2b or not 2b?
This is an article by David Crystal arguing that:
'texting has not been the disaster for language many feared ... On the contrary, it improves children's writing and spelling'
language links
links for anyone
the last silent movie
Thanks to Artprojx I went to see this last night. Catch it if you can. It's showing in London a few more times this month. More details here
If you're interested in endangered languages, visit the Foundation for Endangered Languages
Billy
language teaching doubles in English primary schools
Times Online - Primary Schools Double Language Teaching
This increase was entirely expected given the government's aim to have all primary schoool chiildren studying a second language by 2010:
Education Guardian - All primary schools to teach foreign languages by 2010
But it's still good news and, of course, teachers in secondary school and higher education will be waiting to see what effect this has as these young linguists move through the system.
The Linguists
The Linguists was a big success at Sundance this year and is showing on the 7th of May as part of Endangered Languages Week
Endangered Languages Week
If you're near London from the 30th of April, there are lots of interesting events taking place during Endangered Languages Week
If they're lost, who are we?
If they're lost, who are we? — Washington Post
David Treuer on the loss of Native American language and culture. It's not all bad news:
'There were just over 200,000 Native Americans alive at the turn of the 20th century; as of the last census, we number more than 2 million.'
And the Blackfoot language is 'on the upswing'.
But the main message is that Native American culture is under threat.
The bit I found the most fascinating was the discussion of identity. Here's an extract:
'My favorite example of this difference was the question posed to an Ojibwe man by the Indian agent whose job it was to put him down on the treaty rolls. "Who are you?" the Ojibwe was asked, through an interpreter. "Oshkinawe nindaw eta," he replied, puzzled ("Only a young man"). The Indian agent noted this, and the Ojibwe man's family still bears his Anglicized response, Skinaway. The man had no thoughts, really, about himself as an Indian or as an individual. The question -- who are you? -- didn't even make much sense to him because the terms of identity didn't make any sense to him; they were not his terms. Nowadays, unlike Skinaway, many of us have come to rely on ways of describing ourselves that aren't ours to begin with.'
theft and inverted commas
JK Rowling sues over Harry Potter 'rip-off' — Times Online
Interesting ideas here about literary theft.
JK Rowling is objecting to the publication of a Harry Potter 'lexicon'. She's upset about the poor quality of the book and also says that the lack of quotation marks 'particularly galls' her. She says that if these had been appropriately used, 'most of the lexicon would be in quotation marks'.
Another issue this raises is whether the author of works of fiction has rights over reference works related to them.
She's also concerned that this might affect sales of her own planned encyclopedia which she plans to publish to raise funds for charities. She has been amazingly generous with her earning potential so I wonder how much impact this part of her claim will have.
'Linguists' at Sundance
Reuters - Linguists at Sundance
It seems linguists are the talk of the Sundance film festival this year.
Billy
endangered language
BBC - split imperils Mexican language
This is the story of how, to quote the story:
'An indigenous language in southern Mexico is in danger of disappearing because its last two speakers have stopped talking to one another'
Billy
The Language Show
Those who did not go to the Language Show at Olympia on the 2nd - 4th November, missed out on the exciting presentations. For me, it all began on Friday afternoon at 14:45 when Salem Mezhoud presented on 'When an old man dies, a library dies with him' and gave a rare insight into these disappearing worlds, which were accompanied by extraordinary pieces of language we may never be fortunate enough to hear again. Then at 16:45 I was treated to an exploration of the social variation in British English associated with the upper, middle and lower classes and was given plenty of live examples and insights into what your speech habits say about you, by Jonathan Robinson, who presented 'How the way that you speak reveals who you are'
Sunday saw Tania Styles demonstrating how difficult it would be to talk to our ancestors and how hard it would be to understand each other over a gap of ten, a hundred, or even a thousand generations. She went on to show just how much language has evolved over time during her presentation on 'If we had to talk to our ancestors, would we understand each other?'
Of course, there were lots of other things to see and do there. However, I thoroughly enjoyed the presentations on the days I went and cannot wait for the next installment!!
