Back to Dr. David Harrison and endangered languages - Harrison believes language revitalization will be one of the most important trends in linguistics over the next couple of decades, and he believes companies need to get on board.
He is calling on technology companies, such as Microsoft, to help kids engender language. "The Microsoft Local Language Program can empower indigenous communities from the very moment when children in those communities first encounter a technology. It is a powerful thing for children to see their native language on a computer or on cell phone in a high tech medium. It validates the language and encourages them not to abandon the language. It shows them that their language is neither backwards nor obsolete and that it has use in the modern world and has value.”
It used to be different.
When I was growing up, the value of my language and its prestige came automatically as the result of the culture enshrined in it. I had Polish, Yiddish, English and Arabic spoken at home, then picked up a bit of Russian at school. None of the speakers of these languages needed the worth of their language validated by some PC.
It worries me immensely that kids now need to see their lingo on a hand-held phone screen to believe that it is OK to learn it. Amidst the many extinctions I am surrounded with - species of plants and animals, human languages, humanities subject at undergraduate level, common sense and politeness - here comes the extinction of the human wetware.
For all your English to Arabic and vice versa translations that will help you expand your business into the Middle East visit Arabic Language Experts at http://www.arabic.com.au/
Showing posts with label language learning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label language learning. Show all posts
Sunday, April 04, 2010
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Learning Japanese on the Field
I am not into sport at all, but the following article is about what motivates people to learn another language.
Tommy Manzella is a US baseball player, a shortstop for the Astros. The shortstop is often considered the most dynamic defensive position in baseball because more balls go to the shortstop than any other position.
But he still has time for his index cards. On his team is Matsui, the veteran Japanese second baseman who's in his third year with the Astros. Matsui can speak some beginner English, but Manzella wants to learn to speak to him in his own language. So he is working with Matsui's interpreter and jots down a few words every now and again. He is not aiming at being fluent - he just wants to be able to communicate.
I give him Kudos for that. Most of the words he has learned are at least baseball-related and concern defensive positioning on the infield or the best way to feed balls to Matsui while covering second base. He's also learned some numbers and question words.
What got him into it? A former team manager who worked in Japan told him "it goes a long way as far as your relationship if they see you, not only them trying to make an effort to learn your language, but you making an effort to learn their language. That's the kind of people they are. They show that as a sign of respect. "I was thinking that might be a good idea [to learn a couple words a day]. I think it's good to try to learn a new language because you never know when you're going to need it. I've got a situation here where I have someone I can go to every single day and say, 'Hey, is this right?' and he can help me out. If you wanted to do that normally, you'd have to pay a lot of money to have that kind of a system."
Sign of respect. You never know when you might need it. And it doesn't just apply to the Japanese. It applies to everyone. So if you are doing business (or just playing golf) with someone who is not from an English-speaking background, it pays to know the lingo.
For all your English to Arabic and vice versa translations that will help you expand your business into the Middle East visit Arabic Language Experts at http://www.arabic.com.au/.
Tommy Manzella is a US baseball player, a shortstop for the Astros. The shortstop is often considered the most dynamic defensive position in baseball because more balls go to the shortstop than any other position.
But he still has time for his index cards. On his team is Matsui, the veteran Japanese second baseman who's in his third year with the Astros. Matsui can speak some beginner English, but Manzella wants to learn to speak to him in his own language. So he is working with Matsui's interpreter and jots down a few words every now and again. He is not aiming at being fluent - he just wants to be able to communicate.
I give him Kudos for that. Most of the words he has learned are at least baseball-related and concern defensive positioning on the infield or the best way to feed balls to Matsui while covering second base. He's also learned some numbers and question words.
What got him into it? A former team manager who worked in Japan told him "it goes a long way as far as your relationship if they see you, not only them trying to make an effort to learn your language, but you making an effort to learn their language. That's the kind of people they are. They show that as a sign of respect. "I was thinking that might be a good idea [to learn a couple words a day]. I think it's good to try to learn a new language because you never know when you're going to need it. I've got a situation here where I have someone I can go to every single day and say, 'Hey, is this right?' and he can help me out. If you wanted to do that normally, you'd have to pay a lot of money to have that kind of a system."
Sign of respect. You never know when you might need it. And it doesn't just apply to the Japanese. It applies to everyone. So if you are doing business (or just playing golf) with someone who is not from an English-speaking background, it pays to know the lingo.
For all your English to Arabic and vice versa translations that will help you expand your business into the Middle East visit Arabic Language Experts at http://www.arabic.com.au/.
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
BBC: Worries About "Word Poverty" Unfounded
Children are to be offered lessons on how to speak English formally amid fears that many are suffering from "word poverty", it has been reported. But how many words do people tend to know and use?
Do people know more words than they actually use? And is having a large vocabulary something you learn or have a natural ability for?
These are burning issues in the worlds of linguistics and education. On Monday it was reported that children in England will have lessons in formal language amid fears that some are suffering from stunted vocabularies.
US company Global Language Monitor (GLM) believes that the one millionth word will be added to the English language in mid-June.
While there is agreement that a word becomes a word when it is used by one person and understood by another, grammarians and lexicographers stand divided when deciding which to include when calculating a total.
Obamamania, bankster and bloggerati are just some of the "brand new words" GLM has been tracking.
The operation, based in Austin, Texas, says 25,000 citations in the worldwide media, social networking sites and elsewhere are its benchmark for a word to be included in its total.
They estimate a new word is created every 98 minutes.
The English language is likely to contain the most words of all languages, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, and estimates for the number of words range from one to two million.
Agreement will probably never be reached over whether or not to include words used in botany or chemistry, let alone slang, dialects and influences from foreign shores.
Some areas GLM does not include are product names and chemicals and Paul Payack, president and chief word analyst, says the 600,000 species of fungus are not in.
So, can a precise word total ever be known? No, says Professor David Crystal, known chiefly for his research in English language studies and author of around 100 books on the subject.
"It's like asking how many stars are there in the sky. It's impossible to answer," he said.
An easier question to answer, he maintains, is the size of the average person's vocabulary.
He suggests taking a sample of about 20 or 30 pages from a medium-sized dictionary, one which contains about 100,000 entries or 1,000 to 1,500 pages.
Tick off the ones you know and count them. Then multiply that by the number of pages and you will discover how many words you know. Most people vastly underestimate their total.
"Most people know half the words - about 50,000 - easily. A reasonably educated person about 75,000 and a really cool, smart person well, maybe all of them but that is rather unusual. An ordinary person, one who has not been to university say, would know about 35,000 quite easily."
The formula can be used to calculate the number of words a person uses, but a person's active language will always be less than their passive, the difference being about a third.
Prof Crystal says exposure to reading will obviously expand a person's vocabulary but the level of a person's education does not necessarily decide things.
"A person with a poor education perhaps may not be able to read or read much, but they will know words and may have a very detailed vocabulary about pop songs or motorbikes. I've met children that you could class as having a poor education and they knew hundreds of words about skateboards that you won't find in a dictionary. We must avoid cultural elitism."
His research led him to ask people how many different words appeared on average in a copy of The Sun newspaper. All respondents came back with a low figure.
After counting a paper picked from random he found there to be about 8,000. "That's the same as the King James version of the Bible. "It is not very varied and names don't count but you see, people see headlines like 'Gotcha!' and make a judgement."
Do people know more words than they actually use? And is having a large vocabulary something you learn or have a natural ability for?
These are burning issues in the worlds of linguistics and education. On Monday it was reported that children in England will have lessons in formal language amid fears that some are suffering from stunted vocabularies.
US company Global Language Monitor (GLM) believes that the one millionth word will be added to the English language in mid-June.
While there is agreement that a word becomes a word when it is used by one person and understood by another, grammarians and lexicographers stand divided when deciding which to include when calculating a total.
Obamamania, bankster and bloggerati are just some of the "brand new words" GLM has been tracking.
The operation, based in Austin, Texas, says 25,000 citations in the worldwide media, social networking sites and elsewhere are its benchmark for a word to be included in its total.
They estimate a new word is created every 98 minutes.
The English language is likely to contain the most words of all languages, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, and estimates for the number of words range from one to two million.
Agreement will probably never be reached over whether or not to include words used in botany or chemistry, let alone slang, dialects and influences from foreign shores.
Some areas GLM does not include are product names and chemicals and Paul Payack, president and chief word analyst, says the 600,000 species of fungus are not in.
So, can a precise word total ever be known? No, says Professor David Crystal, known chiefly for his research in English language studies and author of around 100 books on the subject.
"It's like asking how many stars are there in the sky. It's impossible to answer," he said.
An easier question to answer, he maintains, is the size of the average person's vocabulary.
He suggests taking a sample of about 20 or 30 pages from a medium-sized dictionary, one which contains about 100,000 entries or 1,000 to 1,500 pages.
Tick off the ones you know and count them. Then multiply that by the number of pages and you will discover how many words you know. Most people vastly underestimate their total.
"Most people know half the words - about 50,000 - easily. A reasonably educated person about 75,000 and a really cool, smart person well, maybe all of them but that is rather unusual. An ordinary person, one who has not been to university say, would know about 35,000 quite easily."
The formula can be used to calculate the number of words a person uses, but a person's active language will always be less than their passive, the difference being about a third.
Prof Crystal says exposure to reading will obviously expand a person's vocabulary but the level of a person's education does not necessarily decide things.
"A person with a poor education perhaps may not be able to read or read much, but they will know words and may have a very detailed vocabulary about pop songs or motorbikes. I've met children that you could class as having a poor education and they knew hundreds of words about skateboards that you won't find in a dictionary. We must avoid cultural elitism."
His research led him to ask people how many different words appeared on average in a copy of The Sun newspaper. All respondents came back with a low figure.
After counting a paper picked from random he found there to be about 8,000. "That's the same as the King James version of the Bible. "It is not very varied and names don't count but you see, people see headlines like 'Gotcha!' and make a judgement."
********
For all your English to Arabic and vice versa translations that will help you expand your business into the Middle East visit Arabic Language Experts at http://www.arabic.com.au/
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