London Language

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!!

'Cheer Up Chomsky'

Russell Brand - Cheer Up Chomsky

Here's a link to last week's Russell Brand show, also available as a podcast.

Given his views on media and the 'manufacture of consent', Russell decided it would be good to have Noam Chomsky on the show. So his producer sent an email inviting Chomsky to appear on the show, which he described as a comedy show on 'the UK's biggest radio network'. Chomsky replied:

'Appreciate the invitation. Frankly, life is hard and the world does not leave me lighthearted. I can't handle comedy.'

In response, Russell has introduced a new item to his show, 'Cheer Up Chomsky', in which he and his guests will be trying to come up with ways to make Chomsky feel a bit better about the world. The first attempt was from Victoria Wood ...

Billy

women in parliament

Guardian - How do women fare in parliament?

The report of Sylvia's research we mentioned before is now online

Billy

'a sensible prescriptivism'

Journal of Advanced Composition - A Conversation with Noam Chomsky

This is a Gary A. Olson's and Lester Faigley's 1991 interview with Chomsky, in which, among, other things, he argues for a 'sensible prescriptivism'. It's useful for differentiating the question of whether linguistics should be prescriptive from the question of whether there are other areas where prescriptivism makes sense. Most teachers of linguistics will suggest that prescriptivism in linguistics is not a good idea while also pointing out that they will be very much prescriptive when marking essays.

Q.   In College English in 1967, you wrote that “a concern for the literary standard language — prescriptivism in its more sensible manifestations — is as legitimate as an interest in colloquial speech.” Do you still believe that a sensible prescriptivism is preferable to linguistic permissiveness? If so, how would you define a sensible prescriptivism?

A.    I think sensible prescriptivism ought to be part of any education. I would certainly think that students ought to know the standard literary language with all its conventions, its absurdities, its artificial conventions, and so on because that’s a real cultural  system, and an important cultural system. They should certainly know it and be inside it and be able to use it freely. I don’t think people should give them any illusions about what it is. It’s not better, or more sensible. Much of it is a violation of natural law. In fact, a good deal of what’s taught is taught because it’s wrong. You don’t have to teach people their native language because it grows in their minds, but if you want people to say, “He and I were here” and not “Him and me were here,” then you have to teach them because it’s probably wrong. The nature of English probably is the other way, “Him and me were here,” because the so-called nominative form is typically used only as the subject of the tense sentence; grammarians who misunderstood this fact then assumed that it ought to be, “He and I were here,” but they’re wrong. It should be “Him and me were here,” by that rule. So they teach it because it’s not natural. Or if you want to teach the so-called proper use of shall and will—and I think it’s totally wild—you have to teach it because it doesn’t make any sense. On the other hand, if you want to teach people how to make passives you just confuse them because they already know, because they already follow these rules. So a good deal of what’s taught in the standard language is just a history of artificialities, and they have to be taught because they’re artificial. But that doesn’t mean that people shouldn’t know them. They should know them because they’re part of the cultural community in which they play a role and in which they are part of a repository of a very rich cultural heritage. So, of course, you’ve got to know them.

If you'd like to read more on prescriptivism, Deborah Cameron's book Verbal Hygiene is a really good extended discussion.

Billy