monarchy, but their freaking lullaby to even get in to the place of worship. But we know they pray to the gods at least semi-often, since that’s one of the inciting incidences in Wind Waker. And they have offering to statues of Hylia.

        The temples suggest the bar to impress the gods is pretty high, and not in a ‘sacrifice your eldest child’ kind of way. To even get the chance to reach the inner chambers you better hope it’s been kept well and that you didn’t skip leg day recently. Something I didn’t really mention before is that usually, the less involved the gods are, the more independent the people are from worship. If you worry that your local deity will flood your fields, you’re probably leaving regular offerings at their nearby shrine or temple. But if you know that the gods don’t care about literally anything you do, why worship them at all? Why make statues, art, or temples? Why bother with any of it? The answer is you don’t. So these highly selective temples are pretty weird unless you go with the idea the gods are just really done with people and never want to talk to them unless absolutely necessary.

So, I’ve rambled for over twelve pages now. What’s the point? What does any of this mean? I’m honestly not sure, but I have a sinking feeling that there’s some serious shit going on in the Hyrule pantheon. Mortals have been mostly abandoned to their doom. Gods cast out and forgotten entirely. And somehow advanced civilizations keep forming and getting destroyed with only remnants left behind with zero explanation. Assuming the original gods are even alive at this point, which I’m not entirely certain of. Their death certainly explains how Demise/Ganon keeps getting stronger, looking less and less Hylian as time goes on, if he looks humanoid to begin with.

I wouldn’t even assume it’s entirely voluntary at this point either, as Ganon clearly doesn’t have the same motivations in every incarnation (see my previous post about Wind Waker). I’m rather excited about Breath of the Wild 2, as the implications of dehydrated husk Ganon is compelling. Particularly in light of the character development Link and Zelda have received in the first Breath of the Wild. I wouldn’t be surprised if Ganon/Demise turns out to be a fallen god trying to get back home (a nice parallel to Wind Waker, actually), cast out as a scape goat. Blamed for every form of corruption and greed that naturally follows in his wake. I think I said this before, but it is interesting that he is always reborn among the Gerudo, a race famously all females. Sometimes thieves, but nearly always in a position that would naturally crave power to take control of their lives compared to Hylians. Regardless of the consequences.

Is it true? I don’t know. Probably not, but the fact that I can draw these conclusions in three hours of writing is pretty neat. I have a lot of feelings about this franchise, having grown up with it, but I eagerly await what comes next. And I should probably go to bed. Make of all this what you will.

[vocalfriespod]

Between Iraq and a Hard Place Transcript

Carrie Gillon: Hi and welcome to the Vocal Fries podcast, the podcast about linguistic discrimination.

Megan Figueroa: I’m Megan Figueroa.

Carrie Gillon: And I’m Carrie Gillon.

Megan Figueroa: [Squeals] Carrie!

Carrie Gillon: Yes, Megan?

Megan Figueroa: We have a fun, fun mug that I’m so proud of. It’s like, okay, I’m gonna launch it on Saturday. We’ll do the intro for the episode on Monday, and I get to talk about how proud I am of this darn mug. [Laughter]

Carrie Gillon: I’m proud that you chose the color options that I suggested.

Megan Figueroa: Yes! Well, I fought with photoshop for a while about it, but…

Carrie Gillon: Oh, yeah. I’m sure it was a nightmare.

Megan Figueroa: Yes.

Carrie Gillon: This is why I’m like “I hope you wanna do it because I can’t design worth shit.”

Megan Figueroa: In case someone out there did not see our Twitter yesterday on Saturday, we launched a mug. You just have to see it. I don’t wanna ruin it for you.

Carrie Gillon: Well, okay. How do they find it then?

Megan Figueroa: Um, oh, shit. I guess I don’t wanna force you to go to that one tweet. So, there will be a link to it in our Vocal Fries Twitter bio. It’s real cute, makes a great gift for yourself or loved ones or enemies. I dunno. [Laughter] Please buy it for your enemies.

Carrie Gillon: We now have some ads. So, if you are a patron, we’re gonna start putting up all our episodes on patreon.com. If you’re at the $3.00 or $5.00 level, then you get free access to this podcast going forward. So, if you want to have ad-free episodes – www.patreon.com/vocalfriespod. Someone did say something to the effect, “Oh, you guys should talk about the Fiona Hill situation.”

Megan Figueroa: Yes!

Carrie Gillon: And I thought, “We probably should do a real episode on it.” But we can at least talk a little bit about this because it just happened this week.

Megan Figueroa: Yes. Which also, speaking of a real episode on it, anyone who’s listening right now and is like “I know exactly who you should talk to” or whatever –

Carrie Gillon: Or you are the person to talk to.

Megan Figueroa: Or you are that person. Let us know. Because Carrie tries really hard to teach me about the limited information she has on British accents and classism and regionalism. But she can only do so much.

Carrie Gillon: Right. Yeah. Because it’s definitely not my lived experience.

Megan Figueroa: Yeah, so Fiona Hill was – what is her role?

Carrie Gillon: Yeah, okay. She was an intelligence analyst under Bush and Obama. Then, Trump appointed her as Deputy Assistant to the President and Senior Director for European and Russian Affairs on the National Security Council.

Megan Figueroa: Okay. Then, she resigned in July of this year.

Carrie Gillon: She resigned in July because obviously –

Megan Figueroa: The phone call. The impeachment hearings and why we’re having these impeachment hearings, right?

Carrie Gillon: Well, the phone call happened after that. But it’s all part of that stuff, right, because Trump was trying to pressure Ukraine to do what he wanted blah blah blah. A lot of stuff there that we are not really the experts on. Anyway, that’s what she was. Yeah, she just had a – there was a hearing with her and some other dude, who had some amazing expressions. However –

Megan Figueroa: The real star…

Carrie Gillon: The real star, or the thing that we’re most interested in, is that – so she has a British accent, an English accent, and in the US it’s interpreted as being kind of posh because any British accent sounds posh to most Americans. But within –

Megan Figueroa: Problematic, but yes.

Carrie Gillon: Well, yes. Of course, all of these judgements are problematic in any direction, right? Anyway, she commented on this like “Yeah, people think that I have this posh accent. But really in the UK, my accent is very working class and Northern.”  Those two things, especially in the ’80s when she was growing up, were seen to be very bad, right? She definitely does not have a posh accent within the UK. Yeah, it’s just an interesting clash of cultures.

Megan Figueroa: Clash of cultures and how important context is. And this – I mean, I think I said it last year when we kinda talked to each other about what our favorite episodes were or what we learned that we really just did not know before – it’s me learning that in /nuwaɹlɪnz/ – [laughs] in New Orleans.

Carrie Gillon: In Louisiana.

Megan Figueroa: In Louisiana, that French is disparaged. I was just like “How is this possible?” Where I am in the Southwest, French is thought of as a quote-unquote “posh” – or, you know, you only learn it –

Carrie Gillon: A fancy language.

Megan Figueroa: Yeah, you only learn it if you just have all these mental resources freed up and you’re like “I might as well learn French,” right? It doesn’t seem as practical. Whereas, Spanish in the Southwest is like, unless you’re non-latinx then it’s – I’ve talked about it before – it’s just, depending on who’s speaking it, it’s seen as good or bad.

For me to learn that French was actually something that was disparaged in the United States just blew my mind so having that context was really helpful for me. Having the context with Fiona Hill, I always forget the north and south thing. Northern –

Carrie Gillon: Yeah. That’s really huge in the UK, within England itself, right? There’s also the Welsh and the Scottish in that one island and then, obviously, there’s Irish and blah blah blah. But within just the English part, within England, yeah, there’s this huge north/south divide which, yeah, London is the seat of power blah blah blah so…

Megan Figueroa: And London’s in the south, which you have to remind me.  [Laughter]

Carrie Gillon: Oh, boy. You should visit London. We should go visit Issa.

Megan Figueroa: Yes, Issa Wurie. No, that would be great. But, yeah, it’s just an important reminder that classism, regionalism, all of these things are always at play. That’s why we have job security here. [Laughter]

Carrie Gillon: “Job.”

Megan Figueroa: Yeah, I know, I was like “Should I say the word ‘job’ just to” – That’s a fake. That’s not real. That’s why we have side project security.

Carrie Gillon: Yes, yeah. We could talk about these things forever – forever.

Megan Figueroa: There’s posh of the worlds we haven’t even got – “posh” of the world? There’re parts of the world we haven’t even got to.

Carrie Gillon: Most. Most of the world.

Megan Figueroa: Yes.

Carrie Gillon: I mean, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States, London and, like –

Megan Figueroa: And Ghana.

Carrie Gillon: And Ghana. I think that’s pretty much it.

Megan Figueroa: And Spain.

Carrie Gillon: Oh, and Spain. A little bit of Spain. But we haven’t really even delved deep into Spain, right? There is stuff to talk about in Spain.

Megan Figueroa: Oh, my god. Layers. An onion! [Laughter]

Carrie Gillon: So, yeah, this episode we talk to Zach Jaggers about different ways of pronouncing words that are more like the language we borrowed it from or less like the language we borrowed it from. It’s interesting. I learned some things.

Megan Figueroa: Yeah. I mean, I always say that there’s a lot of characteristics that we have that are all bundled into certain beliefs. How we pronounce some words is kinda bundled into our belief about the world. Zach tells us about that.

Carrie Gillon: Very cool.

[Background music]

Carrie Gillon: Today, we have Dr Zachary Jaggers who is a postdoctoral scholar of linguistics at the University of Oregon. Welcome, Zach!

Zach Jaggers: Thanks! Thanks for having me.

Megan Figueroa: So happy to talk with you today.

Carrie Gillon: Yeah, me too! You approached us, and I’m so glad that you did, because this work is really important and really interesting.

Megan Figueroa: As cool as Carrie and I are, we don’t know all the amazing people that are out there and that exist, obviously.

Carrie Gillon: No, how could we?

Megan Figueroa: So, please approach us with the amazing stuff you’re doing because 1.) we get to talk to you and learn things ourselves, 2.) your work gets out there, and 3.) we get to have a new friend. Thank you, Zach.

Zach Jaggers: Yeah, I know. I appreciate it. I love that there’s more of this kind of stuff going on too because I think that’s exactly it – getting it out there for a broader audience and just having more of these discussions and like, yeah, just a more relaxed kind of setting.

Megan Figueroa: Absolutely. Just imagine we’re over a tea or a beer or something – that kinda thing.

Carrie Gillon: I’m literally drinking tea right now.

Megan Figueroa: See? Exactly.

Zach Jaggers: Well, I saw on your website how like, I think one of you does knitting and one of you does cross-stitching. And I was like “I do crochet! Let’s just have a needle-crafters party.”

Carrie Gillon: Yeah, exactly!

Megan Figueroa: Everyone can imagine us doing that right now as it’s cold outside.

Carrie Gillon: I do actually want to learn crochet because, I dunno, it’s a new skill and it’s related, so that’s next on my list.

Megan Figueroa: And one hook. One hook.

Zach Jaggers: One of these days. One of these days.

Carrie Gillon: And one hook, yeah.

Megan Figueroa: I mean, different sizes depending on – but yeah. Anyway.

Carrie Gillon: Okay. You have an article – a journalistic article – which is nice because not very many linguists do this – so, awesome – with PBS called, “Your political views can predict how you pronounce certain words.” Maybe just tell us why you started working on that area.

Zach Jaggers: Yeah. I look particularly at loan words, so words that come into a language from another language, and this was following up, actually, on work by Lauren Hall-Lew and colleagues where they were looking at the variation of /ɪɹɑk/ versus /ɑɪɹæk/ and how it was pronounced by politicians in the US House of Representatives. They had found that democratic politicians were more likely to say /ɪɹɑk/, which is more like how that sounds in Arabic, the source language of this word. Whereas, Republicans were more likely to say /ɪɹæk/ or /ɑɪɹæk/.

I was really interested in that and just wanting to follow up on that, and so I wanted to just kind of look into what is under the hood of that, in a sense. Like, okay, if we just imagined this patterns with political identity – I’m not gonna tell you which party says it this way – you could probably predict which party says it which way. So, I was wanting to get at why is this happening in this way. I followed up on that, looking at people’s globalist and nationalist ideologies, but also other ideologies like their language contact receptiveness – how they feel about multilingualism and language contact and, also, their specific attitudes about Arabs, Arab-Americans, Islam particularly.

But then also because of these broader factors, like language contact receptiveness or globalism/nationalism, I was also predicting that this was gonna happen with other loanwords of less political charge too, so words from other languages across the board like Spanish, or German, or French – just any loanwords at all. Then, I found that same pattern that, in general, people who identified as either republican or politically conservative – I didn’t quite treat this as much of a partisan thing but more just like a gradient political continuum, a more multifaceted thing – tended to use less “source-like pronunciations,” is the term that like to use, so just pronunciations that sounded less like how it’s pronounced in its original language or where it comes from – how people who identify with this more as the source say it.

Whereas, people who identified more as democratic or as liberal tended to use more source-like pronunciations. I also like to use “less or more source-like,” I think, because if you think about /ɪɹɑk/ versus /ɑɪɹæk/, even the /ɪɹɑk/ pronunciation isn’t exactly how it’s pronounced in the source language, right? It’s not like you’re doing the flipped R in the middle or getting really into the phonetics – like the uvular stop at the end, you know? It’s not exactly like how it’s pronounced. Both of these are entirely pronounceable even within the confines of the English sound system, but one of these still sounds closer to how it’s pronounced by speakers of that language who identify more with that word and how it’s pronounced. That’s what I mean when I say, “more or less source-like.”

Megan Figueroa: Well, I like that too because then you’re getting away from this language that’s more or less “correct,” right?

Carrie Gillon: Right. Yes.

Zach Jaggers: Yeah. A lot of the discussion around this pronunciation variable, too, tends to get used in that way where people are like “This is the correct way to say it.” I also really like to reframe that discussion as “Let’s move away from thinking of this as correct and let’s really reframe this as thinking about who identifies with this word.” Then, that helps us think about how are they impacted, possibly, by the way this word is pronounced, or how might they be impacted by the way this word is pronounced, and what can that reflect.

That’s where I think thinking about this ideology of globalism/nationalism and getting a little into what that was – this was also a multifaceted questionnaire/survey that I did. The three main aspects that it was getting at was – 1.) was just the general kind of nationalism, which is someone’s hubris or pride in their country. Then, another was just the general interest in people or cultures or places that they might consider foreign or different from their country. The other facet of that is what I think of as this prescribed homogeneity – the idea that it’s like “We should all be one.” But what that can sometimes end up meaning is, “We should all be similar to each other. We should all be alike.”

There’s degrees of that where you can see like “We should all have similar ideologies” or “We should all have similar thoughts.” But sometimes that can also extend into demographics. This was all along a scale of seeing how people identify – to different extremes or, like, in the middle of these things – but also along these different facets. This was a multifaceted thing that I was trying to get at in terms of this ideology.

I think seeing that people who identified as more globalist rather than – like, more globalist or less nationalist – were using these more accommodating pronunciations, these more source-like pronunciations. I think that seems to be reflecting this kind of trying to be accommodating to people who identify with the source of these words and with the pronunciations of them. That’s at least what it seems to be reflecting.

Megan Figueroa: Underlying that, to me – I mean, this is me editorializing it – but the word “respect” comes to mind. You’re trying to respect that culture, that person, whatever it might be. Was your questionnaire open-ended, or was it like a check box, or like a Likert scale, 1 to 5? How did you get at nationalist or not nationalist – these kind of things? Because I’m wondering about – all these words that are coming to mind.

Zach Jaggers: Yeah, this was a Likert scale. This was a series of Likert scales, so getting at those different facets and then multiple statements of, like, Likert scale agreement. One of them would be, in terms of the assimilation – so the prescribed homogeneity I talked about – would be like “I think that” – hi. [Laughter] I’m waving at a cat walking by, okay?

Carrie Gillon: Yeah, that was Mu.

Zach Jaggers: I want you to be behind me so I can pet you.

Carrie Gillon: She would love it. [Laughter]

Zach Jaggers: So, thinking about the prescribed homogeneity part, one of the statements was something along the lines of “I believe that immigrants to the country should be expected to adopt American cultural practices.” That would be this idea that’s like “Foreign people should assimilate to cultural practices. We should have these shared values or practices” You can see that kind of analogizing to words, right? It’s like “I feel like people who are foreign who come into the country should assimilate in their practices to a way that feels less foreign and fits in more.”

You can see that also applying to words, right? Like “I feel that words that enter the language should assimilate to a pronunciation that fits in more and feels less foreign.” But, yeah, I also did a follow up perception survey getting at people’s – this was another rating survey, but getting a little bit more at people’s ratings of how they think of people, like a speaker, when they use more source-like or less source-like pronunciations of loan words. Very similar percepts where I think of more source-like pronunciations as more globally oriented as this person being more likely multilingual.

Also, there was this, kind of what we were getting at, which is this conflict where it was more pleasant in one sense but also – more along a humble/pretentious scale – more pretentious.  It’s this I think that they’re open-minded and accommodating, but I think that they’re also pretentious or trying to be above it all, in a sense. I think that is a conflict that comes into play with this which is, I think, this decision that people seem to wrestle with which is “I am accommodating but who am I accommodating to? Am I accommodating to the borrowing language and this force to assimilate?” or if someone is a speaker of the borrowing language “Am I accommodating to this surrounding force around me to assimilate these words to the borrowing language? Or am I accommodating more to the people who identify with these words?” That’s what this ideology and where you fall on it is being reflected in your pronunciations.

Carrie Gillon: Yeah, I’ve definitely felt that in myself that I wanna pronounce it as close as possible to the original, but it does have this feeling of “I sound pretentious now.” People talk about it on Twitter, too, “Oh, you’re pretentious if you pronounce it whatever way.” Even, like, the /ɸoɪjɛɪ/, /ɸoɪjɹ̩/ difference, I say /ɸoɪjɛɪ/. I’m Canadian, so we pronounce it closer to the French. But I feel more pretentious here saying it that way.

Megan Figueroa: Yeah, you should’ve heard my inner dialogue just calling you pretentious when you said that. [Laughter] I’ve never heard you say that word, so I didn’t know you said it that way. But this is getting really complicated because there is some power structures going on here where I’m like “Oh” – well, we have an episode on this. I’m just thinking about French globally and, like, it’s fine. Then, I think about how we’re in the American southwest – Carrie and I are – and I’m like “Well, Spanish is under attack because racists.”

Zach Jaggers: Yeah. I think those power dynamics are definitely a thing. I think there’s a lot of factors that go into influencing how loanwords get pronounced and how they get adapted into the borrowing language. I think there’s just the sound system in general, right? I was talking about – like with /ɪɹɑk/ versus /ɑɪɹæk/ – and just how the sound system has an overriding factor in general in a lot of cases where you’re probably not gonna do that flipped R. Or if you do, that’s really saying something about how accommodating you’re wanting to be to the source language and people who identify with it, which is a statement in and of itself.

Or something about, like, we’ve also seen effects of how bilingual the community is where these loanwords are being used. If there’s a higher degree of bilingualism in that community, then you would expect maybe even some transcending of the constraints of the borrowing language system where there might even be some phonetic level incorporation of sounds that wouldn’t necessarily be considered allowed in the borrowing language. I think these power dynamics and the prestige dynamics also come into play a lot, even with the borrowing of words themselves too.

When we think about borrowing of words, oftentimes we’ll think of it just as the borrowing of a cultural concept or a cultural transmission or a conceptual transmission, right? If we are borrowing something – if we think of words that English and German share where it’s like this is just shared inheritance not even a borrowing at all. We think of “hound” versus “Hund.” This is something that’s not a loanword, but this is something that they still share, right, where the sound and the meaning are shared, right? Whereas, they both are shared from Proto-Germanic. In German, it used to mean just general “dog.” And in German, it still does. Whereas, in English it then shifted to become “hound.” It also shifted in meaning to mean a narrower kind of dog.

We also see loanwords between German and English where there’s these cultural transmissions that after that split historically, long after German and English became distinct languages, there were these cultural transmissions, like “kindergarten,” “zeitgeist,” “schadenfreude” –“schadenfreude,” you know, enjoying someone else’s pain. This is the kind of word where people were like “You know, I can say that. I don’t need this word from another language to say it,” but it’s appreciating like “Oh, this other language has this succinct word that I can use to express this idea. I’m gonna use that.” We also see cases where there’s a loanword from another language used in a borrowing language where it’s not because there was some kind of, quote – hand quotes. Sorry, I gesture a lot. [Laughs]

Megan Figueroa: No, it’s okay.

Zach Jaggers: I’m sure this is such a challenge with podcasting. I use my hands a lot when I talk.

Carrie Gillon: So do I. It’s fine.

Megan Figueroa: We all do. Or lots of us do – yeah.

Zach Jaggers: Hopefully my gestures are audible. [Laughter] So, when we think about how there’s not necessarily – hand quotes – “gaps” that are because of – that that is why a loanword came into another language. If you think about cases – even “salsa” could be considered something where it’s like we could’ve used “tomato sauce” or “dip” or something like that where it’s like, you know, it doesn’t necessarily accurately capture it, but it could have been not borrowed in to represent that concept.

Or if we think of cases like – so this is getting back into the prestige factor, so the French/Spanish asymmetry. Hang in there with me. Thinking about cases like, if we think of “veal” versus “horse.” “Veal” was borrowed into English from French, so this was right around the Norman conquest time when French was in really intense contact with English but also with a lot of prestige. Whereas, right now, in the US context, there’s a lot of contact with Spanish but not with a lot of prestige, right? We see a lot of this contact with French where “veal” gets borrowed in.

We also see, like, “pork” – and these are already now the long-adapted versions of them – but “pork” is the French etymological origin word for “pig,” gets borrowed in. Those are the French words for those animals, but those ended up getting used to represent the cooked versions of them. We also see “cuisine,” which is the word for “kitchen” in French. That gets used to represent food. We see this asymmetry of the older Proto-Germanic origin, the English words, they’re representing the labor-side versus the fancier side, in a sense. “Kitchen” is where the labor of preparing the food happens. Then, the farm animals are the English side. Whereas, the French side is where the animals are cooked and you’re eating them, and the “cuisine,” that’s where the cooked food is coming out and you’re enjoying the cooked food.

It’s like that asymmetry of these words that you have the exact parallels of, that asymmetry ends up getting semantically reflected in which language’s version of those words you’re using in a sense. We also see that in the pronunciations too. A lot of times people will say, – but you have these really old words too where you don’t see these variables at all in pronunciation. Or cases like “veal,” people don’t even know that that’s a French loanword. But you see these reflections of these ideologies and of this prestige around French still being reflected in the way that we use it historically, right?

You also even see that in the pronunciations too. In Old English, Old English couldn’t allow for the sound V – like, the voiced /v/ – to appear at the beginning of a word. But when there was this huge influx of loanwords from French, you then had all of these words with the /v/ sound – the V sound – at the beginning of the word. But because people were using all of these French loanwords and because they were, in that case, not even just using more source-like pronunciations of them within the confines of the English sound system but they were actually breaking the rules of English and being like “I’m going to pronounce these so French-like. I’m going to break those rules and maintain this V sound at the beginning of the word,” that carried on where these words are still pronounced with the V sound. And that totally changed the sound system of English.

The English sound system can have V at the beginning of the word now because of all of these French loanwords and because people pronouncing them in more source-like ways because of the prestige that was associated with them. It’s like, not only can you just pronounce these words more source-like as a reflection of your attitudes about the source language and the people associated with them, but you can even in some cases break the rules of the borrowing language if you associate the source language with that much prestige.

Megan Figueroa: Yeah. It has survived so long, these sound changes to the English language.

Zach Jaggers: Where you don’t even know it.

Megan Figueroa: Wow! I had no idea. I mean, if I would’ve thought about it, I would’ve probably realized that Old English shouldn’t have a V sound at the beginning.

Carrie Gillon: Yeah. I didn’t know that. But I didn’t know that we borrowed sounds from French. I just didn’t know about French at the beginning.

Megan Figueroa: Wow. That’s really cool. It speaks to, I mean, it just shows that if you examine language a little bit deeper, you’re gonna see all of these things that reflect how we think about people.

Carrie Gillon: Absolutely.

Zach Jaggers: Yeah, how social dynamics just really come through and get reflected historically. They manifest in language and just thinking about how they propagate in language. I think, coming back to just thinking about with new loanwords too is just raising that question of do people want to use more source-like pronunciations and what do we want that to reflect. Do people want that to reflect a kind of accommodation or openness?

Because when we think of how even if people aren’t thinking of, “Oh, I’m using this initial V sound as a way to signal openness to French speakers” anymore, it still does kind of in a way. It leaves English and French sounding a little bit more similar to each other. You’ll think about these – I’m thinking about these YouTube videos where – have you seen where someone who speaks two really different languages but then they’re asked, “How do you say this word in your language and this word in your other language?” And then they’re like “Oh, we have these two words in common even though” –

Megan Figueroa: Oh, I have seen those. Yeah.

Zach Jaggers: But you just see this and, like, they’re probably loanwords, right? But they have the sense of like “Oh, we have this shared linguistic thing in common. Yay! This is a fun friendship,” or something like that. It’s just like, when you have this linguistic thing in common, you have this shared sense with each other. Even if you aren’t actively thinking about that, just thinking about how are your propagating that for future accommodation.

Megan Figueroa: I’m thinking specifically, when you said that, of Spanish and Arabic. I’ve seen video where someone’s like “Almohada – Hello.” What? What? You guys are – Arabic? Yeah, no, you’re right. It’s never like – I mean, of course they probably wouldn’t be trying to find the most terrible people in the world to record – to do this – but every time they’re just like – it’s like an opening. Their world has opened a little bit. That’s what it feels like when you’re watching this. Those are quite lovely. I do like those.

Carrie Gillon: Let’s go back to the /ɪɹɑk/, /ɑɪɹæk/ saying. Is it the case that if you pronounce it, let’s say /ɑɪɹæk/, that you’re for sure a republican or for sure a nationalist?

Zach Jaggers: No, no. I think a lot of times people will want to read this as a generalization. It’s hard. When I do public-facing work, it’s hard to make this connection with people but also be like “Hey, you saw how in my article I used relative adjectives,” you know, “likelier than,” right? So, yeah, no, definitely not.

What I found was these were definitely relative likelihoods where, in terms of across these loanwords across the board, people who identified as more politically conservative or republican were likelier to use less source – like republications – than people who identified as democrats or as politically liberal. Actually, for most words, there was still more of a default of the more-adapted, less source-like pronunciations. People would be usually – across the board, across people – would be likelier to say something like /ɪɹæk/ or /ɑɪɹæk/ than they would be to say /ɪɹɑk/.

But if they identified as politically liberal or as democrat, they would be likelier to say /ɪɹɑk/ than other people. There was still a slightly higher likelihood that they would use more source-like pronunciations. Then, when I looked at the other predictors, the stronger predictor – I won’t get into the weeds of statistical comparison and stuff – but the better predictor was actually the globalist/nationalist alignment. That actually seemed to explain a lot of the pattern with politics. It was a better predictor whether they aligned as more globalist or nationalist whether they would use a more or less source-like pronunciation, which I think also helps get at, a little bit, trying to remove politics from this in a sense or at least thinking about how, if this is a better predictor than political identity, then maybe both of these pronunciations and also these ideologies are not necessarily the same as political identity in and of themselves.

There’s at least some room for thinking about some nuance in there and thinking a little bit more about maybe these pronunciations are reflecting how people think about these pronunciation’s impacts on people who identify with the source, you know – that that’s reflecting these ideologies a little bit more. I mean, maybe that’s a little too far-reaching or getting at my wanting to try to get away from the politics but thinking about what this data is saying about some of the nuances in there.

Megan Figueroa: I came of age – are you a US citizen? Did you grow up here?

Zach Jaggers: Yeah.

Megan Figueroa: I came of age right when George W. Bush was president and 9/11 happened, so what I heard over and over again – I’m trying to remember. I think he said /ɑɪɹæk/, right?

Zach Jaggers: Mm-hmm. I have some recordings of /ɑɪɹæk/ and also some of /ɪɹæk/.  

[Recording of George W. Bush] My fellow citizens, at this hour American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm [ɪɹæk], to free its people, and to defend the world from grave danger.

[End recording]

Megan Figueroa: Yeah, so I was – but yeah.

Zach Jaggers: By Bush.

Megan Figueroa: So, /ɑɪɹæk/, /ɑɪɹæk/ over and over again. That’s how I thought that was said because I was, like, 13, 14, until I realized – and I feel like the rhetoric from him around that was like “We need to beat them. They are evil. We are not evil,” which is a very nationalist thing. When I started to get more nuanced into my understanding of the world, I was like “Oh, here comes other people.” And then Barack Obama comes, and they say /ɪɹɑk/.

[Recording Barack Obama]

As a candidate for president, I pledge to bring the war in [ɪɹɑk] to a responsible end.

[End recording]

I’m like “I’m gonna start saying it like that.” I made a conscious decision because I was like “He’s talking about it a certain way, and I’m noticing he’s saying it in a different way. I’m gonna pronounce it like him.” Did you have any experience with that?

Zach Jaggers: Well, yeah. I think that’s a big thing too is just recognizing that the pronunciations that you’ve heard around you definitely matter, right? I think there should be a huge asterisk that as much as this seems to, at the aggregate level, be predicted by people’s ideologies, that that doesn’t necessarily mean that every single person’s pronunciation of every single word is this very conscious decision saying something about their ideologies and definitely not saying something about, like, they surely fall along the extreme on all these ideological or political dimensions. There should be that huge asterisk there. What people heard pronounced around them definitely matters.

I think thinking about that – that’s kind of the past, right, what things they have heard influence them. But there is also the thinking about what this means moving forward. I think those ideologies also seem to influence people there too. I think that that is part of that is deciding like, okay, maybe now I’ve heard a different pronunciation, or maybe now, if I have this different ideology, do I want to be more attentive to looking up pronunciations or how these words are pronounced in their source languages and try to evaluate, is the pronunciation I’m using now the degree of accommodating the source pronunciation that I would like to apply? Or is there a degree further of accommodating that source pronunciation that I would like to apply further? That is a reflection of your ideology.

I should just claim that I also did – so Lauren Hall-Lew and colleagues’ study – they were looking at politicians. Those politicians were from lots of different regions. They controlled – they didn’t control – but they were able to account a little bit for those politician’s regional identities and their regional accent varieties. They did not find that to have a significant effect. It did not necessarily seem like their political identities were – that the effect that they saw was totally just because of political identity correlating with regional accent variety.

I had to take a different approach. I totally controlled for regions. I just ran this all in one place. By still finding this effect even when I was doing the study in one place, that was what was suggesting to me like “Okay. This effect is still real and not all just because of people’s regional accent.” But, caveat, I wasn’t looking at the whole country. Part of that study was as looking – and thinking about the moving forward component – I also did a study looking at how people treated new words.

I exposed people to fake words that they never heard before. I framed those words to people as like “This is a foreign word from a foreign language,” and they were just fake words. So, “sheenya” versus “sheeniya,” or “sloxy.” I exposed them to those words in a short story that they heard. Afterwards, then I had them read a sequel that then got them to say those words out loud again. Then, I could see, like, how well did you imitate the word that you heard? Then, I found the same effect where people who were more nationalist aligning than globalist aligning were more likely to stray from the pronunciation that they had heard. If they had heard, “sheeniya,” they were more likely to say, “sheenya” or vice versa. Also, if they had heard “sloxy,” they were more likely to say, “slosky.” Whereas, if they had been more globalist aligning, they tended to be more faithful to the pronunciation that they had heard before. At least in terms of, like, new words, there also seems to be that same effect.

When you’re stripping the effect of the pronunciations that they had heard before, that effect seems to hold. But we should still remember that the pronunciations that people have heard before do matter. We should still be careful about – just because you’re using this pronunciation, that definitely means all of these things about you.

Megan Figueroa: I say as a scientist, that’s a really fucking clever experiment. That was really good. Very cool.

Carrie Gillon: With Iraq, I feel like my pronunciation varies quite a bit from sentence to sentence. I even studied Arabic for two years, pre 9/11, so I knew how “Iraq” should be pronounced. But, yeah, even with all that background, I still sometimes say /ɪɹæk/. So, yes, obviously one pronunciation tells you nothing.

Zach Jaggers: Right. And audience is totally a thing too. I think also thinking about how these pronunciations are clearly charged given the whole pretentious judgement thing too, thinking about how who you’re speaking to matters, and especially thinking about – given all of the political charge just around everything lately, but also around this topic, around this speech feature – thinking about if you’re talking to different groups and not wanting to add a political charge element, is there a degree of accommodating that you wanna do there? Again, then also weighing that with how much are you accommodating people who might not be in the room, you know, that kind of – yeah.

Carrie Gillon: Right. I thought it was really interesting that you brought up Obama and /pɑkəstɑn/ as opposed to /pækɪstæn/.

[Recording of Barack Obama]

I am gravely concerned about the situation in [pɑkəstɑn].

[End recording]

I don’t hear that very often in the United States, that pronunciation. It’s very rare. It’s not that common in Canada either, but I think it’s a little bit more common to hear it, the /pɑkəstɑn/. He was even thanked for it, which I thought was very interesting. Should we maybe be trying to do this more often if it makes people feel better about their language or their country or whatever?

Zach Jaggers: Yeah, it’s a really complicated – I think definitely, like I said before, in terms of just how the pronunciations you’ve heard around you and how that plays a really big role and just how your sound system plays a really big role in the pronunciations you use, one element is just, like, to what degree are you considering a pronunciation more or less source-like. I think we should just be really careful in judging people’s pronunciations right off the bat, especially if we’re thinking about the intent there.

I think that’s one case where I think avoiding judging certain pronunciations as, like, would-be – just, in general, we should avoid judging certain pronunciations, especially given that we see that there are a lot of factors at play. I think that would be really crucial. But I think that this does balance a certain line, right, of also thinking about how pronunciations can reflect certain biases and also manifest and propagate those – thinking about that too. A lot of times, this tends to be on the perception-end that we want to try to encourage people to be more accommodating – accommodate being accepting of different people’s language varieties because they identify with those language varieties, right? We want to give them that space.

I think what this variable raises – what this linguistic variable, this phenomenon raises – is the question of “Does pronunciation come into play there a little bit?” There are other realms where thinking about language production also comes into play. When we think about ways that the language people uses seems to be a way of manifesting and propagating certain biases, right? That does tend to be the times when people, like, identify directly with a certain form of language and the usage of it.

I think even just, like, growing up as gay and hearing, “That’s so gay,” used as a pejorative, where I’m like “That’s something that I identify with,” right? Obviously, this analogy’s somewhat different. There’s those flags to raise. But this is a linguistic form that I identify with but it’s being used in a very different way than I would like to hear it used, frankly. Trying to advocate for, like, “Hey, it’d be nice if people didn’t use it that way,” is a hard thing to do.

But, also, I remember seeing articles – even articles citing linguists and quoting linguists – where linguists are like “You know, language changes. This meaning is changing. Some people are just using this in a way that means something different. So, we should just be careful in the way that we think about that and judge people about it.” And I get that, in some ways too, right? Or it’s like – because people are using this in ways that they don’t know, right? They don’t know the biases that this is getting at and they maybe do think of this in a different way.

I think this is – getting back to the pronunciation – a similar, at least analogous, in some ways where it’s like “What biases is this reflecting and propagating?” but still is there a way that we can kind of call out that and try to propagate some kind of accommodating space, some kind of space for – I think the way to reframe that discussion is thinking about how do people identify with this form of language and how might they be impacted by that.

I think, in terms of thinking about the use of something that someone really directly identifies with, like the use of “That’s so gay” in that way, is a very clear case of this is something that people are using that is discriminatory. There are ways that we can try to make people aware of that discriminatory nature of it, even then, without necessarily being judgmental of them because we recognize that they have been indoctrinated into this usage and because this is a reflection of the broader society that they have been around.

I think the pronunciations, too, especially pronunciations like someone’s name that someone really directly identifies with, right? We see this with names a lot of times too where people’s names, especially people from ethnic and linguistic minority backgrounds with names that get mispronounced a lot, where they personally identify with that, it would – Mary Bucholtz has a really good paper on this talking about how we can be attentive to students’ names and thinking about how to make sure that we try to pronounce them in the way that they want them to be pronounced. I think that that is a really crucial thing to be attentive to because they identify with those names and the pronunciation of them. Hearing them pronounced in a different way does feel marginalizing.

We can then move forward in thinking about does this apply to loanwords too – maybe to a lesser degree, maybe not – but also maybe mitigated by other factors like the sound system or factors like how long this loanword has been established in the borrowing language, so factors like that, but still asking ourselves, “Is there a degree to which we can accommodate a more source-like pronunciation of this word that gives space for people who identify with the source pronunciation of this word that feels less like this enforced assimilation?” It is a complicated variable where there is a lot of elements to think about, like how directly do people identify with the source pronunciation and what mitigating factors there are and how can we keep this from feeling super prescriptive and judgmental while still thinking about the biases that might be reflected and propagated in the use of less source-like pronunciations. But I think really framing this as thinking about the people who identify with the source is a good steppingstone.

Carrie Gillon: Well, to go to names, I do feel like proper names and place names, they’re closer than, say, /ɸoɪjɛɪ/. It feels less important to pronounce /ɸoɪjɛɪ/ the closer-to-French way. Although, again with names, it depends on what sounds are in that name how likely it is an English speaker’s gonna be able to pronounce it correctly. It’s tough. You should try. You should still try.

Megan Figueroa: Oh, yeah. Then there’s the whole – I’ve said this before on the show because my last name gives me problems with people who are like �� so, maybe they’re overcorrecting. And I mean that – from the bottom of my heart I appreciate it. But I’ll say, “Yeah, my name is Megan Figueroa,” and they’re like “No, but how do you really say your last name?” And I was like “Oh, no, no, no.” That’s how I really say it sometimes. And it’s okay.

What you just said before, Zach, was beautiful and nuanced and I love it. I have so many thoughts, so many beautiful thoughts. But I’m thinking, yes, listen to the person. That might be the one thing to take away because, yes, language changes. We should not use that as an out because once we know that that language change is coming from a discriminatory place, we have the responsibility to take proper action and be like “Okay, oops. I’m sorry. I’m gonna do better next time.”

Zach Jaggers: Yeah. If it’s your own name, just like how, you know, there’ll be people who prefer to use different versions of their name, especially – so there’ll be lots of people who have Chinese names but who prefer to identify with Anglo names in the US because they don’t want to use Chinese names. But then, there’ll be people who are like “No, but really, I want to use your Chinese name,” and they’re like “Mmm, no. No, I would like you to use this name.” Listen to them.

I think there is space where this does come back around to loanwords too,  but where it is also complicated because we do see there is discourse where we can see people who are latinx and who are like “Mmm, maybe don’t go so far in pronouncing your Spanish words with totally Spanish phonetics when you’re speaking English.” Especially if you’re white, you know.

Megan Figueroa: Well, yeah. Sometimes, that feels like mock Spanish, right?

Zach Jaggers: Yeah, exactly. So, broaching that territory, being attune to that or just trying to be attuned to that. There was also, when my article came out, someone on Twitter linked my article to another thing that had happened where the prime minister of Australia, he was at this Diwali, Deepawali, celebration event, and he was talking about celebrating diversity, and he was using the melting pot analogy, which is nuancedly complicated, but his melting pot that he used was an Indian dish. He pronounced it /gəˈɹam məsɑlə/. But people in the audience – so this is a totally South Asian Australian audience – and someone in the audience was like /ˈgɑɹəm məsɑlə/. They tried to prod him like “Mmm, could you change your pronunciation because that’s not how we say it?”

So, there is some degree to which even non-proper words are still something that people identify with and would like there to be some accommodation of those pronunciations too. But I think, yeah, thinking about the people who identify with them and what they want is something to be attuned to and to keep trying to be attuned to and the nuances thereof as well.

Carrie Gillon: I think in this case it’s because it’s a culturally significant thing. Whereas, /ɸoɪjɛɪ/ is not. I don’t think the French would care at all. [Laughs] Maybe I’m wrong. Please tell me if I’m wrong.

Megan Figueroa: Some of us don’t have foyers. I don’t have a foyer. Excuse me. [Laughter]

Carrie Gillon: Okay. This has been a really, really great conversation. Maybe, as the last question, how can we go about not being assholes about all of this?

Zach Jaggers: I think really this has all kind of just summed up is, like, not judging people, thinking about how there’s lots of factors that go into their pronunciations, but still at the same time thinking about how people might identify with the source, or as the source, especially with names, and thinking about how using more or less source-like pronunciations might be a manifestation of certain biases or attitudes about them, and how there’s still room to move forward, and thinking about the degree to which people want to accommodate to those people with their pronunciations.

Carrie Gillon: I was thinking, too, sometimes speaking up and saying, “Oh, it’s actually pronounced this way,” is really hard. Just a little effort on your part, after someone did something really hard. Even I actually did eventually correct one of my professors because he would always say /kæʀi/ because it’s spelled with an A, and in the UK, you make a distinction between /ɛ/ and /æ/. But I can’t do that before R. It has to be /kɛʀi/. I don’t have /kæʀi/. So, I finally corrected him. And, you know, I’ve got a bunch of privilege, [laughs] and it was still hard for me. So, yeah, if someone tells you, yes, definitely listen to them. He never fixed it. [Laughs] It’s all right. It doesn’t matter.

Megan Figueroa: Well, that was a sad ending to that story. [Laughter]

Carrie Gillon: My grandmother also pronounced it that way because she had a more British – even though she was born in Canada – she had a more British accent, slightly, because her dad was English. Yeah, it’s fine.

Megan Figueroa: You know who you are.

Carrie Gillon: For me, it’s not the end of the world. But, yeah, no. Okay. Well, thanks again so much for coming on the show, Zach. This was great!

Zach Jaggers: Yeah, thanks for having me. It was great hearing your thoughts too.

Carrie Gillon: It was awesome.

Megan Figueroa: Ya’ll don’t be assholes.

Carrie Gillon: Don’t be assholes. [Laughter]

[Background music]

Carrie Gillon: The Vocal Fries podcast is produced by me, Carrie Gillon, for Halftone Audio, theme music by Nick Granum. You can find us on Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram @vocalfriespod. You can email us as vocalfriespod@gmail.com and our website is vocalfriespod.com.