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Posts Tagged ‘language’

Rare Scots Dialect Spoken No More

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 9, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I’ve written several posts on the threat to languages that have few speakers — and on the linguistic preservationists racing against time. (Here, for example.)

Why does language extinction matter, you ask? Because language embodies so much about culture. We are poorer in being ignorant of how different people live and in having a chance to learn taken away from us.

Now the last speaker of a rare Scots dialect is gone. Writes the Associated Press, “In a remote fishing town on the tip of Scotland’s Black Isle, the last native speaker of the Cromarty dialect has passed away, taking with him a little fragment of the English linguistic mosaic.

“Academics said [October 3] that Bobby Hogg, who was 92 when he died … was the last person fluent in the dialect once common to the seaside town of Cromarty, 175 miles (280 kilometers) north of Edinburgh.

“ ‘I think that’s a terrible thing,’ said Robert Millar, a linguist at the University of Aberdeen in northern Scotland. ‘The more diversity in terms of nature we have, the healthier we are. It’s the same with language.’ …

“It’s part of a relentless trend toward standardization which has driven many regional dialects and local languages into oblivion. Linguists often debate how to define and differentiate the world’s many dialects, but most agree that urbanization, compulsory education and mass media have conspired to iron out many of the kinks that make rural speech unique.” More.

Photograph: Am Baile-High Life Highland/Associated Press.
Bobby Hogg, who recently passed away aged 92.

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Learning Basic Baby

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on April 26, 2012| 7 Comments »

It says here, at Pacific Standard, that learning a second language translates into clearer thinking. No surprises there, but good to have evidence.

In Providence this week, a certain baby I know is showing an affinity for more than one language. His mother thinks he finds his father’s Swedish soothing, especially when sung in a low voice.

While the baby is tuning in to Swedish and English, his parents are studying a language called Basic Baby. It’s the world’s oldest language. In its simplest form, it involves crying: “You’re doing this wrong — try a different tack.” Or silence: “You’re doing this right.” At higher levels, it gets more complex. For example, you may be doing something right, but there is still crying: “This digestive business feels totally weird.”

Basic Baby is not too hard to learn if you (a) pay attention, (b) realize that you will figure it out eventually. It was your own first language. If you are  rusty, maybe you just need to bone up a bit.

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Language is Funny

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged on March 19, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Language can be funny.

 

I like thinking about all the ways that the sign in a local shop window — “Craft Butchery” — could be read. Maybe the term is familiar to you, but it struck me funny. “We butcher arts and crafts”?

I guess it all depends on the meaning of “craft.” Small craft, as in small craft warning? “Hurricane predicted. Ignore this small craft advisory and invite craft butchery.”

If I saw the sign in Salem, I might conclude it was short for witchcraft butchery, but I still wouldn’t know if it was butchery by witchcraft or butchery of witchcraft.

Well, as you likely assumed straight off, the store sells cuts of meat. And the butcher is an artisan in his field.

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Bilingual Benefits

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on February 16, 2012| 5 Comments »

Like many Swedes, Erik is fluent in several languages and understands others. It’s a riot to hear him “conversing” with Svein. Svein says something in Norwegian. Erik answers in Swedish.

Language skill has come in handy for both Erik and Suzanne recently, as they are able to converse with the Honduran worker who is painting their new residence. Not only will the paint job be better, but Erik thinks he may have found a new group with whom to play pick-up soccer.

Beyond such practical matters, speaking other languages can improve brain capability and even keep Alzheimer’s patients functioning longer, as Jessica Marshall writes at Discovery News. The longer you speak two languages, the better.

“Being able to use two languages and never knowing which one you’re going to use right now rewires your brain. The attentional executive system which is crucial for all higher thought — it’s the most important cognitive piece in how we think — that system seems to be enhanced.” Read more.

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Saving Minority Languages Through Song

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on November 17, 2011| 2 Comments »

Thousands of languages are becoming extinct as the last of the people who speak them die off.

In a race against time, some determined souls who value the richness and insights that individual languages provide are making efforts to save as many minority languages as possible. We posted about that here.

Today National Public Radio had a feature on another approach to preservation, the Liet International Song Contest.

“Auditions are now underway for next May’s Eurovision Song Contest — that often-ridiculed television spectacle that has drawn millions of viewers around the world every year since 1956. In 2012 the host country will be Azerbaijan, since that country fielded last year’s winner. The show’s performers rely on outlandish costumes, dance moves and gimmicks to grab attention because most viewers can’t understand what they’re singing. But language is at the heart of another Eurovision-sponsored song and performance competition this weekend in Italy. The Liet International Song Contest is a very serious attempt to keep some of the continent’s neglected languages alive.”

Read more.’

 

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Esperantists in the Subway

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 29, 2011| 8 Comments »

When you have a doctor’s appointment in the morning and go to work late, you see a whole different crowd riding the subway. In the summer after rush hour, there are a lot of families on outings. A woman and a boy of about 11 got on and sat near me. The boy began to tell his mother that he had been reading about a made-up language called Esperanto. She said she had heard of it and thought it had been popular a long time ago but hadn’t worked out. An older kid they didn’t know chimed in to confirm the woman’s view. Esperanto was intended to be used as an international language, but nobody spoke it anymore.

That was too much for me. “Well,” I said, “hundreds of thousands of people speak it. I speak it.” If I may say so, the boy and his mother were delighted. Could I speak a few words, they asked?

“Mi parolas Esperanto,” I said. The boy repeated the “I Speak Esperanto” phrase several times. He then wanted to know “hello.” “Saluton,” I said. I told him and his mother why Ludwig Zamenhoff had felt a need for such a language more than 100 years ago in a war-torn part of Eastern Europe.

When the woman and the boy were leaving the train, they asked how to say “good-bye” and told me good-bye in Esperanto.

Now get this. Here is William Shatner, long before “Star Trek,” in a spooky black and white movie called “Incubus” — filmed in Esperanto!

That is so bizarre, I thought at first it must be a hoax. Maybe some Esperantists dubbed it for a joke on YouTube, I thought. But Wikipedia is very careful about such things, and it confirms that William Shatner performed in a movie in Esperanto that was thought to be lost. The recently rediscovered print had subtitles in French, which have now been converted to English. Read Wikipedia here. (Read my previous post on invented languages here.)

And just in case you are now inspired to learn the language, this little clip offers a pretty good lesson.

I hope the boy on the subway finds it. A terrifically curious and open-minded young man.

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