Languages in the Big Apple

Loretta Kelsey is the last person on the planet who is fluent in Elem
Pomo, a dialect of the people indigenous to Clear Lake, California
that dates back to over 8,000 years ago. Because Elem Pomo was never
written, only passed on orally, it has nearly vanished; it’s Kelsey’s
goal to stop that from happening. The San Francisco Chronicle ran an
interesting piece about her quest to revive the language:

It wasn’t so long ago that dozens spoke Elem Pomo. When Kelsey was
a child in the 1950s and ’60s, her parents and many other elders in
the 250-member tribe were fluent, and her mother spoke no English.

But as the older folks died off and the younger ones forayed into the
broader society around them to make a living, many native ways were
lost. It was a disintegration that was millennia in coming.

Now, with the help of her nephew, Robert Geary, and recordings of Elem
Pomo made by UC Berkeley linguistic students from the 1940s through
the 1960s, Kelsey hopes to help ensure a future for her native tongue.
What’s interesting is the fact that she hasn’t spoken much Elem Pomo
for decades, Kelsey remembers it fluently. At 59, she’s working
methodically to record the language before she dies by writing a
dictionary and phrase handbook, and conducting language camps for her
tribe.
Let’s hope the revival succeeds!

Original article

It’s always fun to watch smaller newspapers and online journals get
all worked up about the New York Times — they sneer at the snobbisms,
gloat at any typos or errors, and laugh when ‘trend’ pieces are
published long after the trend has dissolved.

So it was especially satisfying to pick up the Brooklyn Eagle and find
an article by Henrik Krogius bemoaning the frequent misuse of
who and whom by prominent writers, including the Times’
Gail Collins.

Krogius writes:

Commenting on the recent death of Leona Helmsley, New York Times
columnist Gail Collins referred to Harry Helmsley, “who she wed…”
Ms. Collins may have been signaling that she was too cool to obey
grammatical strictures, unless she simply didn’t know the difference.
And her copy editor, who likely knew the difference, may have felt
constrained about messing with the sacrosant copy of an op-ed page
regular. It may also be that “whom” has become altogether too
difficult a concept for a world in which the subject, predicate and
object are totally alien notions.

Take that! He goes on to tear apart novelist Emily Mitchell (The
Last Summer of the World), who apparently likes to sound smart by
saying “whom” when she should say “who.” All in all, a snarky piece,
but it’s somewhat redeemed by the fact that it reminds us of the
who/whom rule in fairly simple terms:

Failing to understand that “who” is the subject of a clause while
“whom” is the object of a verb or preposition, too many writers get
thrown off by modifiers places between this pronoun and the verb. The
modifiers don’t alter the basic grammatical structure.

You know kids are amazing, just have a look at this one :

Here’s a cool article picked up by the Christian Science Moniter
(again! I know!) that originally appeared on the writer’s blog. David
Keyes, a PhD student in Anthropology at UC San Diego, explains the
connection between soccer and linguistics through the Sapir-Whorf
theory.

Definition:
In a nutshell, the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis states that language
doesn’t just describe reality – it shapes the way we perceive it. As
anthropologist Edward Sapir put it in 1929: “Language is a guide to
’social reality’…. The fact of the matter is that the ‘real world’ is
to a large extent unconsciously built upon the language habits of the
group. No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be
considered as representing the same social reality.”

In the Japanese language, for example, the word for self is jibun.
This word is made up of two parts, ji, which means part, and bun,
which means group. Put together, jibun literally means part of a
group. This has profound implications for the way the Japanese
typically conceive of the self. Unlike Western culture, which
emphasizes an individual’s autonomy, Japanese culture views people
always within the context of a group.

He goes on to define some fancy Costa Rican soccer moves, and to
explain the sociological importance of their names. La
plancha, for example, is literally defined as an iron to remove
wrinkles, but in soccer means a “straight-legged, cleats-up tackle.
Because there is a single word that describes this type of tackle,
Spanish-speakers are more likely to be aware of the offense (and thus
take offense at it being employed against them.)”

Keyes goes further in his explanation of the reality created by
language — read his blog.

In an effort to include the many Russians living in New York, the
Office of Mental Health is introducing a Russian-language Suicide
Prevention, Education and Awareness Kit (SPEAK).

The kit is already offered in English, Spanish, and, as of last year,
Chinese, and is currently developing a Creole kit for the Haitian
community in New York. These five languages apparently reflect the
ones for which the Office of Mental Health receives the most requests.

But what we really want to know, of course, is whether these languages
also reflect the highest rates of suicide. Jill Daniels, the
spokeswoman for OMH, says no:

The kits [are] not being offered because of a higher preponderance
of suicides among those ethnic groups. “We’re trying to make it
available to all communities in their languages.”

Pat Singer of the Brighton Neighborhood Association, which provides
social and quality of life services to the Russian population in
Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach area, said that in her 30 years as founder
and executive director of the association she had never been aware of
a suicide.

Alcoholism and smoking are very evident among the population, she
said, as is some depression among the middle-aged. Her clients tend
to be emotional “but not to the point of killing themselves,” Singer
added. “They’re survivors. They’re a tough group of people.”

So out of the 1,300 New Yorkers who kill themselves yearly,
none of them are Russian? Impressive. Daniels also claimed
that there was no information regarding the rates of suicide among
different ethnicities in the city, which seems like a big fat lie.
Any ideas? Which ethnic group here is throwing in the towel at the
highest rate? Comments welcome!

There have been a few articles lately about the popularity of Anglicisms among the Russian youth. English words are apparently finding their way into conversations, text messages, even politics in Russia more so than ever before.

Here’s an example of a young Russian girl’s text message to a friend:

“Hi, Katya. Ne poiti li nam drink coffee? Call asap! Cheers, Masha.”

If you don’t count the two names, that’s six English words to four Russian words.

Still, not that unusual — the language of text messaging and email is an art. Every country has its own methods of shortening and embellishing informal written language. When I was living in Italy, for example, the word per, or for, was written as x in SMS language — taken from the language of math. Sei, as in you are was written as the number 6, which in Italian is pronounced the same way.

Borrowing words from foreign languages also seems to be a habit of the text-messaging youth everywhere — the texts I get from friends often appear as a strange mélange of Spanish, English, and French, with an occasional moshi-moshi thrown in for good measure. And since Anglo-American culture is so visible all over the world, it’s not surprising that Russians are using the slang they’ve heard in movies for years in their text-messages and conversations. But what’s interesting about the way they use it, according to one of the articles, is the way that they’ve shaped it to fit their linguistic needs:

Russians increasingly do more than borrow English words. They bend them to their own grammar, combine them with native words, and generally twist them beyond recognition.

For example, an exciting football match could be described as “drivovy.”

The words stems from the English words “drive,” but has been turned into an adjective. Add to that a strong Russian accent and your average native English speaker would probably not guess that his language was being used at all.”

No explanation for why they’d pick “drive” to mean “exciting,” but you get the idea.

Links to a few articles: here and there.

Residents of Chicago’s Oak Forest and Oak Lawn are creeped out by two new billboards in their hoods. The bright yellow signs both display this message in Arabic:

“In a land full of opportunity (Fi Ard Amira bil furas), here’s one that may not have crossed your mind. A job with the U.S. Army.”

The sign at Cicero Avenue and 167th Street also contains an English line: “If you can read this, call Mohamed.” The other, at Harlem Avenue and 95th Street encourages readers to find Tarik.

Tim Turpin, the Army’s regional chief of advertising and public affairs, says the campaign is aimed at the estimated 30,000 Arab Americans living in the south western suburbs of Chicago.

“Predominately, we’re looking for linguists to assist us in Iraq,” Turpin said.

The government’s latest attempts to recruit speakers of Arabic isn’t new — similar billboards have popped up in New York, Los Angeles, New Jersey, an Florida, but it’s got some speakers of Amer’can pissed.

“For Edgar Castro, who works in the area and lives in Richton Park, the first thought that crossed his mind when he saw the sign was that he couldn’t read it.

‘It’s offensive,’ Castro said.”

Good thing this guy doesn’t live in California; all those billboards, street signs, and names of cities! in Mexican — muy offensivo.

In a remote corner of Israel, a Bedouin community is the subject of Margalit Fox’s new book, Talking Hands: What Sign Language Reveals About the Mind (Simon & Schuster).
Fox, a linguist and New York Times journalist, was accompanied by four other linguists to investigate the peculiar story of a place where a relatively new sign language is spoken by deaf and hearing residents alike.

In Al-Sayyid, the number of deaf people is more than 40 times that of the general population — 150 out of 3,500 — and because of this prevalence, the community makes for an interesting study of both language and culture, especially due to the fact that so many hearing residents learn and speak the language of their deaf neighbors. Fox writes,
“It is quite unremarkable to be deaf here….In Al-Sayyid there is neither deaf culture nor deaf identity politics, because there is little hegemony of the hearing.”

After an anthropological ’study’ of the community, Fox gets into the beginnings of an ongoing study of the town’s sign language. She also gives us a brief history of Western sign languages, explaining why speakers of British Sign Language and American Sign Language can’t understand each other (ASL is based on French Sign Language.)

“If the linguists can isolate the formal elements that make Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language a language, they will have helped illuminate one of the most

If you’re feeling a little jealous of the BBC broadcasters who have their own personal grammar-helper at all times, worry not! There’s always Strunk and White…

The Elements of Style, first written by William Strunk Jr. in 1918 and modernized by Strunk’s former student, E.B. White in 1959, is still the dominant guide to American English. But in 2005, the somewhat dull prescriptive treatment of grammar and usage got a makeover courtesy of Maira Kalman.

Kalman, an artist perhaps best known for her New Yorker covers, contributed paintings and drawings to accompany grammatical adages such as “Somebody else’s umbrella” and “Well, Susan, this is a fine mess you are in.”

The result is a jazzed-up reference guide, bound in cherry-red and so full of pretty pictures, you’ll almost forget that you’re reading about language usage. Most of their advice still holds true despite the fact that the book has only been updated three times, in 1972, 1979, and 1999. The changes instituted in 1999 display a shift in the still-relevant grammatical question of gender pronouns: White’s case for using “he” for nouns embracing both genders was removed. The result, as we know, is a more lax approach to gender specifications; “to each his own” may be correct, but “to each their own” no longer represents grammatical ignorance — instead, it is often used as a statement of all-inclusiveness.

Check out Maira Kalman’s site for pictures of the book and other artwork.

Language purists are campaigning to enforce stricter adherence to grammar rules for BBC’s broadcasters.
Ian Bruton-Simmonds, a member of the Queen’s English Society, appeared on BBC’s Today show to explain the group’s proposal: a Language Adviser, or a sort of backstage watchdog who would assist on-air reporters in times of need. (How exactly this would work is unclear — if the reporter is on-air, I’m not sure how he/she could stop to seek advice. “Pst! Larry! Is it Who or Whom?”)
Bruton-Simmonds was one of the many signatories of a letter sent recently to the chairman of the BBC Trust that explained the channel’s need for a language watchdog; a spokesman for the Trust responded by saying:
“On matters relating to editorial standards and how these are ensured, the Trust’s approach is to create a framework which strikes the right balance between clear requirements reflecting the public’s high expectations, and an understanding of the pressures of live broadcasting and the need for creative freedom and some flexibility.”

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