Top 10 Language Stories of 2008

[Paul Johnston]

Would you say this last statement if you were, say, a speaker of
Delaware?  Or even of Welsh? How arrogant!

Yours,
Paul Johnston

P. S.  To hell with accent reduction, too!  Reduction  to what, may I
ask?  m.w.com?  Your own accent?  How arrogant, again!
On Jan 2, 2009, at 10:38 AM, Tom Zurinskas wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Top 10 Language Stories of 2008
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> I live in S Florida.  Shoppers have come up to me and asked if I
> speak Spanish so I could help them with English in the grocery.
> New renters next to my condo natively speak French from Quebec.  I
> played golf with one of them and we got paired with another French
> speaking couple. Wee.  But to me they did speak some English,
> thankfully.  And thankfully English is the linqua franca of the world.
>
> Of interest to me is that there need be 1. a new English based
> phonetic spelling for our dictionaries as a standard that 2. one
> simple enough to be used to teach children to read and help with
> phonemic awareness and accent reduction, and 3. one useful as a
> standard translation guide notation.  Truespel is the first to have
> this goal of integration.
>
> If English folks don't develop this, perhaps Spanish folks will.
> Of interest is spelling reform for Brazil and Portugal.
>
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7807116.stm
>
> Of the languages that are dissappearing (some say 2 or 3 per
> month), be glad to say goodbye, because folks are learning more
> useful languages for better communication.
>
>
> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
> Learn truespel in 15 minutes at http://tinypaste.com/76f44
>
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>> Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2009 08:18:02 -0500
>> From: djmetevia at CHARTERMI.NET
>> Subject: Re: Top 10 Language Stories of 2008
>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>> Poster: David Metevia
>> Subject: Re: Top 10 Language Stories of 2008
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> ----------
>>
>> Tom Zurinskas wrote:
>>
>> 2. As for protecting languages that need no protection, a Federal
>> judge
>> in Wichita ruled that a private school had broken no laws when it
>> declared English the school's official language and banned
>> students from
>> speaking anything else. The ban on foreign languages was
>> instituted to
>> combat bullying, but the school's principal didn't indicate
>> whether she
>> would outlaw English as well if students bullied one another in that
>> language.
>>
>> comment. The point is to communicate. I have no problem with this.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> If the point is to communicate, then there is no need to ban the
>> speaking of other languages. In fact, I propose the more languages
>> available to the students, the greater the ability to communicate.
>>
>> DJM
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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