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The 2010 Census and LanguagesWe received notification recently that we were about to receive our 2010 Census forms in the mail any day now. I’ve had a secret love of filling out forms ever since I was asked to fill the circles in completely with a No. 2 pencil on an IQ test when I was in the 2nd grade, so this is super exciting for me. If you’re not as nerdy about circles and pencils as I am, this might not be as exciting for you, but there’s a linguistic interest to the census, as every census has a section on languages. According to 2000 Census figures, 46,951,595 Americans stated that they spoke a language other than English. How will the numbers have changed since the last census in 2000? While we’ll have to wait until the end of the year for the results, you can look back into the extensive amount of data the government has gathered on language and demographics from previous censuses on their website. The Census Bureau also provides an extensive list of languages for respondees to choose from. My favorite designation? “NOT IN UNIVERSE.” Perhaps this applies to all the alien languages we’ve been talking so much about lately on this blog? (SUZANNE) Tags: census
Oscar for Foreign Language Film: Anything But Na’viThe buzz around the Oscars seems mostly focused on the triumph of The Hurt Locker and its director Kathryn Bigelow, but we couldn’t help commenting on the foreign language ties to this year’s Oscars. Argentinian Juan José Campanella, accepting his Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award for El Secreto de Sus Ojos (The Secret in Their Eyes), said he was grateful that the Academy didn’t consider Na’vi a foreign language. (Ben Stiller considers it a foreign language, and tried to speak it when he came out on stage dressed as one of James Cameron’s characters, though to my relatively untrained ears, Stiller’s Na’vi sounded a lot more like Yiddish.) This made us wonder: what DOES qualify as a foreign language film at the Oscars? Apparently a majority of the film’s dialogue must be in a language other than English; if too much English dialogue is included, a film may be disqualified from inclusion in the category. (To this point, it’s interesting to note that in 1983, Le Bal —a film from France with no dialogue whatsoever—was nominated in this category.) In 2006, the Academy began allowing countries to submit films in which the dialogue was in a language other than the native language country. So let’s say you made a film in Great Britain, but the dialogue was entirely in Polish? You’d be eligible for the prize. As long as it was good enough…and, apparently, as long as it’s not in Na’vi. (Speaking of foreign languages and the Oscars, did you know that Best Actress Academy Award Winner Sandra Bullock speaks fluent German? Now you do.)
Nice Games, Eh?The other day I saw one of those Olympic filler pieces that highlight the local culture and/or language of the host city. Not surprisingly, since the games are being held in Canada, the segment focused on the use of “eh?”... More Tags: Canadian English, English
Kawaguchi vs. KavagutiWatching the Olympic Games is a feast for language lovers - trying to hear glimpses of languages as the athletes wait for their scores, catching the French translations of every single announcement, and, especially, listening to the commentators’ interpretations when pronouncing the names of the athletes. Language Hat points to a New York Times article on Japanese-born Russian figure skater Yuko Kawaguchi/Kavaguti, and reminds us that it’s not as simple as a name change. The resulting discussion in the comments section is an interesting look at Russian orthography and phonology. Tags: Olympic Games, Russian
International Mother Language DayFebruary 21st is the United Nations’ International Mother Language Day. ... More Tags: mother language, United Nations
Cowford Winter GamesBetween the luge and the skiing and the skating and the snowboarding, an annoying question has been eating at me. What the heck does “Vancouver” mean? Thankfully we have the internet, so it took about 20 seconds to find the answer. (Several days to actually type the phrase “etymology of Vancouver” into a search engine, but that’s not the fault of the internet.)... More Tags: Dutch; Olympics;
Official Languages of the Olympic GamesThe official languages of the Olympic Games are French, English, and the language of the host country. This means that all announcements are given in those three languages. ... More Tags: English, French, Olympic Games, Olympics
Chinese Language Learning a Fad?There’s an interesting piece in the Times on the rise in American interest in learning Chinese. In the past, there has been increased interest in learning Russian, Japanese, and Arabic, influenced by political, economic, and other trends. With the rise of China, Chinese seems to be the latest language that’s grabbing the attention of Americans.... More Tags: Chinese, language myths
Oscar Nominees for Best Foreign Language FilmMovies are a great way to practice a foreign language. They’re fun, you can learn a lot about the culture of the country, and they allow you to listen to your language of choice in a natural, conversational setting. And now you have five great recommendations for films to watch! ... More Tags: Academy Awards, Arabic, foreign language film, French, German, Hebrew, movies, Oscars, Spanish
What Does the Elephant Say?I was recently watching 60 Minutes, and one of the segments was about the efforts of several researchers who are attempting to compile an elephant language dictionary. It sounds silly at first, but what’s so silly about trying to understand what others are saying to you? That’s what we try to do here on a daily basis. While we’re not exactly on the verge of publishing an Elephant-English/English-Elephant Dictionary, it’s interesting to think that at some point every language needs to be figured out and quantified in a way people who don’t speak that language can understand. Figuring out what animals are saying — without the human-to-human ability of conveying with a simple gesture that an orange is, indeed, an arancia, apelsin, burtuqāla — might just take a little bit longer. Visit The Elephant Language Project website at Cornell to learn more. (Related: The Scientific American weighs in briefly on animal languages in its podcast “Do All Animals Sound the Same?”)
Bing Supports Translation into KreyòlAt the request of the community involved in earthquake relief efforts in Haiti, Microsoft has added support for Haitian Kreyòl to its Bing translator. Read more about the project in this article. ... More
Reading ArabicMost people, until they become fluent enough in a language to be confident readers, rely on translated literature for reading books from other countries. There’s a well-documented dearth of foreign literature in translation published in this country, but what does exist can do wonders for cultural understanding. In a recent issue, The New Yorker looked at some of the Arabic texts currently available to English-speaking readers, and what translating Arabic texts can do to help broaden our understanding of Arabic-speaking cultures.... More Tags: Arabic
Announcing the WinnersWe’re pleased to announce the winners of our Celebrate Italian Heritage Contest. ... More Tags: Italian Heritage Month
Do Newborns Cry in Different Languages?According to one study, yes. ... More
Are There “Happy Languages?”In this interesting blog post, Olivia Judson asks whether certain languages predispose their speakers toward happiness more than other languages do.... More
What Language Do They Speak in Chinatown?The obvious answer would be Chinese, but some would argue that there’s really no such language. ... More Tags: Cantonese, Chinese, dialects, Mandarin
October Is Italian Heritage MonthOctober is a wonderful month. The world is looking simply bellissimo, the trees are making their transition from green to red, suggesting, hmmm — an Italian flag, perhaps? I don’t know about you, but I’ve been craving some warm minestrone soup. Columbus Day is around the corner — what a time to celebrate Italian heritage! All month we’ll be sharing some essential Italian phrases with you, and sharing some thoughts from Dianne Hales, author of La Bella Lingua, on the joys and romance of learning the Italian language. Even more exciting: we’d like to share our love of learning Italian with you by giving away Dianne’s book, a Fodor’s Italy 2010 guide, and some of our own bestselling courses (Complete Italian, Baby’s First Words in Italian, and 2000+ Essential Italian Verbs). Five lucky Italian lovers will walk away with this prize package, valued at over $100, to start on — or return to — their Italian learning adventure. Enter to win on the Celebrate Italian Heritage Contest page. Stay tuned: there’s a lot more on the way! Tags: Italian, Italian Heritage Month
Jijks!That would sound something like “yikes!” in Dutch, and it’s what I said to myself when I read this piece about the Dutch influence on place names in New York City. There’s a flurry of Dutchiness going on here right now, in celebration of the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s arrival in these parts. (No, he wasn’t Dutch, but he was sailing for the Dutch East India Company poking around the waters that would later bear his name in the hopes of finding the fabled Northeast Passage.)... More Tags: Dutch
“I salute yaw vigah”One among us hails from Woostah, or rather Worcester, Massachusetts. He doesn’t speak that way any more, but did as a child, and can summon it at will. Which makes for a really good Mayor Quimby impersonation. (He also talks about wicked hahd slahp shawts, as in ice hockey.)... More
The Technology of LinguistsThe New York Times discusses the tools linguists use in their attempts to document and preserve language. The relationship between linguistics and technology goes deeper than what format the sounds are recorded in. Dr. Childs, who remembers working with computers as large as a room when he was a doctoral student, said that theories of language often shaped themselves to resemble the tools at hand. In the beginning, he said, linguists imagined that the mind processed language with many rules and little in storage. “What happened over time was that more and more stuff was moved into the lexicon, was listed there, and that sort of paralleled developments in the computer industry of storage getting cheaper,” he said. Tags: linguistics, technology
Bilingualism and Tip-Of-The-Tongue ExperiencesAn article at The New Scientist discusses an experiment on the relationship between speaking more than one language and not being able to remember the word for something. To provoke tip-of-the-tongue moments, the researchers showed the bilinguals, as well as a control group of 22 English monolinguals, pictures of dozens of different objects and challenged the volunteers to name them in 30 seconds. The viewed objects - which included axes, weathervanes, gyroscopes, nooses and metronomes - were obscure enough to elicit tip-of-the-tongue experiences in all but one participant. As with previous experiments, monolinguals had fewer tip-of-the-tongue experiences than bilinguals, about 7 words versus 12, out of a total of 52 - though Pyers’ team counted only instances where the volunteer knew the word. Tags: bilingualism
Does English Have an Infinite Number of Words?Following up on yesterday’s post about the size of the English lexicon, we think that an argument could be made that English has an infinite number of words. ... More Tags: English, Global Language Monitor, meaning, recursion, words
One Million Words? Really?The idea behind The Global Language Monitor’s Million Word March is certainly compelling, especially if you happen to be a proud native speaker of English. The English lexicon, it claims, has just grown to over 1,000,000 words, far surpassing other languages. ... More Tags: English, Global Language Monitor, lexicon, Million Word March, word
And the Emmy for “Most Impressive Multilingual Performance in a Drama” goes to… Jacob!Despite feeling bummed out to have to wait until 2010 (next decade!) for the next and final season of Lost, we were treated to an extraordinary display of multilingual talent from the no-longer-mythical Jacob character from Lost. English, Korean, Russian, Greek (sort of) and not to mention somehow interpreting those guttural moans emanating from a freshly defenestrated Locke… Jacob showed unparalleled linguistic range. Come to think of it, with all of the time travel (which hurts my brain anyway) and subtitles, maybe I CAN wait until 2010 to pick up again. (TOM) Tags: English, Greek, Korean, Russian
Spoken World SeriesWe were thrilled to have recently expanded our Spoken World series to included six new languages: Croatian, Dutch, Greek, Irish, Polish, and Thai. To show you how excited we are, we’re going to share some basic phrases in each of the six new languages here on the blog. With audio and everything! Click here for essential phrases in Dutch, Thai, Irish, Polish, Croatian, and Greek. Tags: Croatian, Dutch, Greek, Irish, Polish, Spoken World, Thai
Ma Mitavanim!Interesting blog piece about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election slogan. The Farsi phrase “Ma Mitavanim” means “We Can.” Sound familiar? Tags: Ahmadinejad, Farsi, Iranian election, Yes We Can
The Syrian Revival of AramaicAramaic is seeing a revival among young Syrian language learners, according to this article in The Guardian. Ilyana Barqil wears skinny jeans, boots and a fur-lined jacket, handy for keeping out the cold in the Qalamoun mountains north of Damascus. She likes TV quiz shows and American films and enjoys swimming. But this thoroughly modern Syrian teenager is also learning Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus. Tags: aramaic, syria
Language of the Swine FluProbably the last thing most people are worried about when it comes to this latest outbreak is what to call it. (Although admittedly, we find the name ‘Swine Flu’ a bit odd.) Apparently, some people are concerned about the name, for a variety of reasons. Read more about it in this New York Times article. Tags: disease names, language, Swine Flu
The Linguists on PBSTomorrow night (February 26th, 10pm EST), PBS will air a documentary called The Linguists, which follows ethnographers David Harrison and Greg Anderson as they travel the world attempting to preserve dying languages by documenting them. Seed Magazine talks about the documentary, and posts recordings of a few of the endangered languages being documented by the team; NPR also has a story and a clip from the film. (SUZANNE) Tags: endangered languages
Ireland’s most notorious driver: a little plastic cardA startling (and language-related!) discovery in Ireland, from BBC News: believe it or not, a serial traffic offender, wanted by the Irish police, turned out to simply be a language misunderstanding. And yes, this story is pretty hilarious.... More Tags: Ireland, Polish
GlobishThe BBC reports that a new brand of English is emerging, a neo-language of international communication called “Globish” that — despite technically being English — leaves many English speakers out of the communication puzzle. In a meeting with colleagues from around the world, including an Englishman, a Korean and a Brazilian, he noticed that he and the other non-native English speakers were communicating in a form of English that was completely comprehensible to them, but which left the Englishman nonplussed. He, Jean-Paul Nerriere, could talk to the Korean and the Brazilian in this neo-language, and they could understand each other perfectly. But the Englishman was left out because his language was too subtle, too full of meaning that could not be grasped by the others. In other words, Monsieur Nerriere concluded, a new form of English is developing around the world, used by people for whom it is their second language.Defining traits of Globish: a vocabulary of no more than 1500 words, restricted use of abbreviations, humor, and metaphor that might confuse any non-native speaker of English. (SUZANNE) Tags: English, Globish
The Atlas of True NamesSome folks have glossed a good number of the place names of the world in plain English and created The Atlas of True Names. Spiegel Online has a photo gallery featuring various pieces of the map. (via kottke) According to Language Log, however, many of the names come from folk etymologies that aren’t necessarily accurate. Some of the etymological glosses given in The Atlas of True Names are misleading in other ways. “New York” is given as “New Wild Boar Village.” That’s based on the idea that York in England derives from Old English eofor “wild boar” + Latin vicus village. But the Anglo-Saxon name Eoferwic was evidently a folk etymology of sorts, reinterpreting the earlier toponym Eboracum, a Latinization of Celtic Eborakon, said to mean “place of yew trees.” So should the “true” name of (New) York relate to boars or yews?(SUZANNE) Tags: maps, translation
Documenting Endangered LanguagesAnother website joins the effort to preserve endangered languages: Enduring Voices. (via Three Percent) ... More Tags: endangered languages
Ireland’s Language Dilemma: Gaelic and ImmigrantsTime Magazine looks into Ireland’s language dilemma: the challenge of encouraging an Irish language renaissance without alienating foreign-born immigrants. In places like Ennis, a town in southwest Ireland, immigrants are beginning to claim those assets for themselves. Like Lucan, the town’s population has also radically diversified over the past decade. Schools have shifted gears accordingly, setting aside a minimum of 5% of places to foreign-born students. The town’s Irish language school, Gaelscoil Mhíchíl Cíosóg, surpassed the figure this year, with 10% of its admissions made up of children of immigrant parents — Nigerian, Polish, Dutch, Ghanaian and Spanish among them. Initially, says principal Dónal O hAiniféin, the school was not an obvious choice for immigrants, but as their communities put down roots, “They tell me, ‘My child is Irish, I’d like him or her to be fluent in the Irish language.’” Schools around Ennis are now discussing raising the required minority admission rate to 25% in 2009.(via The Morning News) Tags: Gaelic, Irish
The Ugliest English Words in the Italian LanguageWe’ve heard plenty about the French being up in arms over the growing influence of English on their language; now, it seems the Italians are showing resistance as well. As testament to their dissatisfaction with a new vocabulary, Italians recently voted for the ugliest English words that have seeped into the Italian vernacular. The results judge the ugliest imports to be ‘weekend’, ‘welfare’ and ‘OK’, followed by ‘briefing’, ‘mission’, ‘know how’, ‘shampoo’ and ‘cool’. The worlds of business and politics contribute many of the alien words, from ‘question time’ to ‘premier’ and ‘bipartisan’.(SUZANNE) Tags: English, Italian
South Ossetia from a Linguistic PerspectiveA look at the recent events in South Ossetia from a linguistic perspective, from The New York Times. A war between the two groups in the early 1990s divided them almost surgically. Young Georgians stopped learning Russian, the lingua franca for the entire region in Soviet days; young Ossetians did not learn Georgian. Older people, who spoke both, pretended not to. Magdalena Frichova, who monitored the conflict in South Ossetia for 10 years for the crisis group, recalled watching local officials wait, poker-faced, for a translator even when it was obvious that they understood. Over time, people began to struggle with languages they once spoke fluently.(SUZANNE) Tags: Georgia, linguistics, South Ossetia
Olympic Opening Ceremony Uses Chinese Movable TypeHow is it possible that we have yet to mention the Olympics? I was in Ireland for the opening ceremonies, but caught the spectacle on RTE. Of course, as language fans tend to do, I got all excited when the performers started to form Chinese characters from inside their accordion boxes. The plucky Irish announcers were quick to help with the translation, letting us know we were seeing the Chinese character for “Peace” or “Harmony” repeated several times. It was pretty impressive, and when I got back I went searching for more information on the various elements of Chinese used in the ceremony, and found this detailed explanation. I must not have been listening to the Irish commentary closely enough, because I missed that the accordion boxes had their own characters on top, representing Chinese movable type. Another interesting fact: it apparently took these performers 10 months to perfect the movable type routine. More pictures from the ceremony can be seen on the Boston Globe’s Big Picture Blog. (SUZANNE) Tags: Chinese, movable type, Olympic Games, Olympics
Red State, Bleu StateAs political crossfire goes, this one is fairly tame, but Barack Obama did spark a bit of controversy last week when he suggested that more Americans should learn a foreign language. Republican VP hopeful Mitt Romney criticized Obama but at the same time fessed up to some elementary knowledge of French. Should Mr. Romney (or Senator Obama, for that matter) want to further pursue his French studies, we have many, many options! (TOM)
Hey, At Least We Try!A burst of post-July 4th patriotism here: a recent survey of more than 4,000 hotel employees worldwide found that we Americans top the list of tourists most willing to speak the local language. It’s gratifying to me, personally, that for all the times I’ve embarrassed myself in other languages, at least the effort is recognized. USA! (TOM)
May I translate your order?Reuters reports on more linguistic changes being made in China in preparation for the Olympics. If officials have their way, local newspapers reported on Wednesday, English-speaking visitors will be able to order “beef and ox tripe in chili sauce,” an appetizer, rather than “husband and wife’s lung slice.”(SUZANNE) Tags: China, Chinese, food, Olympic Games, Olympics
Multilingual Dream Team?The Los Angeles Lakers may be down 2 - 0 in their NBA Finals series against the Boston Celtics, but perhaps their fans can take comfort in the fact that this year’s team is probably one of the most impressively multilingual editions in league history. It’s fairly well documented that Kobe Bryant speaks fluent Italian, but perhaps less well knows is that Ronny Turiaf speaks five languages - English, French, Spanish, Italian, and Creole (plus, the hair). And if that isn’t enough, the Lakers also feature international standouts like Pau Gasol, Vladimir Radmanovic, and Sasha Vujacic. Just think about all of the linguistic options they can employ to complain about the officiating! Tags: multilingual athletes
Language Revival: CornishIt’s not easy to bring a language back to life. Just ask Cornish speakers, who, after years of division over standardization of the language, have finally agreed on how their language should be spoken.... More Tags: Cornish, dying languages
Portugal changes its languageThe “twin forces of globalization and Google” have convinced the Portuguese parliament to adopt the more popular Brazilian Portuguese as the national language. …The standardisation of the Portuguese language was inevitable. Brazil is the world’s fifth most populous country and is a much more powerful cultural and economic force than its European cousin. There are nearly 190 million Brazilians, compared with about 10.5 million Portuguese, and on the web Brazilians outnumber Portuguese by six to one, a disparity that will only increase in the coming years. This is important because the internet is now the medium of global intelligentsia and business. If you want to establish a worldwide influence, the net is your medium. And to be influential you must be able to communicate in the language that is most accessible and most comprehensible to your audience. (ELHAM)Tags: news, Portuguese
Are babies language biased?The world’s leading baby brain research lab has come out with some striking findings about language prejudice: More fascinating still is that Spelke’s lab has revealed a deep-seated prejudice, present in infants, that trumps racial bias: language. Dr Katherine Kinzler, though based in Harvard, spends much time running parallel studies in France. ‘Five-month-old babies will look longer at somebody who spoke to them in their language. Older infants want to accept a toy from someone who has spoken their language,’ Dr Kinzler says. ... MoreTags: babies, language, language learning, linguistics
The Attraction and Compulsion of Language in SchoolsVoice of America checks in with American public schools and their foreign language programs, and finds that they’re growing in popularity. Great Britain, meanwhile, is in the midst of large-scale language reform in their educational system, which, starting in 2010, will make foreign language study compulsory for all children aged 7 to 14, as The Guardian reports. (SUZANNE) Tags: foreign language education
Monkey SyntaxScientists have discovered that monkeys have a richer vocabulary than previously thought. “Hack hack hack pyow hack hack” might not mean much to human ears, but to a putty-nosed monkey it means, “I’m adult male X; I have just seen an eagle; I will now move away,” according to a new study showing that primates can combine individual calls to express different meanings. So there’s monkey syntax; does this means that there are also monkey misunderstandings and simian slips? (SUZANNE)
‘Obama’ and its variations
The latest word to enter the English language, according to the Global Language Monitor, is ‘obama’ and its different variations:
“Obama is used as a ‘root’ for an ever-expanding number of words, including: obamamentum, obamacize, obamarama, obamaNation, obamanomics, obamican, obamafy, obamamania, and obamacam. To enter the English language, a word has to meet certain criteria, including frequency of appearance in the written and spoken language, in the media, have a large geographic footprint, and to stand the test of time,” he points out. “In the past, this process would unfold over many years, even decades or centuries. However, the Internet, with instant global communication to billions of people has radically accelerated the cycle.” Tags: coinage, English
International Mother Language DayToday is UNESCO’s International Mother Language Day. (We first read about this over at Out of the Woods Now, where a recent talk given by David Crystal on endangered languages — entitled “The Future of Languages” — was being recapped.) The year 2008 was also proclaimed by the United Nations to be the Year of International Languages, with the slogan “Language Matters!” and an aim to educate about and protect endangered languages. (SUZANNE) Tags: endangered languages
Old age is more like a semicolonThe New York Times analyzes semicolon sightings in NYC: It was nearly hidden on a New York City Transit public service placard exhorting subway riders not to leave their newspaper behind when they get off the train. “Please put it in a trash can,” riders are reminded. After which Neil Neches, an erudite writer in the transit agency’s marketing and service information department, inserted a semicolon. The rest of the sentence reads, “that’s good news for everyone.” (ELHAM) Tags: English, punctuation, semicolon
Celtic: a minority language?Aberystwyth University’s department of Welsh recently received significant funding to investigate the roots of Celtic, and challenge the presumption that Celtic languages are minority languages: “Professor Patrick Sims-Williams, who is leading the project, said the grant would enable Dr Alexander Falileyev, a scholar from St Petersburg working in Aberystwyth, to investigate Celtic in southern Romania and as far east as Galatia in Turkey. Prof Sims-Williams said: “We know that these areas were colonized from the 3rd Century BC onwards by peoples who spoke Celtic languages. “It’s becoming clear that Celtic was one of the major languages of ancient Europe, alongside Greek and Latin.” The real question is though, are you pronouncing Aberystwyth correctly? (ELHAM)
Are you a jerk, or just a creep?Seems that linguistic evolution can work people up into a name-calling frenzy the same way biological evolution does. Dr. Mark Pagel of Reading University recently published a study arguing that new languages are formed not by the gradual drifting apart of groups who no longer need to communicate, but rather by sudden, possibly violent, disruptions. We guess that makes him a jerk. (TOM)
Punctuational bursts of language changeAccording to research findings released today, the evolution of language parallels evolution of species:... More Tags: evolution, language
The Quotative LikeDiscovery News looks at a study of the construction “to be + like” in instant messaging to indicate quoted speech, as in “He was like, did you see what she was wearing?”... More Tags: English
Yo : a gender-neutral pronoun?According to recent research, yo has emerged as the new gender-neutral pronoun in Baltimore. Linguists and teachers have found that their students are using yo in place of he or she, along with its common usage as a substitute for ‘you’ or ‘your’. Apparently this usage is almost entirely local to Baltimore. (ELHAM) Tags: dialect, English, language
New Year’s Eve around the worldAs the clocks turned to midnight in each time zone across the globe, “Happy New Year!” was shouted out in many different languages. Whether it was Saehae bok mani baduseyo! (Korean) or Gelukkig nieuwjaar! (Dutch), here’s just some of what you might have heard. Take the rest of the week to wish your friend a próspero año nuevo (Spanish). And in case you missed it on television: from Amsterdam to Zermatt, New Year’s Eve panoramas from around the world. (via Wired) (SUZANNE)
Belgian Beauty Queen BooedA Belgian beauty queen becomes the face of the current political tensions in Belgium by admitting on stage that she doesn’t speak Dutch. (SUZANNE) Tags: Belgium, Dutch, French
Feud endangers languageThe language of Zoque may die because two men in the Tabasco region of Mexico refuse to speak to each other. In 1960, according to a Mexican Government survey, there were 367 speakers of Zoque from Tabasco. In the early 1970s, linguists could only find 40 people who spoke the language. And now there are apparently only two: grumpy old men. Meanwhile, The Washington Post reports on a team of scientists traveling the world to document endangered languages. (SUZANNE) Tags: endangered languages, language, mexico
Growth in Mandarin Chinese immersionUSA Today adds to the conversation on the rising popularity of studying Mandarin Chinese as a second language with a look at the growth in immersion programs in the United States.... More
STOP…right there, pilgrimYou would think STOP on a bright red octagonal sign is imperative enough, but obviously not if we have to resort to these innovative measures: ... More
What dude, punk, hokum, and twerp have in commonThe New York Times explores Daniel Cassidy’s project of tracing the Irish origins of New York City slang: ... More
From banlieue to bestsellerThe Guardian and The Times examine Le Lexik des cités, a new book on French street slang sweeping the bestseller list in France, and discover the large influences of immigration, poetry, and music on the new French lexicon.... More
German language not under threat from EnglishAs English increasingly becomes the the international language of the internet, many European countries fear that the influence of English could be detrimental to the integrity of their language. But how great is the threat? Apparently, the German language is not at risk, according to a study. ... More
Complex words in other languagesTranslation is about nuance; there’s often meaning embedded in a word that is difficult to convey in another language using the same succinct package. Adam Jacot de Boinod has collected some of the more nuanced words from languages other than English in a new book, and The Times has a review. ... More
The Spanish language will be televisedAs the number of Latino characters on television increases, so does airtime for the Spanish language.... More
“Wedded” Under Pressure
Two Harvard scientists predict that irregular verbs that do not take the -ed ending in the past tense are prone to “regularization”:
To hyphenate, or not to hyphenate?Ah, the English language, that tricky orthographic beast. Even our punctuation is troublesome. Apparently, the hyphen is losing its place in dictionaries.... More
But is it still legal to parse?Apparently, the local government in the Brazilian capital, Brasilia, has outlawed the use of the gerúndio because of its apparent tie to inefficiency, indicating that something is in the process of being done, but has yet to be finished. (Technically, the gerúndio is translated as the “gerund,” but its grammatical function is closer to that of the English present participle.)... More
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.As far as good suggestions for language learning go, it seems that all that’s changed in 100+ years is the tone. ... More
A language dies every two weeks.The New York Times ran a story about how nearly half of the languages spoken today are in danger of extinction. National Geographic has a great interactive feature on endangered languages; be sure to explore the language hotspots map, and the handy list of internet resources for endangered languages.
R.I.P. Alex, the talking parrotThe New York Times reports on the death of the famous talking parrot Alex, who knew more than a hundred English words, could count, and recognize colors and shapes:... More
“KVNV of Sheba” isn’t as catchyIs KVNV, a Borean word meaning “woman” (the “V” indicates an unknown vowel) the root word for “queen”? Among much controversy, linguists working for the Evolution of Human Languages (EHL) project are trying to trace the common root of all human languages: ... More
A Bostonian Grammar VandalWatch your grammar, advertisers! The Boston Globe recently profiled Kate McCulley, who has been fixing bad grammar on business signs around Boston. One wonders what she thinks of the LOLcode phenomenon. Or what her next stop will be. New York, maybe?... More
Ni hao, KhartoumSudanese students are increasingly choosing Chinese as their preferred second language. (via The Morning News)... More
Newsy LinksThere’s a lot of buzz in the news today about endangered languages, online language learning and what not, so we thought compiling a short post of “LLinks” would be appropriate:... More
Spelling Bees in Japan?Slate published an article about how Spelling Bees are a distinctly American and British phenomenon, and other countries with nonalphabetic languages seem to lay more emphasis on recognizing and identifying characters and their meanings. If the idea of a Spelling Bee in Japan brings up images of interesting Japanese game shows, never fear, Kanken promises to be a fascinating (and pretty difficult) version of the Spelling Bee:... More
Wir Sind Helden covers “When Your Heart Stops Beating” in GermaniTunes Store is introducing the new “Foreign Exchange” program, where bands can translate, cover, and sell songs from different countries in their native languages. +44 will also be covering Wir Sind Helden’s “Guten Tag”. More importantly, this should lead to all sorts of interesting musicians covering each other’s songs. Like Melt Banana covering Jennifer Lopez. (On second thought, probably not a good idea.) (ELHAM)
In China, watch how you say “ma”In Mandarin, the syllable “ma” infused with different tones can result in different meanings, from horse to mother to a question mark. We blogged about Pirahã (another tonal language) earlier, and talking about tones; the internet is buzzing today with new research findings about the relationship between genetics and tonal / nontonal languages. According to two linguists from the University of Edinburgh, “people who carry particular variants of two genes involved in brain development tend to speak nontonal languages such as English, while those with a different genetic profile are more likely to speak tonal languages such as Chinese.” ... More
Smart babiesA feature in MSNBC explores recent research surrounding infants’ ability to discern details and sounds in foreign languages: ... More
House of LanguageA language museum might open in London during the 2012 Olympics:... More
In English, it’s “beauty” before “age”The Christian Science Monitor looks at something we native English speakers often take for granted: the order of modifiers in English.... More
Teaching a robot to talkWired ran a story a few months back, detailing MIT researcher Deb Roy’s experiments to catalogue language acquisition, by videotaping the first three years of his son’s life. His goal is to teach his robot “Toco” to talk; he hopes recreating stimuli similar to his son’s environment and experiences will allow Toco to develop linguistic ability.... More
Emoticons in translation?Masaki Yuki, a behavioral scientist from Japan explores how the use of emoticons differs across cultures : “In Japan, emoticons tend to emphasize the eyes, such as the happy face (^_^) and the sad face (;_;).” Notice how the emphasis shifts to the mouth in the other happy “:)” or sad “:(” faces.... More
Translation ex machinaThere’s a lot of hullabaloo surrounding the topic of machine translation. A few months ago, Wired ran a feature on the challenge of translation (for the machine as well as the human mind), highlighting some of the advancements currently being made in machine translation. The jury is still out on whether machines will ever be able to match the human ability to translate languages, but it seems that they’re certainly getting closer. ... More
Renewed interest in heritage languagesThe New York Times reports on the availability of language classes in Tagalog, Vietnamese, Korean, Arabic, and Mandarin for “heritage speakers.”... More
More world leaders speaking in tonguesBloomberg isn’t the only one trying to impress with his foreign language proficiency. UK Prime Minister Tony Blair congratulated the winner of the French presidential election, Nicolas Sarkozy, in a recent televised address in Sarkozy’s native tongue. ... More
Makad Manav 3Dubbed versions of Spider-Man 3 were released in four Indian languages: Tamil, Telugu, Bhojpuri, and Hindi. To be honest, “Makdi-Man” sounds better; it’s a nice mix in Hinglish. (ELHAM)
Talk to the handA study of chimpanzees and bonobos brings us closer to understanding how language may have begun to develop: gestures, apparently, came first.... More
Yo soy un MexicanerNew York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg visits Mexico and surprises everyone by answering reporters’ questions en español.... More
Sworn In On A DictionaryJurors in a California court room are being asked to discern the difference between two Chinese expressions in order to decide the fate of a man accused of being associated with a spy ring called “red flower of North America.”... More
Living Language Live!The new, redesigned site has finally gone live, and we couldn’t be more thrilled. ... More
Learning a native language could possibly stop extinction of species…This fascinating article explores how native and indigenous cultures identify and classify species yet to be discovered by scientists.... More
Know your grammarThinking about teaching English abroad? You should be able to tell the difference between the present simple, past simple, and past difficult, claims John Hughes at the Guardian. (Via Link) (ELHAM)
BBC builds “Dictionary of Man”Aims to provide the most complete picture of humankind. People working on the project were driven to catalogue human history, after realizing “that 300 African languages had already vanished”. (ELHAM)
We’re staying out of this oneThere’s a bit of a linguistic smackdown going on over an article published in The New Yorker about Dan Everett and his research with the Pirahã Indians, and Everett’s theory that the language of the Pirahã may challenge the concept of Universal Grammar. ... More
Language of the BlogosphereThe language of the Blogosphere is not English, but Japanese! Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere report finds Japanese as the number one blogging language. Maybe we should blog in Japanese instead. (ELHAM)
Writers in Translation AwardsPEN announces Writers in Translation awards : Albanian, Chechnyan, Algerian, and Turkish authors are the lucky recipients. (Via The Guardian) (ELHAM)
“That girls if iffy.”Avril Lavigne releases her new single “Girlfriend” in Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, German, Japanese, and Mandarin to mixed reviews over at MTV.com. Apparently, she rocks the Chinese version. (SUZANNE)
China cleans up its languageWe could all use a little mouth soap: In preparation for the upcoming 2008 Olympic Games, China is trying to clean up its language. ... More
Ni Hao, Kai-LanNickelodeon branches into the world of Chinese language with its new children’s program, in the vein of Dora the Explorer. The New York Times interviews the creator. (SUZANNE)
Saving OneidaThe Gazette Xtra reports on a website trying to preserve the Oneida language.... More
Sign language for toddlersSpeaking before you’re spoken to: Using sign language to communicate with toddlers.
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