London Language

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