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.