Top 10 Language Stories of 2008

[Tom Zurinskas]

As I understand it, languages die out from lack of use.  Would you say that it's important to force educating folks into a language just to preserve it?  That to me would be officiously arrogant.  Languages just cease to exist because of disuse.  Why worry about it?  Don't be a hateful namecaller either.


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 19:51:11 -0500
> From: paul.johnston at WMICH.EDU
> 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: Paul Johnston
> Subject: Re: Top 10 Language Stories of 2008
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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
>> -----------------------
>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>> Poster: Tom Zurinskas
>> Subject: Re: Top 10 Language Stories of 2008
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> ---------
>>
>> 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
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ----------------------------------------
>>> 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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