From susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM Thu Nov 2 21:25:05 2006 From: susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM (Susan Penfield) Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2006 14:25:05 -0700 Subject: Fwd: Seminole Language Revitalization 11/9 In-Reply-To: <20061102125110.gh6ogw8o88sskwck@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: Sorry for any cross-posts... Seminole Language Revitalization 11/9 The following talk will be held as part of the provost's "Dialogues Across Indian Country" and will take place at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. For more details follow the link: http://www.museum.upenn.edu/new/events/calitem.php?which=1127 Dialogues Across Indian Country : Saving Native American Languages, For Whom? Thu November 9, 4:30 pm Richard Grounds (Yuchi/Seminole) Project Director for the Euchee (Yuchi) Language Project based in Sapulpa, Oklahoma After centuries of inestimable losses of land and resources, patterns of physical genocide, legal attacks on ceremonial continuity, and assaults on cultural vitality through assimilationist policies, Native nations are only now facing, perhaps, their greatest loss: the silencing of their original languages. This presentation examines the nature of this potential loss and clarifies strategies for revitalizing Native languages in relation to available financial, institutional, and cultural resources. As the scholarly community awakens to the prospect of losing the essential language connection to the ancient and rich worlds of Indigenous knowledge, the questions become: who will benefit from the efforts that are being made to preserve Native languages, and are there effective schemes of cooperation to overcome the political challenges in academia and within Indigenous communities? ----- End forwarded message ----- Cheryl Traiger PhD Student - Second Language Acquisition and Teaching CERCLL Graduate Associate Graduate Research Associate - Second Language Acquisition and Teaching University of Arizona Tucson, 85721 USA -- Susan D. Penfield, Ph.D. Associate Director, Center for Educational Resources in Culture, Language and Literacy (CERCLL) Department of English (Primary) American Indian Language Development Institute (AILDI) Second Language Acquistion &Teaching Ph.D. Program (SLAT) Department of Language,Reading and Culture Department of Linguistics The Southwest Center (Research) Phone for messages: (520) 621-1836 "Every language is an old-growth forest of the mind, a watershed of thought, an ecosystem of spiritual possibilities." Wade Davis...(on a Starbucks cup...) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hklein at NOTES.CC.SUNYSB.EDU Fri Nov 3 03:02:35 2006 From: hklein at NOTES.CC.SUNYSB.EDU (Harriet E Klein) Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2006 22:02:35 -0500 Subject: Harriet Klein is out of the office. Message-ID: I will be out of the office starting Wed 11/01/2006 and will not return until Tuesday 11/14/2006. I will respond to your message when I return. From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Sat Nov 4 05:12:51 2006 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2006 21:12:51 -0800 Subject: School Wins Award Message-ID: Alaska Native school wins national recognition Posted: November 01, 2006 by: Rick St. Germaine Lower Kuskokwim School District students and staff posed with the plaque they received from the National Indian Education Association - the prestigious Cultural Freedom Award for significant advancement of Native cultures. Ayaprun Elitnaurviat Immersion School preserves Yup'ik language Full story @: http://www.indiancountry.com/author.cfm?id=559 From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Sat Nov 4 22:22:54 2006 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Sat, 4 Nov 2006 14:22:54 -0800 Subject: Language List Message-ID: Join The Karuk Language Restoration Issues (Karuk Language) list serve Purpose: A place for those interested in the Karuk Language to discuss items, events, learning strategies, ideas etc Website URL: http://www.ncidc.org/karuk/index.html To Join: Subscribe here http://lists.topica.com/login.html? al=s&sub=1&loginMsg=12051&location=listinfo or send an email to KarukLanguage-subscribe at topica.com From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Nov 6 02:34:57 2006 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 5 Nov 2006 19:34:57 -0700 Subject: First Nations seek clarification on status of $160 million in Aboriginal language funding (fwd) Message-ID: FIRST NATIONS SEEK CLARIFICATION ON STATUS OF $160 MILLION IN ABORIGINAL LANGUAGE FUNDING OTTAWA, Nov. 2 /CNW Telbec/ - Assembly of First Nations National Chief Phil Fontaine calls upon Heritage Minister Bev Oda to assure First Nations that $160 million in Aboriginal language funding will still be available for First Nations languages. In a conversation with the Minister, the National Chief was led to believe the funding is no longer on the table. Conflicting messages from officials at Canadian Heritage have created even more uncertainty. "Preserving our languages, our way of life, is a sacred trust that must never be broken," said AFN National Chief Phil Fontaine. "We consider the loss of any language funding as a direct attack on First Nations. Language is the very foundation of our cultures and traditions, and it is the key to our identity as First Nations peoples." "Based on the 2002 allocation of $172.5 million, many First Nations communities have been preparing proposals and work plans so they can enhance their activities around preserving and teaching their languages and culture," noted the National Chief. "We are, therefore, very surprised by the Minister's comments." "First Nations languages are indigenous to this country and they must be preserved to ensure that they can flourish for current and future generations," commented the National Chief. "Many of our people suffer from the intergenerational effects of the federal government's decades-long policies concerning residential schools. Studies by BC Professors Michael Chandler and Chris Lalonde have shown that where our languages and cultures are thriving, so are the communities. People are happier and healthier -- there are few or no suicides. "We sincerely hope that this "re-allocation" of $160 million in funding will result in even more than the original amount in order to further strengthen and preserve our languages," commented the National Chief. "From the Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, a decade ago, to last year's First Ministers Meeting in Kelowna, to Conservative party policy, recommendations and commitments were made to preserving and teaching First Nations language for future generations. The federal government should demonstrate the honour of the Crown and fulfill its obligations to help preserve and revitalize First Nations languages and cultures. It is important to Canada's identity." The Assembly of First Nations is the national organization representing First Nations citizens in Canada. For further information: Bryan Hendry, A/Director of Communications, (613) 241-6789, ext. 229, Cell (613) 293-6106, bhendry at afn.ca -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Nov 6 02:38:06 2006 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 5 Nov 2006 19:38:06 -0700 Subject: First Nations seek clarification on status of $160 million in Aboriginal language funding (fwd) In-Reply-To: <20061105193457.ueqboowkk04kw8go@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: Sorry for the formatting...here is the URL: http://www.cnw.ca/fr/releases/archive/November2006/02/c8042.html ;-) Phil Quoting phil cash cash : > FIRST NATIONS SEEK CLARIFICATION ON STATUS OF $160 MILLION IN ABORIGINAL > LANGUAGE FUNDING > > OTTAWA, Nov. 2 /CNW Telbec/ - Assembly of First Nations National Chief > Phil Fontaine calls upon Heritage Minister Bev Oda to assure First Nations > that $160 million in Aboriginal language funding will still be available for > First Nations languages. In a conversation with the Minister, the National > Chief was led to believe the funding is no longer on the table. Conflicting > messages from officials at Canadian Heritage have created even more > uncertainty. > "Preserving our languages, our way of life, is a sacred trust that must > never be broken," said AFN National Chief Phil Fontaine. "We consider > the loss > of any language funding as a direct attack on First Nations. Language is the > very foundation of our cultures and traditions, and it is the key to our > identity as First Nations peoples." > "Based on the 2002 allocation of $172.5 million, many First Nations > communities have been preparing proposals and work plans so they can enhance > their activities around preserving and teaching their languages and culture," > noted the National Chief. "We are, therefore, very surprised by the > Minister's > comments." > "First Nations languages are indigenous to this country and they must be > preserved to ensure that they can flourish for current and future > generations," commented the National Chief. "Many of our people suffer from > the intergenerational effects of the federal government's decades-long > policies concerning residential schools. Studies by BC Professors Michael > Chandler and Chris Lalonde have shown that where our languages and cultures > are thriving, so are the communities. People are happier and healthier -- > there are few or no suicides. > "We sincerely hope that this "re-allocation" of $160 million in funding > will result in even more than the original amount in order to further > strengthen and preserve our languages," commented the National Chief. "From > the Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, a decade ago, to > last year's First Ministers Meeting in Kelowna, to Conservative party policy, > recommendations and commitments were made to preserving and teaching First > Nations language for future generations. The federal government should > demonstrate the honour of the Crown and fulfill its obligations to help > preserve and revitalize First Nations languages and cultures. It is important > to Canada's identity." > > The Assembly of First Nations is the national organization representing > First Nations citizens in Canada. > > For further information: Bryan Hendry, A/Director of Communications, > (613) 241-6789, ext. 229, Cell (613) 293-6106, bhendry at afn.ca -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Nov 6 02:46:16 2006 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 5 Nov 2006 19:46:16 -0700 Subject: IBM Provides Technology Access and Training to Native People Through the 2006 Native American Family Technology Journey (fwd) Message-ID: IBM Provides Technology Access and Training to Native People Through the 2006 Native American Family Technology Journey http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/11-03-2006/0004466768&EDATE= ARMONK, N.Y., Nov. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM today announced that the Native American Family Technology Journey, co-sponsored by IBM and Career Communications Group, will kick off its third national public awareness program to help Native American families explore the benefits of incorporating computer technology into their daily lives. The program, known as "The Journey," promotes the value of computer technology in preserving ancient cultures and also provides students and their families with technology training that allows them to access educational, career, health and other information, that has the potential to improve their quality of life. The Journey is officially celebrated during the month of November, and coincides with National American Indian Heritage Month. This year, the Journey will provide computer and Internet workshops, educational and career seminars and interactive demonstrations for Native Americans in urban centers, rural areas and on tribal lands from Alaska to Arizona. In addition, other initiatives that support the Journey's mission have been launched to help Native Americans preserve their languages and customs, and develop marketable skills. The lack of adequate infrastructure, a weak economic base and the dearth of people to install and maintain technology are among the factors that create the technological gap between Native Americans and the general population. These issues, coupled with rapid-paced technological advances, underscore concerns raised in Falling Through The Net: Defining The Digital Divide, a study released by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce(1). The study found that Native Americans "are not able to access the important information resources via computers and on the Internet that are quickly becoming essential for success." Earlier this year, IBM worked with local educators in Alaska to provide high school students with Linux certification and college-level technology courses that will enable them to compete for technology jobs from their own cities and villages and contribute to Alaska's economic growth. IBM launched the Native American Partners in Education program along with Mt. Edgecumbe High School in Sitka, Alaska and the Alaska Commissioner of Education and Early Development. "The spirit of the Journey is to encourage as many people and organizations as possible to share their technological knowledge, talents and resources so that Native People can establish a larger presence in the Digital Age," said Mark Hakey (Abenaki), IBM Distinguished Engineer/Manager of Advanced Process Technology Development, and a Journey national co-chair. "Every year there is a greater awareness among Native Americans about the importance of technology and its advantages. No one knows where the next technological breakthrough will come from -- and with initiatives like these, it could well be from the Native American community." In September 2006, the Native American Chamber of Commerce partnered with SeniorNet, a leading nonprofit technology educator of older adults, and IBM to announce the opening of achievement centers that will bring computer access and education to Native American reservations across the United States. The first achievement center opened at the Blackfeet Nation in Browning, Montana, and four more centers will open over the next three years. The centers will be established as part of the grant-based initiative Hope and Harmony for Humanity. The program will provide more than 40,000 youths, adults and seniors with the opportunity to access basic training in computer hardware, reading, English, math and science, GED certification, college prep and admissions assistance, language study, global health and safety information, basic business skills and cultural activities. Later this month, the Indigenous Language Institute (ILI) will partner with IBM to host the fourth in a series of "Ancient Voices: Modern Tools" workshops on the campus of Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, OK. The program, scheduled for November 16-18, will put multimedia technology\ tools and language material templates, such as newsletters, calendars and storybooks, into the hands of community language practitioners. It will show them how to digitally create culturally appropriate resources for their tribes. Some 50 people representing 15 tribal nations, from Louisiana to California, are expected to participate in the workshop. For additional information about the Native American Family Technology Journey, please visit http://www.nativeamericanfamilynet.net or call Marsha Jews at (410) 244-7101. (1) National Telecommunications and Information Administration. (1999) Falling Through the Net III "Defining the Digital Divide." SOURCE IBM From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Nov 6 02:50:31 2006 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 5 Nov 2006 19:50:31 -0700 Subject: Expert Says 116 Local Languages Face Extinction (fwd) Message-ID: The Himalayan Times Online Printed from www.thehimalayantimes.com Expert Says 116 Local Languages Face Extinction Kathmandu, November 5 http://www.thehimalayantimes.com/PrintStory.asp?filepath=aATaoanlaNaeaw2a/a2Ta0sa/Wa1a/yqgaHaoZaea/aFWata0a5wxyefua0a8voIamal Around 116 local languages of the total 126 languages estimated to be spoken throughout the nation are on the verge of extinction. Professor Dr Yogendra Prasad Yadav, head of Central Department of Linguistic, TU said that 116 of the 126 languages found to be used in Nepal, are endangered. "The number of native speakers have gone down drastically over the years and trend of language shift to Nepali is increasing," said Professor Dr Yadav. Some of the ethnic groups of western region such as Darai, Baram, Raute, Raji, Chepang have stopped using their native language due to internal migration and have adopted the Nepali or languages other than their own. "Nepali languages is more frequently used because this is the official language and also link languages," said Professor Dr Yadav. There are 33 Rai languages but very few are in use these days, said Prof Yadav. Scripts of six to seven languages -- Nepali, Maithali, Bhojpuri, Awadi, Nepal Bhasha and Limbu -- have been documented while documentation of scripts of few more languages such as Tamang, Magar, Tharu, Rajbanshi have started. Local languages could be preserved if the government introduced local languages in the school level curriculum as an optional subject, Prof Yadav opined. In order to preserve the endangered languges of the Himalayan region, the Linguistic Society of Nepal is organising 12 Himalayan Language Symposium here on November 26 through 28. Meanwhile, Prof Yadav recently resigned from his post as a coordinator of the Education for All Linguistic Minorities committee alleging that the Education Ministry made no effort in implementing their suggestions. "There is no use of occupying the post when the government made no effort to implement the suggestions forwarded by the committee," said Professor Yadav. Laba Prasad Tripathee, spokesperson at Education Ministry said that government is seriously thinking of implementing native language as a means of instruction to achieve the Education for All goals. He said there are some technical problems that have been causing delay in implementation of the programme. COPYRIGHT@ 2004 THE HIMALAYAN TIMES PUBLICATION. All rights reserverd From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Nov 6 02:53:56 2006 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 5 Nov 2006 19:53:56 -0700 Subject: Expert Says 116 Local Languages Face Extinction (fwd) In-Reply-To: <20061105195031.ju668ww0ccc0gcs0@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: Sorry wrong URL, here is the correct url: http://www.thehimalayantimes.com/fullstory.asp?filename=aFanata0vfqzpa4a4Ta8wa.axamal&folder=aHaoamW&Name=Home&dtSiteDate=20061105 Quoting phil cash cash : > The Himalayan Times Online > Printed from www.thehimalayantimes.com > > Expert Says 116 Local Languages Face Extinction > > Kathmandu, November 5 > http://www.thehimalayantimes.com/PrintStory.asp?filepath=aATaoanlaNaeaw2a/a2Ta0sa/Wa1a/yqgaHaoZaea/aFWata0a5wxyefua0a8voIamal > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM Tue Nov 7 21:17:01 2006 From: susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM (Susan Penfield) Date: Tue, 7 Nov 2006 14:17:01 -0700 Subject: Fwd: FW: CELCNA 2007 In-Reply-To: <807ABF34EF37B1419AAF2B73BE8DC13A02E786@NSF-BE-03.ad.nsf.gov> Message-ID: ---------- ------------------------------ *From:* CAIL Utah [mailto:cail.utah at gmail.com] *Sent:* Tue 11/7/2006 1:51 PM *To:* CELCNA at nsf.gov; III at nsf.gov *Subject:* CELCNA 2007 *CONFERENCE ON ENDANGERED LANGUAGES AND CULTURES OF NATIVE AMERICA * ** *First Announcement* ** *Dates*: *Conference on Endangered Languages and Cultures of Native America*(3rd annual CELCNA), April 13-15, 2007, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah. *Sponsors*: Smithsonian Institution (Department of Anthropology of the National Museum of Natural History) and CAIL (Center for American Indian Languages, University of Utah) ** *Keynote speakers*: Marianne Mithun (UCSB) and Christine Sims (Acoma Pueblo; University of New Mexico) ** *Call for papers*: Papers are invited on any aspect of endangered Native American languages, in particular on documentation or revitalization. Native American participants are especially invited. Papers are 20 minutes each in length, with an additional 10 minutes for discussion.* *Abstracts for *posters *are also invited – past poster sessions have contributed significantly to the conference's success. *Deadline*: for ABSTRACTS : Jan. 16, 2007. The Program Committee will announce results by Jan. 30th. ** *Registration*: $25 (students $15) [to cover cost of conference rooms, refreshments] *Abstract guidelines*: Abstracts should be no more than 500 words long (can be just a paragraph or two); should include paper title, name (or names) of author/authors, author's/authors' affiliation. Abstracts should be submitted by e-mail, in Microsoft Word document, RTF, or PDF. Include contact details: author's name, e-mail address for the period of time from January to April 2006, and telephone. Only one abstract per person (except where a paper has multiple authors). *Address:** *Send abstracts to: Nancy García (nancy.garcia at utah.edu) (by Jan. 16, 2007). *Accommodations*: University Guest House – two minute walk from the meeting venue (Heritage Center) and CAIL. To book accommodations, contact the Guest House directly (mention CELCNA): University Guest House University of Utah 110 South Fort Douglas Blvd. Salt Lake City, Utah 84113-5036 Toll free: 1-888-416-4075 (or 801-587-1000), Fax 801-587-1001 Website www.guesthouse.utah.edu (Please make reservations early; rooms will be held for the conference only until early March.) *Additional information*: Contact Nancy García (nancy.garcia at utah.edu), or for particular questions, write Lyle Campbell at lyle.campbell at linguistics.utah.edu. If you need information not easily arranged via e-mail, please call: Tel. 801-587-0720 or 801-581-3441 during business hours, or Fax 801-585-7351. -- ____________________________________________________________ Susan D. Penfield, Ph.D. Associate Director, Center for Educational Resources in Culture, Language and Literacy (CERCLL) Department of English (Primary) American Indian Language Development Institute (AILDI) Second Language Acquistion &Teaching Ph.D. Program (SLAT) Department of Language,Reading and Culture Department of Linguistics The Southwest Center (Research) Phone for messages: (520) 621-1836 "Every language is an old-growth forest of the mind, a watershed of thought, an ecosystem of spiritual possibilities." Wade Davis...(on a Starbucks cup...) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From alfhepah at HOTMAIL.COM Tue Nov 7 23:32:52 2006 From: alfhepah at HOTMAIL.COM (Amelia Flores) Date: Tue, 7 Nov 2006 23:32:52 +0000 Subject: Fwd: FW: CELCNA 2007 In-Reply-To: <39a679e20611071317v3c3ab08bqa777bfa61a0251c8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM Wed Nov 8 01:54:00 2006 From: susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM (Susan Penfield) Date: Tue, 7 Nov 2006 18:54:00 -0700 Subject: Fwd: FW: CELCNA 2007 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Eh! 'ahot!! You really should! How about presenting the Phrase Book -- ??? Or describe your work documenting the language?!!! S. On 11/7/06, Amelia Flores wrote: > > This sounds good, perhaps I might think about submitting a paper, ahhh. > > > 'ahot, Amelia > > ------------------------------ > From: *Susan Penfield * > Reply-To: *Indigenous Languages and Technology > * > To: *ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU* > Subject: *[ILAT] Fwd: FW: CELCNA 2007* > Date: *Tue, 7 Nov 2006 14:17:01 -0700* > > > > ---------- > ------------------------------ > *From:* CAIL Utah [mailto:cail.utah at gmail.com] > *Sent:* Tue 11/7/2006 1:51 PM > *To:* CELCNA at nsf.gov; III at nsf.gov > *Subject:* CELCNA 2007 > > > *CONFERENCE ON ENDANGERED LANGUAGES AND CULTURES OF NATIVE AMERICA * > ** > *First Announcement* > ** > *Dates*: *Conference on Endangered Languages and Cultures of Native > America *(3rd annual CELCNA), April 13-15, 2007, University of Utah, Salt > Lake City, Utah. > > *Sponsors*: Smithsonian Institution (Department of Anthropology of the > National Museum of Natural History) and CAIL (Center for American Indian > Languages, University of Utah) > ** > *Keynote speakers*: Marianne Mithun (UCSB) and Christine Sims (Acoma > Pueblo; University of New Mexico) > ** > *Call for papers*: Papers are invited on any aspect of endangered Native > American languages, in particular on documentation or revitalization. Native > American participants are especially invited. Papers are 20 minutes each in > length, with an additional 10 minutes for discussion. **Abstracts for *posters > *are also invited – past poster sessions have contributed significantly to > the conference's success. > > *Deadline*: for ABSTRACTS : Jan. 16, 2007. The Program Committee will > announce results by Jan. 30th. > ** > *Registration*: $25 (students $15) [to cover cost of conference rooms, > refreshments] > > *Abstract guidelines*: Abstracts should be no more than 500 words long > (can be just a paragraph or two); should include paper title, name (or > names) of author/authors, author's/authors' affiliation. Abstracts > should be submitted by e-mail, in Microsoft Word document, RTF, or PDF. Include > contact details: author's name, e-mail address for the period of time from > January to April 2006, and telephone. Only one abstract per person (except > where a paper has multiple authors). *Address:* * *Send abstracts to: > Nancy García ( nancy.garcia at utah.edu) (by Jan. 16, 2007). > > *Accommodations*: University Guest House – two minute walk from the > meeting venue (Heritage Center) and CAIL. To book accommodations, contact > the Guest House directly (mention CELCNA): > University Guest House University of Utah > 110 South Fort Douglas Blvd. > Salt Lake City, Utah 84113-5036 > Toll free: 1-888-416-4075 (or 801-587-1000), Fax 801-587-1001 > Website www.guesthouse.utah.edu > (Please make reservations early; rooms will be held for the conference > only until early March.) > > *Additional information*: Contact Nancy García ( nancy.garcia at utah.edu), > or for particular questions, write Lyle Campbell at > lyle.campbell at linguistics.utah.edu. If you need information not easily > arranged via e-mail, please call: Tel. 801-587-0720 or 801-581-3441 during > business hours, or Fax 801-585-7351. > > > -- > ____________________________________________________________ > Susan D. Penfield, Ph.D. > > Associate Director, Center for Educational Resources in Culture, Language > and Literacy (CERCLL) > Department of English (Primary) > American Indian Language Development Institute (AILDI) > Second Language Acquistion &Teaching Ph.D. Program (SLAT) > Department of Language,Reading and Culture > Department of Linguistics > The Southwest Center (Research) > Phone for messages: (520) 621-1836 > > > "Every language is an old-growth forest of the mind, a watershed of > thought, an ecosystem of spiritual possibilities." > > Wade Davis...(on > a Starbucks cup...) > > > ------------------------------ > All-in-one security and maintenance for your PC. Get a free 90-day trial! > -- ____________________________________________________________ Susan D. Penfield, Ph.D. Associate Director, Center for Educational Resources in Culture, Language and Literacy (CERCLL) Department of English (Primary) American Indian Language Development Institute (AILDI) Second Language Acquistion &Teaching Ph.D. Program (SLAT) Department of Language,Reading and Culture Department of Linguistics The Southwest Center (Research) Phone for messages: (520) 621-1836 "Every language is an old-growth forest of the mind, a watershed of thought, an ecosystem of spiritual possibilities." Wade Davis...(on a Starbucks cup...) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 8 23:51:20 2006 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2006 16:51:20 -0700 Subject: Voting in the Bush can be difficult (fwd) Message-ID: Voting in the Bush can be difficult REMOTE: Ballots don't always reach people far from polls. By ALEX deMARBAN Anchorage Daily News http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/8385125p-8281041c.html (Published: November 7, 2006) Anchorage voters who juggle busy schedules or traffic jams to reach polls have it easy compared to hundreds of residents around the state who live in wilderness cabins far from a mailbox. Such remote residents live up and down rivers like the Kantishna in the Interior, said Shelly Growden, elections supervisor for more than 70 communities in an arching swath of Alaska that includes the Interior. To vote this year, those people traveled by boat to hub communities such as Nenana, where they mailed special advance ballots up to two months before the election, said Growden. Before 2004, when the Legislature changed the law for remote Alaskans, those people received standard absentee ballots just two to three weeks before an election, Growden said. Some of them couldn't get to a mailbox in time because rivers froze by election day, so they couldn't vote, she said. Distance and weather are just two of the challenges the state must overcome to deliver democracy in some of the most isolated regions of the United States. About 24 villages don't even have polling places, according to a study on voting rights in Alaska released in March. Those are places like Rampart, population 16, along the Yukon River, Growden said, or Stony River, population 42, on the upper Kuskokwim. Residents in those tiny villages -- and in isolated cabins -- are considered permanent absentee voters. There are about 1,000 in Growden's region, which includes portions of Western and eastern Alaska. The state sends those voters ballot information and applications for absentee ballots, Growden said. The paperwork doesn't automatically come, said Mary Willis, tribal administrator in Stony River. She had to call the state to get one for the primary election in August, she said. Just a few people in the Yup'ik and Athabascan village will vote, she said. Many people she's asked have said they didn't get voting materials by mail, she said. Their only option now is flying downriver to the polls in Sleetmute -- the river isn't frozen enough for snowmachine travel. A round-trip flight runs about $100, she said. No one will do that, she said. "For a lot of people, (voting) is a hassle," she said. Growden said she sent every registered voter in the village an application. If they didn't return the applications, they didn't get ballots. Turnout varies in villages. In 2004, with Sen. Lisa Murkowski opposed by former Gov. Tony Knowles, it ranged from more than 70 percent to 12 percent, according to the study, compiled by Natalie Landreth of the Native American Rights Fund's Anchorage office and Moira Smith, a law student at Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law. The study argues that under federal law, the state should provide ballots in Native languages. It should also do more to provide interpreters. More than 14,000 people speak Yup'ik and Inupiaq, mostly in Western and northern Alaska, according to the study. The state argues that written materials aren't necessary because Alaska's Native languages are historically unwritten, Growden said. The study points out that Yup'ik became a written language more than 100 years ago and has been taught in schools for more than 30 years. Other Native languages have developed writing systems in the last 40 years or so. Election officials in Western and northern Alaska try to ensure that precincts have interpreters, said Becka Baker, Nome-based supervisor for those regions. In some small villages where there's no official interpreter, elders who don't know enough English go to polls with family members who interpret, she said. Voting in the Bush can be a challenge, said George Keene Jr., former elections chairman in Kasigluk in Southwest Alaska. At the last minute on Monday, he agreed to serve as the absentee voting official, filling in for another villager with a family emergency. The Johnson River divides Kasigluk and the polling place is located in the new village, where about half the voters live, Keene said. If Keene hadn't filled in, voters in the old village might have had to maneuver skiffs through thin ice, slush and open water to vote. Now they'll be able to walk to the school library and fill out absentee forms. "This voting day tomorrow is very important," he said Monday. "People should go vote." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Daily News reporter Alex deMarban can be reached at ademarban at adn.com or 257-4310. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Nov 9 00:03:38 2006 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2006 17:03:38 -0700 Subject: UNESCO supports Caribbean indigenous and endangered languages portal (fwd) Message-ID: Caribbean Press Releases - http://www.caribbeanpressreleases.com UNESCO supports Caribbean indigenous and endangered languages portal http://www.caribbeanpressreleases.com/articles/759/1/UNESCO-supports-Caribbean-indigenous-and-endangered-languages-portal/Languages-must-be-preserved.html By SC Admin Published on 11/8/2006 Languages must be preserved Kingston --- 8 Nov. 2006 --- UNESCO and University of West Indies Language Unit launch the first authoritative website on Caribbean Indigenous and Endangered Languages (CIEL). The website showcases and promotes the preservation of over 20 indigenous languages in the region. Caribbean indigenous languages and their cultures were produced over thousands of years. In the 500 years since the arrival of Europeans, most of these languages and cultures have either disappeared or are seriously endangered. According to Hubert Devonish, Professor of Languages at the University of the West Indies, “these languages must be preserved if we are to safeguard a significant part of the heritage of mankind. We would not just be preserving things past but rather, we would be maintaining bodies of knowledge, technology and beliefs which can be useful to mankind in the present and the future.” Hubert Devonish insists on and ensures that his team employs scientific approaches in the collection of data relating to these indigenous languages, making the portal truly authoritative. UNESCO is now exploring Phase 2 of the project along the lines of: a) additional language data collection; b) language documentation through the production and digital storage of the material collected; c) development of webpages within the CIEL website especially designed for use by school children and members of the communities involved; d) production of books of stories and cultural information bilingually, in indigenous languages and English, supported by audio and video materials. From dzo at BISHARAT.NET Fri Nov 10 00:39:31 2006 From: dzo at BISHARAT.NET (Don Osborn) Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2006 00:39:31 -0000 Subject: Interactive illustrations on computer? Message-ID: It's cliché (and true) that a picture is worth 1000 words, but I've been given to thinking about how putting at least some of those words on the picture might be used in to a greater degree, and if possible in an interactive format. One goal would be a kind of "WikiDuden" that might be especially useful for less widely spoken languages - for recording, sharing and teaching. Has anyone on this list been doing that in an ICT environment? It seems to me to be a great idea but its implementation, starting with developing a bank of drawings & diagrams (a staggering number might be implied), and then considering the cultural and perceptual nuances that can be understood and accepted in various contexts. Any info on projects or thoughts on the concept are welcome. Don Fwd: Re: [afrophonewikis] Diagram/illustration strategy for Wikipedia? --- In afrophonewikis at yahoogroups.com, "Samuel Klein" wrote: Agreed wholeheartedly. I don't know of any projects currently doing this. SJ On 11/9/06, Don Osborn wrote: > > Wikipedia / Wikimedia have some collections of pictures, maps, > illustrations, drawings, diagrams, etc., but has any thought been > given to expanding this collection more systematically to include a > range of basic ones, like anatomy / parts of the body (human, but also > for major animal species), features of diverse landscapes, solar > system, ... > > The object would be to provide something like the �y� Ara (Parts of > the Body) item at the bottom of > http://yo.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%88d%C3%A8e_Yor%C3%B9b%C3%A1 with a > visual reference. I realize that providing an easy way to add text to > illustrations may not be easy, but the payoff could be a very useful > and attractive "WikiDuden" type presentation for basic level articles > across many languages. It could be of educational use, e.g. on > Wikipedia CDs or with projects like OLPC. > > In fact it could make a very powerful "education for all" / ICT4E > project. Goals would be to expand the bank of basic science & nature > illustrations and develop an easy (WYSIWYG?) way of adding text tags > to the illustrations. Along the way, accommodation of potential > cultural sensitivities and different ways of seeing things would have > to be accounted for, etc. > > Anyway, the extent to which interactive illustrations can be > incorporated in the Wikipedia concept is, IMO, the extent to which it > will gain a lot more utility for a range of uses and users around the > world. And of course this doesn't take anything away from pure text > approaches. > > Don > > > --- End forwarded message --- From MiaKalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US Fri Nov 10 16:03:07 2006 From: MiaKalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US (Mia Kalish) Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2006 09:03:07 -0700 Subject: Interactive illustrations on computer? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hi, Don, I've been doing something like this, with Macromedia Flash, but all my stuff is interactive and dynamic. The sounds, text, and pictures for nouns, animations for verbs all display simultaneously. I don't use the format of textual reference to drawings that is typical of textual materials. It's pretty easy to attach a sound file to a graphic in html. 'Course download issues begin to loom at that point, with the combination of the graphic + the sound file. Lastly, how do you imagine doing the cultural implications? In the graphics themselves? As an explanation in a language other than the cultural one, like English? As a voice-over or a story in the cultural language? Mia -----Original Message----- From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of Don Osborn Sent: Thursday, November 09, 2006 5:40 PM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: [ILAT] Interactive illustrations on computer? It's cliché (and true) that a picture is worth 1000 words, but I've been given to thinking about how putting at least some of those words on the picture might be used in to a greater degree, and if possible in an interactive format. One goal would be a kind of "WikiDuden" that might be especially useful for less widely spoken languages - for recording, sharing and teaching. Has anyone on this list been doing that in an ICT environment? It seems to me to be a great idea but its implementation, starting with developing a bank of drawings & diagrams (a staggering number might be implied), and then considering the cultural and perceptual nuances that can be understood and accepted in various contexts. Any info on projects or thoughts on the concept are welcome. Don Fwd: Re: [afrophonewikis] Diagram/illustration strategy for Wikipedia? --- In afrophonewikis at yahoogroups.com, "Samuel Klein" wrote: Agreed wholeheartedly. I don't know of any projects currently doing this. SJ On 11/9/06, Don Osborn wrote: > > Wikipedia / Wikimedia have some collections of pictures, maps, > illustrations, drawings, diagrams, etc., but has any thought been > given to expanding this collection more systematically to include a > range of basic ones, like anatomy / parts of the body (human, but also > for major animal species), features of diverse landscapes, solar > system, ... > > The object would be to provide something like the �y� Ara (Parts of > the Body) item at the bottom of > http://yo.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%88d%C3%A8e_Yor%C3%B9b%C3%A1 with a > visual reference. I realize that providing an easy way to add text to > illustrations may not be easy, but the payoff could be a very useful > and attractive "WikiDuden" type presentation for basic level articles > across many languages. It could be of educational use, e.g. on > Wikipedia CDs or with projects like OLPC. > > In fact it could make a very powerful "education for all" / ICT4E > project. Goals would be to expand the bank of basic science & nature > illustrations and develop an easy (WYSIWYG?) way of adding text tags > to the illustrations. Along the way, accommodation of potential > cultural sensitivities and different ways of seeing things would have > to be accounted for, etc. > > Anyway, the extent to which interactive illustrations can be > incorporated in the Wikipedia concept is, IMO, the extent to which it > will gain a lot more utility for a range of uses and users around the > world. And of course this doesn't take anything away from pure text > approaches. > > Don > > > --- End forwarded message --- From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Sat Nov 11 05:56:51 2006 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2006 21:56:51 -0800 Subject: New Webiste Message-ID: The Endangered Language Fund is proud to annouce the launch of our new website: www.endangeredlanguagefund.org You'll find an updated list of our grants, information about some of the new projects going on at ELF, an archive of our recent newsletters, and the beginning of our online language archive. Please let us know if you're able to join us for Noam Chomsky's benefit lecture next Wednesday, November 15th in New Haven, CT. Best wishes, Nick Emlen Endangered Language Fund From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Nov 12 00:51:49 2006 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2006 17:51:49 -0700 Subject: Aboriginal languages centre dumped from budget (fwd) Message-ID: Nunavut News November 10, 2006 Aboriginal languages centre dumped from budget Tories re-jig dormant program JIM BELL [photo sinet - Mary Simon, the president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, said this past Tuesday that ITK deplores a decision by Bev Oda, the Heritage minister, to cut $160 million earmarked for a aboriginal languages centre and replace it with $40 million in program funding. (FILE PHOTO)] The opposition says it’s a cut; the Tories say it’s not. And the only thing they do agree on is that $160 million worth of aboriginal language money that’s lurked inside the Heritage Canada department’s budget since 2002 should have been spent long ago. The dispute blew up last week when the Assembly of First Nations and two NDP MPs, Charlie Angus of Timmins-James Bay and Dennis Bevington of the Western Arctic, started asking questions about the status of a Heritage Canada scheme called the “Aboriginal Language Initiative,” and a $172.5 million pot of money that the former Liberal government allocated to aboriginal languages in 2002. The Conservatives say most of that money — $160 million — was set aside for a proposed institution called an “aboriginal languages and cultures centre” — which never materialized. “It wasn’t helping preserve a single word from any language,” said a spokesperson from the office of Bev Oda, the Tory Heritage minister. Of the remaining $12 million, $2.5 million was spent on an aboriginal languages task force, and $5 million in each of two years for the aboriginal language initiative — the only part of that money that seems to have been spent on actual programs. “Apart from the $12.5 million, the initial allocation of resources had not been accessed. The previous government had no plan on how to spend the money,” Oda said last week in a written response to a question from Angus. Instead, the Tories removed the $160 million from the budget, and replaced it with $40 million to be handed out at rate of $5 million per year for eight years. Mary Simon, the president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, does not appear to buy Oda’s explanation. This past Tuesday, Simon, who said she received a “tremendous amount of feedback from Inuit on this issue” released a statement that condemns Oda’s decision. “We received no indication that cuts of this nature were imminent. Despite the government’s explanations as to why this funding was eliminated, the result is still a massive reduction to aboriginal languages programs,” Simon said. For her part, Oda says that unlike Liberals, who put money into the aboriginal languages initiative on a year-to-year basis only, the new money is guaranteed for eight years. “This new money is permanent,” Oda said. Oda’s office also says this “is not the end of the story” and will continue to look at the idea of spending more on aboriginal languages within “the wider context of the new government’s approach to meeting the needs of aboriginal people.” But it’s not clear when, how, or if that will happen. Oda also said her government is opposed to the creation of the proposed aboriginal language and culture centre, and prefers to give money to people at the community level. To that end, she said her officials will now meet with Inuit, First Nations and Métis organizations to develop a plan. “It [the former Liberal government] did nothing with that money. There were no plans,” Oda said in a reporter’s scrum outside the House of Commons this past Friday. But those answers don’t satisfy Dennis Bevington, the NDP member for Western Arctic. “It’s a cut. I’m not satisfied with what the government is doing with that program,” Bevington said in an interview. The annual language agreements that Ottawa works out with Nunavut and other territorial governments, worth $4 million a year each, are not affected by the federal government’s decisions on the aboriginal languages initiative. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Nov 12 01:02:13 2006 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2006 18:02:13 -0700 Subject: Intertribal gathering to be held today at Redwood Acres (fwd link) Message-ID: Hey Andre...nice pix! Intertribal gathering to be held today at Redwood Acres http://www.eurekareporter.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?ArticleID=17341 Phil -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Sun Nov 12 15:28:00 2006 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Sun, 12 Nov 2006 07:28:00 -0800 Subject: A Little Teacher Cert Help Message-ID: ayukîi. The Karuk Language Program is seeking assistance with the development of our Tribal teacher certification and fluency assessment policies. Please review the attachment and respond with any questions, comments, and suggestions. yôotva, -- Phil Albers Jr. Karuk Language Program Karuk Tribe of California P.O. Box 1016 64236 Second Ave. Happy Camp CA 96039 (800) 505-2785 ext. 2203 (530) 493-1658 fax -- Karuk Language Program Community Input ayukîi. fâat kuxuti, panau’araráhih ikshúpan kúupha? Hello. What you(pl)-think the-our people-language show-(er) doings? Hello. What do you all think about our language teachers’ doings? Introduction of Program and Project: The Karuk Language Program is developing a Karuk Tribal Teacher Certification and Karuk Tribal Fluency Level Assessment. We are establishing these policies to have as further verification as to the competence of our Karuk language classes and instructors. This is so our teacher certification may be recognized by other academic institutions as valid teaching credentials (in relation to teaching our language), and as credible language requirements for students. We currently have no such policy or guidelines for the certification or fluency assessment. Purpose of Input: Our goals are as follows: To gather input from community members regarding the guidelines and requirements for the Karuk Teacher Certification. To gather input from community members regarding the guidelines and requirements for the Karuk Fluency Level Assessment. Summary of comments/suggestions to report to KLRC. KLRC meeting is November 16, 2006 in Orleans at 12:00 PM. Brainstorm/Discussion/Feedback: Please carefully consider the following questions: Should “culture” be a part of our language certification testing and teaching protocol? Explain. Should reading, writing and grammar be a part of our language certification testing and teaching protocol, and what stage of fluency would it apply to? Explain. Feel free to comment and make suggestions. Please send feedback to us through any of the following: Susan Gehr sgehr at karuk.us ext. 2205 Phil Albers Jr. palbers at karuk.us ext. 2203 Karuk Language Program P.O. Box 1016 Happy Camp CA 96039 (800) 505-2785 (530) 493-1658 fax Notes from previous meetings: Yreka Community Meeting: Teacher Certification Cultural Component: Match sympathetic evaluator with the prospective teacher. Have disclaimer, “this information is specific to this class/course section, not an absolute representation of the Karuk Tribe’s beliefs” (or something of the sort). Gather information from people on a one-on-one (1-on-1) basis, and use a summary as the standard. Have cultural component or “endorsements” as a bonus for the teacher certification. Have a less intense assessment grade or requirement for qualifying in the cultural component. Allow the teacher to select a certain number of cultural functions and test those only. Simplify, but do NOT eliminate the cultural component. Restrict the cultural component to less objectionable aspects, such as weaving, fishing, foods, etc. Recruit and reward personnel with teacher certification according to their level and relevance to job duties. From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Sun Nov 12 15:38:43 2006 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Sun, 12 Nov 2006 07:38:43 -0800 Subject: Intertribal gathering to be held today at Redwood Acres (fwd link) In-Reply-To: <20061111180213.rfpg4ck0gkk0sssc@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: Well I have to have some form of income until I win the lottery and work on language full time On Nov 11, 2006, at 5:02 PM, phil cash cash wrote: Intertribal gathering to be held today at Redwood Acres http://www.eurekareporter.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?ArticleID=17341 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From MiaKalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US Mon Nov 13 21:57:22 2006 From: MiaKalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US (Mia Kalish) Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2006 14:57:22 -0700 Subject: Deadline for Digital Poster materials approaching . . . Message-ID: Hello, Everyone. I am writing to remind that the deadline for the submission of the digital poster materials for LSA in Anaheim in January is approaching as quickly as a Thanksgiving turkey. Some people have already submitted, and I am grateful to them. For everyone else, could you let me know where you are with this, whether I should expect your excellent, informative, and mind-changing materials to arrive in full control of their breathing, or skidding out of breath around the corner, doing that last minute thing for which some of us are so famous. :-) Ahee'hee Mia -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nflrc at HAWAII.EDU Tue Nov 14 01:42:10 2006 From: nflrc at HAWAII.EDU (National Foreign Language Resource Center) Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2006 15:42:10 -1000 Subject: RFL Special Topic Issue: CALL FOR PAPERS Message-ID: Our apologies for any cross-postings . . . Reading in a Foreign Language CALL FOR PAPERS READING AND VOCABULARY Special Topic Issue, Autumn 2008 Edited by Rob Waring Reading in a Foreign Language announces a call for papers for the Autumn 2008 special topic issue on reading and vocabulary. This issue of RFL is devoted to publishing articles that are concerned with all aspects of reading and vocabulary. Specifically, we solicit papers covering - vocabulary development through reading - the relationship between vocabulary and reading - vocabulary and the teaching of reading - reading vocabularies RFL is particularly interested in articles on languages other than English. We also encourage collaboration between university researchers and practitioners. We are fortunate that Professor Rob Waring, Notre Dame Seishin University, Okayama, Japan, is the editor of this special issue. Questions, proposals, and submissions should be directed to Contributors are advised to read our submission guidelines for information on RFL's submission policies. All submissions must be received by Professor Waring no later than January 31, 2008. Reading in a Foreign Language http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/rfl From fmarmole at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 15 18:53:36 2006 From: fmarmole at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Francisco Marmolejo) Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2006 11:53:36 -0700 Subject: Call for proposals / International higher education collaboration with Canada, U.S. and Mexico Message-ID: CONAHEC's 11th North American Higher Education Conference "Rethinking North America: Higher Education, Regional Identities and Global Challenges" Quebec City, Quebec, Canada April 25-27, 2007 DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: December 18, 2006 ++++++++++++++++++ Dear colleagues: This is just a brief message to let you know that the Call for Proposals for the upcoming CONAHEC’s 11th North American Higher Education Conference to be held on April 25-27, 2007 in Quebec, Canada. If you our your institution are interested in developing linkages with key higher education institutions, organisations, foundations, and internationally related government agencies from Mexico, the U.S. and Canada, please consider attending and submitting a proposal for presentation. The conference is organized by the Consortium for North American Higher Education Collaboration (CONAHEC) and co-convened by: American Council on Education (ACE) American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) Asociación Nacional de Universidades e Instituciones de Educación Superior (ANUIES) Association of Canadian Community Colleges/Association des collèges communautaires du Canada (ACCC) Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada/Association des universités et collèges du Canada (AUCC) OECD'S Programme for Higher Education Management (IMHE) CONAHEC is fortunate to benefit from the assistance of the largest and most distinguished system of institutions in the Province of Quebec. Our host for this exciting event is the University of Quebec System. For more information about the event, and to submit on line a Call for Proposals, please visit our conference web site at: http://www.conahec.org/conahec/Conferences/Quebec2007/english/EN_Description .html Again, if you are interested in collaborative linkages with higher education institutions from Canada, the United States and Mexico, please make plans to attend. We hope to see you in Quebec City! Sincerely, Francisco Marmolejo Executive Director Consortium for North American Higher Education Collaboration (CONAHEC) University of Arizona 220 W. 6th St. University Services Annex, Bldg. 300A Rm. 108 PO Box 210300 Tucson, AZ 85721-0300 USA Phone: (520) 621-9080 Fax: (520) 626-2675 E-mail: fmarmole at u.arizona.edu http://conahec.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Thu Nov 16 01:17:09 2006 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2006 17:17:09 -0800 Subject: The Gift Of Language Message-ID: City Journal Home. City Journal The Gift of Language No, Dr. Pinker, it’s not just from nature. Theodore Dalrymple Autumn 2006 Now that I’ve retired early from medical practice in a slum hospital and the prison next door, my former colleagues sometimes ask me, not without a trace of anxiety, whether I think that I made the right choice or whether I miss my previous life. They are good friends and fine men, but it is only human nature not to wish unalloyed happiness to one who has chosen a path that diverges, even slightly, from one’s own. Fortunately, I do miss some aspects of my work: if I didn’t, it would mean that I had not enjoyed what I did for many years and had wasted a large stretch of my life. I miss, for instance, the sudden illumination into the worldview of my patients that their replies to simple questions sometimes gave me. I still do a certain amount of medico-legal work, preparing psychiatric reports on those accused of crimes, and recently a case reminded me of how sharply a few words can bring into relief an entire attitude toward life and shed light on an entire mental hinterland. A young woman was charged with assault, under the influence of alcohol and marijuana, on a very old lady about five times her age. Describing her childhood, the young accused mentioned that her mother had once been in trouble with the police. “What for?” I asked. “She was on the Social [Security] and working at the same time.” “What happened?” I asked. “She had to give up working.” The air of self-evidence with which she said this revealed a whole world of presuppositions. For her, and those around her, work was the last resort; economic dependence on state handouts was the natural condition of man. I delighted in what my patients said. One of them always laced his statements with proverbs, which he invariably mangled. “Sometimes, doctor,” he said to me one day, “I feel like the little boy with his finger in the dike, crying wolf.” And I enjoyed the expressive argot of prison. The prison officers, too, had their own language. They called a loquacious prisoner “verbal” if they believed him to be mad, and “mouthy” if they believed him to be merely bad and willfully misbehaving. Brief exchanges could so entertain me that on occasion they transformed duty into pleasure. Once I was called to the prison in the early hours to examine a man who had just tried to hang himself. He was sitting in a room with a prison officer. It was about three in the morning, the very worst time to be roused from sleep. “The things you have to do for Umanity, sir,” said the prison officer to me. The prisoner, looking bemused, said to him, “You what?” “U-manity,” said the prison officer, turning to the prisoner. “You’re Uman, aren’t you?” It was like living in a glorious comic passage in Dickens. For the most part, though, I was struck not by the verbal felicity and invention of my patients and those around them but by their inability to express themselves with anything like facility: and this after 11 years of compulsory education, or (more accurately) attendance at school. With a very limited vocabulary, it is impossible to make, or at least to express, important distinctions and to examine any question with conceptual care. My patients often had no words to describe what they were feeling, except in the crudest possible way, with expostulations, exclamations, and physical displays of emotion. Often, by guesswork and my experience of other patients, I could put things into words for them, words that they grasped at eagerly. Everything was on the tip of their tongue, rarely or never reaching the stage of expression out loud. They struggled even to describe in a consecutive and logical fashion what had happened to them, at least without a great deal of prompting. Complex narrative and most abstractions were closed to them. In their dealings with authority, they were at a huge disadvantage—a disaster, since so many of them depended upon various public bureaucracies for so many of their needs, from their housing and health care to their income and the education of their children. I would find myself dealing on their behalf with those bureaucracies, which were often simultaneously bullying and incompetent; and what officialdom had claimed for months or even years to be impossible suddenly, on my intervention, became possible within a week. Of course, it was not my mastery of language alone that produced this result; rather, my mastery of language signaled my capacity to make serious trouble for the bureaucrats if they did not do as I asked. I do not think it is a coincidence that the offices of all those bureaucracies were increasingly installing security barriers against the physical attacks on the staff by enraged but inarticulate dependents. All this, it seems to me, directly contradicts our era’s ruling orthodoxy about language. According to that orthodoxy, every child, save the severely brain-damaged and those with very rare genetic defects, learns his or her native language with perfect facility, adequate to his needs. He does so because the faculty of language is part of human nature, inscribed in man’s physical being, as it were, and almost independent of environment. To be sure, today’s language theorists concede that if a child grows up completely isolated from other human beings until the age of about six, he will never learn language adequately; but this very fact, they argue, implies that the capacity for language is “hardwired” in the human brain, to be activated only at a certain stage in each individual’s development, which in turn proves that language is an inherent biological characteristic of mankind rather than a merely cultural artifact. Moreover, language itself is always rule-governed; and the rules that govern it are universally the same, when stripped of certain minor incidentals and contingencies that superficially appear important but in reality are not. It follows that no language or dialect is superior to any other and that modes of verbal communication cannot be ranked according to complexity, expressiveness, or any other virtue. Thus, attempts to foist alleged grammatical “correctness” on native speakers of an “incorrect” dialect are nothing but the unacknowledged and oppressive exercise of social control—the means by which the elites deprive whole social classes and peoples of self-esteem and keep them in permanent subordination. If they are convinced that they can’t speak their own language properly, how can they possibly feel other than unworthy, humiliated, and disenfranchised? Hence the refusal to teach formal grammar is both in accord with a correct understanding of the nature of language and is politically generous, inasmuch as it confers equal status on all forms of speech and therefore upon all speakers. The locus classicus of this way of thinking, at least for laymen such as myself, is Steven Pinker’s book The Language Instinct. A bestseller when first published in 1994, it is now in its 25th printing in the British paperback version alone, and its wide circulation suggests a broad influence on the opinions of the intelligent public. Pinker is a professor of psychology at Harvard University, and that institution’s great prestige cloaks him, too, in the eyes of many. If Professor Pinker were not right on so important a subject, which is one to which he has devoted much study and brilliant intelligence, would he have tenure at Harvard? Pinker nails his colors to the mast at once. His book, he says, “will not chide you about proper usage . . .” because, after all, “[l] anguage is a complex, specialized skill, which . . . is qualitatively the same in every individual. . . . Language is no more a cultural invention than is upright posture,” and men are as naturally equal in their ability to express themselves as in their ability to stand on two legs. “Once you begin to look at language . . . as a biological adaptation to communicate information,” Pinker continues, “it is no longer as tempting to see language as an insidious shaper of thought.” Every individual has an equal linguistic capacity to formulate the most complex and refined thoughts. We all have, so to speak, the same tools for thinking. “When it comes to linguistic form,” Pinker says, quoting the anthropologist, Edward Sapir, “Plato walks with the Macedonian swineherd, Confucius with the head-hunting savage of Assam.” To put it another way, “linguistic genius is involved every time a child learns his or her mother tongue.” The old-fashioned and elitist idea that there is a “correct” and “incorrect” form of language no doubt explains the fact that “[l] inguists repeatedly run up against the myth that working-class people . . . speak a simpler and a coarser language. This is a pernicious illusion. . . . Trifling differences between the dialect of the mainstream and the dialect of other groups . . . are dignified as badges of ‘proper grammar.’ ” These are, in fact, the “hobgoblins of the schoolmarm,” and ipso facto contemptible. In fact, standard English is one of those languages that “is a dialect with an army and a navy.” The schoolmarms he so slightingly dismisses are in fact but the linguistic arm of a colonial power—the middle class—oppressing what would otherwise be a much freer and happier populace. “Since prescriptive rules are so psychologically unnatural that only those with access to the right schooling can abide by them, they serve as shibboleths, differentiating the elite from the rabble.” Children will learn their native language adequately whatever anyone does, and the attempt to teach them language is fraught with psychological perils. For example, to “correct” the way a child speaks is potentially to give him what used to be called an inferiority complex. Moreover, when schools undertake such correction, they risk dividing the child from his parents and social milieu, for he will speak in one way and live in another, creating hostility and possibly rejection all around him. But happily, since every child is a linguistic genius, there is no need to do any such thing. Every child will have the linguistic equipment he needs, merely by virtue of growing older. I need hardly point out that Pinker doesn’t really believe anything of what he writes, at least if example is stronger evidence of belief than precept. Though artfully sown here and there with a demotic expression to prove that he is himself of the people, his own book is written, not surprisingly, in the kind of English that would please schoolmarms. I doubt very much whether it would have reached its 25th printing had he chosen to write it in the dialect of rural Louisiana, for example, or of the slums of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Even had he chosen to do so, he might have found the writing rather difficult. I should like to see him try to translate a sentence from his book that I have taken at random, “The point that the argument misses is that although natural selection involves incremental steps that enhance functioning, the enhancements do not have to be an existing module,” into the language of the Glasgow or Detroit slums. In fact, Pinker has no difficulty in ascribing greater or lesser expressive virtues to languages and dialects. In attacking the idea that there are primitive languages, he quotes the linguist Joan Bresnan, who describes English as “a West Germanic language spoken in England and its former colonies” (no prizes for guessing the emotional connotations of this way of so describing it). Bresnan wrote an article comparing the use of the dative in English and Kivunjo, a language spoken on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro. Its use is much more complex in the latter language than in the former, making far more distinctions. Pinker comments: “Among the clever gadgets I have glimpsed in the grammars of so-called primitive groups, the complex Cherokee pronoun system seems especially handy. It distinguishes among ‘you and I,’ ‘another person and I,’ ‘several other people and I,’ and ‘you, one or more other persons, and I,’ which English crudely collapses into the all-purpose pronoun we.” In other words, crudity and subtlety are concepts that apply between languages. And if so, there can be no real reason why they cannot apply within a language—why one man’s usage should not be better, more expressive, subtler, than another’s. Similarly, Pinker attacks the idea that the English of the ghetto, Black English Vernacular, is in any way inferior to standard English. It is rule- governed like (almost) all other language. Moreover, “If the psychologists had listened to spontaneous conversations, they would have rediscovered the commonplace fact that American black culture is highly verbal; the subculture of street youths in particular is famous in the annals of anthropology for the value placed on linguistic virtuosity.” But in appearing to endorse the idea of linguistic virtuosity, he is, whether he likes it or not, endorsing the idea of linguistic lack of virtuosity. And it surely requires very little reflection to come to the conclusion that Shakespeare had more linguistic virtuosity than, say, the average contemporary football player. Oddly enough, Pinker ends his encomium on Black English Vernacular with a schoolmarm’s pursed lips: “The highest percentage of ungrammatical sentences [are to be] found in the proceedings of learned academic conferences.” Over and over again, Pinker stresses that children do not learn language by imitation; rather, they learn it because they are biologically predestined to do so. “Let us do away,” he writes, with what one imagines to be a rhetorical sweep of his hand, “with the folklore that parents teach their children language.” It comes as rather a surprise, then, to read the book’s dedication: “For Harry and Roslyn Pinker, who gave me language.” Surely he cannot mean by this that they gave him language in the same sense as they gave him hemoglobin—that is to say, that they were merely the sine qua non of his biological existence as Steven Pinker. If so, why choose language of all the gifts that they gave him? Presumably, he means that they gave him the opportunity to learn standard English, even if they did not speak it themselves. It is utterly implausible to suggest that imitation of parents (or other social contacts) has nothing whatever to do with the acquisition of language. I hesitate to mention so obvious a consideration, but Chinese parents tend to have Chinese-speaking children, and Portuguese parents Portuguese-speaking ones. I find it difficult to believe that this is entirely a coincidence and that imitation has nothing to do with it. Moreover, it is a sociological truism that children tend to speak not merely the language but the dialect of their parents. Of course, they can escape it if they choose or need to do so: my mother, a native German-speaker, arrived in England aged 18 and learned to speak standard English without a trace of a German accent (which linguists say is a rare accomplishment) and without ever making a grammatical mistake. She didn’t imitate her parents, perhaps, but she imitated someone. After her recent death, I found her notebooks from 1939, in which she painstakingly practiced English, the errors growing fewer until there were none. I don’t think she would have been favorably impressed by Professor Pinker’s disdainful grammatical latitudinarianism—the latitudinarianism that, in British schools and universities, now extends not only to grammar but to spelling, as a friend of mine discovered recently. A teacher in a state school gave his daughter a list of spellings to learn as homework, and my friend noticed that three out of ten of them were wrong. He went to the principal to complain, but she looked at the list and asked, “So what? You can tell what the words are supposed to mean.” The test for her was not whether the spellings were correct but whether they were understandable. So much for the hobgoblins of contemporary schoolmarms. The contrast between a felt and lived reality—in this case, Pinker’s need to speak and write standard English because of its superior ability to express complex ideas—and the denial of it, perhaps in order to assert something original and striking, is characteristic of an intellectual climate in which the destruction of moral and social distinctions is proof of the very best intentions. Pinker’s grammatical latitudinarianism, when educationists like the principal of my friend’s daughter’s school take it seriously, has the practical effect of encouraging those born in the lower reaches of society to remain there, to enclose them in the mental world of their particular milieu. Of course, this is perfectly all right if you also believe that all stations in life are equally good and desirable and that there is nothing to be said for articulate reflection upon human existence. In other words, grammatical latitudinarianism is the natural ideological ally of moral and cultural relativism. It so happens that I observed the importance of mastering standard, schoolmarmly grammatical speech in my own family. My father, born two years after his older brother, had the opportunity, denied his older brother for reasons of poverty, to continue his education. Accordingly, my father learned to speak and write standard English, and I never heard him utter a single word that betrayed his origins. He could discourse philosophically without difficulty; I sometimes wished he had been a little less fluent. My uncle, by contrast, remained trapped in the language of the slums. He was a highly intelligent man and what is more a very good one: he was one of those rare men, much less common than their opposite, from whom goodness radiated almost as a physical quality. No one ever met him without sensing his goodness of heart, his generosity of spirit. But he was deeply inarticulate. His thoughts were too complex for the words and the syntax available to him. All through my childhood and beyond, I saw him struggle, like a man wrestling with an invisible boa constrictor, to express his far from foolish thoughts—thoughts of a complexity that my father expressed effortlessly. The frustration was evident on his face, though he never blamed anyone else for it. When, in Pinker’s book, I read the transcript of an interview by the neuropsychologist Howard Gardner with a man who suffered from expressive dysphasia after a stroke—that is to say, an inability to articulate thoughts in language—I was, with great sadness, reminded of my uncle. Gardner asked the man about his job before he had a stroke. “I’m a sig . . . no . . . man . . . uh, well, . . . again.” These words were emitted slowly, and with great effort. . . . “Let me help you,” I interjected. “You were a signal . . .” “A sig-nal man . . . right,” [he] completed my phrase triumphantly. “Were you in the Coast Guard?” “No, er, yes, yes . . . ship . . . Massachu . . . chusetts . . . Coast-guard . . . years.” It seemed to me that it was a cruel fate for such a man as my uncle not to have been taught the standard English that came to come so naturally to my father. As Montaigne tells us, there is no torture greater than that of a man who is unable to express what is in his soul. Beginning in the 1950s, Basil Bernstein, a London University researcher, demonstrated the difference between the speech of middle- and working-class children, controlling for whatever it is that IQ measures. Working-class speech, tethered closely to the here and now, lacked the very aspects of standard English needed to express abstract or general ideas and to place personal experience in temporal or any other perspective. Thus, unless Pinker’s despised schoolmarms were to take the working-class children in hand and deliberately teach them another speech code, they were doomed to remain where they were, at the bottom of a society that was itself much the poorer for not taking full advantage of their abilities, and that indeed would pay a steep penalty for not doing so. An intelligent man who can make no constructive use of his intelligence is likely to make a destructive, and self-destructive, use of it. If anyone doubts that inarticulacy can be a problem, I recommend reading a report by the Joseph Rowntree Trust about British girls who get themselves pregnant in their teens (and sometimes their early teens) as an answer to their existential problems. The report is not in the least concerned with the linguistic deficiencies of these girls, but they are evident in the transcript in every reply to every question. Without exception, the girls had had a very painful experience of life and therefore much to express from hearts that must have been bursting. I give only one example, but it is representative. A girl, aged 17, explains why it is wonderful to have a baby: Maybe it’s just—yeah, because maybe just—might be (um) it just feels great when—when like, you’ve got a child who just— you know— following you around, telling you they love you and I think that’s— it’s quite selfish, but that’s one of the reasons why I became a mum because I wanted someone who’ll—you know—love ’em to bits ’cos it’s not just your child who’s the centre of your world, and that feels great as well, so I think—it’s brilliant. It is fantastic because—you know—they’re—the child’s dependent on you and you know that (um)— that you—if you—you know—you’ve gotta do everything for the child and it just feels great to be depended on. As I know from the experience of my patients, there is no reason to expect her powers of expression to increase spontaneously with age. Any complex abstractions that enter her mind will remain inchoate, almost a nuisance, like a fly buzzing in a bottle that it cannot escape. Her experience is opaque even to herself, a mere jumble from which it will be difficult or impossible to learn because, for linguistic reasons, she cannot put it into any kind of perspective or coherent order. I am not of the ungenerous and empirically mistaken party that writes off such people as inherently incapable of anything better or as already having achieved so much that it is unnecessary to demand anything else of them, on the grounds that they naturally have more in common with Shakespeare than with speechless animal creation. Nor, of course, would I want everyone to speak all the time in Johnsonian or Gibbonian periods. Not only would it be intolerably tedious, but much linguistic wealth would vanish. But everyone ought to have the opportunity to transcend the limitations of his linguistic environment, if it is a restricted one—which means that he ought to meet a few schoolmarms in his childhood. Everyone, save the handicapped, learns to run without being taught; but no child runs 100 yards in nine seconds, or even 15 seconds, without training. It is fatuous to expect that the most complex of human faculties, language, requires no special training to develop it to its highest possible power. From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Thu Nov 16 04:32:06 2006 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2006 20:32:06 -0800 Subject: Anyone familiar? Message-ID: Begin forwarded message: From: "Veronica Gilhooly" Subject: Native American Indian Languages- teaching material Dear recipient My name is Veronica Gilhooly and I reside in Helsinki, Finland. I work in the area of language training, translations and web based resources for teachers. We have in the past year set up a website for teachers including 16 tools to make worksheets with and around 2000 hand drawn pictures by 2 artists. At the moment we offer 31 languages, and some of the tools enables teachers to make bilingual material as well, with or without pictures. Some interactive games have been added as well for students to practice vocabulary and grammar with. www.thelanguagemenu.com (Teacher's material) The site is free for anyone to use and download material from. Material is being made by teachers of different languages and our aim is to have over 50 less spoken languages on our website within the next 6 months. There is no limit to the amount of languages we are able to add to the site. As we have added most of the European languages and some Asian languages to the site, we have also been approached by several organisations asking us to develop material for less commonly use languages as well. We are now trying to find possible partners to work with in this area. We would now like to ask you if you would be interested in being a part of this project to make material into the Native American Indian languages more readily available for teachers and students. We have added fonts (UTF-8) to support some non latin languages, but this still needs to be updated with a larger fontsystem when more non latin based languages are to be added to the site. We have an excel wordlist with around 3000 common words like nouns, verbs and adjectives, and pictures for these are being drawn and updated regulary. When this wordlist is translated to the "new" language, we can easily add them to our database, and the tools that uses the words (and the pictures to correspond with this) are ready to use within the hour after that. What we are looking for is someone to translate the lists to their native language and perhaps a person/teacher for each language to create grammar and vocabulary material in their native language as well. This would then be a resource to be used by teachers anywhere for free. We will be adding about 20 more tools and about the same amount in different interactive games/exercises in the next year, depending on how much time our collaborators have to develop the site with us. We have also found teachers of different languages who are wiling to create language material like grammar and vocabulary exercises (to be added to the tool "fill in the blank") and a lot of games to be downloaded from the material bank. We have already started working with English, Swedish, Danish, French, Russian, Spanish, Romanian and Icelandic teachers who are creating material. Discussion exercises, flash cards of diffent types, power point presentations in different languages will be added as well in the near future. The website will receive a "facelift" during the month of December when we will add some new features and change the look of it as well, and more material will be added. Other institutes supporting our project: The Finnish-Danish cultural center, The Finnish-Norwegian cultural center http://www.hanasaari.fi/english/index.html and the Pools Project in Denmark http://www.languages.dk/cooperations.html If you would be interested in participating in this project, please contact me at the address/telephone numbers below. (If this is not something you would like to be involved in, perhaps it would be possible for you could let me know what organisation would be the correct one to be in contact with?) Best regards Veronica Veronica Gilhooly MD Learnwell Oy-The Language Menu Hietalahdenkatu 2 B 00180 Helsinki, Finland +358 45 130 1114 + 358 50 531 1453 veronica.gilhooly at welho.com office at thelanguagemenu.com veronica.gilhooly at thelanguagemenu.com www.thelanguagemenu.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rtroike at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat Nov 18 07:52:52 2006 From: rtroike at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Rudy Troike) Date: Sat, 18 Nov 2006 00:52:52 -0700 Subject: Critique of Pinker's The Gift of Language In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Andre, Could you give more precise information on the source of this remarkably poignant critique of Pinker's (and many linguists') linguistic egalitarianism? I'd like to be able to reference it. (Dell Hymes would agree in most respects.) Rudy Troike From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Sun Nov 19 01:41:25 2006 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Sat, 18 Nov 2006 17:41:25 -0800 Subject: Critique of Pinker's The Gift of Language In-Reply-To: <20061118005252.0q85puog8o0koccs@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: http://www.city-journal.org/html/16_4_in_prospect.html On Nov 17, 2006, at 11:52 PM, Rudy Troike wrote: Andre, Could you give more precise information on the source of this remarkably poignant critique of Pinker's (and many linguists') linguistic egalitarianism? I'd like to be able to reference it. (Dell Hymes would agree in most respects.) Rudy Troike From mikinakn at SHAW.CA Sun Nov 19 03:26:56 2006 From: mikinakn at SHAW.CA (Rolland Nadjiwon) Date: Sat, 18 Nov 2006 22:26:56 -0500 Subject: Critique of Pinker's The Gift of Language Message-ID: Very interesting articles Andre. Thank you. I can use some of this in my address to a linguistics and language class. ------- wahjeh rolland nadjiwon ----- Original Message ----- From: Andre Cramblit To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Sent: Saturday, November 18, 2006 8:41 PM Subject: Re: [ILAT] Critique of Pinker's The Gift of Language http://www.city-journal.org/html/16_4_in_prospect.html On Nov 17, 2006, at 11:52 PM, Rudy Troike wrote: Andre, Could you give more precise information on the source of this remarkably poignant critique of Pinker's (and many linguists') linguistic egalitarianism? I'd like to be able to reference it. (Dell Hymes would agree in most respects.) Rudy Troike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Sun Nov 19 04:03:37 2006 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Sat, 18 Nov 2006 20:03:37 -0800 Subject: Critique of Pinker's The Gift of Language In-Reply-To: <001501c70b8a$919c4b00$d30d6d18@owner2abac901a> Message-ID: The original article was: http://www.city-journal.org/html/16_4_urbanities-language.html On Nov 18, 2006, at 7:26 PM, Rolland Nadjiwon wrote: Very interesting articles Andre. Thank you. I can use some of this in my address to a linguistics and language class. ------- wahjeh rolland nadjiwon ----- Original Message ----- From: Andre Cramblit To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Sent: Saturday, November 18, 2006 8:41 PM Subject: Re: [ILAT] Critique of Pinker's The Gift of Language http://www.city-journal.org/html/16_4_in_prospect.html On Nov 17, 2006, at 11:52 PM, Rudy Troike wrote: Andre, Could you give more precise information on the source of this remarkably poignant critique of Pinker's (and many linguists') linguistic egalitarianism? I'd like to be able to reference it. (Dell Hymes would agree in most respects.) Rudy Troike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mikinakn at SHAW.CA Sun Nov 19 04:47:33 2006 From: mikinakn at SHAW.CA (Rolland Nadjiwon) Date: Sat, 18 Nov 2006 23:47:33 -0500 Subject: Critique of Pinker's The Gift of Language Message-ID: Even better Andre. I need all the ammo I can get not being a linguist or languitian :) Thanks. ------- wahjeh rolland nadjiwon ----- Original Message ----- From: Andre Cramblit To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Sent: Saturday, November 18, 2006 11:03 PM Subject: Re: [ILAT] Critique of Pinker's The Gift of Language The original article was: http://www.city-journal.org/html/16_4_urbanities-language.html On Nov 18, 2006, at 7:26 PM, Rolland Nadjiwon wrote: Very interesting articles Andre. Thank you. I can use some of this in my address to a linguistics and language class. ------- wahjeh rolland nadjiwon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Sun Nov 19 04:52:46 2006 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Sat, 18 Nov 2006 20:52:46 -0800 Subject: Genetics & Language Development Message-ID: Genetics Influence Adolescent Language Problems http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/05/050517063228.htm Specific language impairment (SLI) is a condition in which a child’s language development is deficient despite showing normal development in all other areas. New research, published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, attempts to identify the cause behind this affliction. Factors such as poor parenting, subtle brain damage or hearing loss have previously been regarded as the cause behind SLI. The findings indicate, however, that these factors are far less important than genetics, specifically, an unidentified combination of defective genes, when determining risk and that no single cause can account for all cases. “As a greater understanding of the issues and their causes becomes apparent, more effective interventions can be devised; tailoring treatments to an individual child’s specific, underlying problems,” says Dr. Dorothy Bishop, author of the study. Research into this condition is helping scientists unravel the mystery behind how genetics contribute to the development of language. Genetic Factors Partly Influence Differences In Language Development Genetic factors appear to influence individual differences in language development among children, at least in part, according to a study by British and American researchers. The study, which also found that environmental influences on children's language development were unique to the individual, not the shared environment, was published in the May/June issue of the journal Child Development. Researchers from the Institute of Psychiatry in London, the University of Oxford, and the University of Missouri-Columbia in the United States investigated both individual differences in language development in the normal range and at the low end of ability in 4 1/2-year-old twins. They recruited participants as part of the Twins Early Development study (TEDS), a longitudinal study involving a representative sample of all twins born in England and Wales in 1994, 1995 and 1996. It is the largest twin study to investigate diverse aspects of language, including articulation, phonology, grammar, vocabulary and verbal memory in a group of children of the same age. Opposite-sex twins were included in the study in order to explore sex differences in genetic and environmental influences for each individual measure. "Children differ in the rates in which they acquire language and in their linguistic ability," explained lead researcher Yulia Kovas, a PhD student at the Institute of Psychiatry in London. "Understanding the sources of this variation is an important part of forming a comprehensive account of language development." The study findings, she notes, are consistent with previous research showing that differences between children in different aspects of language development do not seem to be uniquely dependent on genes or environment. "The results are similar when only the low end of language ability is studied, with the possible exception of the two receptive measures," she said. "This similarity is consistent with the hypothesis that the same genetic and environmental influences are involved in shaping individual differences and differences in risk of a language-related disorder. If this turns out to be the case, it means that when genes and specific aspects of environments that affect language disability are discovered, they will be also involved in individual differences in language ability." Study results also suggest that the same genes and environments similarly affect individual differences in the language ability of boys and girls. "Establishing the role of genetic influences in diverse aspects of language is only a first step in providing a foundation and a motivation for molecular genetic studies to find the multiple specific genes involved," said Kovas. "Similarly, establishing the relative importance of environmental influences is just a first step toward future research to identify specific environments involved. As specific genes and environments are identified, we can begin to understand the complex mechanisms of development of individual differences in language abilities." ### Summarized from Child Development, Vol. 76, Issue 3, Genetic influences in different aspects of language development: The etiology of language skills in 4.5 year-old twins by Kovas Y, Hayiou-Thomas ME, Oliver B (Institute of Psychiatry), Dale PS (University of Oxford), Bishop DVM (University of Missouri-Columbia), and Plomin R (Institute of Psychiatry). Copyright 2005 The Society for Research in Child Development, Inc. All rights reserved. From mikinakn at SHAW.CA Sun Nov 19 05:41:16 2006 From: mikinakn at SHAW.CA (Rolland Nadjiwon) Date: Sun, 19 Nov 2006 00:41:16 -0500 Subject: Genetics & Language Development Message-ID: Thanks Andre...this is all good stuff(?). ------- wahjeh rolland nadjiwon ----- Original Message ----- From: Andre Cramblit To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Sent: Saturday, November 18, 2006 11:52 PM Subject: [ILAT] Genetics & Language Development Genetics Influence Adolescent Language Problems http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/05/050517063228.htm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Sun Nov 19 09:19:13 2006 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Sun, 19 Nov 2006 01:19:13 -0800 Subject: Stubborn Elder Message-ID: Native language lives in woman Vi Hilbert of the Upper Skagit tribe stubbornly aims to keep the old words of Lushootseed alive. By Krista J. Kapralos Herald Writer EVERETT - By her own admission, Vi Hilbert, 88, is stubborn. She was an only child raised in the Upper Skagit tribe. Her mother loved to perform and her father was a medicine man. When they passed the stories on to Hilbert, he spoke in Lushootseed, the language of Western Washington's Coast Salish tribes. Hilbert was a child in a desperate era for American Indian tribes. Tribal children went to boarding schools where they weren't allowed to speak their native languages. Many children forgot Lushootseed, but not Hilbert. She stubbornly tucked it away in her mind and in her heart. Years later, the language emerged from an age of darkness and was brought into the light once again. Hilbert was one of the few people who remembered enough of it to speak it again. At an event sponsored by Everett Community College's Diversity and Equity Center Thursday, Hilbert shared her language with about 70 students. The students leaned forward in their seats in an effort to catch every word, and afterward they knelt on the floor in front of Hilbert to thank her. "She's living history," said Earl Martin, director of the college's counseling center and a member of the Cree tribe. "The knowledge she passes down orally is just as valuable as anything that's in our library." Hilbert has dedicated her life to the rebirth of Lushootseed. She worked in the linguistics department at the University of Washington for 15 years. In 1989, she received an honorary doctorate from Seattle University and was named a Washington State Living Treasure. Hilbert has worked closely with linguists to develop a written form of Lushootseed and publish dictionaries for the language. "Given her age, I've wanted to get her here while she's still able to speak," said Christina Castorena, associate dean for diversity for EvCC. "She's a local jewel, and it's an honor to have her here." Hilbert clutched a dark blanket around her thin shoulders as she sat in a chair on the stage in Baker Hall on the EvCC campus. She demanded that the students speak up if they wanted to ask her a question. "I'm bossy," she said, smiling slyly. Hilbert said she's been criticized by some tribal members for sharing Upper Skagit culture. She argues that every culture is important and should be shared with as many people as possible. Sharing Lushootseed and ancient Coast Salish stories won't dilute the value of the culture. "The language will live because it's important," she said. "The culture will live because it's important." Reporter Krista J. Kapralos: 425-339-3422 or kkapralos at heraldnet.com. From lanz at RICE.EDU Sun Nov 19 17:45:44 2006 From: lanz at RICE.EDU (Linda Lanz) Date: Sun, 19 Nov 2006 11:45:44 -0600 Subject: Efforts being made to save Han Athabascan language Message-ID: http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/rural/story/8423899p-8318227c.html Efforts being made to save Han Athabascan language ENDANGERED: Only seven or eight Natives fluent in Han remain. By LOUISE FREEMAN Fairbanks Daily News-Miner Published: November 19, 2006 Last Modified: November 19, 2006 at 01:25 AM EAGLE -- The language of the Han people of the upper Yukon basin will be preserved in dictionary form thanks to the efforts of Belgian linguist Willem De Reuse and the Alaska Native Language Center. Han Athabascan is one of the most endangered Native languages in Alaska, with only seven or eight fluent speakers remaining in Eagle Village, and two more in Dawson, Canada. Larry Kaplan, director of the Alaska Native Language Center, said the language has been long ignored and is only now getting the attention it deserves. "For us it is a very high priority project to get it documented for future generations of Han people, as well as for linguists who might be interested in the language," he said. De Reuse spent much of the summer and fall in Eagle Village working with elders to document the vanishing language. Conan Goebel, first chief of Eagle Village, said they have been trying for several years to obtain funding for such a project. "So we got lucky with the university contacting us and asking if Willem could come here and do this," he said. Ruth Ridley welcomed the opportunity to help De Reuse document the language. She previously worked with the ANLC in the 1980s to produce a book of stories in Han. "They call me the youngest fluent speaker of our language. And I'm 56, so you can see it needs help," she said. Ridley, with her older sisters Ethel Beck and Bertha Ulvi, grew up speaking Han as their first language. According to Beck, the children of the Paul family had to learn Han so they could communicate with their grandmother, who didn't speak English. Michael Krauss, ex-director of the ANLC who initiated the project now being funded by the University of Alaska system, attributes much of the success of the project to the three sisters. "The Paul family especially understands the stakes and are actively contributing everything they can," he said. De Reuse is also working on a dictionary of Apache, one of the languages of the Southwest that is related to Northern Athabascan languages such as Han and Gwich'in. Han, long considered a dialect of Gwich'in, has more recently been recognized as a separate language. The languages are enough alike, however, that De Reuse has been using words from a Gwich'in dictionary to help Eagle elders recall similar-sounding words in their own language. A list of Han nouns was compiled by linguist John Ritter of the Yukon Native Language Center in Whitehorse, Canada, in 1980, so De Reuse is concentrating on words for actions such as throwing, hitting and walking. De Reuse explained that many of the verbs are "pretty precise terms" that describe a very specific action. For example, there is a particular word meaning to "throw a solid roundish object like a rock or chunk of bone." For terms describing traditional male activities such as hunting and fishing, De Reuse turned to Tim Malcolm, who at age 69 is the oldest fluent speaker of Han in Eagle Village. Like other Alaska Natives over the past century, the children of the Paul and Malcolm families were discouraged from speaking their language once they entered school. De Reuse attributes much of the loss of the Han language to formal education, but, he said, Eagle Village's relative isolation protected their culture from outside influence to some extent. The Han language fared less well in the Canadian village of Moosehide due to its proximity to Dawson, two miles upriver. De Reuse plans to spend time in Dawson next summer working with the two remaining speakers of Han, who are both more than 70 years old. He will also return to Eagle to continue his work there, which includes recording not only words and phrases, but also stories told in Han. Although the dictionary won't be completed for several years, Eagle Village is already benefitting from the project. Joanne Beck, tribal administrator, said that since working with De Reuse, "The elders have started speaking our language more and remembering stories that were passed on to them. It's exciting." The next step in preserving the language is to develop a curriculum so the language can be taught. Ethel Beck said, "I'd love to teach the language to anyone who wants to learn it, adults or children." First Chief Goebel, 25, would like to learn Han himself, but he recognizes it will be of limited value. "You can't go down to the Lower 48 and use it, like Spanish. You've got to do it for yourself, to keep it alive." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Sun Nov 19 17:59:48 2006 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Sun, 19 Nov 2006 09:59:48 -0800 Subject: One Response to Language & Genetics Message-ID: There is too much emphasis purely on genetics and not enough consideration of the epigenome, e.g. the "switches" that control the genes. The way the "switches" are oriented on the genes can be acquired during life and transmitted to progeny since, unlike most people would have one believe, the entire chromosome is passed from parents to siblings, not just the DNA blueprint itself...... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From phonosemantics at EARTHLINK.NET Sun Nov 19 22:45:25 2006 From: phonosemantics at EARTHLINK.NET (jess tauber) Date: Sun, 19 Nov 2006 17:45:25 -0500 Subject: One Response to Language & Genetics Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From CMcMillan at WVC.EDU Mon Nov 20 17:28:58 2006 From: CMcMillan at WVC.EDU (McMillan, Carol) Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2006 09:28:58 -0800 Subject: One Response to Language & Genetics In-Reply-To: A<037D755F-6BF0-41CF-88A7-A0381AF26FF7@ncidc.org> Message-ID: Do you have a readable reference for that? I'm good at basic biochemical genetics, but I need updating. I haven't heard the term "epigenome" before. Thanks, Carol ________________________________ From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of Andre Cramblit Sent: Sunday, November 19, 2006 10:00 AM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: [ILAT] One Response to Language & Genetics There is too much emphasis purely on genetics and not enough consideration of the epigenome, e.g. the "switches" that control the genes. The way the "switches" are oriented on the genes can be acquired during life and transmitted to progeny since, unlike most people would have one believe, the entire chromosome is passed from parents to siblings, not just the DNA blueprint itself...... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Mon Nov 20 18:09:09 2006 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2006 10:09:09 -0800 Subject: One Response to Language & Genetics In-Reply-To: <7EB68133FBB1DA4D8B5A7C860642068B207793@ad-ex-wvcmail.wvc.edu> Message-ID: sorry was just passing on a comment that was sent my way On Nov 20, 2006, at 9:28 AM, McMillan, Carol wrote: Do you have a readable reference for that? I'm good at basic biochemical genetics, but I need updating. I haven't heard the term "epigenome" before. Thanks, Carol From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of Andre Cramblit Sent: Sunday, November 19, 2006 10:00 AM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: [ILAT] One Response to Language & Genetics There is too much emphasis purely on genetics and not enough consideration of the epigenome, e.g. the "switches" that control the genes. The way the "switches" are oriented on the genes can be acquired during life and transmitted to progeny since, unlike most people would have one believe, the entire chromosome is passed from parents to siblings, not just the DNA blueprint itself...... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From candaceg at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Nov 20 19:16:15 2006 From: candaceg at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Candace Galla) Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2006 12:16:15 -0700 Subject: American Indian Language Development Institute 2007 Message-ID: Announcing the 28th Annual American Indian Language Development Institute Weaving Indigenous Voices: Telling Our Stories June 4-June 29, 2007 (Please see attachment for more information) The University of Arizona and Department of Language, Reading & Culture invite you to the 28th American Indian Language Development Institute (AILDI). AILDI 2007 will focus on a range of critical topics, including, grant-writing for Indigenous populations, advanced methods for language immersion teaching for endangered languages and skills in documenting Indigenous languages for the purpose of language revitalization. In addition the 2007 AILDI is collaborating with the UA Poetry Center in hosting a symposium: Native Voices with support from the National Endowment for the Arts. AILDI will have a special focus on Native poets, poetry readings, and writing. Our theme, Weaving Indigenous Voices: Telling our Stories reflects this emphasis and will be highlighted with guest speakers, panels, projects and films. AILDI offers six graduate credits or undergraduate credit hours during four weeks of intensive study. Courses can be applied toward regular degree programs and teacher endorsements. Best, Candace K. Galla Ph.D Student, LRC Graduate Assistant American Indian Language Development Institute Department of Language, Reading & Culture College of Education, Room 517 P.O. Box 210069 Tucson, AZ 85721-0069 (520) 621-1068, Fax (520)621-8174 www.u.arizona.edu/~aildi candaceg at email.arizona.edu -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Flier 2007.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 160317 bytes Desc: not available URL: From manuela_noske at HOTMAIL.COM Tue Nov 21 16:17:38 2006 From: manuela_noske at HOTMAIL.COM (Manuela Noske) Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2006 08:17:38 -0800 Subject: Report on NPR "Oneida Indian Nation Works to Recover its Language" Message-ID: Morning Edition ran a report on the revitalization of the Oneida language this morning. You can listen to the report at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6517863 Best, Manuela _________________________________________________________________ Check the weather nationwide with MSN Search: Try it now! http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=weather&FORM=WLMTAG -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 22 00:26:35 2006 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2006 17:26:35 -0700 Subject: Language barriers (fwd) Message-ID: November 21, 2006 09:41 am Language barriers Josh Newton http://www.tahlequahdailypress.com/features/local_story_325094109.html?keyword=topstory It isn’t uncommon to hear a number of well-known Cherokee or Spanish words uttered while out-and-about in Tahlequah: “wa do” and “o si yo” in Cherokee, or “hola” and “adios” in Spanish. For many folks, grade-school education imparted in at least a minimal understanding of these languages. But perhaps more is needed to break the language barrier. According to a new survey by the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly 92 percent of Oklahoma American Indians speak only English in the home; furthermore, 70 percent of Hispanics in the state speak a language other than English at home. For American Indians, it may not be lack of tradition being passed from one generation to another, but perhaps the introduction of outside influences. “I don’t think they [American Indian families} are doing anything different,” said Pat Moss, a trilinguist who speaks English, Cherokee and Spanish. “We didn’t have a TV when I was a kid. As time went by, there were more and more options: outside stimuli. Instead of sitting around the wood stove telling family stories - even if both parents speak Cherokee - they still have that outside stimuli. There are no video games in Cherokee.” As a child, the only English Moss came in contact with was broken English, or on the occasional Friday night A.M. radio station. He feels as new technologies like TV, video games, computers were introduced, native languages began taking a back-seat to English. According to Cherokee Nation’s Web site, the native language is only spoken by approximately 10,000 people. “Language is very important to preserving a culture - many words which are descriptive of cultural mannerisms, feelings, events, and ceremonies are only identifiable in the native tongue,” states the site. “There is no comparable word in the English language. All prayers and other ceremonies used at stomp dances and by medicine people are in the Cherokee language as well.” Raised in a small Creek Nation town, Deena Hare recalls childhood tales of how the Creek language was carried from Alabama to Florida, and then to Indian Territory in what is now Oklahoma. Her family only used English when absolutely necessary to “survive the lifestyle” they would encounter near Okmulgee. “To speak English was not a concern for us kids, or really anyone who was Creek,” said Hare. “If we wanted to buy food or clothes or what be it, most folks we dealt with just pointed and said something in English, and dad would nod his head ‘yes’ or ‘no.’” Hare moved away from her hometown after marriage and began to slowly learn important English words. Eventually, English and her Creek became equal in her life. “We taught the best we could to our sons, but to get by, we knew they’d have to know English, so it became our goal to have them learn English,” said Hare. According to Anita Lightcap, Special Programs coordinator for Tahlequah Public Schools, native cultures represented in the I-35 District include Cherokee, Shawnee, Keetoowah, Caddo, Navajo, Chickashaw, Delaware and Choctaw. Lightcap believes the U.S. Census Bureau’s numbers relating to American Indians to be accurate, based on home language surveys filled out by parents of the students. She echoed one of Moss’ theories as to why American Indians are more likely to speak fluent English than a traditional native language. “There’s not much printed material around in Cherokee and native languages,” said Lightcap. Acclimating foreign-speaking students at a younger age is a work in progress, according to TPS Indian Education Director Leroy Qualls. “I think it’s not only limited English proficiency; you have to overcome obstacles to get up to par or average with everyone else,” said Qualls. “There are more bumps in the road.” Finding the right teaching method is important, Qualls and Lightcap agree. “Eighty percent of Native American students are auditory learners,” said Qualls. “If I were a teacher lecturing for a full hour, that would bore them. Things are being done to identify that stuff. Having more tools for teachers is important.” In the Tahlequah district, about 60 percent of the student population is Native American; of that number, 95 percent are Cherokee. “As far as we know, our school system has the highest Native American population in the world,” said Qualls. When Hare’s children attended school in the I-35 district over 20 years ago, she doesn’t recall their having a problem adjusting to cultural or language differences. “I can see other foreign speakers having a hard time in any American school, but I don’t see that many Indians having a tough time,” she said. “The only Indians who still speak native languages and not English are probably elders.” The Hispanic population may face bigger challenges at adapting to and working through an English-based society. “The Hispanic population is really adamant about bringing their culture to America,” said Moss. “A lot of them haven’t dropped their culture and adapted to the American way.” Hispanic culture does thrive, and thus, even younger generations are still exposed to their native language. “They have their own video stores, their own videos,” said Moss. “They’ve actually brought their culture.” According to the U.S. Census Bureau survey, 72 percent of Oklahoma Hispanics ages 16 and older are employed in the labor force, with one in five of those work in construction. “In the workforce, they are taught that you - especially a young man - should work hard to show you are productive,” said Moss. Area businesses have begun to use a service offered by Language Line, a Monterey, Calif.-based interpretation program. Cherokee County 911 Coordinator Darryl Maggard uses the system, which offers 24-hour access to an interpreter in more than 170 languages. “If we have someone who is non-English speaking, another dispatcher contacts Language Line,” said Maggard. The system allows the 911 facility to act upon emergency calls by people who may not understand or speak English - but those scenarios, said Maggard, are rare. “We probably use it twice a month,” said Maggard. Most callers, despite their native origin, can relate their emergency needs in English, he said. “Most people know enough English to at least say they are needing help,” said Maggard. “If not, we have Language Line that can interpret back and forth. It’s real helpful.” When entering the TPS education system, Hispanic students are introduced to the same English classes as other students, with the same expectations. That becomes a problem for students who already know some of the basics the “foreign language” class will offer. Instead, said Lightcap, students need to be involved in a class that can expound upon in-depth principles of both their native language and English. “We study [these ideas] constantly,” Lightcap said. She pointed to statements made by the National Alliance of Business in 2000: “U.S. students still remain too isolated from people who are different from them, too insulated in their own cultures and languages. They are not learning respect for differences or the cooperative skills they need to contribute effectively in diverse work teams.” Lightcap said local students - whatever their national origin - “don’t stand out and look horribly different from their classroom counterparts.” “That’s a good thing for our students,” she said. “That’s a good thing for us, I think.” The most important thing, according to both Qualls and Lightcap, is for English Language Learner (ELL) students to not succumb to statistics; ELL students have the highest drop-out rate, according to Lightcap. “I think the things for kids to remember is, we all face struggles, no matter how old we are,” said Lightcap. “To face those struggles without an education is going to make [the struggles] more severe. When overcome, adversity will make a student more experienced and better prepared for life. “We all have adversity - those are bumps in the road,” said Qualls. “One of the keys to life is how you handle those bumps.” When any student - Native American, Hispanic or otherwise - seems confused or wants to quit, Qualls points him or her to a paper on his wall, which reads: “Price of not graduating: $260,000, estimated difference between high-school dropouts and a graduate.” Lightcap knows foreign-speaking students face a number of obstacles - at home, at school or even in the workforce. “We watch children get doors closed in their faces that should not be closed,” she said. Problems should be addressed for all students facing extra obstacles, so Qualls and Lightcap encourage students to seek help. “That’s trying to overcome an attitude of self-esteem and self-worth,” said Qualls. “You’re a team - you and the teacher.” As a parent and grandparent, Hare believes Native Americans and Hispanics have a great deal of knowledge to gain from one another. “I feel like [Native Americans] have skillfully adapted to the English language, without forgetting their cultural background,” she said. “No one should be asked to forget or put aside their culture, but in this country, we are destined to be English-speaking citizens. It’s for the best in life. It makes us money and puts food on our tables. I believe that is why America is so special: Even in Oklahoma, people of all races can learn from each other and adapt to find a way to live joyfully.” © 2006, Tahlequah Daily Press 106 W. Second Street; Tahlequah, OK 74464 (918) 456-8833 or Email Tips & Feedback From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 22 00:30:45 2006 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2006 17:30:45 -0700 Subject: Educators in Mexico had sought to wipe out indigenous language (fwd) Message-ID: Educators in Mexico had sought to wipe out indigenous language By Ted B. Kissell, tkissell at VenturaCountyStar.com November 19, 2006 URL:http://www.venturacountystar.com/vcs/county_news/article/0,1375,VCS_226_5155956,00.html Difficult as it might be for them to adjust to U.S. schools, Mixtecos and other indigenous Mexicans are used to facing educational barriers, among other indignities, in their home country. Like most such groups, the Mixtecos didn't get to choose their own name. The term Mixteco comes from Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs — itself still spoken by some 1.6 million Mexicans — and means "People of the Cloud Place." Mixtecos call themselves "Ñuu Savi," or some variation of that term, which means "People from the Place of Rain." After centuries of near-total neglect of those "Indios" who maintained their indigenous language and traditions, the Mexican educational system established in the 1920s, after the Revolution, officially recognized that these languages existed and declared that they needed to be wiped out. Called "castellanización," or "Spanishization," this policy called for a system of Spanish-only schools in indigenous communities that would ease the assimilation of these poorest and most marginalized of Mexico's peasants into the Mestizo culture. According to Sylvia Schmelkes, head of the Department of Bilingual and Intercultural Education for Mexico's federal education system, this educational model gave way, roughly in the middle of the 20th century, to a different approach. "Teachers started to work with the indigenous language as a tool to help them achieve speaking Spanish," she said. By the 1970s, Schmelkes said, a separate system of bilingual schools was created, whose objective was "to achieve an integral bilingualism, a fluency in both languages." "But many teachers still follow the old philosophies," she said. When compared to mainstream Mexican schools, the system of bilingual primary schools in indigenous communities is still separate and unequal. Fausto Sandoval, a teacher in Oaxaca who lives and works in his home community, is a Triqui, a group of some 30,000 people whose towns are surrounded by Mixteco communities, and who speak a language closely related to Mixteco. "There are schools in indigenous communities," Sandoval said. "In the majority of them, there's an indigenous teacher. The problems begin with, how do they teach, in what language do they teach, and in what language are the books?" The biggest problem, he said, is teacher training, or the lack of it. "The majority of teachers come in without any training to be teachers," he said. According to the most recent statistics from the Mexican government, 35 percent of teachers in the state's indigenous schools have no more than a high school education. Others have teacher training, but no specific training on how to teach a bilingual curriculum. Very few have gone to a "Normal Bilingüe" to be trained in running a truly bilingual classroom, the stated mission of all indigenous primary schools in Mexico. — Ted B. Kissell Comments (4) | Trackback (0) Copyright 2006, Ventura County Star. All Rights Reserved. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 22 00:32:26 2006 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2006 17:32:26 -0700 Subject: UAF gets $1.3 million to help save Native languages (fwd) Message-ID: UAF gets $1.3 million to help save Native languages IMMERSION PROGRAMS: Money will be used to recruit teachers with Kuskokwim ties. The Associated Press (Published: November 17, 2006) http://www.adn.com/news/education/story/8416935p-8311651c.html FAIRBANKS -- University of Alaska Fairbanks researchers have been awarded $1.3 million to help teachers in rural Alaska better serve bilingual students and students in language immersion programs. The U.S. Department of Education grant is the largest humanities grant the College of Liberal Arts has ever received. The money will be used over the next three years to help recruit, educate and graduate about 20 master's students and four doctoral students with ties to the Lower Kuskokwim Delta region of Alaska. The program is geared toward individuals who are already teaching in the region. "Our goal is to create local leadership because the local people know best what the local schools need," said project director Sabine Siekmann. Siekmann said the three-year project will focus on the Yupik language, partly because the Lower Kuskokwim School District, based in Bethel, already has a well-established immersion program. In the future, however, her team would like to take the program statewide. The Lower Kuskokwim School District is one of the state's largest rural districts. About 80 percent of the district's 3,800 students are Yupik, and about a fourth of the district's 350 certified teachers are Yupik, the largest percentage of indigenous educators of any district in Alaska. The district also has one of the only immersion schools in the state, the Ayaprun Elitnaurvik Yupik Immersion Elementary School. Students in the school spend much of their day speaking Yupik. They learn math, social studies and other topics in the native language of the region. "If you value your language, the immersion programs are absolutely vital to the sustenance of that language," said Bev Williams, director of academic programs for the Lower Kuskokwim School District. "English is bombarding the communities all the time through television, through travel, through state testing. And, of course, schools have been paramount in ridding communities of their language. We are trying to change that approach." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 22 00:33:47 2006 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2006 17:33:47 -0700 Subject: Legal service highlights need for Indigenous language interpreters (fwd) Message-ID: Thursday, 16 November 2006, 12:57:05 AEDT Legal service highlights need for Indigenous language interpreters http://abc.net.au/message/news/stories/ms_news_1790021.htm The head of the Aboriginal Legal Service says many injustices have occurred in Western Australia's justice system because of a lack of accredited Indigenous language interpreters. Dennis Eggington says the State Government has put the issue in the too hard basket, while interpreters for international languages are readily available for others on trial. He made the comments after a trial in the Kalgoorlie District Court was stood down yesterday because the judge was not confident about the credentials of the interpreter provided for an accused man who spoke the rare Ngaanyatjarra language. Mr Eggington says the issue must be addressed to assure the community justice is being upheld in the WA court system. "If we look hard enough we could find a whole lot of cases where people have fronted up at court and haven't been able to understand any of the proceedings and they've gone through it by just nodding and saying, 'yes, yes, yes'," he said. The Attorney-General's office has been contacted for comment. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 22 00:35:56 2006 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2006 17:35:56 -0700 Subject: Native chiefs urge funding to save their languages (fwd) Message-ID: Native chiefs urge funding to save their languages Tue Nov 14 2006 By Kevin Rollason http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/subscriber/local/story/3773272p-4364122c.html ABORIGINAL educators and citizens from across the country are gathering in Winnipeg this week to save native languages. Both Phil Fontaine, Grand Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, and conference co-organizer Chief Murray Clearsky, of the Waywayseecappo First Nation, fear that unless aboriginal language instruction is added to the education system in native reserves and communities across the nation -- much like French Immersion is in many schools across English Canada -- their languages could be lost. "Our language is in great danger," Fontaine said yesterday. "Fifty-two of our 55 languages are in various stages of disappearing. And if they disappear here it would be extremely difficult to retrieve. This is our country." Clearsky said that, for aboriginal people, their language and culture are tied together. "To me, as a leader, if you're going to be a sovereign nation, you have to speak and understand your own language," he said. "It's a hard thing to do to keep our language, but if we aren't able to do it, and have our language in our schools, in a few years there will be no such thing." Fontaine said the federal government, under the Liberals, was set to spend $172 million across the nation for indigenous languages, but under the Harper Tory government that has been slashed to $5 million. "We hope to convince the government to reinstate funding," he said. Fontaine said aboriginal groups have already found that in communities where native languages are included in an immersion program at the local school, the language thrives. Fontaine himself says he sees the loss of languages firsthand when he travels the country and speaks in his own language. "It really depends where you are because there are areas of the country where the language is strong but then you go to many communities and the language isn't spoken or it isn't by many people," he said. The National First Nations Language Conference is being held at the Winnipeg Convention Centre until Wednesday. Joy Keeper, a spokeswoman for the Manitoba First Nations Education Resource Centre, said there are hundreds of conference attendees from across the country and from the United States. kevin.rollason at freepress.mb.ca From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 22 00:39:09 2006 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2006 17:39:09 -0700 Subject: Cree immersion kindergarten offered in northern Manitoba (fwd) Message-ID: Cree immersion kindergarten offered in northern Manitoba Last Updated: Monday, November 13, 2006 | 10:36 AM CT CBC News http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2006/11/13/cree-immersion.html Children on a northern Manitoba reserve have begun studying entirely in their ancestral language of Cree. Opaskwayak Cree Nation, near The Pas, has three classes of kindergarten students in a Cree immersion program since September. Derek Fontaine, the principal of the Joe A. Ross School, said the immersion program has already proved to be a success. "The young ones are really picking up the language fast and they're going home and teaching the parents what they've learned at school," he said. "It's important for the future generations that the language is strong and alive in the community." Plans for program to grow Fontaine said the school plans to offer Grade One immersion next year. He hopes the students will be able to go through to Grade Six in Cree immersion. The immersion class has already sparked new interest among adults, especially among parents of students in the immersion classes, he said. "What is happening now is parents and community members that are wanting to learn the language," he said. Conference to preserve aboriginal languages The Cree immersion classes will be among the programs examined at a conference on preserving aboriginal languages that opens in Winnipeg on Monday. Shirley Fontaine, a spokeswoman for the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, said it would be hard for many First Nations communities to emulate the program. The federal government recently cut millions from a plan to fund aboriginal language preservation and what's left is a pittance, she said. "For the Manitoba region, it works out to $2 per person, so it's a real challenge to say: 'Okay, here's two dollars: you maintain your language on this Toonie.'" From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 22 00:41:07 2006 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2006 17:41:07 -0700 Subject: Aboriginal literacy project is good news in any language (fwd) Message-ID: Aboriginal literacy project is good news in any language Christopher Kremmer November 13, 2006 http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/aboriginal-literacy-project-is-good-news-in-any-language/2006/11/12/1163266413098.html# A SYDNEY charity is claiming an educational breakthrough that could save Aboriginal languages from extinction, and simultaneously boost English literacy in indigenous communities. At a forum in Sydney today the Australian Literacy and Numeracy Foundation will brief corporate donors on the results of a pilot project in the Northern Territory that they say is helping some Aborigines to write in their own languages for the first time. The foundation believes the widespread inability of indigenous Australians to read and write in their own languages hampers their efforts to learn English, without which education, work and social opportunities are severely restricted. Of the 250-odd Aboriginal languages spoken when Europeans first settled in Australia, about 55 have vanished, with one dying out every two years. While linguists have extensively catalogued indigenous languages, there has been less success in developing techniques for teaching them at the primary school level. At Tennant Creek, in the Northern Territory, the foundation has been working to bridge the gap, "mapping" the sounds of the local Warumungu language in the Roman (English) alphabet, and using story boards and other methods to develop basic education modules for reading and writing the language. Peter Henwood, who has worked at Tennant Creek Language Centre for the past 15 years, said he had been impressed by the progress. "The foundation's method has proven extremely popular in the primary school here. For too long Aboriginal languages have been approached by linguists as some kind of historical artefact, but this method makes them usable in a way that has the potential to transform literacy education in indigenous communities," he said. It is hoped that some among the first batch of 60 students attending the course will go on to become language teachers. The foundation's co-founder, Mary-Ruth Mendel, a speech and language pathologist, described first language literacy as the missing link in efforts to improve social and economic outcomes in indigenous communities. "What's missing for our indigenous kids is early learning experience in their mother tongue. If we can give them that they'll be well on the way to acquiring English language skills that will help them get through school and do all the things that they want to do." The Northern Territory Government in recent years phased out bilingual education, a move strongly criticised by educators. To launch its project the foundation was provided with initial funding of $300,000 by Coca-Cola Amatil. Ms Mendel said the project's mix of government-funded schools, corporate philanthropy, the foundation's expertise and strong involvement of indigenous people had the potential to empower some of the country's most disadvantaged people. "Reading and writing are the currency of learning at school. If you have a glitch in either, you become marginalised. Literacy is right at the top of what indigenous families want for their children and themselves." From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Thu Nov 23 17:48:39 2006 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2006 09:48:39 -0800 Subject: resource Message-ID: The Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project has just launched OREL: Online Resources for Endangered Languages. OREL is a new and unique resource - a library of over 200 annotated and categorised links to websites for people interested in endangered language documentation and revitalisation. To access OREL go to http://www.hrelp.org/languages/resources/ There is a version of OREL also available in Arabic at http://www.hrelp.org/languages/resources/orel-ar/index.html Peter Austin Marit Rausing Chair in Field Linguistics Director, Endangered Languages Academic Programme SOAS From susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM Thu Nov 23 19:02:00 2006 From: susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM (Susan Penfield) Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2006 12:02:00 -0700 Subject: ASUL's latest podcast In-Reply-To: <456494C5.3020406@email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: -------- Native Voices - Native American Language Materials in the Labriola Center Fred interviews Joyce Martin, Acting Curator of the Labriola National American Indian Data Center about a special, new handmade book, "Cherokee Phoenix, Advent of a Newspaper: the Print Shop of the Cherokee Nation 1828-1834." by Frank Brannon. The book focuses on the technical aspects and history of the newspaper and Cherokee printing. They will also discuss printed examples of the Cherokee syllabary and other Cherokee materials including language videos, coloring books, bibles, and popular comic books written in Cherokee and English. We will also learn about other native language materials, when Native American Languages began to be written, a project to preserve and provide access to endangered language materials, and a traveling exhibit in the works for spring 2007. The entire run of the Cherokee Phoenix is available on microfilm in the Labriola Center. For more information please visit the Labriola National American Indian Data Center on the web at: http://www.asu.edu/lib/archives/labriola.htm Host: Fred McIlvain Guest: Joyce Martin Episode 31 Running time: 13:05 (c) 2006 Arizona Board of Regents -- Stuart Glogoff Senior Consultant, Learning Technologies 1077 N. Highland Ave., Room 337 CCIT Tucson, AZ 85721-0073 (520) 626-5347 fax 626-8220 UA Faculty and instructors! Visit my "For Faculty" webpage http://elearn.arizona.edu/stuartg/forfaculty.html for information on faculty websites, instructional blogs, and podcasting. -- ____________________________________________________________ Susan D. Penfield, Ph.D. Associate Director, Center for Educational Resources in Culture, Language and Literacy (CERCLL) Department of English (Primary) American Indian Language Development Institute (AILDI) Second Language Acquistion &Teaching Ph.D. Program (SLAT) Department of Language,Reading and Culture Department of Linguistics The Southwest Center (Research) Phone for messages: (520) 621-1836 "Every language is an old-growth forest of the mind, a watershed of thought, an ecosystem of spiritual possibilities." Wade Davis...(on a Starbucks cup...) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dzo at BISHARAT.NET Fri Nov 24 23:18:04 2006 From: dzo at BISHARAT.NET (d_z_o) Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2006 23:18:04 -0000 Subject: UN Declaration on Indigenous Rights (urgent) Message-ID: There is a discussion concerning the UN Declaration on Indigenous Rights - which is coming to a vote at the UN on Tuesday - on the PPGIS list (some of it forwarded from the EANTH-L list). The issue seems important and I would encourage anyone interested to review the recent correspondence at: http://www.dgroups.org/groups/ppgis/index.cfm?CookieTested=TRUE The Declaration draft is at: http://www.ohchr.org/english/issues/indigenous/docs/declaration.doc I would forward more items directly to ILAT, but the Arizona.edu server *still* takes exception to my e-mail address (alone among all domains that host lists I participate in). This is mailed via workaround using a Yahoogroup as a kind of proxy - which is a little tedious to use for a lot of items. Don From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Sat Nov 25 02:45:09 2006 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2006 18:45:09 -0800 Subject: online Learning Message-ID: On-line Language Training http://www.kttc.com/News/index.php?ID=9569 ROCHESTER, MN -- Responding to fires is more of a challenge for emergency crews when the people they show up to help don't speak any English. A new program is helping the Rochester police and fire departments, break down language barriers. It's a computer based program and allows participants to choose from 30 languages. Spencer Goetzman is learning Arabic, which he hopes will be a valuable tool when good communication is necessary in an emergency situation. Goetzman says, "When there's a language barrier you are really put in a tough spot trying to use hand gestures and get people to explaining to you as best they can. And, I'm sure often that there's missed communication that can cause problems but hopefully this will alleviate some of that." Not only will it help those out in the field, 911 dispatchers will also put the program to good use. Currently the program is in the testing phase, but if the departments continue to use it, the cost to use the program will increase and because of budget constraints, the number of participants able to use the program will decrease. Updated: 2006-11-24 07:57:36 From dzo at BISHARAT.NET Sat Nov 25 16:16:10 2006 From: dzo at BISHARAT.NET (Don Osborn) Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2006 16:16:10 -0000 Subject: Fwd: MS & Mapuche conflict re localized Windows Message-ID: There is a current controversy in Chile re MS Windows localized in Mapuche. I posted an inquiry about it to another list and one reply had some additional links (these are both appended below). From online translations of the Spanish links, it seems that the Windows project involved the Chilean Ministry of Education, the Corporación Nacional Indígena Conadi, and the Universidad de La Frontera - but no one thought to involve the traditional leadership? I'd be interested to know if anyone on ILAT has additional information or explanations about this issue. (One is aware of course of some aspects of Mapuche history but how that relates to the current issue, and specifics of the project and reaction to it are of particular interest.) TIA... Don --- In l10n_project_management at yahoogroups.com, "Don Osborn" wrote: I hope this is ontopic - it concerns a particular kind of L10n management issue: localization of software for a less-widely-spoken language and objection to that by the speaker community (or at least some influential parts of it). See: "Microsoft in legal battle with Chilean tribe: Chile's Mapuche Indians allege that Microsoft translated Windows software into their native language without getting tribal leaders' permission." http://money.cnn.com/2006/11/23/technology/microsoft_chile.reut/?postversion=2006112311 This is a little puzzling having heard MS's talk about how they approach L10n, working with the community etc. How could they have gotten that far without encountering issues relating to the Mapuche's traditional authorities and their feelings about this project? What kind of language experts were they working with in the community? Or was it all done with linguists based in, say, universities in the main cities who had less ties to the community? Are there other dimensions to this issue that the article does not mention? This is of considerable interest since there is increasing attention to localizing software - FOSS as well as proprietary - in various languages. There is to my knowledge no "playbook" or guide to the cross-cultural dimensions of localization projects, at least not in non-Western cultures that might not see the process in just the way that outside (from other countries or even within the same countries) experts might assume they would. It would be easy to assume that a local group working on FOSS localization would be better in touch with the local realities than a multinational, but this is not necessarily the case. Drawing on some experience in international development (rural community development and its contexts) I've been working on the concept of "localization ecology" as a way of accounting for dimensions of the process that go beyond the technical + language interface that is the main preoccupation of l10n projects. So any further information on the particulars of the disagreement in Chile, or comments thereon, would be of great interest. TIA... Don Osborn Bisharat.net PanAfrican Localisation project --- End of 1st forwarded message --- --- In l10n_project_management at yahoogroups.com, Orlando Ribeiro wrote: I would like to suggest some links about the subject "MS & Mapuche conflict re localized Windows" that I have got. Althoug they are in spanish, I thik they are useful to help us to understand the impact of the subject in other countries of South America. I think it is an interesting opportunity to learn a little bit more about cross culture. Windows in Mapuzugun: Microsoft page in Chile (spanish): http://www.microsoft.com/chile/mapuzugun/ Chile/Mapuches acusan a Microsoft de pirataría intelectual (spanish) http://www.etniasdecolombia.org/actualidadetnica/detalle.asp?cid=4471 Yahoo (Argentina): mapuches acusan de piratería a Microsoft - http://ar.news.yahoo.com/061115/11/wjfq.html Regards Orlando Ribeiro Software/hardware documentation & translation Ribeirão Preto - SP - Brazil --- End of 2nd forwarded message --- From phonosemantics at EARTHLINK.NET Sat Nov 25 22:10:58 2006 From: phonosemantics at EARTHLINK.NET (jess tauber) Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2006 17:10:58 -0500 Subject: Fwd: MS & Mapuche conflict re localized Windows Message-ID: Why would anyone be surprised? After the forwarded message was posted here a few weeks ago from the Santiago Times (online) describing the Ministry of Education's plans to produce teaching materials in Chilean indigenous languages excluding Yahgan and Kawesqar, I wrote to the Ministry to tell them about the work I've been doing, figuring with fingers crossed that PERHAPS the new administration might be willing to broaden its horizons to some extent. No dice. Not even a response from them. Same as the old administration. Post rotations and a paycheck- is anyone there even interested in the actual descriptions of their day jobs? Jess Tauber phonosemantics at earthlink.net From dzo at BISHARAT.NET Wed Nov 29 14:19:39 2006 From: dzo at BISHARAT.NET (d_z_o) Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2006 14:19:39 -0000 Subject: Fwd: FW: Linguapax Award 2007 Message-ID: FYI... --- In MINEL at yahoogroups.com, "Don Osborn" wrote: FYI. "The prizes are awarded to linguists, researchers, professors and members of the civil society in acknowledgement of their outstanding work in the field linguistic diversity and/or multilingual education. Nominations of people having contributed to improve the linguistic situation of a community or country will be specially appreciated." -----Original Message----- From: Josep Cru [mailto:j.cru at ...] Sent: Tuesday, November 28, 2006 6:31 AM To: destinataris-ocults: Subject: Linguapax Award 2007 Dear colleagues, We are pleased to inform you that the call for candidates to the Linguapax awards 2007 is open. Kindly send your nominees to the secretariat of the Linguapax Institute (info at ...) before December 31st 2006 along with their short biographical note if possible. As in previous occasions, the name of the prize-winner will be made public on February 21, coinciding with the International Mother Language Day. The Linguapax Awardee will be granted the amount of 3,000 €. For more information about the awards, please visit: Català http://www.linguapax.org/ct/premisLPX.html Español http://www.linguapax.org/es/premisLPXcas.html English http://www.linguapax.org/en/premisLPXang.html Français http://www.linguapax.org/fr/premisLPXfr.html Best regards, -- Josep Cru Linguapax-Unescocat C/Mallorca, 285 Barcelona 08037 Spain tlf +34 93 458 95 95 fax +34 93 457 58 51 http://www.linguapax.org info at ... --- End forwarded message --- From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Nov 30 23:26:03 2006 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 16:26:03 -0700 Subject: Funding cuts, reneged promises lead to planned protest (fwd) Message-ID: Funding cuts, reneged promises lead to planned protest http://www.wawatay.on.ca/index.php?module=pagesetter&func=viewpub&tid=5&pid=239 A national protest has been set for Dec. 5 in Ottawa on the steps of Parliament Hill. Chiefs of Ontario (COO) and Assembly of First Nations (AFN) have organized the protest as a result of the current federal government failing to honour commitments such as the Kelowna Accord and recent cuts to language funding. "There is growing frustration from First Nation leadership at the inaction of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada," said AFN Ontario Regional Chief Angus Toulouse. He said there has been an inability to address the issues and the priorities of First Nation leadership with the federal government. AFN National Youth Council co-chair Travis Boissoneau is calling on the government to start addressing issues by working with First Nations. "It's a peaceful gathering to raise awareness about how the current government is failing to properly communicate with First Nations on what the real issues are and further failing to address these issues as a collective," Boissoneau said. The protest coincides with the AFN assembly in Ottawa from Dec. 5-7 and will involve First Nation leadership from across Canada. A march will be held at 11:30am on the first day of the assembly from the Westin Hotel to the steps of Parliament. –BW 2006.11.29 From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Nov 30 23:37:35 2006 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 16:37:35 -0700 Subject: Study: Native language may affect rhythm (fwd) Message-ID: Study: Native language may affect rhythm http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?feed=Science&article=UPI-1-20061130-15263900-bc-us-language.xml HONOLULU, Nov. 30 (UPI) -- A study by U.S. and Japanese scientists suggests native languages influence the way people organize non-language sounds into rhythms. John Iversen and Aniruddh Patel of the Neuroscience Institute in San Diego and Kengo Ohgushi of the Kyoto City University of Arts in Kyoto, Japan, say people in different cultures perceive different rhythms in identical sequences of sound. That, they say, provides evidence that exposure to certain patterns of speech can influence perceptions of musical rhythms. In future work, the scientists believe they might be able to predict how people will hear rhythms based on the structures of their own languages. The research was presented Thursday in Hawaii at the fourth joint meeting of the Acoustical Society of America and the Acoustical Society of Japan. Copyright 2006 by United Press International. All Rights Reserved. From susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM Thu Nov 2 21:25:05 2006 From: susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM (Susan Penfield) Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2006 14:25:05 -0700 Subject: Fwd: Seminole Language Revitalization 11/9 In-Reply-To: <20061102125110.gh6ogw8o88sskwck@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: Sorry for any cross-posts... Seminole Language Revitalization 11/9 The following talk will be held as part of the provost's "Dialogues Across Indian Country" and will take place at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. For more details follow the link: http://www.museum.upenn.edu/new/events/calitem.php?which=1127 Dialogues Across Indian Country : Saving Native American Languages, For Whom? Thu November 9, 4:30 pm Richard Grounds (Yuchi/Seminole) Project Director for the Euchee (Yuchi) Language Project based in Sapulpa, Oklahoma After centuries of inestimable losses of land and resources, patterns of physical genocide, legal attacks on ceremonial continuity, and assaults on cultural vitality through assimilationist policies, Native nations are only now facing, perhaps, their greatest loss: the silencing of their original languages. This presentation examines the nature of this potential loss and clarifies strategies for revitalizing Native languages in relation to available financial, institutional, and cultural resources. As the scholarly community awakens to the prospect of losing the essential language connection to the ancient and rich worlds of Indigenous knowledge, the questions become: who will benefit from the efforts that are being made to preserve Native languages, and are there effective schemes of cooperation to overcome the political challenges in academia and within Indigenous communities? ----- End forwarded message ----- Cheryl Traiger PhD Student - Second Language Acquisition and Teaching CERCLL Graduate Associate Graduate Research Associate - Second Language Acquisition and Teaching University of Arizona Tucson, 85721 USA -- Susan D. Penfield, Ph.D. Associate Director, Center for Educational Resources in Culture, Language and Literacy (CERCLL) Department of English (Primary) American Indian Language Development Institute (AILDI) Second Language Acquistion &Teaching Ph.D. Program (SLAT) Department of Language,Reading and Culture Department of Linguistics The Southwest Center (Research) Phone for messages: (520) 621-1836 "Every language is an old-growth forest of the mind, a watershed of thought, an ecosystem of spiritual possibilities." Wade Davis...(on a Starbucks cup...) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hklein at NOTES.CC.SUNYSB.EDU Fri Nov 3 03:02:35 2006 From: hklein at NOTES.CC.SUNYSB.EDU (Harriet E Klein) Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2006 22:02:35 -0500 Subject: Harriet Klein is out of the office. Message-ID: I will be out of the office starting Wed 11/01/2006 and will not return until Tuesday 11/14/2006. I will respond to your message when I return. From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Sat Nov 4 05:12:51 2006 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2006 21:12:51 -0800 Subject: School Wins Award Message-ID: Alaska Native school wins national recognition Posted: November 01, 2006 by: Rick St. Germaine Lower Kuskokwim School District students and staff posed with the plaque they received from the National Indian Education Association - the prestigious Cultural Freedom Award for significant advancement of Native cultures. Ayaprun Elitnaurviat Immersion School preserves Yup'ik language Full story @: http://www.indiancountry.com/author.cfm?id=559 From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Sat Nov 4 22:22:54 2006 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Sat, 4 Nov 2006 14:22:54 -0800 Subject: Language List Message-ID: Join The Karuk Language Restoration Issues (Karuk Language) list serve Purpose: A place for those interested in the Karuk Language to discuss items, events, learning strategies, ideas etc Website URL: http://www.ncidc.org/karuk/index.html To Join: Subscribe here http://lists.topica.com/login.html? al=s&sub=1&loginMsg=12051&location=listinfo or send an email to KarukLanguage-subscribe at topica.com From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Nov 6 02:34:57 2006 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 5 Nov 2006 19:34:57 -0700 Subject: First Nations seek clarification on status of $160 million in Aboriginal language funding (fwd) Message-ID: FIRST NATIONS SEEK CLARIFICATION ON STATUS OF $160 MILLION IN ABORIGINAL LANGUAGE FUNDING OTTAWA, Nov. 2 /CNW Telbec/ - Assembly of First Nations National Chief Phil Fontaine calls upon Heritage Minister Bev Oda to assure First Nations that $160 million in Aboriginal language funding will still be available for First Nations languages. In a conversation with the Minister, the National Chief was led to believe the funding is no longer on the table. Conflicting messages from officials at Canadian Heritage have created even more uncertainty. "Preserving our languages, our way of life, is a sacred trust that must never be broken," said AFN National Chief Phil Fontaine. "We consider the loss of any language funding as a direct attack on First Nations. Language is the very foundation of our cultures and traditions, and it is the key to our identity as First Nations peoples." "Based on the 2002 allocation of $172.5 million, many First Nations communities have been preparing proposals and work plans so they can enhance their activities around preserving and teaching their languages and culture," noted the National Chief. "We are, therefore, very surprised by the Minister's comments." "First Nations languages are indigenous to this country and they must be preserved to ensure that they can flourish for current and future generations," commented the National Chief. "Many of our people suffer from the intergenerational effects of the federal government's decades-long policies concerning residential schools. Studies by BC Professors Michael Chandler and Chris Lalonde have shown that where our languages and cultures are thriving, so are the communities. People are happier and healthier -- there are few or no suicides. "We sincerely hope that this "re-allocation" of $160 million in funding will result in even more than the original amount in order to further strengthen and preserve our languages," commented the National Chief. "From the Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, a decade ago, to last year's First Ministers Meeting in Kelowna, to Conservative party policy, recommendations and commitments were made to preserving and teaching First Nations language for future generations. The federal government should demonstrate the honour of the Crown and fulfill its obligations to help preserve and revitalize First Nations languages and cultures. It is important to Canada's identity." The Assembly of First Nations is the national organization representing First Nations citizens in Canada. For further information: Bryan Hendry, A/Director of Communications, (613) 241-6789, ext. 229, Cell (613) 293-6106, bhendry at afn.ca -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Nov 6 02:38:06 2006 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 5 Nov 2006 19:38:06 -0700 Subject: First Nations seek clarification on status of $160 million in Aboriginal language funding (fwd) In-Reply-To: <20061105193457.ueqboowkk04kw8go@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: Sorry for the formatting...here is the URL: http://www.cnw.ca/fr/releases/archive/November2006/02/c8042.html ;-) Phil Quoting phil cash cash : > FIRST NATIONS SEEK CLARIFICATION ON STATUS OF $160 MILLION IN ABORIGINAL > LANGUAGE FUNDING > > OTTAWA, Nov. 2 /CNW Telbec/ - Assembly of First Nations National Chief > Phil Fontaine calls upon Heritage Minister Bev Oda to assure First Nations > that $160 million in Aboriginal language funding will still be available for > First Nations languages. In a conversation with the Minister, the National > Chief was led to believe the funding is no longer on the table. Conflicting > messages from officials at Canadian Heritage have created even more > uncertainty. > "Preserving our languages, our way of life, is a sacred trust that must > never be broken," said AFN National Chief Phil Fontaine. "We consider > the loss > of any language funding as a direct attack on First Nations. Language is the > very foundation of our cultures and traditions, and it is the key to our > identity as First Nations peoples." > "Based on the 2002 allocation of $172.5 million, many First Nations > communities have been preparing proposals and work plans so they can enhance > their activities around preserving and teaching their languages and culture," > noted the National Chief. "We are, therefore, very surprised by the > Minister's > comments." > "First Nations languages are indigenous to this country and they must be > preserved to ensure that they can flourish for current and future > generations," commented the National Chief. "Many of our people suffer from > the intergenerational effects of the federal government's decades-long > policies concerning residential schools. Studies by BC Professors Michael > Chandler and Chris Lalonde have shown that where our languages and cultures > are thriving, so are the communities. People are happier and healthier -- > there are few or no suicides. > "We sincerely hope that this "re-allocation" of $160 million in funding > will result in even more than the original amount in order to further > strengthen and preserve our languages," commented the National Chief. "From > the Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, a decade ago, to > last year's First Ministers Meeting in Kelowna, to Conservative party policy, > recommendations and commitments were made to preserving and teaching First > Nations language for future generations. The federal government should > demonstrate the honour of the Crown and fulfill its obligations to help > preserve and revitalize First Nations languages and cultures. It is important > to Canada's identity." > > The Assembly of First Nations is the national organization representing > First Nations citizens in Canada. > > For further information: Bryan Hendry, A/Director of Communications, > (613) 241-6789, ext. 229, Cell (613) 293-6106, bhendry at afn.ca -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Nov 6 02:46:16 2006 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 5 Nov 2006 19:46:16 -0700 Subject: IBM Provides Technology Access and Training to Native People Through the 2006 Native American Family Technology Journey (fwd) Message-ID: IBM Provides Technology Access and Training to Native People Through the 2006 Native American Family Technology Journey http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/11-03-2006/0004466768&EDATE= ARMONK, N.Y., Nov. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM today announced that the Native American Family Technology Journey, co-sponsored by IBM and Career Communications Group, will kick off its third national public awareness program to help Native American families explore the benefits of incorporating computer technology into their daily lives. The program, known as "The Journey," promotes the value of computer technology in preserving ancient cultures and also provides students and their families with technology training that allows them to access educational, career, health and other information, that has the potential to improve their quality of life. The Journey is officially celebrated during the month of November, and coincides with National American Indian Heritage Month. This year, the Journey will provide computer and Internet workshops, educational and career seminars and interactive demonstrations for Native Americans in urban centers, rural areas and on tribal lands from Alaska to Arizona. In addition, other initiatives that support the Journey's mission have been launched to help Native Americans preserve their languages and customs, and develop marketable skills. The lack of adequate infrastructure, a weak economic base and the dearth of people to install and maintain technology are among the factors that create the technological gap between Native Americans and the general population. These issues, coupled with rapid-paced technological advances, underscore concerns raised in Falling Through The Net: Defining The Digital Divide, a study released by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce(1). The study found that Native Americans "are not able to access the important information resources via computers and on the Internet that are quickly becoming essential for success." Earlier this year, IBM worked with local educators in Alaska to provide high school students with Linux certification and college-level technology courses that will enable them to compete for technology jobs from their own cities and villages and contribute to Alaska's economic growth. IBM launched the Native American Partners in Education program along with Mt. Edgecumbe High School in Sitka, Alaska and the Alaska Commissioner of Education and Early Development. "The spirit of the Journey is to encourage as many people and organizations as possible to share their technological knowledge, talents and resources so that Native People can establish a larger presence in the Digital Age," said Mark Hakey (Abenaki), IBM Distinguished Engineer/Manager of Advanced Process Technology Development, and a Journey national co-chair. "Every year there is a greater awareness among Native Americans about the importance of technology and its advantages. No one knows where the next technological breakthrough will come from -- and with initiatives like these, it could well be from the Native American community." In September 2006, the Native American Chamber of Commerce partnered with SeniorNet, a leading nonprofit technology educator of older adults, and IBM to announce the opening of achievement centers that will bring computer access and education to Native American reservations across the United States. The first achievement center opened at the Blackfeet Nation in Browning, Montana, and four more centers will open over the next three years. The centers will be established as part of the grant-based initiative Hope and Harmony for Humanity. The program will provide more than 40,000 youths, adults and seniors with the opportunity to access basic training in computer hardware, reading, English, math and science, GED certification, college prep and admissions assistance, language study, global health and safety information, basic business skills and cultural activities. Later this month, the Indigenous Language Institute (ILI) will partner with IBM to host the fourth in a series of "Ancient Voices: Modern Tools" workshops on the campus of Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, OK. The program, scheduled for November 16-18, will put multimedia technology\ tools and language material templates, such as newsletters, calendars and storybooks, into the hands of community language practitioners. It will show them how to digitally create culturally appropriate resources for their tribes. Some 50 people representing 15 tribal nations, from Louisiana to California, are expected to participate in the workshop. For additional information about the Native American Family Technology Journey, please visit http://www.nativeamericanfamilynet.net or call Marsha Jews at (410) 244-7101. (1) National Telecommunications and Information Administration. (1999) Falling Through the Net III "Defining the Digital Divide." SOURCE IBM From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Nov 6 02:50:31 2006 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 5 Nov 2006 19:50:31 -0700 Subject: Expert Says 116 Local Languages Face Extinction (fwd) Message-ID: The Himalayan Times Online Printed from www.thehimalayantimes.com Expert Says 116 Local Languages Face Extinction Kathmandu, November 5 http://www.thehimalayantimes.com/PrintStory.asp?filepath=aATaoanlaNaeaw2a/a2Ta0sa/Wa1a/yqgaHaoZaea/aFWata0a5wxyefua0a8voIamal Around 116 local languages of the total 126 languages estimated to be spoken throughout the nation are on the verge of extinction. Professor Dr Yogendra Prasad Yadav, head of Central Department of Linguistic, TU said that 116 of the 126 languages found to be used in Nepal, are endangered. "The number of native speakers have gone down drastically over the years and trend of language shift to Nepali is increasing," said Professor Dr Yadav. Some of the ethnic groups of western region such as Darai, Baram, Raute, Raji, Chepang have stopped using their native language due to internal migration and have adopted the Nepali or languages other than their own. "Nepali languages is more frequently used because this is the official language and also link languages," said Professor Dr Yadav. There are 33 Rai languages but very few are in use these days, said Prof Yadav. Scripts of six to seven languages -- Nepali, Maithali, Bhojpuri, Awadi, Nepal Bhasha and Limbu -- have been documented while documentation of scripts of few more languages such as Tamang, Magar, Tharu, Rajbanshi have started. Local languages could be preserved if the government introduced local languages in the school level curriculum as an optional subject, Prof Yadav opined. In order to preserve the endangered languges of the Himalayan region, the Linguistic Society of Nepal is organising 12 Himalayan Language Symposium here on November 26 through 28. Meanwhile, Prof Yadav recently resigned from his post as a coordinator of the Education for All Linguistic Minorities committee alleging that the Education Ministry made no effort in implementing their suggestions. "There is no use of occupying the post when the government made no effort to implement the suggestions forwarded by the committee," said Professor Yadav. Laba Prasad Tripathee, spokesperson at Education Ministry said that government is seriously thinking of implementing native language as a means of instruction to achieve the Education for All goals. He said there are some technical problems that have been causing delay in implementation of the programme. COPYRIGHT@ 2004 THE HIMALAYAN TIMES PUBLICATION. All rights reserverd From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Nov 6 02:53:56 2006 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 5 Nov 2006 19:53:56 -0700 Subject: Expert Says 116 Local Languages Face Extinction (fwd) In-Reply-To: <20061105195031.ju668ww0ccc0gcs0@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: Sorry wrong URL, here is the correct url: http://www.thehimalayantimes.com/fullstory.asp?filename=aFanata0vfqzpa4a4Ta8wa.axamal&folder=aHaoamW&Name=Home&dtSiteDate=20061105 Quoting phil cash cash : > The Himalayan Times Online > Printed from www.thehimalayantimes.com > > Expert Says 116 Local Languages Face Extinction > > Kathmandu, November 5 > http://www.thehimalayantimes.com/PrintStory.asp?filepath=aATaoanlaNaeaw2a/a2Ta0sa/Wa1a/yqgaHaoZaea/aFWata0a5wxyefua0a8voIamal > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM Tue Nov 7 21:17:01 2006 From: susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM (Susan Penfield) Date: Tue, 7 Nov 2006 14:17:01 -0700 Subject: Fwd: FW: CELCNA 2007 In-Reply-To: <807ABF34EF37B1419AAF2B73BE8DC13A02E786@NSF-BE-03.ad.nsf.gov> Message-ID: ---------- ------------------------------ *From:* CAIL Utah [mailto:cail.utah at gmail.com] *Sent:* Tue 11/7/2006 1:51 PM *To:* CELCNA at nsf.gov; III at nsf.gov *Subject:* CELCNA 2007 *CONFERENCE ON ENDANGERED LANGUAGES AND CULTURES OF NATIVE AMERICA * ** *First Announcement* ** *Dates*: *Conference on Endangered Languages and Cultures of Native America*(3rd annual CELCNA), April 13-15, 2007, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah. *Sponsors*: Smithsonian Institution (Department of Anthropology of the National Museum of Natural History) and CAIL (Center for American Indian Languages, University of Utah) ** *Keynote speakers*: Marianne Mithun (UCSB) and Christine Sims (Acoma Pueblo; University of New Mexico) ** *Call for papers*: Papers are invited on any aspect of endangered Native American languages, in particular on documentation or revitalization. Native American participants are especially invited. Papers are 20 minutes each in length, with an additional 10 minutes for discussion.* *Abstracts for *posters *are also invited ? past poster sessions have contributed significantly to the conference's success. *Deadline*: for ABSTRACTS : Jan. 16, 2007. The Program Committee will announce results by Jan. 30th. ** *Registration*: $25 (students $15) [to cover cost of conference rooms, refreshments] *Abstract guidelines*: Abstracts should be no more than 500 words long (can be just a paragraph or two); should include paper title, name (or names) of author/authors, author's/authors' affiliation. Abstracts should be submitted by e-mail, in Microsoft Word document, RTF, or PDF. Include contact details: author's name, e-mail address for the period of time from January to April 2006, and telephone. Only one abstract per person (except where a paper has multiple authors). *Address:** *Send abstracts to: Nancy Garc?a (nancy.garcia at utah.edu) (by Jan. 16, 2007). *Accommodations*: University Guest House ? two minute walk from the meeting venue (Heritage Center) and CAIL. To book accommodations, contact the Guest House directly (mention CELCNA): University Guest House University of Utah 110 South Fort Douglas Blvd. Salt Lake City, Utah 84113-5036 Toll free: 1-888-416-4075 (or 801-587-1000), Fax 801-587-1001 Website www.guesthouse.utah.edu (Please make reservations early; rooms will be held for the conference only until early March.) *Additional information*: Contact Nancy Garc?a (nancy.garcia at utah.edu), or for particular questions, write Lyle Campbell at lyle.campbell at linguistics.utah.edu. If you need information not easily arranged via e-mail, please call: Tel. 801-587-0720 or 801-581-3441 during business hours, or Fax 801-585-7351. -- ____________________________________________________________ Susan D. Penfield, Ph.D. Associate Director, Center for Educational Resources in Culture, Language and Literacy (CERCLL) Department of English (Primary) American Indian Language Development Institute (AILDI) Second Language Acquistion &Teaching Ph.D. Program (SLAT) Department of Language,Reading and Culture Department of Linguistics The Southwest Center (Research) Phone for messages: (520) 621-1836 "Every language is an old-growth forest of the mind, a watershed of thought, an ecosystem of spiritual possibilities." Wade Davis...(on a Starbucks cup...) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From alfhepah at HOTMAIL.COM Tue Nov 7 23:32:52 2006 From: alfhepah at HOTMAIL.COM (Amelia Flores) Date: Tue, 7 Nov 2006 23:32:52 +0000 Subject: Fwd: FW: CELCNA 2007 In-Reply-To: <39a679e20611071317v3c3ab08bqa777bfa61a0251c8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM Wed Nov 8 01:54:00 2006 From: susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM (Susan Penfield) Date: Tue, 7 Nov 2006 18:54:00 -0700 Subject: Fwd: FW: CELCNA 2007 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Eh! 'ahot!! You really should! How about presenting the Phrase Book -- ??? Or describe your work documenting the language?!!! S. On 11/7/06, Amelia Flores wrote: > > This sounds good, perhaps I might think about submitting a paper, ahhh. > > > 'ahot, Amelia > > ------------------------------ > From: *Susan Penfield * > Reply-To: *Indigenous Languages and Technology > * > To: *ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU* > Subject: *[ILAT] Fwd: FW: CELCNA 2007* > Date: *Tue, 7 Nov 2006 14:17:01 -0700* > > > > ---------- > ------------------------------ > *From:* CAIL Utah [mailto:cail.utah at gmail.com] > *Sent:* Tue 11/7/2006 1:51 PM > *To:* CELCNA at nsf.gov; III at nsf.gov > *Subject:* CELCNA 2007 > > > *CONFERENCE ON ENDANGERED LANGUAGES AND CULTURES OF NATIVE AMERICA * > ** > *First Announcement* > ** > *Dates*: *Conference on Endangered Languages and Cultures of Native > America *(3rd annual CELCNA), April 13-15, 2007, University of Utah, Salt > Lake City, Utah. > > *Sponsors*: Smithsonian Institution (Department of Anthropology of the > National Museum of Natural History) and CAIL (Center for American Indian > Languages, University of Utah) > ** > *Keynote speakers*: Marianne Mithun (UCSB) and Christine Sims (Acoma > Pueblo; University of New Mexico) > ** > *Call for papers*: Papers are invited on any aspect of endangered Native > American languages, in particular on documentation or revitalization. Native > American participants are especially invited. Papers are 20 minutes each in > length, with an additional 10 minutes for discussion. **Abstracts for *posters > *are also invited ? past poster sessions have contributed significantly to > the conference's success. > > *Deadline*: for ABSTRACTS : Jan. 16, 2007. The Program Committee will > announce results by Jan. 30th. > ** > *Registration*: $25 (students $15) [to cover cost of conference rooms, > refreshments] > > *Abstract guidelines*: Abstracts should be no more than 500 words long > (can be just a paragraph or two); should include paper title, name (or > names) of author/authors, author's/authors' affiliation. Abstracts > should be submitted by e-mail, in Microsoft Word document, RTF, or PDF. Include > contact details: author's name, e-mail address for the period of time from > January to April 2006, and telephone. Only one abstract per person (except > where a paper has multiple authors). *Address:* * *Send abstracts to: > Nancy Garc?a ( nancy.garcia at utah.edu) (by Jan. 16, 2007). > > *Accommodations*: University Guest House ? two minute walk from the > meeting venue (Heritage Center) and CAIL. To book accommodations, contact > the Guest House directly (mention CELCNA): > University Guest House University of Utah > 110 South Fort Douglas Blvd. > Salt Lake City, Utah 84113-5036 > Toll free: 1-888-416-4075 (or 801-587-1000), Fax 801-587-1001 > Website www.guesthouse.utah.edu > (Please make reservations early; rooms will be held for the conference > only until early March.) > > *Additional information*: Contact Nancy Garc?a ( nancy.garcia at utah.edu), > or for particular questions, write Lyle Campbell at > lyle.campbell at linguistics.utah.edu. If you need information not easily > arranged via e-mail, please call: Tel. 801-587-0720 or 801-581-3441 during > business hours, or Fax 801-585-7351. > > > -- > ____________________________________________________________ > Susan D. Penfield, Ph.D. > > Associate Director, Center for Educational Resources in Culture, Language > and Literacy (CERCLL) > Department of English (Primary) > American Indian Language Development Institute (AILDI) > Second Language Acquistion &Teaching Ph.D. Program (SLAT) > Department of Language,Reading and Culture > Department of Linguistics > The Southwest Center (Research) > Phone for messages: (520) 621-1836 > > > "Every language is an old-growth forest of the mind, a watershed of > thought, an ecosystem of spiritual possibilities." > > Wade Davis...(on > a Starbucks cup...) > > > ------------------------------ > All-in-one security and maintenance for your PC. Get a free 90-day trial! > -- ____________________________________________________________ Susan D. Penfield, Ph.D. Associate Director, Center for Educational Resources in Culture, Language and Literacy (CERCLL) Department of English (Primary) American Indian Language Development Institute (AILDI) Second Language Acquistion &Teaching Ph.D. Program (SLAT) Department of Language,Reading and Culture Department of Linguistics The Southwest Center (Research) Phone for messages: (520) 621-1836 "Every language is an old-growth forest of the mind, a watershed of thought, an ecosystem of spiritual possibilities." Wade Davis...(on a Starbucks cup...) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 8 23:51:20 2006 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2006 16:51:20 -0700 Subject: Voting in the Bush can be difficult (fwd) Message-ID: Voting in the Bush can be difficult REMOTE: Ballots don't always reach people far from polls. By ALEX deMARBAN Anchorage Daily News http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/8385125p-8281041c.html (Published: November 7, 2006) Anchorage voters who juggle busy schedules or traffic jams to reach polls have it easy compared to hundreds of residents around the state who live in wilderness cabins far from a mailbox. Such remote residents live up and down rivers like the Kantishna in the Interior, said Shelly Growden, elections supervisor for more than 70 communities in an arching swath of Alaska that includes the Interior. To vote this year, those people traveled by boat to hub communities such as Nenana, where they mailed special advance ballots up to two months before the election, said Growden. Before 2004, when the Legislature changed the law for remote Alaskans, those people received standard absentee ballots just two to three weeks before an election, Growden said. Some of them couldn't get to a mailbox in time because rivers froze by election day, so they couldn't vote, she said. Distance and weather are just two of the challenges the state must overcome to deliver democracy in some of the most isolated regions of the United States. About 24 villages don't even have polling places, according to a study on voting rights in Alaska released in March. Those are places like Rampart, population 16, along the Yukon River, Growden said, or Stony River, population 42, on the upper Kuskokwim. Residents in those tiny villages -- and in isolated cabins -- are considered permanent absentee voters. There are about 1,000 in Growden's region, which includes portions of Western and eastern Alaska. The state sends those voters ballot information and applications for absentee ballots, Growden said. The paperwork doesn't automatically come, said Mary Willis, tribal administrator in Stony River. She had to call the state to get one for the primary election in August, she said. Just a few people in the Yup'ik and Athabascan village will vote, she said. Many people she's asked have said they didn't get voting materials by mail, she said. Their only option now is flying downriver to the polls in Sleetmute -- the river isn't frozen enough for snowmachine travel. A round-trip flight runs about $100, she said. No one will do that, she said. "For a lot of people, (voting) is a hassle," she said. Growden said she sent every registered voter in the village an application. If they didn't return the applications, they didn't get ballots. Turnout varies in villages. In 2004, with Sen. Lisa Murkowski opposed by former Gov. Tony Knowles, it ranged from more than 70 percent to 12 percent, according to the study, compiled by Natalie Landreth of the Native American Rights Fund's Anchorage office and Moira Smith, a law student at Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law. The study argues that under federal law, the state should provide ballots in Native languages. It should also do more to provide interpreters. More than 14,000 people speak Yup'ik and Inupiaq, mostly in Western and northern Alaska, according to the study. The state argues that written materials aren't necessary because Alaska's Native languages are historically unwritten, Growden said. The study points out that Yup'ik became a written language more than 100 years ago and has been taught in schools for more than 30 years. Other Native languages have developed writing systems in the last 40 years or so. Election officials in Western and northern Alaska try to ensure that precincts have interpreters, said Becka Baker, Nome-based supervisor for those regions. In some small villages where there's no official interpreter, elders who don't know enough English go to polls with family members who interpret, she said. Voting in the Bush can be a challenge, said George Keene Jr., former elections chairman in Kasigluk in Southwest Alaska. At the last minute on Monday, he agreed to serve as the absentee voting official, filling in for another villager with a family emergency. The Johnson River divides Kasigluk and the polling place is located in the new village, where about half the voters live, Keene said. If Keene hadn't filled in, voters in the old village might have had to maneuver skiffs through thin ice, slush and open water to vote. Now they'll be able to walk to the school library and fill out absentee forms. "This voting day tomorrow is very important," he said Monday. "People should go vote." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Daily News reporter Alex deMarban can be reached at ademarban at adn.com or 257-4310. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Nov 9 00:03:38 2006 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2006 17:03:38 -0700 Subject: UNESCO supports Caribbean indigenous and endangered languages portal (fwd) Message-ID: Caribbean Press Releases - http://www.caribbeanpressreleases.com UNESCO supports Caribbean indigenous and endangered languages portal http://www.caribbeanpressreleases.com/articles/759/1/UNESCO-supports-Caribbean-indigenous-and-endangered-languages-portal/Languages-must-be-preserved.html By SC Admin Published on 11/8/2006 Languages must be preserved Kingston --- 8 Nov. 2006 --- UNESCO and University of West Indies Language Unit launch the first authoritative website on Caribbean Indigenous and Endangered Languages (CIEL). The website showcases and promotes the preservation of over 20 indigenous languages in the region. Caribbean indigenous languages and their cultures were produced over thousands of years. In the 500 years since the arrival of Europeans, most of these languages and cultures have either disappeared or are seriously endangered. According to Hubert Devonish, Professor of Languages at the University of the West Indies, ?these languages must be preserved if we are to safeguard a significant part of the heritage of mankind. We would not just be preserving things past but rather, we would be maintaining bodies of knowledge, technology and beliefs which can be useful to mankind in the present and the future.? Hubert Devonish insists on and ensures that his team employs scientific approaches in the collection of data relating to these indigenous languages, making the portal truly authoritative. UNESCO is now exploring Phase 2 of the project along the lines of: a) additional language data collection; b) language documentation through the production and digital storage of the material collected; c) development of webpages within the CIEL website especially designed for use by school children and members of the communities involved; d) production of books of stories and cultural information bilingually, in indigenous languages and English, supported by audio and video materials. From dzo at BISHARAT.NET Fri Nov 10 00:39:31 2006 From: dzo at BISHARAT.NET (Don Osborn) Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2006 00:39:31 -0000 Subject: Interactive illustrations on computer? Message-ID: It's clich?? (and true) that a picture is worth 1000 words, but I've been given to thinking about how putting at least some of those words on the picture might be used in to a greater degree, and if possible in an interactive format. One goal would be a kind of "WikiDuden" that might be especially useful for less widely spoken languages - for recording, sharing and teaching. Has anyone on this list been doing that in an ICT environment? It seems to me to be a great idea but its implementation, starting with developing a bank of drawings & diagrams (a staggering number might be implied), and then considering the cultural and perceptual nuances that can be understood and accepted in various contexts. Any info on projects or thoughts on the concept are welcome. Don Fwd: Re: [afrophonewikis] Diagram/illustration strategy for Wikipedia? --- In afrophonewikis at yahoogroups.com, "Samuel Klein" wrote: Agreed wholeheartedly. I don't know of any projects currently doing this. SJ On 11/9/06, Don Osborn wrote: > > Wikipedia / Wikimedia have some collections of pictures, maps, > illustrations, drawings, diagrams, etc., but has any thought been > given to expanding this collection more systematically to include a > range of basic ones, like anatomy / parts of the body (human, but also > for major animal species), features of diverse landscapes, solar > system, ... > > The object would be to provide something like the ???y??? Ara (Parts of > the Body) item at the bottom of > http://yo.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%88d%C3%A8e_Yor%C3%B9b%C3%A1 with a > visual reference. I realize that providing an easy way to add text to > illustrations may not be easy, but the payoff could be a very useful > and attractive "WikiDuden" type presentation for basic level articles > across many languages. It could be of educational use, e.g. on > Wikipedia CDs or with projects like OLPC. > > In fact it could make a very powerful "education for all" / ICT4E > project. Goals would be to expand the bank of basic science & nature > illustrations and develop an easy (WYSIWYG?) way of adding text tags > to the illustrations. Along the way, accommodation of potential > cultural sensitivities and different ways of seeing things would have > to be accounted for, etc. > > Anyway, the extent to which interactive illustrations can be > incorporated in the Wikipedia concept is, IMO, the extent to which it > will gain a lot more utility for a range of uses and users around the > world. And of course this doesn't take anything away from pure text > approaches. > > Don > > > --- End forwarded message --- From MiaKalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US Fri Nov 10 16:03:07 2006 From: MiaKalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US (Mia Kalish) Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2006 09:03:07 -0700 Subject: Interactive illustrations on computer? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hi, Don, I've been doing something like this, with Macromedia Flash, but all my stuff is interactive and dynamic. The sounds, text, and pictures for nouns, animations for verbs all display simultaneously. I don't use the format of textual reference to drawings that is typical of textual materials. It's pretty easy to attach a sound file to a graphic in html. 'Course download issues begin to loom at that point, with the combination of the graphic + the sound file. Lastly, how do you imagine doing the cultural implications? In the graphics themselves? As an explanation in a language other than the cultural one, like English? As a voice-over or a story in the cultural language? Mia -----Original Message----- From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of Don Osborn Sent: Thursday, November 09, 2006 5:40 PM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: [ILAT] Interactive illustrations on computer? It's clich?? (and true) that a picture is worth 1000 words, but I've been given to thinking about how putting at least some of those words on the picture might be used in to a greater degree, and if possible in an interactive format. One goal would be a kind of "WikiDuden" that might be especially useful for less widely spoken languages - for recording, sharing and teaching. Has anyone on this list been doing that in an ICT environment? It seems to me to be a great idea but its implementation, starting with developing a bank of drawings & diagrams (a staggering number might be implied), and then considering the cultural and perceptual nuances that can be understood and accepted in various contexts. Any info on projects or thoughts on the concept are welcome. Don Fwd: Re: [afrophonewikis] Diagram/illustration strategy for Wikipedia? --- In afrophonewikis at yahoogroups.com, "Samuel Klein" wrote: Agreed wholeheartedly. I don't know of any projects currently doing this. SJ On 11/9/06, Don Osborn wrote: > > Wikipedia / Wikimedia have some collections of pictures, maps, > illustrations, drawings, diagrams, etc., but has any thought been > given to expanding this collection more systematically to include a > range of basic ones, like anatomy / parts of the body (human, but also > for major animal species), features of diverse landscapes, solar > system, ... > > The object would be to provide something like the ???y??? Ara (Parts of > the Body) item at the bottom of > http://yo.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%88d%C3%A8e_Yor%C3%B9b%C3%A1 with a > visual reference. I realize that providing an easy way to add text to > illustrations may not be easy, but the payoff could be a very useful > and attractive "WikiDuden" type presentation for basic level articles > across many languages. It could be of educational use, e.g. on > Wikipedia CDs or with projects like OLPC. > > In fact it could make a very powerful "education for all" / ICT4E > project. Goals would be to expand the bank of basic science & nature > illustrations and develop an easy (WYSIWYG?) way of adding text tags > to the illustrations. Along the way, accommodation of potential > cultural sensitivities and different ways of seeing things would have > to be accounted for, etc. > > Anyway, the extent to which interactive illustrations can be > incorporated in the Wikipedia concept is, IMO, the extent to which it > will gain a lot more utility for a range of uses and users around the > world. And of course this doesn't take anything away from pure text > approaches. > > Don > > > --- End forwarded message --- From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Sat Nov 11 05:56:51 2006 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2006 21:56:51 -0800 Subject: New Webiste Message-ID: The Endangered Language Fund is proud to annouce the launch of our new website: www.endangeredlanguagefund.org You'll find an updated list of our grants, information about some of the new projects going on at ELF, an archive of our recent newsletters, and the beginning of our online language archive. Please let us know if you're able to join us for Noam Chomsky's benefit lecture next Wednesday, November 15th in New Haven, CT. Best wishes, Nick Emlen Endangered Language Fund From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Nov 12 00:51:49 2006 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2006 17:51:49 -0700 Subject: Aboriginal languages centre dumped from budget (fwd) Message-ID: Nunavut News November 10, 2006 Aboriginal languages centre dumped from budget Tories re-jig dormant program JIM BELL [photo sinet - Mary Simon, the president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, said this past Tuesday that ITK deplores a decision by Bev Oda, the Heritage minister, to cut $160 million earmarked for a aboriginal languages centre and replace it with $40 million in program funding. (FILE PHOTO)] The opposition says it?s a cut; the Tories say it?s not. And the only thing they do agree on is that $160 million worth of aboriginal language money that?s lurked inside the Heritage Canada department?s budget since 2002 should have been spent long ago. The dispute blew up last week when the Assembly of First Nations and two NDP MPs, Charlie Angus of Timmins-James Bay and Dennis Bevington of the Western Arctic, started asking questions about the status of a Heritage Canada scheme called the ?Aboriginal Language Initiative,? and a $172.5 million pot of money that the former Liberal government allocated to aboriginal languages in 2002. The Conservatives say most of that money ? $160 million ? was set aside for a proposed institution called an ?aboriginal languages and cultures centre? ? which never materialized. ?It wasn?t helping preserve a single word from any language,? said a spokesperson from the office of Bev Oda, the Tory Heritage minister. Of the remaining $12 million, $2.5 million was spent on an aboriginal languages task force, and $5 million in each of two years for the aboriginal language initiative ? the only part of that money that seems to have been spent on actual programs. ?Apart from the $12.5 million, the initial allocation of resources had not been accessed. The previous government had no plan on how to spend the money,? Oda said last week in a written response to a question from Angus. Instead, the Tories removed the $160 million from the budget, and replaced it with $40 million to be handed out at rate of $5 million per year for eight years. Mary Simon, the president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, does not appear to buy Oda?s explanation. This past Tuesday, Simon, who said she received a ?tremendous amount of feedback from Inuit on this issue? released a statement that condemns Oda?s decision. ?We received no indication that cuts of this nature were imminent. Despite the government?s explanations as to why this funding was eliminated, the result is still a massive reduction to aboriginal languages programs,? Simon said. For her part, Oda says that unlike Liberals, who put money into the aboriginal languages initiative on a year-to-year basis only, the new money is guaranteed for eight years. ?This new money is permanent,? Oda said. Oda?s office also says this ?is not the end of the story? and will continue to look at the idea of spending more on aboriginal languages within ?the wider context of the new government?s approach to meeting the needs of aboriginal people.? But it?s not clear when, how, or if that will happen. Oda also said her government is opposed to the creation of the proposed aboriginal language and culture centre, and prefers to give money to people at the community level. To that end, she said her officials will now meet with Inuit, First Nations and M?tis organizations to develop a plan. ?It [the former Liberal government] did nothing with that money. There were no plans,? Oda said in a reporter?s scrum outside the House of Commons this past Friday. But those answers don?t satisfy Dennis Bevington, the NDP member for Western Arctic. ?It?s a cut. I?m not satisfied with what the government is doing with that program,? Bevington said in an interview. The annual language agreements that Ottawa works out with Nunavut and other territorial governments, worth $4 million a year each, are not affected by the federal government?s decisions on the aboriginal languages initiative. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Nov 12 01:02:13 2006 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2006 18:02:13 -0700 Subject: Intertribal gathering to be held today at Redwood Acres (fwd link) Message-ID: Hey Andre...nice pix! Intertribal gathering to be held today at Redwood Acres http://www.eurekareporter.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?ArticleID=17341 Phil -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Sun Nov 12 15:28:00 2006 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Sun, 12 Nov 2006 07:28:00 -0800 Subject: A Little Teacher Cert Help Message-ID: ayuk?i. The Karuk Language Program is seeking assistance with the development of our Tribal teacher certification and fluency assessment policies. Please review the attachment and respond with any questions, comments, and suggestions. y?otva, -- Phil Albers Jr. Karuk Language Program Karuk Tribe of California P.O. Box 1016 64236 Second Ave. Happy Camp CA 96039 (800) 505-2785 ext. 2203 (530) 493-1658 fax -- Karuk Language Program Community Input ayuk?i. f?at kuxuti, panau?arar?hih iksh?pan k?upha? Hello. What you(pl)-think the-our people-language show-(er) doings? Hello. What do you all think about our language teachers? doings? Introduction of Program and Project: The Karuk Language Program is developing a Karuk Tribal Teacher Certification and Karuk Tribal Fluency Level Assessment. We are establishing these policies to have as further verification as to the competence of our Karuk language classes and instructors. This is so our teacher certification may be recognized by other academic institutions as valid teaching credentials (in relation to teaching our language), and as credible language requirements for students. We currently have no such policy or guidelines for the certification or fluency assessment. Purpose of Input: Our goals are as follows: To gather input from community members regarding the guidelines and requirements for the Karuk Teacher Certification. To gather input from community members regarding the guidelines and requirements for the Karuk Fluency Level Assessment. Summary of comments/suggestions to report to KLRC. KLRC meeting is November 16, 2006 in Orleans at 12:00 PM. Brainstorm/Discussion/Feedback: Please carefully consider the following questions: Should ?culture? be a part of our language certification testing and teaching protocol? Explain. Should reading, writing and grammar be a part of our language certification testing and teaching protocol, and what stage of fluency would it apply to? Explain. Feel free to comment and make suggestions. Please send feedback to us through any of the following: Susan Gehr sgehr at karuk.us ext. 2205 Phil Albers Jr. palbers at karuk.us ext. 2203 Karuk Language Program P.O. Box 1016 Happy Camp CA 96039 (800) 505-2785 (530) 493-1658 fax Notes from previous meetings: Yreka Community Meeting: Teacher Certification Cultural Component: Match sympathetic evaluator with the prospective teacher. Have disclaimer, ?this information is specific to this class/course section, not an absolute representation of the Karuk Tribe?s beliefs? (or something of the sort). Gather information from people on a one-on-one (1-on-1) basis, and use a summary as the standard. Have cultural component or ?endorsements? as a bonus for the teacher certification. Have a less intense assessment grade or requirement for qualifying in the cultural component. Allow the teacher to select a certain number of cultural functions and test those only. Simplify, but do NOT eliminate the cultural component. Restrict the cultural component to less objectionable aspects, such as weaving, fishing, foods, etc. Recruit and reward personnel with teacher certification according to their level and relevance to job duties. From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Sun Nov 12 15:38:43 2006 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Sun, 12 Nov 2006 07:38:43 -0800 Subject: Intertribal gathering to be held today at Redwood Acres (fwd link) In-Reply-To: <20061111180213.rfpg4ck0gkk0sssc@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: Well I have to have some form of income until I win the lottery and work on language full time On Nov 11, 2006, at 5:02 PM, phil cash cash wrote: Intertribal gathering to be held today at Redwood Acres http://www.eurekareporter.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?ArticleID=17341 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From MiaKalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US Mon Nov 13 21:57:22 2006 From: MiaKalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US (Mia Kalish) Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2006 14:57:22 -0700 Subject: Deadline for Digital Poster materials approaching . . . Message-ID: Hello, Everyone. I am writing to remind that the deadline for the submission of the digital poster materials for LSA in Anaheim in January is approaching as quickly as a Thanksgiving turkey. Some people have already submitted, and I am grateful to them. For everyone else, could you let me know where you are with this, whether I should expect your excellent, informative, and mind-changing materials to arrive in full control of their breathing, or skidding out of breath around the corner, doing that last minute thing for which some of us are so famous. :-) Ahee'hee Mia -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nflrc at HAWAII.EDU Tue Nov 14 01:42:10 2006 From: nflrc at HAWAII.EDU (National Foreign Language Resource Center) Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2006 15:42:10 -1000 Subject: RFL Special Topic Issue: CALL FOR PAPERS Message-ID: Our apologies for any cross-postings . . . Reading in a Foreign Language CALL FOR PAPERS READING AND VOCABULARY Special Topic Issue, Autumn 2008 Edited by Rob Waring Reading in a Foreign Language announces a call for papers for the Autumn 2008 special topic issue on reading and vocabulary. This issue of RFL is devoted to publishing articles that are concerned with all aspects of reading and vocabulary. Specifically, we solicit papers covering - vocabulary development through reading - the relationship between vocabulary and reading - vocabulary and the teaching of reading - reading vocabularies RFL is particularly interested in articles on languages other than English. We also encourage collaboration between university researchers and practitioners. We are fortunate that Professor Rob Waring, Notre Dame Seishin University, Okayama, Japan, is the editor of this special issue. Questions, proposals, and submissions should be directed to Contributors are advised to read our submission guidelines for information on RFL's submission policies. All submissions must be received by Professor Waring no later than January 31, 2008. Reading in a Foreign Language http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/rfl From fmarmole at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 15 18:53:36 2006 From: fmarmole at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Francisco Marmolejo) Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2006 11:53:36 -0700 Subject: Call for proposals / International higher education collaboration with Canada, U.S. and Mexico Message-ID: CONAHEC's 11th North American Higher Education Conference "Rethinking North America: Higher Education, Regional Identities and Global Challenges" Quebec City, Quebec, Canada April 25-27, 2007 DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: December 18, 2006 ++++++++++++++++++ Dear colleagues: This is just a brief message to let you know that the Call for Proposals for the upcoming CONAHEC?s 11th North American Higher Education Conference to be held on April 25-27, 2007 in Quebec, Canada. If you our your institution are interested in developing linkages with key higher education institutions, organisations, foundations, and internationally related government agencies from Mexico, the U.S. and Canada, please consider attending and submitting a proposal for presentation. The conference is organized by the Consortium for North American Higher Education Collaboration (CONAHEC) and co-convened by: American Council on Education (ACE) American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) Asociaci?n Nacional de Universidades e Instituciones de Educaci?n Superior (ANUIES) Association of Canadian Community Colleges/Association des coll?ges communautaires du Canada (ACCC) Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada/Association des universit?s et coll?ges du Canada (AUCC) OECD'S Programme for Higher Education Management (IMHE) CONAHEC is fortunate to benefit from the assistance of the largest and most distinguished system of institutions in the Province of Quebec. Our host for this exciting event is the University of Quebec System. For more information about the event, and to submit on line a Call for Proposals, please visit our conference web site at: http://www.conahec.org/conahec/Conferences/Quebec2007/english/EN_Description .html Again, if you are interested in collaborative linkages with higher education institutions from Canada, the United States and Mexico, please make plans to attend. We hope to see you in Quebec City! Sincerely, Francisco Marmolejo Executive Director Consortium for North American Higher Education Collaboration (CONAHEC) University of Arizona 220 W. 6th St. University Services Annex, Bldg. 300A Rm. 108 PO Box 210300 Tucson, AZ 85721-0300 USA Phone: (520) 621-9080 Fax: (520) 626-2675 E-mail: fmarmole at u.arizona.edu http://conahec.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Thu Nov 16 01:17:09 2006 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2006 17:17:09 -0800 Subject: The Gift Of Language Message-ID: City Journal Home. City Journal The Gift of Language No, Dr. Pinker, it?s not just from nature. Theodore Dalrymple Autumn 2006 Now that I?ve retired early from medical practice in a slum hospital and the prison next door, my former colleagues sometimes ask me, not without a trace of anxiety, whether I think that I made the right choice or whether I miss my previous life. They are good friends and fine men, but it is only human nature not to wish unalloyed happiness to one who has chosen a path that diverges, even slightly, from one?s own. Fortunately, I do miss some aspects of my work: if I didn?t, it would mean that I had not enjoyed what I did for many years and had wasted a large stretch of my life. I miss, for instance, the sudden illumination into the worldview of my patients that their replies to simple questions sometimes gave me. I still do a certain amount of medico-legal work, preparing psychiatric reports on those accused of crimes, and recently a case reminded me of how sharply a few words can bring into relief an entire attitude toward life and shed light on an entire mental hinterland. A young woman was charged with assault, under the influence of alcohol and marijuana, on a very old lady about five times her age. Describing her childhood, the young accused mentioned that her mother had once been in trouble with the police. ?What for?? I asked. ?She was on the Social [Security] and working at the same time.? ?What happened?? I asked. ?She had to give up working.? The air of self-evidence with which she said this revealed a whole world of presuppositions. For her, and those around her, work was the last resort; economic dependence on state handouts was the natural condition of man. I delighted in what my patients said. One of them always laced his statements with proverbs, which he invariably mangled. ?Sometimes, doctor,? he said to me one day, ?I feel like the little boy with his finger in the dike, crying wolf.? And I enjoyed the expressive argot of prison. The prison officers, too, had their own language. They called a loquacious prisoner ?verbal? if they believed him to be mad, and ?mouthy? if they believed him to be merely bad and willfully misbehaving. Brief exchanges could so entertain me that on occasion they transformed duty into pleasure. Once I was called to the prison in the early hours to examine a man who had just tried to hang himself. He was sitting in a room with a prison officer. It was about three in the morning, the very worst time to be roused from sleep. ?The things you have to do for Umanity, sir,? said the prison officer to me. The prisoner, looking bemused, said to him, ?You what?? ?U-manity,? said the prison officer, turning to the prisoner. ?You?re Uman, aren?t you?? It was like living in a glorious comic passage in Dickens. For the most part, though, I was struck not by the verbal felicity and invention of my patients and those around them but by their inability to express themselves with anything like facility: and this after 11 years of compulsory education, or (more accurately) attendance at school. With a very limited vocabulary, it is impossible to make, or at least to express, important distinctions and to examine any question with conceptual care. My patients often had no words to describe what they were feeling, except in the crudest possible way, with expostulations, exclamations, and physical displays of emotion. Often, by guesswork and my experience of other patients, I could put things into words for them, words that they grasped at eagerly. Everything was on the tip of their tongue, rarely or never reaching the stage of expression out loud. They struggled even to describe in a consecutive and logical fashion what had happened to them, at least without a great deal of prompting. Complex narrative and most abstractions were closed to them. In their dealings with authority, they were at a huge disadvantage?a disaster, since so many of them depended upon various public bureaucracies for so many of their needs, from their housing and health care to their income and the education of their children. I would find myself dealing on their behalf with those bureaucracies, which were often simultaneously bullying and incompetent; and what officialdom had claimed for months or even years to be impossible suddenly, on my intervention, became possible within a week. Of course, it was not my mastery of language alone that produced this result; rather, my mastery of language signaled my capacity to make serious trouble for the bureaucrats if they did not do as I asked. I do not think it is a coincidence that the offices of all those bureaucracies were increasingly installing security barriers against the physical attacks on the staff by enraged but inarticulate dependents. All this, it seems to me, directly contradicts our era?s ruling orthodoxy about language. According to that orthodoxy, every child, save the severely brain-damaged and those with very rare genetic defects, learns his or her native language with perfect facility, adequate to his needs. He does so because the faculty of language is part of human nature, inscribed in man?s physical being, as it were, and almost independent of environment. To be sure, today?s language theorists concede that if a child grows up completely isolated from other human beings until the age of about six, he will never learn language adequately; but this very fact, they argue, implies that the capacity for language is ?hardwired? in the human brain, to be activated only at a certain stage in each individual?s development, which in turn proves that language is an inherent biological characteristic of mankind rather than a merely cultural artifact. Moreover, language itself is always rule-governed; and the rules that govern it are universally the same, when stripped of certain minor incidentals and contingencies that superficially appear important but in reality are not. It follows that no language or dialect is superior to any other and that modes of verbal communication cannot be ranked according to complexity, expressiveness, or any other virtue. Thus, attempts to foist alleged grammatical ?correctness? on native speakers of an ?incorrect? dialect are nothing but the unacknowledged and oppressive exercise of social control?the means by which the elites deprive whole social classes and peoples of self-esteem and keep them in permanent subordination. If they are convinced that they can?t speak their own language properly, how can they possibly feel other than unworthy, humiliated, and disenfranchised? Hence the refusal to teach formal grammar is both in accord with a correct understanding of the nature of language and is politically generous, inasmuch as it confers equal status on all forms of speech and therefore upon all speakers. The locus classicus of this way of thinking, at least for laymen such as myself, is Steven Pinker?s book The Language Instinct. A bestseller when first published in 1994, it is now in its 25th printing in the British paperback version alone, and its wide circulation suggests a broad influence on the opinions of the intelligent public. Pinker is a professor of psychology at Harvard University, and that institution?s great prestige cloaks him, too, in the eyes of many. If Professor Pinker were not right on so important a subject, which is one to which he has devoted much study and brilliant intelligence, would he have tenure at Harvard? Pinker nails his colors to the mast at once. His book, he says, ?will not chide you about proper usage . . .? because, after all, ?[l] anguage is a complex, specialized skill, which . . . is qualitatively the same in every individual. . . . Language is no more a cultural invention than is upright posture,? and men are as naturally equal in their ability to express themselves as in their ability to stand on two legs. ?Once you begin to look at language . . . as a biological adaptation to communicate information,? Pinker continues, ?it is no longer as tempting to see language as an insidious shaper of thought.? Every individual has an equal linguistic capacity to formulate the most complex and refined thoughts. We all have, so to speak, the same tools for thinking. ?When it comes to linguistic form,? Pinker says, quoting the anthropologist, Edward Sapir, ?Plato walks with the Macedonian swineherd, Confucius with the head-hunting savage of Assam.? To put it another way, ?linguistic genius is involved every time a child learns his or her mother tongue.? The old-fashioned and elitist idea that there is a ?correct? and ?incorrect? form of language no doubt explains the fact that ?[l] inguists repeatedly run up against the myth that working-class people . . . speak a simpler and a coarser language. This is a pernicious illusion. . . . Trifling differences between the dialect of the mainstream and the dialect of other groups . . . are dignified as badges of ?proper grammar.? ? These are, in fact, the ?hobgoblins of the schoolmarm,? and ipso facto contemptible. In fact, standard English is one of those languages that ?is a dialect with an army and a navy.? The schoolmarms he so slightingly dismisses are in fact but the linguistic arm of a colonial power?the middle class?oppressing what would otherwise be a much freer and happier populace. ?Since prescriptive rules are so psychologically unnatural that only those with access to the right schooling can abide by them, they serve as shibboleths, differentiating the elite from the rabble.? Children will learn their native language adequately whatever anyone does, and the attempt to teach them language is fraught with psychological perils. For example, to ?correct? the way a child speaks is potentially to give him what used to be called an inferiority complex. Moreover, when schools undertake such correction, they risk dividing the child from his parents and social milieu, for he will speak in one way and live in another, creating hostility and possibly rejection all around him. But happily, since every child is a linguistic genius, there is no need to do any such thing. Every child will have the linguistic equipment he needs, merely by virtue of growing older. I need hardly point out that Pinker doesn?t really believe anything of what he writes, at least if example is stronger evidence of belief than precept. Though artfully sown here and there with a demotic expression to prove that he is himself of the people, his own book is written, not surprisingly, in the kind of English that would please schoolmarms. I doubt very much whether it would have reached its 25th printing had he chosen to write it in the dialect of rural Louisiana, for example, or of the slums of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Even had he chosen to do so, he might have found the writing rather difficult. I should like to see him try to translate a sentence from his book that I have taken at random, ?The point that the argument misses is that although natural selection involves incremental steps that enhance functioning, the enhancements do not have to be an existing module,? into the language of the Glasgow or Detroit slums. In fact, Pinker has no difficulty in ascribing greater or lesser expressive virtues to languages and dialects. In attacking the idea that there are primitive languages, he quotes the linguist Joan Bresnan, who describes English as ?a West Germanic language spoken in England and its former colonies? (no prizes for guessing the emotional connotations of this way of so describing it). Bresnan wrote an article comparing the use of the dative in English and Kivunjo, a language spoken on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro. Its use is much more complex in the latter language than in the former, making far more distinctions. Pinker comments: ?Among the clever gadgets I have glimpsed in the grammars of so-called primitive groups, the complex Cherokee pronoun system seems especially handy. It distinguishes among ?you and I,? ?another person and I,? ?several other people and I,? and ?you, one or more other persons, and I,? which English crudely collapses into the all-purpose pronoun we.? In other words, crudity and subtlety are concepts that apply between languages. And if so, there can be no real reason why they cannot apply within a language?why one man?s usage should not be better, more expressive, subtler, than another?s. Similarly, Pinker attacks the idea that the English of the ghetto, Black English Vernacular, is in any way inferior to standard English. It is rule- governed like (almost) all other language. Moreover, ?If the psychologists had listened to spontaneous conversations, they would have rediscovered the commonplace fact that American black culture is highly verbal; the subculture of street youths in particular is famous in the annals of anthropology for the value placed on linguistic virtuosity.? But in appearing to endorse the idea of linguistic virtuosity, he is, whether he likes it or not, endorsing the idea of linguistic lack of virtuosity. And it surely requires very little reflection to come to the conclusion that Shakespeare had more linguistic virtuosity than, say, the average contemporary football player. Oddly enough, Pinker ends his encomium on Black English Vernacular with a schoolmarm?s pursed lips: ?The highest percentage of ungrammatical sentences [are to be] found in the proceedings of learned academic conferences.? Over and over again, Pinker stresses that children do not learn language by imitation; rather, they learn it because they are biologically predestined to do so. ?Let us do away,? he writes, with what one imagines to be a rhetorical sweep of his hand, ?with the folklore that parents teach their children language.? It comes as rather a surprise, then, to read the book?s dedication: ?For Harry and Roslyn Pinker, who gave me language.? Surely he cannot mean by this that they gave him language in the same sense as they gave him hemoglobin?that is to say, that they were merely the sine qua non of his biological existence as Steven Pinker. If so, why choose language of all the gifts that they gave him? Presumably, he means that they gave him the opportunity to learn standard English, even if they did not speak it themselves. It is utterly implausible to suggest that imitation of parents (or other social contacts) has nothing whatever to do with the acquisition of language. I hesitate to mention so obvious a consideration, but Chinese parents tend to have Chinese-speaking children, and Portuguese parents Portuguese-speaking ones. I find it difficult to believe that this is entirely a coincidence and that imitation has nothing to do with it. Moreover, it is a sociological truism that children tend to speak not merely the language but the dialect of their parents. Of course, they can escape it if they choose or need to do so: my mother, a native German-speaker, arrived in England aged 18 and learned to speak standard English without a trace of a German accent (which linguists say is a rare accomplishment) and without ever making a grammatical mistake. She didn?t imitate her parents, perhaps, but she imitated someone. After her recent death, I found her notebooks from 1939, in which she painstakingly practiced English, the errors growing fewer until there were none. I don?t think she would have been favorably impressed by Professor Pinker?s disdainful grammatical latitudinarianism?the latitudinarianism that, in British schools and universities, now extends not only to grammar but to spelling, as a friend of mine discovered recently. A teacher in a state school gave his daughter a list of spellings to learn as homework, and my friend noticed that three out of ten of them were wrong. He went to the principal to complain, but she looked at the list and asked, ?So what? You can tell what the words are supposed to mean.? The test for her was not whether the spellings were correct but whether they were understandable. So much for the hobgoblins of contemporary schoolmarms. The contrast between a felt and lived reality?in this case, Pinker?s need to speak and write standard English because of its superior ability to express complex ideas?and the denial of it, perhaps in order to assert something original and striking, is characteristic of an intellectual climate in which the destruction of moral and social distinctions is proof of the very best intentions. Pinker?s grammatical latitudinarianism, when educationists like the principal of my friend?s daughter?s school take it seriously, has the practical effect of encouraging those born in the lower reaches of society to remain there, to enclose them in the mental world of their particular milieu. Of course, this is perfectly all right if you also believe that all stations in life are equally good and desirable and that there is nothing to be said for articulate reflection upon human existence. In other words, grammatical latitudinarianism is the natural ideological ally of moral and cultural relativism. It so happens that I observed the importance of mastering standard, schoolmarmly grammatical speech in my own family. My father, born two years after his older brother, had the opportunity, denied his older brother for reasons of poverty, to continue his education. Accordingly, my father learned to speak and write standard English, and I never heard him utter a single word that betrayed his origins. He could discourse philosophically without difficulty; I sometimes wished he had been a little less fluent. My uncle, by contrast, remained trapped in the language of the slums. He was a highly intelligent man and what is more a very good one: he was one of those rare men, much less common than their opposite, from whom goodness radiated almost as a physical quality. No one ever met him without sensing his goodness of heart, his generosity of spirit. But he was deeply inarticulate. His thoughts were too complex for the words and the syntax available to him. All through my childhood and beyond, I saw him struggle, like a man wrestling with an invisible boa constrictor, to express his far from foolish thoughts?thoughts of a complexity that my father expressed effortlessly. The frustration was evident on his face, though he never blamed anyone else for it. When, in Pinker?s book, I read the transcript of an interview by the neuropsychologist Howard Gardner with a man who suffered from expressive dysphasia after a stroke?that is to say, an inability to articulate thoughts in language?I was, with great sadness, reminded of my uncle. Gardner asked the man about his job before he had a stroke. ?I?m a sig . . . no . . . man . . . uh, well, . . . again.? These words were emitted slowly, and with great effort. . . . ?Let me help you,? I interjected. ?You were a signal . . .? ?A sig-nal man . . . right,? [he] completed my phrase triumphantly. ?Were you in the Coast Guard?? ?No, er, yes, yes . . . ship . . . Massachu . . . chusetts . . . Coast-guard . . . years.? It seemed to me that it was a cruel fate for such a man as my uncle not to have been taught the standard English that came to come so naturally to my father. As Montaigne tells us, there is no torture greater than that of a man who is unable to express what is in his soul. Beginning in the 1950s, Basil Bernstein, a London University researcher, demonstrated the difference between the speech of middle- and working-class children, controlling for whatever it is that IQ measures. Working-class speech, tethered closely to the here and now, lacked the very aspects of standard English needed to express abstract or general ideas and to place personal experience in temporal or any other perspective. Thus, unless Pinker?s despised schoolmarms were to take the working-class children in hand and deliberately teach them another speech code, they were doomed to remain where they were, at the bottom of a society that was itself much the poorer for not taking full advantage of their abilities, and that indeed would pay a steep penalty for not doing so. An intelligent man who can make no constructive use of his intelligence is likely to make a destructive, and self-destructive, use of it. If anyone doubts that inarticulacy can be a problem, I recommend reading a report by the Joseph Rowntree Trust about British girls who get themselves pregnant in their teens (and sometimes their early teens) as an answer to their existential problems. The report is not in the least concerned with the linguistic deficiencies of these girls, but they are evident in the transcript in every reply to every question. Without exception, the girls had had a very painful experience of life and therefore much to express from hearts that must have been bursting. I give only one example, but it is representative. A girl, aged 17, explains why it is wonderful to have a baby: Maybe it?s just?yeah, because maybe just?might be (um) it just feels great when?when like, you?ve got a child who just? you know? following you around, telling you they love you and I think that?s? it?s quite selfish, but that?s one of the reasons why I became a mum because I wanted someone who?ll?you know?love ?em to bits ?cos it?s not just your child who?s the centre of your world, and that feels great as well, so I think?it?s brilliant. It is fantastic because?you know?they?re?the child?s dependent on you and you know that (um)? that you?if you?you know?you?ve gotta do everything for the child and it just feels great to be depended on. As I know from the experience of my patients, there is no reason to expect her powers of expression to increase spontaneously with age. Any complex abstractions that enter her mind will remain inchoate, almost a nuisance, like a fly buzzing in a bottle that it cannot escape. Her experience is opaque even to herself, a mere jumble from which it will be difficult or impossible to learn because, for linguistic reasons, she cannot put it into any kind of perspective or coherent order. I am not of the ungenerous and empirically mistaken party that writes off such people as inherently incapable of anything better or as already having achieved so much that it is unnecessary to demand anything else of them, on the grounds that they naturally have more in common with Shakespeare than with speechless animal creation. Nor, of course, would I want everyone to speak all the time in Johnsonian or Gibbonian periods. Not only would it be intolerably tedious, but much linguistic wealth would vanish. But everyone ought to have the opportunity to transcend the limitations of his linguistic environment, if it is a restricted one?which means that he ought to meet a few schoolmarms in his childhood. Everyone, save the handicapped, learns to run without being taught; but no child runs 100 yards in nine seconds, or even 15 seconds, without training. It is fatuous to expect that the most complex of human faculties, language, requires no special training to develop it to its highest possible power. From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Thu Nov 16 04:32:06 2006 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2006 20:32:06 -0800 Subject: Anyone familiar? Message-ID: Begin forwarded message: From: "Veronica Gilhooly" Subject: Native American Indian Languages- teaching material Dear recipient My name is Veronica Gilhooly and I reside in Helsinki, Finland. I work in the area of language training, translations and web based resources for teachers. We have in the past year set up a website for teachers including 16 tools to make worksheets with and around 2000 hand drawn pictures by 2 artists. At the moment we offer 31 languages, and some of the tools enables teachers to make bilingual material as well, with or without pictures. Some interactive games have been added as well for students to practice vocabulary and grammar with. www.thelanguagemenu.com (Teacher's material) The site is free for anyone to use and download material from. Material is being made by teachers of different languages and our aim is to have over 50 less spoken languages on our website within the next 6 months. There is no limit to the amount of languages we are able to add to the site. As we have added most of the European languages and some Asian languages to the site, we have also been approached by several organisations asking us to develop material for less commonly use languages as well. We are now trying to find possible partners to work with in this area. We would now like to ask you if you would be interested in being a part of this project to make material into the Native American Indian languages more readily available for teachers and students. We have added fonts (UTF-8) to support some non latin languages, but this still needs to be updated with a larger fontsystem when more non latin based languages are to be added to the site. We have an excel wordlist with around 3000 common words like nouns, verbs and adjectives, and pictures for these are being drawn and updated regulary. When this wordlist is translated to the "new" language, we can easily add them to our database, and the tools that uses the words (and the pictures to correspond with this) are ready to use within the hour after that. What we are looking for is someone to translate the lists to their native language and perhaps a person/teacher for each language to create grammar and vocabulary material in their native language as well. This would then be a resource to be used by teachers anywhere for free. We will be adding about 20 more tools and about the same amount in different interactive games/exercises in the next year, depending on how much time our collaborators have to develop the site with us. We have also found teachers of different languages who are wiling to create language material like grammar and vocabulary exercises (to be added to the tool "fill in the blank") and a lot of games to be downloaded from the material bank. We have already started working with English, Swedish, Danish, French, Russian, Spanish, Romanian and Icelandic teachers who are creating material. Discussion exercises, flash cards of diffent types, power point presentations in different languages will be added as well in the near future. The website will receive a "facelift" during the month of December when we will add some new features and change the look of it as well, and more material will be added. Other institutes supporting our project: The Finnish-Danish cultural center, The Finnish-Norwegian cultural center http://www.hanasaari.fi/english/index.html and the Pools Project in Denmark http://www.languages.dk/cooperations.html If you would be interested in participating in this project, please contact me at the address/telephone numbers below. (If this is not something you would like to be involved in, perhaps it would be possible for you could let me know what organisation would be the correct one to be in contact with?) Best regards Veronica Veronica Gilhooly MD Learnwell Oy-The Language Menu Hietalahdenkatu 2 B 00180 Helsinki, Finland +358 45 130 1114 + 358 50 531 1453 veronica.gilhooly at welho.com office at thelanguagemenu.com veronica.gilhooly at thelanguagemenu.com www.thelanguagemenu.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rtroike at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat Nov 18 07:52:52 2006 From: rtroike at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Rudy Troike) Date: Sat, 18 Nov 2006 00:52:52 -0700 Subject: Critique of Pinker's The Gift of Language In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Andre, Could you give more precise information on the source of this remarkably poignant critique of Pinker's (and many linguists') linguistic egalitarianism? I'd like to be able to reference it. (Dell Hymes would agree in most respects.) Rudy Troike From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Sun Nov 19 01:41:25 2006 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Sat, 18 Nov 2006 17:41:25 -0800 Subject: Critique of Pinker's The Gift of Language In-Reply-To: <20061118005252.0q85puog8o0koccs@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: http://www.city-journal.org/html/16_4_in_prospect.html On Nov 17, 2006, at 11:52 PM, Rudy Troike wrote: Andre, Could you give more precise information on the source of this remarkably poignant critique of Pinker's (and many linguists') linguistic egalitarianism? I'd like to be able to reference it. (Dell Hymes would agree in most respects.) Rudy Troike From mikinakn at SHAW.CA Sun Nov 19 03:26:56 2006 From: mikinakn at SHAW.CA (Rolland Nadjiwon) Date: Sat, 18 Nov 2006 22:26:56 -0500 Subject: Critique of Pinker's The Gift of Language Message-ID: Very interesting articles Andre. Thank you. I can use some of this in my address to a linguistics and language class. ------- wahjeh rolland nadjiwon ----- Original Message ----- From: Andre Cramblit To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Sent: Saturday, November 18, 2006 8:41 PM Subject: Re: [ILAT] Critique of Pinker's The Gift of Language http://www.city-journal.org/html/16_4_in_prospect.html On Nov 17, 2006, at 11:52 PM, Rudy Troike wrote: Andre, Could you give more precise information on the source of this remarkably poignant critique of Pinker's (and many linguists') linguistic egalitarianism? I'd like to be able to reference it. (Dell Hymes would agree in most respects.) Rudy Troike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Sun Nov 19 04:03:37 2006 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Sat, 18 Nov 2006 20:03:37 -0800 Subject: Critique of Pinker's The Gift of Language In-Reply-To: <001501c70b8a$919c4b00$d30d6d18@owner2abac901a> Message-ID: The original article was: http://www.city-journal.org/html/16_4_urbanities-language.html On Nov 18, 2006, at 7:26 PM, Rolland Nadjiwon wrote: Very interesting articles Andre. Thank you. I can use some of this in my address to a linguistics and language class. ------- wahjeh rolland nadjiwon ----- Original Message ----- From: Andre Cramblit To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Sent: Saturday, November 18, 2006 8:41 PM Subject: Re: [ILAT] Critique of Pinker's The Gift of Language http://www.city-journal.org/html/16_4_in_prospect.html On Nov 17, 2006, at 11:52 PM, Rudy Troike wrote: Andre, Could you give more precise information on the source of this remarkably poignant critique of Pinker's (and many linguists') linguistic egalitarianism? I'd like to be able to reference it. (Dell Hymes would agree in most respects.) Rudy Troike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mikinakn at SHAW.CA Sun Nov 19 04:47:33 2006 From: mikinakn at SHAW.CA (Rolland Nadjiwon) Date: Sat, 18 Nov 2006 23:47:33 -0500 Subject: Critique of Pinker's The Gift of Language Message-ID: Even better Andre. I need all the ammo I can get not being a linguist or languitian :) Thanks. ------- wahjeh rolland nadjiwon ----- Original Message ----- From: Andre Cramblit To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Sent: Saturday, November 18, 2006 11:03 PM Subject: Re: [ILAT] Critique of Pinker's The Gift of Language The original article was: http://www.city-journal.org/html/16_4_urbanities-language.html On Nov 18, 2006, at 7:26 PM, Rolland Nadjiwon wrote: Very interesting articles Andre. Thank you. I can use some of this in my address to a linguistics and language class. ------- wahjeh rolland nadjiwon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Sun Nov 19 04:52:46 2006 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Sat, 18 Nov 2006 20:52:46 -0800 Subject: Genetics & Language Development Message-ID: Genetics Influence Adolescent Language Problems http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/05/050517063228.htm Specific language impairment (SLI) is a condition in which a child?s language development is deficient despite showing normal development in all other areas. New research, published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, attempts to identify the cause behind this affliction. Factors such as poor parenting, subtle brain damage or hearing loss have previously been regarded as the cause behind SLI. The findings indicate, however, that these factors are far less important than genetics, specifically, an unidentified combination of defective genes, when determining risk and that no single cause can account for all cases. ?As a greater understanding of the issues and their causes becomes apparent, more effective interventions can be devised; tailoring treatments to an individual child?s specific, underlying problems,? says Dr. Dorothy Bishop, author of the study. Research into this condition is helping scientists unravel the mystery behind how genetics contribute to the development of language. Genetic Factors Partly Influence Differences In Language Development Genetic factors appear to influence individual differences in language development among children, at least in part, according to a study by British and American researchers. The study, which also found that environmental influences on children's language development were unique to the individual, not the shared environment, was published in the May/June issue of the journal Child Development. Researchers from the Institute of Psychiatry in London, the University of Oxford, and the University of Missouri-Columbia in the United States investigated both individual differences in language development in the normal range and at the low end of ability in 4 1/2-year-old twins. They recruited participants as part of the Twins Early Development study (TEDS), a longitudinal study involving a representative sample of all twins born in England and Wales in 1994, 1995 and 1996. It is the largest twin study to investigate diverse aspects of language, including articulation, phonology, grammar, vocabulary and verbal memory in a group of children of the same age. Opposite-sex twins were included in the study in order to explore sex differences in genetic and environmental influences for each individual measure. "Children differ in the rates in which they acquire language and in their linguistic ability," explained lead researcher Yulia Kovas, a PhD student at the Institute of Psychiatry in London. "Understanding the sources of this variation is an important part of forming a comprehensive account of language development." The study findings, she notes, are consistent with previous research showing that differences between children in different aspects of language development do not seem to be uniquely dependent on genes or environment. "The results are similar when only the low end of language ability is studied, with the possible exception of the two receptive measures," she said. "This similarity is consistent with the hypothesis that the same genetic and environmental influences are involved in shaping individual differences and differences in risk of a language-related disorder. If this turns out to be the case, it means that when genes and specific aspects of environments that affect language disability are discovered, they will be also involved in individual differences in language ability." Study results also suggest that the same genes and environments similarly affect individual differences in the language ability of boys and girls. "Establishing the role of genetic influences in diverse aspects of language is only a first step in providing a foundation and a motivation for molecular genetic studies to find the multiple specific genes involved," said Kovas. "Similarly, establishing the relative importance of environmental influences is just a first step toward future research to identify specific environments involved. As specific genes and environments are identified, we can begin to understand the complex mechanisms of development of individual differences in language abilities." ### Summarized from Child Development, Vol. 76, Issue 3, Genetic influences in different aspects of language development: The etiology of language skills in 4.5 year-old twins by Kovas Y, Hayiou-Thomas ME, Oliver B (Institute of Psychiatry), Dale PS (University of Oxford), Bishop DVM (University of Missouri-Columbia), and Plomin R (Institute of Psychiatry). Copyright 2005 The Society for Research in Child Development, Inc. All rights reserved. From mikinakn at SHAW.CA Sun Nov 19 05:41:16 2006 From: mikinakn at SHAW.CA (Rolland Nadjiwon) Date: Sun, 19 Nov 2006 00:41:16 -0500 Subject: Genetics & Language Development Message-ID: Thanks Andre...this is all good stuff(?). ------- wahjeh rolland nadjiwon ----- Original Message ----- From: Andre Cramblit To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Sent: Saturday, November 18, 2006 11:52 PM Subject: [ILAT] Genetics & Language Development Genetics Influence Adolescent Language Problems http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/05/050517063228.htm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Sun Nov 19 09:19:13 2006 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Sun, 19 Nov 2006 01:19:13 -0800 Subject: Stubborn Elder Message-ID: Native language lives in woman Vi Hilbert of the Upper Skagit tribe stubbornly aims to keep the old words of Lushootseed alive. By Krista J. Kapralos Herald Writer EVERETT - By her own admission, Vi Hilbert, 88, is stubborn. She was an only child raised in the Upper Skagit tribe. Her mother loved to perform and her father was a medicine man. When they passed the stories on to Hilbert, he spoke in Lushootseed, the language of Western Washington's Coast Salish tribes. Hilbert was a child in a desperate era for American Indian tribes. Tribal children went to boarding schools where they weren't allowed to speak their native languages. Many children forgot Lushootseed, but not Hilbert. She stubbornly tucked it away in her mind and in her heart. Years later, the language emerged from an age of darkness and was brought into the light once again. Hilbert was one of the few people who remembered enough of it to speak it again. At an event sponsored by Everett Community College's Diversity and Equity Center Thursday, Hilbert shared her language with about 70 students. The students leaned forward in their seats in an effort to catch every word, and afterward they knelt on the floor in front of Hilbert to thank her. "She's living history," said Earl Martin, director of the college's counseling center and a member of the Cree tribe. "The knowledge she passes down orally is just as valuable as anything that's in our library." Hilbert has dedicated her life to the rebirth of Lushootseed. She worked in the linguistics department at the University of Washington for 15 years. In 1989, she received an honorary doctorate from Seattle University and was named a Washington State Living Treasure. Hilbert has worked closely with linguists to develop a written form of Lushootseed and publish dictionaries for the language. "Given her age, I've wanted to get her here while she's still able to speak," said Christina Castorena, associate dean for diversity for EvCC. "She's a local jewel, and it's an honor to have her here." Hilbert clutched a dark blanket around her thin shoulders as she sat in a chair on the stage in Baker Hall on the EvCC campus. She demanded that the students speak up if they wanted to ask her a question. "I'm bossy," she said, smiling slyly. Hilbert said she's been criticized by some tribal members for sharing Upper Skagit culture. She argues that every culture is important and should be shared with as many people as possible. Sharing Lushootseed and ancient Coast Salish stories won't dilute the value of the culture. "The language will live because it's important," she said. "The culture will live because it's important." Reporter Krista J. Kapralos: 425-339-3422 or kkapralos at heraldnet.com. From lanz at RICE.EDU Sun Nov 19 17:45:44 2006 From: lanz at RICE.EDU (Linda Lanz) Date: Sun, 19 Nov 2006 11:45:44 -0600 Subject: Efforts being made to save Han Athabascan language Message-ID: http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/rural/story/8423899p-8318227c.html Efforts being made to save Han Athabascan language ENDANGERED: Only seven or eight Natives fluent in Han remain. By LOUISE FREEMAN Fairbanks Daily News-Miner Published: November 19, 2006 Last Modified: November 19, 2006 at 01:25 AM EAGLE -- The language of the Han people of the upper Yukon basin will be preserved in dictionary form thanks to the efforts of Belgian linguist Willem De Reuse and the Alaska Native Language Center. Han Athabascan is one of the most endangered Native languages in Alaska, with only seven or eight fluent speakers remaining in Eagle Village, and two more in Dawson, Canada. Larry Kaplan, director of the Alaska Native Language Center, said the language has been long ignored and is only now getting the attention it deserves. "For us it is a very high priority project to get it documented for future generations of Han people, as well as for linguists who might be interested in the language," he said. De Reuse spent much of the summer and fall in Eagle Village working with elders to document the vanishing language. Conan Goebel, first chief of Eagle Village, said they have been trying for several years to obtain funding for such a project. "So we got lucky with the university contacting us and asking if Willem could come here and do this," he said. Ruth Ridley welcomed the opportunity to help De Reuse document the language. She previously worked with the ANLC in the 1980s to produce a book of stories in Han. "They call me the youngest fluent speaker of our language. And I'm 56, so you can see it needs help," she said. Ridley, with her older sisters Ethel Beck and Bertha Ulvi, grew up speaking Han as their first language. According to Beck, the children of the Paul family had to learn Han so they could communicate with their grandmother, who didn't speak English. Michael Krauss, ex-director of the ANLC who initiated the project now being funded by the University of Alaska system, attributes much of the success of the project to the three sisters. "The Paul family especially understands the stakes and are actively contributing everything they can," he said. De Reuse is also working on a dictionary of Apache, one of the languages of the Southwest that is related to Northern Athabascan languages such as Han and Gwich'in. Han, long considered a dialect of Gwich'in, has more recently been recognized as a separate language. The languages are enough alike, however, that De Reuse has been using words from a Gwich'in dictionary to help Eagle elders recall similar-sounding words in their own language. A list of Han nouns was compiled by linguist John Ritter of the Yukon Native Language Center in Whitehorse, Canada, in 1980, so De Reuse is concentrating on words for actions such as throwing, hitting and walking. De Reuse explained that many of the verbs are "pretty precise terms" that describe a very specific action. For example, there is a particular word meaning to "throw a solid roundish object like a rock or chunk of bone." For terms describing traditional male activities such as hunting and fishing, De Reuse turned to Tim Malcolm, who at age 69 is the oldest fluent speaker of Han in Eagle Village. Like other Alaska Natives over the past century, the children of the Paul and Malcolm families were discouraged from speaking their language once they entered school. De Reuse attributes much of the loss of the Han language to formal education, but, he said, Eagle Village's relative isolation protected their culture from outside influence to some extent. The Han language fared less well in the Canadian village of Moosehide due to its proximity to Dawson, two miles upriver. De Reuse plans to spend time in Dawson next summer working with the two remaining speakers of Han, who are both more than 70 years old. He will also return to Eagle to continue his work there, which includes recording not only words and phrases, but also stories told in Han. Although the dictionary won't be completed for several years, Eagle Village is already benefitting from the project. Joanne Beck, tribal administrator, said that since working with De Reuse, "The elders have started speaking our language more and remembering stories that were passed on to them. It's exciting." The next step in preserving the language is to develop a curriculum so the language can be taught. Ethel Beck said, "I'd love to teach the language to anyone who wants to learn it, adults or children." First Chief Goebel, 25, would like to learn Han himself, but he recognizes it will be of limited value. "You can't go down to the Lower 48 and use it, like Spanish. You've got to do it for yourself, to keep it alive." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Sun Nov 19 17:59:48 2006 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Sun, 19 Nov 2006 09:59:48 -0800 Subject: One Response to Language & Genetics Message-ID: There is too much emphasis purely on genetics and not enough consideration of the epigenome, e.g. the "switches" that control the genes. The way the "switches" are oriented on the genes can be acquired during life and transmitted to progeny since, unlike most people would have one believe, the entire chromosome is passed from parents to siblings, not just the DNA blueprint itself...... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From phonosemantics at EARTHLINK.NET Sun Nov 19 22:45:25 2006 From: phonosemantics at EARTHLINK.NET (jess tauber) Date: Sun, 19 Nov 2006 17:45:25 -0500 Subject: One Response to Language & Genetics Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From CMcMillan at WVC.EDU Mon Nov 20 17:28:58 2006 From: CMcMillan at WVC.EDU (McMillan, Carol) Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2006 09:28:58 -0800 Subject: One Response to Language & Genetics In-Reply-To: A<037D755F-6BF0-41CF-88A7-A0381AF26FF7@ncidc.org> Message-ID: Do you have a readable reference for that? I'm good at basic biochemical genetics, but I need updating. I haven't heard the term "epigenome" before. Thanks, Carol ________________________________ From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of Andre Cramblit Sent: Sunday, November 19, 2006 10:00 AM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: [ILAT] One Response to Language & Genetics There is too much emphasis purely on genetics and not enough consideration of the epigenome, e.g. the "switches" that control the genes. The way the "switches" are oriented on the genes can be acquired during life and transmitted to progeny since, unlike most people would have one believe, the entire chromosome is passed from parents to siblings, not just the DNA blueprint itself...... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Mon Nov 20 18:09:09 2006 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2006 10:09:09 -0800 Subject: One Response to Language & Genetics In-Reply-To: <7EB68133FBB1DA4D8B5A7C860642068B207793@ad-ex-wvcmail.wvc.edu> Message-ID: sorry was just passing on a comment that was sent my way On Nov 20, 2006, at 9:28 AM, McMillan, Carol wrote: Do you have a readable reference for that? I'm good at basic biochemical genetics, but I need updating. I haven't heard the term "epigenome" before. Thanks, Carol From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of Andre Cramblit Sent: Sunday, November 19, 2006 10:00 AM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: [ILAT] One Response to Language & Genetics There is too much emphasis purely on genetics and not enough consideration of the epigenome, e.g. the "switches" that control the genes. The way the "switches" are oriented on the genes can be acquired during life and transmitted to progeny since, unlike most people would have one believe, the entire chromosome is passed from parents to siblings, not just the DNA blueprint itself...... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From candaceg at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Nov 20 19:16:15 2006 From: candaceg at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Candace Galla) Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2006 12:16:15 -0700 Subject: American Indian Language Development Institute 2007 Message-ID: Announcing the 28th Annual American Indian Language Development Institute Weaving Indigenous Voices: Telling Our Stories June 4-June 29, 2007 (Please see attachment for more information) The University of Arizona and Department of Language, Reading & Culture invite you to the 28th American Indian Language Development Institute (AILDI). AILDI 2007 will focus on a range of critical topics, including, grant-writing for Indigenous populations, advanced methods for language immersion teaching for endangered languages and skills in documenting Indigenous languages for the purpose of language revitalization. In addition the 2007 AILDI is collaborating with the UA Poetry Center in hosting a symposium: Native Voices with support from the National Endowment for the Arts. AILDI will have a special focus on Native poets, poetry readings, and writing. Our theme, Weaving Indigenous Voices: Telling our Stories reflects this emphasis and will be highlighted with guest speakers, panels, projects and films. AILDI offers six graduate credits or undergraduate credit hours during four weeks of intensive study. Courses can be applied toward regular degree programs and teacher endorsements. Best, Candace K. Galla Ph.D Student, LRC Graduate Assistant American Indian Language Development Institute Department of Language, Reading & Culture College of Education, Room 517 P.O. Box 210069 Tucson, AZ 85721-0069 (520) 621-1068, Fax (520)621-8174 www.u.arizona.edu/~aildi candaceg at email.arizona.edu -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Flier 2007.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 160317 bytes Desc: not available URL: From manuela_noske at HOTMAIL.COM Tue Nov 21 16:17:38 2006 From: manuela_noske at HOTMAIL.COM (Manuela Noske) Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2006 08:17:38 -0800 Subject: Report on NPR "Oneida Indian Nation Works to Recover its Language" Message-ID: Morning Edition ran a report on the revitalization of the Oneida language this morning. You can listen to the report at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6517863 Best, Manuela _________________________________________________________________ Check the weather nationwide with MSN Search: Try it now! http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=weather&FORM=WLMTAG -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 22 00:26:35 2006 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2006 17:26:35 -0700 Subject: Language barriers (fwd) Message-ID: November 21, 2006 09:41 am Language barriers Josh Newton http://www.tahlequahdailypress.com/features/local_story_325094109.html?keyword=topstory It isn?t uncommon to hear a number of well-known Cherokee or Spanish words uttered while out-and-about in Tahlequah: ?wa do? and ?o si yo? in Cherokee, or ?hola? and ?adios? in Spanish. For many folks, grade-school education imparted in at least a minimal understanding of these languages. But perhaps more is needed to break the language barrier. According to a new survey by the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly 92 percent of Oklahoma American Indians speak only English in the home; furthermore, 70 percent of Hispanics in the state speak a language other than English at home. For American Indians, it may not be lack of tradition being passed from one generation to another, but perhaps the introduction of outside influences. ?I don?t think they [American Indian families} are doing anything different,? said Pat Moss, a trilinguist who speaks English, Cherokee and Spanish. ?We didn?t have a TV when I was a kid. As time went by, there were more and more options: outside stimuli. Instead of sitting around the wood stove telling family stories - even if both parents speak Cherokee - they still have that outside stimuli. There are no video games in Cherokee.? As a child, the only English Moss came in contact with was broken English, or on the occasional Friday night A.M. radio station. He feels as new technologies like TV, video games, computers were introduced, native languages began taking a back-seat to English. According to Cherokee Nation?s Web site, the native language is only spoken by approximately 10,000 people. ?Language is very important to preserving a culture - many words which are descriptive of cultural mannerisms, feelings, events, and ceremonies are only identifiable in the native tongue,? states the site. ?There is no comparable word in the English language. All prayers and other ceremonies used at stomp dances and by medicine people are in the Cherokee language as well.? Raised in a small Creek Nation town, Deena Hare recalls childhood tales of how the Creek language was carried from Alabama to Florida, and then to Indian Territory in what is now Oklahoma. Her family only used English when absolutely necessary to ?survive the lifestyle? they would encounter near Okmulgee. ?To speak English was not a concern for us kids, or really anyone who was Creek,? said Hare. ?If we wanted to buy food or clothes or what be it, most folks we dealt with just pointed and said something in English, and dad would nod his head ?yes? or ?no.?? Hare moved away from her hometown after marriage and began to slowly learn important English words. Eventually, English and her Creek became equal in her life. ?We taught the best we could to our sons, but to get by, we knew they?d have to know English, so it became our goal to have them learn English,? said Hare. According to Anita Lightcap, Special Programs coordinator for Tahlequah Public Schools, native cultures represented in the I-35 District include Cherokee, Shawnee, Keetoowah, Caddo, Navajo, Chickashaw, Delaware and Choctaw. Lightcap believes the U.S. Census Bureau?s numbers relating to American Indians to be accurate, based on home language surveys filled out by parents of the students. She echoed one of Moss? theories as to why American Indians are more likely to speak fluent English than a traditional native language. ?There?s not much printed material around in Cherokee and native languages,? said Lightcap. Acclimating foreign-speaking students at a younger age is a work in progress, according to TPS Indian Education Director Leroy Qualls. ?I think it?s not only limited English proficiency; you have to overcome obstacles to get up to par or average with everyone else,? said Qualls. ?There are more bumps in the road.? Finding the right teaching method is important, Qualls and Lightcap agree. ?Eighty percent of Native American students are auditory learners,? said Qualls. ?If I were a teacher lecturing for a full hour, that would bore them. Things are being done to identify that stuff. Having more tools for teachers is important.? In the Tahlequah district, about 60 percent of the student population is Native American; of that number, 95 percent are Cherokee. ?As far as we know, our school system has the highest Native American population in the world,? said Qualls. When Hare?s children attended school in the I-35 district over 20 years ago, she doesn?t recall their having a problem adjusting to cultural or language differences. ?I can see other foreign speakers having a hard time in any American school, but I don?t see that many Indians having a tough time,? she said. ?The only Indians who still speak native languages and not English are probably elders.? The Hispanic population may face bigger challenges at adapting to and working through an English-based society. ?The Hispanic population is really adamant about bringing their culture to America,? said Moss. ?A lot of them haven?t dropped their culture and adapted to the American way.? Hispanic culture does thrive, and thus, even younger generations are still exposed to their native language. ?They have their own video stores, their own videos,? said Moss. ?They?ve actually brought their culture.? According to the U.S. Census Bureau survey, 72 percent of Oklahoma Hispanics ages 16 and older are employed in the labor force, with one in five of those work in construction. ?In the workforce, they are taught that you - especially a young man - should work hard to show you are productive,? said Moss. Area businesses have begun to use a service offered by Language Line, a Monterey, Calif.-based interpretation program. Cherokee County 911 Coordinator Darryl Maggard uses the system, which offers 24-hour access to an interpreter in more than 170 languages. ?If we have someone who is non-English speaking, another dispatcher contacts Language Line,? said Maggard. The system allows the 911 facility to act upon emergency calls by people who may not understand or speak English - but those scenarios, said Maggard, are rare. ?We probably use it twice a month,? said Maggard. Most callers, despite their native origin, can relate their emergency needs in English, he said. ?Most people know enough English to at least say they are needing help,? said Maggard. ?If not, we have Language Line that can interpret back and forth. It?s real helpful.? When entering the TPS education system, Hispanic students are introduced to the same English classes as other students, with the same expectations. That becomes a problem for students who already know some of the basics the ?foreign language? class will offer. Instead, said Lightcap, students need to be involved in a class that can expound upon in-depth principles of both their native language and English. ?We study [these ideas] constantly,? Lightcap said. She pointed to statements made by the National Alliance of Business in 2000: ?U.S. students still remain too isolated from people who are different from them, too insulated in their own cultures and languages. They are not learning respect for differences or the cooperative skills they need to contribute effectively in diverse work teams.? Lightcap said local students - whatever their national origin - ?don?t stand out and look horribly different from their classroom counterparts.? ?That?s a good thing for our students,? she said. ?That?s a good thing for us, I think.? The most important thing, according to both Qualls and Lightcap, is for English Language Learner (ELL) students to not succumb to statistics; ELL students have the highest drop-out rate, according to Lightcap. ?I think the things for kids to remember is, we all face struggles, no matter how old we are,? said Lightcap. ?To face those struggles without an education is going to make [the struggles] more severe. When overcome, adversity will make a student more experienced and better prepared for life. ?We all have adversity - those are bumps in the road,? said Qualls. ?One of the keys to life is how you handle those bumps.? When any student - Native American, Hispanic or otherwise - seems confused or wants to quit, Qualls points him or her to a paper on his wall, which reads: ?Price of not graduating: $260,000, estimated difference between high-school dropouts and a graduate.? Lightcap knows foreign-speaking students face a number of obstacles - at home, at school or even in the workforce. ?We watch children get doors closed in their faces that should not be closed,? she said. Problems should be addressed for all students facing extra obstacles, so Qualls and Lightcap encourage students to seek help. ?That?s trying to overcome an attitude of self-esteem and self-worth,? said Qualls. ?You?re a team - you and the teacher.? As a parent and grandparent, Hare believes Native Americans and Hispanics have a great deal of knowledge to gain from one another. ?I feel like [Native Americans] have skillfully adapted to the English language, without forgetting their cultural background,? she said. ?No one should be asked to forget or put aside their culture, but in this country, we are destined to be English-speaking citizens. It?s for the best in life. It makes us money and puts food on our tables. I believe that is why America is so special: Even in Oklahoma, people of all races can learn from each other and adapt to find a way to live joyfully.? ? 2006, Tahlequah Daily Press 106 W. Second Street; Tahlequah, OK 74464 (918) 456-8833 or Email Tips & Feedback From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 22 00:30:45 2006 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2006 17:30:45 -0700 Subject: Educators in Mexico had sought to wipe out indigenous language (fwd) Message-ID: Educators in Mexico had sought to wipe out indigenous language By Ted B. Kissell, tkissell at VenturaCountyStar.com November 19, 2006 URL:http://www.venturacountystar.com/vcs/county_news/article/0,1375,VCS_226_5155956,00.html Difficult as it might be for them to adjust to U.S. schools, Mixtecos and other indigenous Mexicans are used to facing educational barriers, among other indignities, in their home country. Like most such groups, the Mixtecos didn't get to choose their own name. The term Mixteco comes from Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs ? itself still spoken by some 1.6 million Mexicans ? and means "People of the Cloud Place." Mixtecos call themselves "?uu Savi," or some variation of that term, which means "People from the Place of Rain." After centuries of near-total neglect of those "Indios" who maintained their indigenous language and traditions, the Mexican educational system established in the 1920s, after the Revolution, officially recognized that these languages existed and declared that they needed to be wiped out. Called "castellanizaci?n," or "Spanishization," this policy called for a system of Spanish-only schools in indigenous communities that would ease the assimilation of these poorest and most marginalized of Mexico's peasants into the Mestizo culture. According to Sylvia Schmelkes, head of the Department of Bilingual and Intercultural Education for Mexico's federal education system, this educational model gave way, roughly in the middle of the 20th century, to a different approach. "Teachers started to work with the indigenous language as a tool to help them achieve speaking Spanish," she said. By the 1970s, Schmelkes said, a separate system of bilingual schools was created, whose objective was "to achieve an integral bilingualism, a fluency in both languages." "But many teachers still follow the old philosophies," she said. When compared to mainstream Mexican schools, the system of bilingual primary schools in indigenous communities is still separate and unequal. Fausto Sandoval, a teacher in Oaxaca who lives and works in his home community, is a Triqui, a group of some 30,000 people whose towns are surrounded by Mixteco communities, and who speak a language closely related to Mixteco. "There are schools in indigenous communities," Sandoval said. "In the majority of them, there's an indigenous teacher. The problems begin with, how do they teach, in what language do they teach, and in what language are the books?" The biggest problem, he said, is teacher training, or the lack of it. "The majority of teachers come in without any training to be teachers," he said. According to the most recent statistics from the Mexican government, 35 percent of teachers in the state's indigenous schools have no more than a high school education. Others have teacher training, but no specific training on how to teach a bilingual curriculum. Very few have gone to a "Normal Biling?e" to be trained in running a truly bilingual classroom, the stated mission of all indigenous primary schools in Mexico. ? Ted B. Kissell Comments (4) | Trackback (0) Copyright 2006, Ventura County Star. All Rights Reserved. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 22 00:32:26 2006 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2006 17:32:26 -0700 Subject: UAF gets $1.3 million to help save Native languages (fwd) Message-ID: UAF gets $1.3 million to help save Native languages IMMERSION PROGRAMS: Money will be used to recruit teachers with Kuskokwim ties. The Associated Press (Published: November 17, 2006) http://www.adn.com/news/education/story/8416935p-8311651c.html FAIRBANKS -- University of Alaska Fairbanks researchers have been awarded $1.3 million to help teachers in rural Alaska better serve bilingual students and students in language immersion programs. The U.S. Department of Education grant is the largest humanities grant the College of Liberal Arts has ever received. The money will be used over the next three years to help recruit, educate and graduate about 20 master's students and four doctoral students with ties to the Lower Kuskokwim Delta region of Alaska. The program is geared toward individuals who are already teaching in the region. "Our goal is to create local leadership because the local people know best what the local schools need," said project director Sabine Siekmann. Siekmann said the three-year project will focus on the Yupik language, partly because the Lower Kuskokwim School District, based in Bethel, already has a well-established immersion program. In the future, however, her team would like to take the program statewide. The Lower Kuskokwim School District is one of the state's largest rural districts. About 80 percent of the district's 3,800 students are Yupik, and about a fourth of the district's 350 certified teachers are Yupik, the largest percentage of indigenous educators of any district in Alaska. The district also has one of the only immersion schools in the state, the Ayaprun Elitnaurvik Yupik Immersion Elementary School. Students in the school spend much of their day speaking Yupik. They learn math, social studies and other topics in the native language of the region. "If you value your language, the immersion programs are absolutely vital to the sustenance of that language," said Bev Williams, director of academic programs for the Lower Kuskokwim School District. "English is bombarding the communities all the time through television, through travel, through state testing. And, of course, schools have been paramount in ridding communities of their language. We are trying to change that approach." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 22 00:33:47 2006 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2006 17:33:47 -0700 Subject: Legal service highlights need for Indigenous language interpreters (fwd) Message-ID: Thursday, 16 November 2006, 12:57:05 AEDT Legal service highlights need for Indigenous language interpreters http://abc.net.au/message/news/stories/ms_news_1790021.htm The head of the Aboriginal Legal Service says many injustices have occurred in Western Australia's justice system because of a lack of accredited Indigenous language interpreters. Dennis Eggington says the State Government has put the issue in the too hard basket, while interpreters for international languages are readily available for others on trial. He made the comments after a trial in the Kalgoorlie District Court was stood down yesterday because the judge was not confident about the credentials of the interpreter provided for an accused man who spoke the rare Ngaanyatjarra language. Mr Eggington says the issue must be addressed to assure the community justice is being upheld in the WA court system. "If we look hard enough we could find a whole lot of cases where people have fronted up at court and haven't been able to understand any of the proceedings and they've gone through it by just nodding and saying, 'yes, yes, yes'," he said. The Attorney-General's office has been contacted for comment. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 22 00:35:56 2006 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2006 17:35:56 -0700 Subject: Native chiefs urge funding to save their languages (fwd) Message-ID: Native chiefs urge funding to save their languages Tue Nov 14 2006 By Kevin Rollason http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/subscriber/local/story/3773272p-4364122c.html ABORIGINAL educators and citizens from across the country are gathering in Winnipeg this week to save native languages. Both Phil Fontaine, Grand Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, and conference co-organizer Chief Murray Clearsky, of the Waywayseecappo First Nation, fear that unless aboriginal language instruction is added to the education system in native reserves and communities across the nation -- much like French Immersion is in many schools across English Canada -- their languages could be lost. "Our language is in great danger," Fontaine said yesterday. "Fifty-two of our 55 languages are in various stages of disappearing. And if they disappear here it would be extremely difficult to retrieve. This is our country." Clearsky said that, for aboriginal people, their language and culture are tied together. "To me, as a leader, if you're going to be a sovereign nation, you have to speak and understand your own language," he said. "It's a hard thing to do to keep our language, but if we aren't able to do it, and have our language in our schools, in a few years there will be no such thing." Fontaine said the federal government, under the Liberals, was set to spend $172 million across the nation for indigenous languages, but under the Harper Tory government that has been slashed to $5 million. "We hope to convince the government to reinstate funding," he said. Fontaine said aboriginal groups have already found that in communities where native languages are included in an immersion program at the local school, the language thrives. Fontaine himself says he sees the loss of languages firsthand when he travels the country and speaks in his own language. "It really depends where you are because there are areas of the country where the language is strong but then you go to many communities and the language isn't spoken or it isn't by many people," he said. The National First Nations Language Conference is being held at the Winnipeg Convention Centre until Wednesday. Joy Keeper, a spokeswoman for the Manitoba First Nations Education Resource Centre, said there are hundreds of conference attendees from across the country and from the United States. kevin.rollason at freepress.mb.ca From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 22 00:39:09 2006 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2006 17:39:09 -0700 Subject: Cree immersion kindergarten offered in northern Manitoba (fwd) Message-ID: Cree immersion kindergarten offered in northern Manitoba Last Updated: Monday, November 13, 2006 | 10:36 AM CT CBC News http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2006/11/13/cree-immersion.html Children on a northern Manitoba reserve have begun studying entirely in their ancestral language of Cree. Opaskwayak Cree Nation, near The Pas, has three classes of kindergarten students in a Cree immersion program since September. Derek Fontaine, the principal of the Joe A. Ross School, said the immersion program has already proved to be a success. "The young ones are really picking up the language fast and they're going home and teaching the parents what they've learned at school," he said. "It's important for the future generations that the language is strong and alive in the community." Plans for program to grow Fontaine said the school plans to offer Grade One immersion next year. He hopes the students will be able to go through to Grade Six in Cree immersion. The immersion class has already sparked new interest among adults, especially among parents of students in the immersion classes, he said. "What is happening now is parents and community members that are wanting to learn the language," he said. Conference to preserve aboriginal languages The Cree immersion classes will be among the programs examined at a conference on preserving aboriginal languages that opens in Winnipeg on Monday. Shirley Fontaine, a spokeswoman for the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, said it would be hard for many First Nations communities to emulate the program. The federal government recently cut millions from a plan to fund aboriginal language preservation and what's left is a pittance, she said. "For the Manitoba region, it works out to $2 per person, so it's a real challenge to say: 'Okay, here's two dollars: you maintain your language on this Toonie.'" From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 22 00:41:07 2006 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2006 17:41:07 -0700 Subject: Aboriginal literacy project is good news in any language (fwd) Message-ID: Aboriginal literacy project is good news in any language Christopher Kremmer November 13, 2006 http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/aboriginal-literacy-project-is-good-news-in-any-language/2006/11/12/1163266413098.html# A SYDNEY charity is claiming an educational breakthrough that could save Aboriginal languages from extinction, and simultaneously boost English literacy in indigenous communities. At a forum in Sydney today the Australian Literacy and Numeracy Foundation will brief corporate donors on the results of a pilot project in the Northern Territory that they say is helping some Aborigines to write in their own languages for the first time. The foundation believes the widespread inability of indigenous Australians to read and write in their own languages hampers their efforts to learn English, without which education, work and social opportunities are severely restricted. Of the 250-odd Aboriginal languages spoken when Europeans first settled in Australia, about 55 have vanished, with one dying out every two years. While linguists have extensively catalogued indigenous languages, there has been less success in developing techniques for teaching them at the primary school level. At Tennant Creek, in the Northern Territory, the foundation has been working to bridge the gap, "mapping" the sounds of the local Warumungu language in the Roman (English) alphabet, and using story boards and other methods to develop basic education modules for reading and writing the language. Peter Henwood, who has worked at Tennant Creek Language Centre for the past 15 years, said he had been impressed by the progress. "The foundation's method has proven extremely popular in the primary school here. For too long Aboriginal languages have been approached by linguists as some kind of historical artefact, but this method makes them usable in a way that has the potential to transform literacy education in indigenous communities," he said. It is hoped that some among the first batch of 60 students attending the course will go on to become language teachers. The foundation's co-founder, Mary-Ruth Mendel, a speech and language pathologist, described first language literacy as the missing link in efforts to improve social and economic outcomes in indigenous communities. "What's missing for our indigenous kids is early learning experience in their mother tongue. If we can give them that they'll be well on the way to acquiring English language skills that will help them get through school and do all the things that they want to do." The Northern Territory Government in recent years phased out bilingual education, a move strongly criticised by educators. To launch its project the foundation was provided with initial funding of $300,000 by Coca-Cola Amatil. Ms Mendel said the project's mix of government-funded schools, corporate philanthropy, the foundation's expertise and strong involvement of indigenous people had the potential to empower some of the country's most disadvantaged people. "Reading and writing are the currency of learning at school. If you have a glitch in either, you become marginalised. Literacy is right at the top of what indigenous families want for their children and themselves." From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Thu Nov 23 17:48:39 2006 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2006 09:48:39 -0800 Subject: resource Message-ID: The Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project has just launched OREL: Online Resources for Endangered Languages. OREL is a new and unique resource - a library of over 200 annotated and categorised links to websites for people interested in endangered language documentation and revitalisation. To access OREL go to http://www.hrelp.org/languages/resources/ There is a version of OREL also available in Arabic at http://www.hrelp.org/languages/resources/orel-ar/index.html Peter Austin Marit Rausing Chair in Field Linguistics Director, Endangered Languages Academic Programme SOAS From susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM Thu Nov 23 19:02:00 2006 From: susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM (Susan Penfield) Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2006 12:02:00 -0700 Subject: ASUL's latest podcast In-Reply-To: <456494C5.3020406@email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: -------- Native Voices - Native American Language Materials in the Labriola Center Fred interviews Joyce Martin, Acting Curator of the Labriola National American Indian Data Center about a special, new handmade book, "Cherokee Phoenix, Advent of a Newspaper: the Print Shop of the Cherokee Nation 1828-1834." by Frank Brannon. The book focuses on the technical aspects and history of the newspaper and Cherokee printing. They will also discuss printed examples of the Cherokee syllabary and other Cherokee materials including language videos, coloring books, bibles, and popular comic books written in Cherokee and English. We will also learn about other native language materials, when Native American Languages began to be written, a project to preserve and provide access to endangered language materials, and a traveling exhibit in the works for spring 2007. The entire run of the Cherokee Phoenix is available on microfilm in the Labriola Center. For more information please visit the Labriola National American Indian Data Center on the web at: http://www.asu.edu/lib/archives/labriola.htm Host: Fred McIlvain Guest: Joyce Martin Episode 31 Running time: 13:05 (c) 2006 Arizona Board of Regents -- Stuart Glogoff Senior Consultant, Learning Technologies 1077 N. Highland Ave., Room 337 CCIT Tucson, AZ 85721-0073 (520) 626-5347 fax 626-8220 UA Faculty and instructors! Visit my "For Faculty" webpage http://elearn.arizona.edu/stuartg/forfaculty.html for information on faculty websites, instructional blogs, and podcasting. -- ____________________________________________________________ Susan D. Penfield, Ph.D. Associate Director, Center for Educational Resources in Culture, Language and Literacy (CERCLL) Department of English (Primary) American Indian Language Development Institute (AILDI) Second Language Acquistion &Teaching Ph.D. Program (SLAT) Department of Language,Reading and Culture Department of Linguistics The Southwest Center (Research) Phone for messages: (520) 621-1836 "Every language is an old-growth forest of the mind, a watershed of thought, an ecosystem of spiritual possibilities." Wade Davis...(on a Starbucks cup...) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dzo at BISHARAT.NET Fri Nov 24 23:18:04 2006 From: dzo at BISHARAT.NET (d_z_o) Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2006 23:18:04 -0000 Subject: UN Declaration on Indigenous Rights (urgent) Message-ID: There is a discussion concerning the UN Declaration on Indigenous Rights - which is coming to a vote at the UN on Tuesday - on the PPGIS list (some of it forwarded from the EANTH-L list). The issue seems important and I would encourage anyone interested to review the recent correspondence at: http://www.dgroups.org/groups/ppgis/index.cfm?CookieTested=TRUE The Declaration draft is at: http://www.ohchr.org/english/issues/indigenous/docs/declaration.doc I would forward more items directly to ILAT, but the Arizona.edu server *still* takes exception to my e-mail address (alone among all domains that host lists I participate in). This is mailed via workaround using a Yahoogroup as a kind of proxy - which is a little tedious to use for a lot of items. Don From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Sat Nov 25 02:45:09 2006 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2006 18:45:09 -0800 Subject: online Learning Message-ID: On-line Language Training http://www.kttc.com/News/index.php?ID=9569 ROCHESTER, MN -- Responding to fires is more of a challenge for emergency crews when the people they show up to help don't speak any English. A new program is helping the Rochester police and fire departments, break down language barriers. It's a computer based program and allows participants to choose from 30 languages. Spencer Goetzman is learning Arabic, which he hopes will be a valuable tool when good communication is necessary in an emergency situation. Goetzman says, "When there's a language barrier you are really put in a tough spot trying to use hand gestures and get people to explaining to you as best they can. And, I'm sure often that there's missed communication that can cause problems but hopefully this will alleviate some of that." Not only will it help those out in the field, 911 dispatchers will also put the program to good use. Currently the program is in the testing phase, but if the departments continue to use it, the cost to use the program will increase and because of budget constraints, the number of participants able to use the program will decrease. Updated: 2006-11-24 07:57:36 From dzo at BISHARAT.NET Sat Nov 25 16:16:10 2006 From: dzo at BISHARAT.NET (Don Osborn) Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2006 16:16:10 -0000 Subject: Fwd: MS & Mapuche conflict re localized Windows Message-ID: There is a current controversy in Chile re MS Windows localized in Mapuche. I posted an inquiry about it to another list and one reply had some additional links (these are both appended below). From online translations of the Spanish links, it seems that the Windows project involved the Chilean Ministry of Education, the Corporaci?n Nacional Ind?gena Conadi, and the Universidad de La Frontera - but no one thought to involve the traditional leadership? I'd be interested to know if anyone on ILAT has additional information or explanations about this issue. (One is aware of course of some aspects of Mapuche history but how that relates to the current issue, and specifics of the project and reaction to it are of particular interest.) TIA... Don --- In l10n_project_management at yahoogroups.com, "Don Osborn" wrote: I hope this is ontopic - it concerns a particular kind of L10n management issue: localization of software for a less-widely-spoken language and objection to that by the speaker community (or at least some influential parts of it). See: "Microsoft in legal battle with Chilean tribe: Chile's Mapuche Indians allege that Microsoft translated Windows software into their native language without getting tribal leaders' permission." http://money.cnn.com/2006/11/23/technology/microsoft_chile.reut/?postversion=2006112311 This is a little puzzling having heard MS's talk about how they approach L10n, working with the community etc. How could they have gotten that far without encountering issues relating to the Mapuche's traditional authorities and their feelings about this project? What kind of language experts were they working with in the community? Or was it all done with linguists based in, say, universities in the main cities who had less ties to the community? Are there other dimensions to this issue that the article does not mention? This is of considerable interest since there is increasing attention to localizing software - FOSS as well as proprietary - in various languages. There is to my knowledge no "playbook" or guide to the cross-cultural dimensions of localization projects, at least not in non-Western cultures that might not see the process in just the way that outside (from other countries or even within the same countries) experts might assume they would. It would be easy to assume that a local group working on FOSS localization would be better in touch with the local realities than a multinational, but this is not necessarily the case. Drawing on some experience in international development (rural community development and its contexts) I've been working on the concept of "localization ecology" as a way of accounting for dimensions of the process that go beyond the technical + language interface that is the main preoccupation of l10n projects. So any further information on the particulars of the disagreement in Chile, or comments thereon, would be of great interest. TIA... Don Osborn Bisharat.net PanAfrican Localisation project --- End of 1st forwarded message --- --- In l10n_project_management at yahoogroups.com, Orlando Ribeiro wrote: I would like to suggest some links about the subject "MS & Mapuche conflict re localized Windows" that I have got. Althoug they are in spanish, I thik they are useful to help us to understand the impact of the subject in other countries of South America. I think it is an interesting opportunity to learn a little bit more about cross culture. Windows in Mapuzugun: Microsoft page in Chile (spanish): http://www.microsoft.com/chile/mapuzugun/ Chile/Mapuches acusan a Microsoft de piratar?a intelectual (spanish) http://www.etniasdecolombia.org/actualidadetnica/detalle.asp?cid=4471 Yahoo (Argentina): mapuches acusan de pirater?a a Microsoft - http://ar.news.yahoo.com/061115/11/wjfq.html Regards Orlando Ribeiro Software/hardware documentation & translation Ribeir?o Preto - SP - Brazil --- End of 2nd forwarded message --- From phonosemantics at EARTHLINK.NET Sat Nov 25 22:10:58 2006 From: phonosemantics at EARTHLINK.NET (jess tauber) Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2006 17:10:58 -0500 Subject: Fwd: MS & Mapuche conflict re localized Windows Message-ID: Why would anyone be surprised? After the forwarded message was posted here a few weeks ago from the Santiago Times (online) describing the Ministry of Education's plans to produce teaching materials in Chilean indigenous languages excluding Yahgan and Kawesqar, I wrote to the Ministry to tell them about the work I've been doing, figuring with fingers crossed that PERHAPS the new administration might be willing to broaden its horizons to some extent. No dice. Not even a response from them. Same as the old administration. Post rotations and a paycheck- is anyone there even interested in the actual descriptions of their day jobs? Jess Tauber phonosemantics at earthlink.net From dzo at BISHARAT.NET Wed Nov 29 14:19:39 2006 From: dzo at BISHARAT.NET (d_z_o) Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2006 14:19:39 -0000 Subject: Fwd: FW: Linguapax Award 2007 Message-ID: FYI... --- In MINEL at yahoogroups.com, "Don Osborn" wrote: FYI. "The prizes are awarded to linguists, researchers, professors and members of the civil society in acknowledgement of their outstanding work in the field linguistic diversity and/or multilingual education. Nominations of people having contributed to improve the linguistic situation of a community or country will be specially appreciated." -----Original Message----- From: Josep Cru [mailto:j.cru at ...] Sent: Tuesday, November 28, 2006 6:31 AM To: destinataris-ocults: Subject: Linguapax Award 2007 Dear colleagues, We are pleased to inform you that the call for candidates to the Linguapax awards 2007 is open. Kindly send your nominees to the secretariat of the Linguapax Institute (info at ...) before December 31st 2006 along with their short biographical note if possible. As in previous occasions, the name of the prize-winner will be made public on February 21, coinciding with the International Mother Language Day. The Linguapax Awardee will be granted the amount of 3,000 ???. For more information about the awards, please visit: Catal? http://www.linguapax.org/ct/premisLPX.html Espa??ol http://www.linguapax.org/es/premisLPXcas.html English http://www.linguapax.org/en/premisLPXang.html Fran??ais http://www.linguapax.org/fr/premisLPXfr.html Best regards, -- Josep Cru Linguapax-Unescocat C/Mallorca, 285 Barcelona 08037 Spain tlf +34 93 458 95 95 fax +34 93 457 58 51 http://www.linguapax.org info at ... --- End forwarded message --- From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Nov 30 23:26:03 2006 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 16:26:03 -0700 Subject: Funding cuts, reneged promises lead to planned protest (fwd) Message-ID: Funding cuts, reneged promises lead to planned protest http://www.wawatay.on.ca/index.php?module=pagesetter&func=viewpub&tid=5&pid=239 A national protest has been set for Dec. 5 in Ottawa on the steps of Parliament Hill. Chiefs of Ontario (COO) and Assembly of First Nations (AFN) have organized the protest as a result of the current federal government failing to honour commitments such as the Kelowna Accord and recent cuts to language funding. "There is growing frustration from First Nation leadership at the inaction of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada," said AFN Ontario Regional Chief Angus Toulouse. He said there has been an inability to address the issues and the priorities of First Nation leadership with the federal government. AFN National Youth Council co-chair Travis Boissoneau is calling on the government to start addressing issues by working with First Nations. "It's a peaceful gathering to raise awareness about how the current government is failing to properly communicate with First Nations on what the real issues are and further failing to address these issues as a collective," Boissoneau said. The protest coincides with the AFN assembly in Ottawa from Dec. 5-7 and will involve First Nation leadership from across Canada. A march will be held at 11:30am on the first day of the assembly from the Westin Hotel to the steps of Parliament. ?BW 2006.11.29 From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Nov 30 23:37:35 2006 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 16:37:35 -0700 Subject: Study: Native language may affect rhythm (fwd) Message-ID: Study: Native language may affect rhythm http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?feed=Science&article=UPI-1-20061130-15263900-bc-us-language.xml HONOLULU, Nov. 30 (UPI) -- A study by U.S. and Japanese scientists suggests native languages influence the way people organize non-language sounds into rhythms. John Iversen and Aniruddh Patel of the Neuroscience Institute in San Diego and Kengo Ohgushi of the Kyoto City University of Arts in Kyoto, Japan, say people in different cultures perceive different rhythms in identical sequences of sound. That, they say, provides evidence that exposure to certain patterns of speech can influence perceptions of musical rhythms. In future work, the scientists believe they might be able to predict how people will hear rhythms based on the structures of their own languages. The research was presented Thursday in Hawaii at the fourth joint meeting of the Acoustical Society of America and the Acoustical Society of Japan. Copyright 2006 by United Press International. All Rights Reserved.