Languages in the Big Apple

After a summer of heated debate, the Khalil Gibran International Academy, New York’s first Arabic public charter school, opened its doors for the first time on September 4th.

Over at City Hall, those opposed to the academy united to protest. Here’s a quote from Irene Alter, one of the objectors:

“The mayor and chancellor owe the citizens and taxpayers an explanation for the necessity of a school like this. And, additionally, [an explanation of] how they plan to monitor it, since it’s well known that many of the texts emanating from countries such as Saudi Arabia are filled with anti-American, anti-Zionist rhetoric.”

Oh, Irene, let me count the ways your logic falters: First of all, “countries such as Saudi Arabia”? The academy, one of 70 dual-language schools in the city, has nothing to do with Saudi Arabia in particular, but rather will provide a secular focus on Arabic language and culture. Secondly, “anti-Zionist” rhetoric? Since when must America’s public schools adhere to a Zionist regime? True, the separation of church and state has suffered some serious blows in the past few years (prayers in schools, anyone?), but to base your opposition to the Khalil Gibran International Academy on the fact that there are texts in the Middle East that aren’t down with Israel is the fast track to making yourself look like a xenophobic fool.

Hopefully, the school will succeed in teaching its 55 enrolled students to use language with a bit more precision.

Quote source here.

How does a country make up for the mass murder and subjugation of the land’s indigenous people?

In America, we scoot them onto reservations and give them booze and gambling licenses. In Australia, they’ve recently decided to include Aboriginal languages in the curricula of schools with large indigenous populations.

The Sydney Morning Herald recently reported that after successfully testing of the idea on Bourke High School, Australian school officials are eager to introduce Aboriginal language programs into many more schools, with hopes that doing do will “improve Aboriginal retention rates and literacy standards” and help “Aboriginal students identify with their culture [to improve] their confidence and sense of identity.”

After the start of British colonization of Australia in 1788, the Aborigines — much like the Native Americans here — suffered greatly at the hands of Old World epidemic diseases: over half the Aboriginal population was killed by Small Pox alone. Add to that the loss of their own land and colonial violence, and by 1900, only ten percent of the population remained. Today, around 35,000 Aboriginal students are enrolled in Australian state schools, 35 percent of whom complete their 12th year of education.

While including Aboriginal studies in Australian schools may seem a token consolation to a wronged people, it actually represents a pretty progressive step in repairing the damages of colonialism. And with conservatives throwing so many hissy fits about foreign languages in American public schools — the Arabic school in Brooklyn, the many Spanish-speaking schools in California — not to mention the continuing problems facing Native American youth (they have the highest suicide rate of any ethnicity), perhaps we could learn something from Australia.

Read the original article here.

Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker has a new book out entitled The Stuff of Thought, in which he argues that language is a display of our inner nature. Douglass Hofstadter wrote a thorough, if somewhat unfavorable, review for the LA Times.

That language reveals our inner nature is not a terribly revolutionary premise — language is, after all, our primary means of expression — but the book also tries to take the academic notion of semantics down from the ivory tower to show that the meanings of words matter more than we suspect.

Coining the term verbivores (a species that lives on words), Pinker argues that “our verbivorous, highly biased perception of reality differs radically from the findings of science yet allows us to thrive in a complex universe.”

Translation: there are many classes and “microclasses” of verbs, some of which incorporate alterations into their usage based on the objects which they describe, and some of which don’t.

These classifications are used to support “the idea that we sometimes frame events in terms of motion in physical space and sometimes in terms of motion in state-space”, a notion that makes it seem as though Pinker may have failed in plebeian-izing the theoretical study of semantics; still, it sounds like a good read.

Get the complete Los Angeles Times review here.

The Defense Department is looking for a new way to refer to the men and women in the U.S. armed forces. With possibilities ranging from troops, fighters, soldiers, servicemembers, and combatants, it looks like warrior may be the forerunner.

The term probably evokes images of bows and arrows or medieval knights more than a bunch of buzz-cutted Americans in camouflage, but that seems to be precisely the point.

In what is depicted as a means of employing an all-inclusive word — i.e., one that doesn’t exclude women — the situation strikes me as a little shady, and I’m guessing this is more of an image-makeover than feminism.

What’s wrong with “soldier?” According to the International Herald Tribune, we’re in need of an all-around term to reference troops, marines, and those in the airforce that isn’t as complicated as “servicemember.”

And why doesn’t “troop” fit that description?

“Troops presents plural difficulties. One troop is a group. When you say ‘two troops’, do you mean two military units or two individuals? When we say ’send in the troops,’ we usually mean large numbers, but when speaking of two or three members of our armed forces, we say soldiers or special forces or whatever branch of the armed services they serve in. One person is not a troop”.

Right. Still, warrior strikes me as a pretty misleading euphemism, romanticizing a war that the majority of Americans don’t support.

Perhaps a more honest nomenclature would be “killer.”

Bloomburg’s got a new agenda: he wants tourists to be treated nicely.

A new ad campaign featuring celebs such as Robert De Niro, Jimmy Fallon, and Julianne Moore aims to give New York a small-town vibe by soliciting tid-bits with explanations such as the fact that Fifth Avenue acts as the divider line between the East Side and the West Side. Just Ask The Locals.

But are New Yorkers even unfriendly? I can’t recall what it was like to be a tourist here, so I can’t say for sure, but at the same time, I myself have never witnessed bumbling tourists being treated with contempt.

I’ve even found that strangers seem to strike up conversations more often here than anywhere else I’ve lived.

So where does the reputation come from? I suppose the only interactions that fall into the ‘unfriendly’ category are the routine exchanges where there isn’t any time for pleasantries. Like at the grocery store, or Duane Reade, where asking How Are You? or leaving with Have a Nice Day isn’t as common as it probably is in, say, Louisville, Kentucky.

But that’s just a by-product of city living — when you have so many interactions with so many people every day, the extraneous gets cut out for the sake of convenience. Not exactly hostility.

Which is why, in New York, these new ads seem just a little hokey.

People in New York love to hate on newcomers. The fact is, the majority of people who live here aren’t natives, but that doesn’t stop them from pretending. After a few years in town, people are desperate to seem like old-timers, and part of what vindicates that claim is mocking the bumbling masses who move here each year. The easiest targets, of course, are college freshman.

There are so many schools in New York, but the most conspicuous college kids are undoubtedly NYU and Columbia students. This fall, the grumbling is in full effect.

Everyone from gawker to New York magazine has written something bemoaning the swarms of new students invading Union Square and Morningside Heights. Toda’s Metro section in the Times features an article telling students what not to do.

Never, ever mispronounce Houston:

“Houston Street, the Lower Manhattan thoroughfare that put the Ho in SoHo, is pronounced HOW-ston. Unlike the city in Texas, which was named for the first president of the short-lived Republic of Texas, Samuel Houston, Houston Street is named for William Houstoun, a Georgia delegate to the Continental Congress who married into a powerful Manhattan family that owned some of the land on which the street is built. The street name was shortened to Houston is the early 1800s.”

Calling Houston HOW-ston is basically equivalent to walking down the street in overalls with a blade of grass between your teeth or tattooing the word “hick” across your forehead. Very embarassing.

But one can’t help but feel sorry for these wide-eyed new students. Yes, they’re annoying, in a loud-mouthed, perpetually-drunk-on-the-subway, let’s-go-out-in-a-group-of-twenty-people type way, but to act like we’ve never been new in New York is just a lie (except for the tiny sliver of people who were actually born and raised here). Laugh at them, sure, but don’t be actin’ all superior-like, because even if you have been here for five years or longer, chances are you grew up somewhere in Iowa.