How Languages Die
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Interdental Fricatives in Cajun English
Language Variation and Change, 10 (1998), 245-261. Printed in the U.S.A. © 1999 Cambridge University Press 0954-3945/99 $9.50 Let's tink about dat: Interdental fricatives in Cajun English SYLVIE DUBOIS Louisiana State University BARBARA M. HORVATH University of Sydney ABSTRACT The English of bilingual Cajuns living in southern Louisiana has been pejoratively depicted as an accented English; foremost among the stereotypes of Cajun English is the use of tink and dat for think and that. We present a variationist study of/9/ and /d/ in the speech of bilingual Cajuns in St. Landry Parish. The results show a complex interrelationship of age, gender, and social network. One of the major findings is a v-shaped age pattern rather than the regular generational model that is expected. The older generation use more of the dental variants [t,d] than all others, the middle-aged dramatically decrease their use, but the young show a level of usage closer to the old generation. The change is attributed to both language attri- tion and the blossoming of the Cajun cultural renaissance. Interestingly, neither young men in open networks nor women of all ages in open networks follow the v-shaped age pattern. In addition, they show opposite directions of change: men in open networks lead the change to [d], whereas women in open networks drop the dental variants of [t,d] almost entirely. The variety of English spoken by people of Acadian descent (called Cajuns) in southern Louisiana has been the subject of pejorative comment for a long time. -
Globalization and Language Policies of Multilingual Societies
Globalization and Language Policies of Multilingual Societies: Some Case Studies of South East Asia Globalização e políticas linguísticas em sociedades multilíngues: Estudos de caso do sudeste da Asia Navin Kumar Singh* Northern Arizona University Flagstaff / USA Shaoan Zhang** University of Nevada Las Vegas / USA Parwez Besmel*** Northern Arizona University Flagstaff / USA ABSTRACT: Over the past few decades, significant economic and political changes have taken place around the world. These changes also have put a significant mark on language teaching and learning practices across the globe. There is a clear movement towards multilingual practices in the world, which is also evident in the title of UNESCO 2003 education position paper, “Education in a multilingual world.” Given the long-standing history of multilingual contexts of the Himalayan region and the emergence of the two major global economic power centers of 21st century, China and India, language policies and practices of the region have become a great matter of interests for linguists and policy makers around the world. This paper uses case studies to investigate how globalization influences language education policies and practices in multilingual countries. The case studies that we have drawn from the four nations of South East Asia – Afghanistan, China, India, and Nepal offer insights for other multilingual nations of the world, as they portray the influences of globalization on language policies and practices of multilingual countries. This paper suggests more research on comparative studies of multilingual education across multilingual nations in the world. KEYWORDS: Language maintenance, globalization, multilingualism, Asian societies. * [email protected] ** [email protected] *** [email protected] RBLA, Belo Horizonte, v. -
Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, ,Mter Mitwirkung Von Theodor \\'1
alter SELECTED WRITINGS VOLUME 1 1913-1926 Edited by Marcus Bullock and Michael W. Jennings THE BELKNAP PRESS OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England , . I Contents Copyright © 1996 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights rese rved Printed in the United States of America y l Second printing, 1997 METAPHYSICS OF "Experience" 3 This work is a transla tion of selec tions from Walter Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, ,mter Mitwirkung von Theodor \\'1. Adorno und Gershom Sch olem, heraltSgegeben von Rolf Tiedemann lind Hermann The Metaphysics of You Schweppenhiiuser, copyright © 1972, 1974, 1977, 1982, 1985, 1989 by Suh rkamp Verlag. "The Task of rhe Tra nslator" originally appeared in English in Wal ter Benjamin, Illuminations, ed ited by Hannah Two Poems by Friedrich Are nd t, English translation copyright © 1968 by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. "On Language as Such The Life of Students 3' and the Language of Man," "Fate and Cha racter," "Critique of Violen,?;" " Nap les," and "One-Way Street" originally appeared in English in Walter Benjamin, Reflections, English translation copyright Aphorisms on Imaginati © 1978 by Harcoun Brace Jovanovich, Inc . Published by arrangement with Harc ourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. "One-Way Street" also appeared i.n Walter Benjamin, "One-Way Street " and Other Writings (Lon A Child's View of ColOl don: NLBNerso, 1979, 1985). "Socrates" and "On the Program of the Coming Philosophy" originally appeared in English in The Philosophical Forum 15, nos. 1-2 (1983-1984). Socrates 52 Publication of this book has been aided by a grant from Inter Nationes, Bonn. -
TITLE Kansas State Capitol Guide for Young People. Curriculum Packet for Teachers of Grades 4-7. INSTITUTION Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka.; Kansas State Dept
DOCUMENT RESUME ED 477 746 SO 034 927 TITLE Kansas State Capitol Guide for Young People. Curriculum Packet for Teachers of Grades 4-7. INSTITUTION Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka.; Kansas State Dept. of Education, Topeka. PUB DATE 2002-00-00 NOTE 27p.; Prepared by the Education and Outreach Division. Intended to supplement the "Kansas State Capitol Guide for Young People." AVAILABLE FROM Kansas State Historical Society, 6425 S.W. 6th Avenue, Topeka, KS 66615. Tel: 785-272-8681; Fax: 785-272-8682; Web site: http://www.kshs.org/. For full text: http://www.kshs.org/teachers/ classroom/capitolguide.htm. PUB TYPE Guides Classroom Teacher (052) EDRS PRICE EDRS Price MF01/PCO2 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Elementary Education; Guides; *Historic Sites; *Social Studies; *State Government; *State History IDENTIFIERS Indicators; *Kansas; *State Capitals ABSTRACT This curriculum packet is about the Kansas state capitol. The packet contains six graphic organizers for students to complete. The packets are divided into three sections (with their accompanying graphic organizers): (1) "Symbolism of the Kansas Capitol Dome Statue" (Who Are the Kansa?; Finding Your Way; Say It Again); (2) "Topping the Dome: Selecting a Symbol" (What Are They Saying?; What's on Top?); and (3)"Names as Symbols" (Native American Place Names). For each section, the teacher is provided with a main point and background information for the lesson. Answers for the graphic organizers, when necessary, are provided. (BT) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. Guide for Your\g,Dori@ Ad Astra, the statue by Richard Bergen, was placed on the Capitol Cr) dome October 2002 CD Curriculum Packet O For Teachers of Grades 4-7 © 2002 Kansas State Historical Society Prepared in consultation with the KA.NSAS Kansas State Department of Education STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY U.S. -
In Search of Esperanto
Interdisciplinary Description of Complex Systems 13(2), 182-192, 2015 INTRODUCTION: IN SEARCH OF ESPERANTO Humphrey Tonkin* University of Hartford West Hartford, USA DOI: 10.7906/indecs.13.2.12 Regular article ABSTRACT After almost one hundred years of continuous use, Esperanto has achieved the status and character of a fully-fledged language, functioning much as any other language does. Research on Esperanto is hampered because knowledge of the subject is often regarded, ipso facto, as evidence of a lack of objectivity, and also because Esperanto, as largely an L2, is elusive, and its speakers hard to quantify. The problem is compounded by the rapid shift in its community from membership-based organizations to decentralized, informal web-based communication. Also shifting are the community’s ideological underpinnings: it began as a response to lack of communication across languages but is now often perceived by its users as an alternative, more equitable means of communication than the increasingly ubiquitous English. Underlying these changes is a flourishing cultural base, including an extensive literature and periodical press. There is a need for more research – linguistic, sociolinguistic, and in the history of ideas. In intellectual history, Esperanto and related ideas have played a larger role than is generally recognized, intersecting with, and influencing, such movements as modernization in Japan, the development of international organizations, socialism in many parts of the world, and, in our own day, machine translation. KEY WORDS Esperanto, Esperanto community, interlinguistic research, language ideology CLASSIFICATION JEL: O20 *Corresponding author, : [email protected]; +1 860 768 4448; *Mortensen Library, University of Hartford, West Hartford, CT 06117, USA Introduction: in search of Esperanto INTRODUCTION In an influential essay some years ago, the late Richard Wood described Esperanto as “a voluntary, non-ethnic, non-territorial speech community” [1]. -
The Language of Fraud Cases. by Roger Shuy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015
1012 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 92, NUMBER 4 (2016) Jackendoff, Ray. 2002 . Foundations of language: Brain, meaning, grammar, evolution . Oxford: Oxford University Press. Newmeyer, Frederick J. 2005 . Possible and probable languages: A generative perspective on linguistic ty - pology . Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pinker, Steven, and Paul Bloom. 1990 . Natural language and natural selection. Behavioral and Brain Sci - ences 13.4.707–84. DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X00081061 . Progovac, Ljiljana . 1998a. Structure for coordination (part I). GLOT International 3.7.3–6. Progovac, Ljiljana . 1998b. Structure for coordination (part II). GLOT International 3.8.3–9. Department of Linguistics University of Washington–Seattle PO Box 352425 Seattle, WA 98195-2425 [[email protected]] The language of fraud cases. By Roger Shuy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. Pp. 301. ISBN 9780190270643. $99 (Hb). Reviewed by Lawrence M. Solan, Brooklyn Law School Most of Roger Shuy’s book , The language of fraud cases , describes cases in which S was in - volved as a linguistic expert, called by parties who were accused of some kind of fraud. Written in a journalistic style to engage readers from multiple disciplines, the book is a recent addition to a series of books that S has written over the past decade, describing his experiences as an expert witness. Other books in the series describe murder cases (2014) , bribery cases (2013), sexual mis - conduct cases (2012), perjury cases (2011), and defamation cases (2010). The case narratives most often describe a hypervigilant investigator or cooperating witness in - terpreting the target’s ambiguous or incomplete statements to confirm the suspicion that the target of the investigation has indeed committed a fraud. -
Language Obsolescence and Language Death*
Pierre Swiggers UDK81'0 C.I.D.G., Leuven TWO KEY CONCEPTS OF LANGUAGE ENDANGERMENT: LANGUAGE OBSOLESCENCE AND LANGUAGE DEATH* O. Introduction In the past few decades the growing awareness, among language comrnunities and linguists, ofthe seriously endangered position ofthe majority ofthe world's languages has led to various initiatives aiming at revitalizing or maintaining threatened languages: documentation, preparation of didactic materials and language courses, training of instructors, language survival programs, specialized conferences and scholarly publications, claiming oflinguistic-political rights, language awareness programs, etc. 1 Language endangerment and the position of minority languages have become part of the political and cultural agendas worldwide. In 1992 the Council ofEurope adopted the European charter for regional and minority languages, protecting the rights of minority languages (the Charter became effective on March 1, 1998; it has, however, not yet been ratified by several European countries). Language policy is also becoming a sensitive issue in the Russian Federation. In the United States two Native American Languages Acts were passed (in 1990 and 1992), promoting and guaranteeing the rights ofNative Americans to use and protect their languages. A number of Latin American countries now also have started to protect the rights of their native languages. Within UNESCO 2 the problem of endangered languages has received much attention ; the World Languages Report is housed at the organization's Basque centre. Various national and intemational centres and websites for the documentation, study and support of endangered languages have been created; the Intemational Clearing House for Endangered Languages is based 3 in Tokyo • The aim of the present paper is to offer an elaborate definition of two key concepts in the study oflanguage endangerment, viz. -
Language Loss Phenomenon in Taiwan: a Narrative Inquiry—Autobiography and Phenomenological Study
Language Loss Phenomenon in Taiwan: A Narrative Inquiry—Autobiography and Phenomenological Study By Wan-Hua Lai A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies of The University of Manitoba in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of MASTER OF EDUCATION Department of Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning University of Manitoba, Faculty of Education Winnipeg Copyright © 2012 by Wan-Hua Lai ii Table of Content Table of Content…………………………………………………………………………………………………..……ii List of Tables…………………………………………………………………………………………………..……...viii List of Figures……………………………………………………………………………………………………………ix Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...xi Acknowledgement………………………………………………………………………………………………..…xii Dedication………………………………………………………………………………………………………………xiv Chapter One: Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………….….1 Mandarin Research Project……………………………………………………………………………………2 Confusion about My Mother Tongue……………………………………………………….……………2 From Mandarin to Taigi………………………………………………………………………………………..3 Taiwan, a Colonial Land………………………………………………………………………………………..3 Study on the Language Loss in Taiwan………………………………………………………………….4 Archival Research………………………………………………………………………………………………….4 Chapter Two: My Discovery- A Different History of Taiwan……………………………………….6 Geography…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….7 Population……………………………………………….…………………………………………………….……9 Culture…………………………………………………………………………………………..……………………..9 Society………………………………………………………………………………..………………………………10 Education…………………………………………………………………………………………………….………11 Economy……………………………………………………………………………………….…………….………11 -
Judeo-‐Spanish and the Sephardi
The Last Generation of Native Ladino Speakers? Judeo-Spanish and the Sephardic Community in Seattle Mary K. FitzMorris A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts University of Washington 2014 Faculty advisor: Devin E. Naar Program Authorized to Offer Degree: Spanish & Portuguese Studies 2 © Copyright 2014 Mary K. FitzMorris 3 University of Washington Abstract The Last Generation of Native Ladino Speakers? Judeo-Spanish and the Sephardic Community in Seattle Mary K. FitzMorris Faculty advisor: Devin E. Naar, Marsha and Jay Glazer Chair in Jewish Studies, Assistant Professor of History, Chair of the Sephardic Studies Program La comunidad sefardí de Seattle, Washington es única no sólo por su tamaño en comparación con el tamaño de la ciudad, sino también por la cohesión que se percibe que existe aquí (Bejarano y Aizenberg, 2012, p. 40n2). Esta comunidad tiene dos sinagogas, varios organizaciones y grupos religiosos y culturales, y, más importantemente, un grupo de hablantes que se reúne cada semana para leer textos en judeo-español y “echar lashon” sobre sus experiencias con esta lengua. De hecho, Seattle es una de las pocas ciudades en el mundo que quedan con una población respetable de ladinohablantes. El judeo-español, o ladino, la lengua histórica de los judíos sefardíes, nació cuando los judíos hispanohablantes fueron expulsados de España en 1492 y se trasladaron a varias partes del mundo, particularmente al Imperio Otomano, integrando elementos de las lenguas que encontraron a su propia 4 lengua ibérica. Un gran porcentaje de la generación más vieja de los sefardíes de Seattle creció, si no hablando, por lo menos escuchando el ladino en casa; eran hijos de inmigrantes recientes, pero no hablaban la lengua con sus propios hijos. -
Acoustic Analysis of High Vowels in the Louisiana French of Terrebonne Parish
Acoustic analysis of high vowels in the Louisiana French of Terrebonne Parish Kelly Kasper-Cushmana∗ and Daniel Dakotaa a Department of Linguistics, Indiana University, 1020 E Kirkwood Ave, Bloomington, IN 47405, U.S.A. Abstract This study investigates high vowel laxing in the Louisiana French of the Lafourche Basin. Unlike Canadian French, in which the high vowels /i, y, u/ are traditionally described as undergoing laxing (to [I, Y, U]) in word-final syllables closed by any consonant other than a voiced fricative (see Poliquin 2006), Oukada (1977) states that in the Louisiana French of Lafourche Parish, any coda consonant will trigger high vowel laxing of /i/; he excludes both /y/ and /u/ from his discussion of high vowel laxing. The current study analyzes tokens of /i, y, u/ from pre-recorded interviews with three older male speakers from Terrebonne Parish. We measured the first and second formants and duration for high vowel tokens produced in four phonetic environments, crossing syllable type (open vs. closed) by consonant type (voiced fricative vs. any consonant other than a voiced fricative). Results of the acoustic analysis show optional laxing for /i/ and /y/ and corroborate the finding that high vowels undergo laxing in word-final closed syllables, regardless of consonant type. Data for /u/ show that the results vary widely by speaker, with the dominant pattern (shown by two out of three speakers) that of lowering and backing in the vowel space of closed syllable tokens. Duration data prove inconclusive, likely due to the effects of stress. The formant data published here constitute the first acoustic description of high vowels for any variety of Louisiana French and lay the groundwork for future study on these endangered varieties. -
A Historical and Phonetic Study of Negro Dialect. T
Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1937 A Historical and Phonetic Study of Negro Dialect. T. Earl Pardoe Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Part of the Speech and Rhetorical Studies Commons Recommended Citation Pardoe, T. Earl, "A Historical and Phonetic Study of Negro Dialect." (1937). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 7790. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/7790 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A Historioal and phonetic Study of Negro Dialect* A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Dootor of Philosophy in Louisiana State University* By T. Earl pardoe 1937 UMI Number: DP69168 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI Dissertation Publishing UMI DP69168 Published by ProQuest LLC (2015). Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code ProOuest ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. -
The Survival of French Culture in South Louisiana by Barry Jean Ancelet
The Survival of French Culture in South Louisiana by Barry Jean Ancelet "What's your name? Where're you from? Who's your daddy?" When Barry j ean Ancelet - a native of Louisiana you first meet someone from south Louisiana, these are the questions where he grew up with French as his first language- received his Master 's Degree in you will probably hear. And you have to answer them before you can f olklore from Indiana University and his get along about your business. They are not rhetorical questions but doctorate in Creole Studies at the Universite quite serious ones designed to elicit information which helps to place de Provence. He is currently Director of Folklore Programs, Center for Louisiana you in the world of the Cajuns and Creoles. If you are from the inside, Studies, University of So uthwestern they want to know where you fit; if from the outside, they want to Louisiana. know how you got in and why. Such concerns could be thought of as xenophobic, but they are not. Rather they are simply part of a ritual to establish relationships - one which is used by a people whose history of tragedy and turmoil has taught them to be careful. Such questions function as boots for a people used to high water. Young and old perform during Cajun Mardi The French founded Louisiana in 1699. At first there were just a few Gras at Fred's Lounge in Mamou, Louisiana. forts perched precariously along the rivers of the frontier. Eventually, Photo by Philip Gould 47 however, there developed a society of French colonials.