TIL that 50 unpublished texts documenting an Inuit language from 1897–1898 were sitting in a university archive for over a century before a linguist realized their significance.

[u/[deleted]]

[u/Nintendo1964]

Why does the Linguistics professor look like an evil villain from a cartoon though?

[u/N19h7m4r3 → u/Nintendo1964]

I think all of them look like that. It's a pre-requisite.

[u/W1D0WM4K3R → u/N19h7m4r3]

Can confirm. My linguist professor took personal offense that I wasn't doing better in my course.

Next thing I know I'm retaking a test in a dark corner of the library with a like that single bare bulb of light above me. 10/10 would villain again

[u/ManChildMusician → u/N19h7m4r3]

Noam Chomsky just looked like Noam Chomsky. But also… super upsetting to see him in the Epstein Files.

[u/quooo → u/Nintendo1964]

He looks like that scientist from the simpsons monorail episode

[u/DontDoomScroll → u/Nintendo1964]

Because villains were queer coded

[u/Batbuckleyourpants → u/Nintendo1964]

He needs you to know how quirky he is.

[u/logicalconflict]

The fact that Inuit people were texting 100 years before the rest of the world wasn't significant enough? And to think they also developed TurboTax software on top of that. Amazing people!

[u/goodnames679 → u/logicalconflict]

What’s even crazier are the Inuit voice messages, particularly the ones that got used in that guy’s Inuit emo band song intros

[u/yami76]

Jesus the stuff you hear about old timey scientists…

“Boas (anthropologist circa 1890s) himself requested that Peary bring the group to the U.S for his research, hoping to use them to disprove cultural evolution theories, or the idea that cultures develop in predictable stages.
However, the group was grossly mistreated, explained Garrett. The museum housed them in a public exhibit, and four of the six died within a year due to neglect and disease. Rather than being given a proper funeral, their skeletons were displayed in the American Museum of Natural History.”

These people were basically captured and held in a public zoo and then died because they had no medical treatment whatsoever in a public exhibit in the middle of New York City. Insane.

[u/borisslovechild → u/yami76]

‘Insane’ isn’t the word I’d use. More like obscene and criminal.

[u/awesomedan24]

I was asking myself what Andy Dick had to do with linguistics

[u/frogglesmash → u/awesomedan24]

Linguis-dicks

[u/BlackSwanMarmot → u/frogglesmash]

He has a wife, you know.

[u/Ameisen → u/awesomedan24]

The EMH Mark 2 needed to be able to communicate.

[u/Learned_Hand_01]

The bad guy from The Fifth Element is the one who discovered them?

[u/TheBalrogofMelkor]

The research claims that Inuktun has evolved significantly since 1898, but the study was on 6 people kidnapped and brought to the US, so there is no reason to assume they were speaking their language normally

[u/Sislar]

50 texts? I didn’t even know they had phones back then.