Three books on language
By Christopher Schoppa, The Washington Post

October 17, 2010—A 2007 study by the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages painted a dire picture, identifying five “hotspots” (eastern Siberia, northern Australia, central South America, Oklahoma and the U.S. Pacific Northwest) where languages are vanishing at a pace that outstrips that of species extinction. So what's to blame? Colonialism, technology, industrialization, the (gulp) English language itself? All of them, actually.

1. The Last Speakers: The Quest to Save the World's Most Endangered Languages, by K. David Harrison (National Geographic, $27). A linguist at Swarthmore College, K. David Harrison helped conduct that 2007 survey. This chronicle is as much an homage to noble elders who often struggle to surmount indifference in their own communities as it is an op-ed by the author, who sounds the alarm among a skeptical public, and even other scientists, about the incalculable loss posed by a language’s extinction.

2. The English Is Coming! How One Language is Sweeping the World, by Leslie Dunton-Downer (Touchstone, $24). Fascinated since childhood by words (especially compound ones), the author aims to decipher something much more complex: the entire English language. Today, with more nonnative speakers than native ones, English has become the world’s lingua franca, the preferred choice in entertainment, science, business and (much to the chagrin of the French) diplomacy.

3. Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages, by Guy Deutscher (Metropolitan, $28). The thrust of this title, that language does indeed mirror culture, is one of the arguments that linguist Harrison makes for preserving language diversity. Guy Deutscher confidently asserts that a language influences how its users perceive the world.

Full story...

It’s Dictionary Day! Learn some weird words
By Valerie Strausss, The Washington Post

October 16, 2010—Noah Webster, considered the father of the American dictionary, was born 252 years ago today, so it seems an appropriate occasion to pay extra attention to the glory of words and maybe learn a few new ones.

Dictionary Day is one of those “holidays” that doesn’t seem to have any official sponsor or accompanying celebration. But it does serve to highlight the importance of dictionaries and vocabulary, and any excuse to do that seems like a good thing.

Webster was a lexicographer, journalist and author who was descended from Gov. William Bradford of Plymouth. He published his first dictionary of the English language in 1806, and a dozen years later, the first edition of his “An American Dictionary of the English Language,” with 12,000 words that had not appeared in any earlier dictionary. He published a second edition in 1840.

Webster changed the spelling of many words in his dictionaries to make them more phonetic, which explains why many English words are spelled differently in differently countries.

Take a few minutes, open or click onto a dictionary, and learn a few new words. There are some doozies at www.worldwidewords.org, where a list of “weird words” is maintained.

Full story...

Stop being “happy slaves” of English hegemony, says Japanese sociolinguist
By Masaaki Tonedachi, The Asahi Shimbun

October 16, 2010—People have different opinions on how English should be taught in Japanese schools, but few disagree on the importance of English as an international language that must be taught. Yukio Tsuda, a sociolinguist, is one of those few. He believes Japanese people should stop glorifying English and English speakers.

In a recent interview with The Asahi Shimbun, Tsuda asserted that English has become a pernicious “tool” of discrimination that does nothing but widen social disparities. Excerpts follow.
* * *
Question: English is an international language. When you think of the future of Japanese children, don’t you think English should be taught as a compulsory subject?

Answer: The way you just phrased your question is a perfect example of how positively the English language is perceived in Japan. Everybody seems to think it’s not only so cool to be an English speaker, but it also enables you to communicate freely with people around the world. Many Japanese have yearned to become proficient in English, virtually worshipping it ever since it established its superior status among foreign languages in Japan at the dawn of the Meiji Era (1868-1912). But let me tell you this: English has its dark side that represents ruthless power.

Full story...

Modern society and modern language
By Michael Shao, Imprint

Having been born in the early ’90s, I have often heard stories of how education and society was apparently much better back in the day. I tried to see how people from different places lived their lives, and how this affected the noticeable irregularities in our current understanding of the English language.

Here’s a good example: the impoverished living in our society used to be called “poor people” who lived in the “slums” or “ghettoes” of a bigger city.

Now, the terminology we would use to describe the exact same people are the “economically disadvantaged” persons who occupy “substandard housing” in the “inner cities.”

Was it not easier to say the first sentence than the second? How much less did it really reveal about that ‘class’ of people? Should we really think differently of them if we change the language by adding more syllables?

Somehow, I think that is exactly the goal: to soften language by playing with connotation. The mentality seems to be that if we change the words, we can somehow change the connotation, and we can change the way it is interpreted.

By meaninglessly adding syllables and hiding the real meaning in our words, we supposedly make the suspect phrase or intention less understandable and less meaningful than it should.

Full story...

Aussie English and proper English
By Patrick Cox, TheWorld.org

Not that Australian English isn’t proper…

English is so widely and variously spoken that it barely can be called a single language. That hasn’t stopped grammar stickler Simon Heffer from trying to re-establish order. The man is seriously old school, and he doesn’t like what any of Britain’s new schools are teaching –or failing to teach — about English usage. We take a trip with Heffer to a school in Suffolk, where he makes the case for his version of correct English: the difference, for example, between “I will” and “I shall.” Heffer doesn’t like it when English speakers get in a muddle over foreign terms. The Italian term panini, meaning sandwiches, has essentially become an English word. Most of us either don’t know or don’t worry that panini is plural. Heffer, though, does. If he’s buying just one sandwich, he will insist on asking for a panino.

No one’s going to arrest him for that.

Heffer, of course, is far from alone in trying to control our use of the language, before it descends into hellish and unseemly chaos, no doubt taking us with it. In the eighteenth century, English bishop Robert Lowth tried something far more proactive: he laid out a set of grammar rules for English that were, essentially, borrowed from Latin. To that end, he criticized the likes of Shakespeare, Donne and Milton for their “false syntax”.

Full story...

It need not be fluent but to know English helps
By Woo Thim Weng, The Star

October 18, 2010—I have to disagree with the writer of the letter “Make BM a world-class language” (The Star, Oct 17) on some of his views.

I have no qualms with Bahasa Malaysia as the national language and consider myself well-versed in it. I use the language to communicate with my colleagues daily even though Bahasa Malaysia is not my mother tongue.

English is not only used in England, America and Australia. It is the international language.

I work in a MNC and can tell you that it is not necessary to have an excellent command of the English language as the native speakers. There is no need to speak the Queen’s English to communicate effectively with my counterparts in any part of the world.

Even the Germans use English to reply my emails and I understand them perfectly well.

When it comes to education, we have to look at the big picture. Today, most of the students want to further their studies. When a student gets into tertiary education, the medium of instruction, especially in universities abroad, is English.

Full story...

African languages are cool, ok?
By Thandeka Mapi, Mail & Guardian online

October 15, 2010—There is a crisis in African languages, particularly at school level, that everyone concerned—language experts, academics and the government—will have to address.   

I say this after having spent time with learners at Grahamstown schools, who spoke to me about the role of African languages in learning, teaching and socialisation.

The learners are at two township government schools (Mrwetyana High and Nombulelo High), an English-medium private school (Kings-wood High) and a dual-medium (English and Afrikaans) public school (Mary Waters High). They said they did not speak English as fluently and confidently as they would like to. It was clear that all felt it was important to speak and understand English better, both to be accepted socially and to have better employment opportunities. In other words, they viewed English as the language.

“If you speak English well, people respect you. But if you speak isi-Xhosa, it does not matter how well you speak it, no one looks at you differently,” said Sanelisiwe Njongo.

She might have been expressing a personal view but this does seem to be how most young black South Africans think and feel about their mother tongues. One gets the impression that most of them just cannot wait to finish high school, where these “boring” (African) languages are stuffed down their throats.

Full story...

English, Pinoy Style
By Ronald S. Lim, Manila Bulletin

MANILA—When our national hero Dr. Jose Rizal declared that “those who do not love their mother tongue stink worse than fish,’’ he probably never thought of how much of an impact the English language would have on contemporary Philippine life.

Our proficiency in English has been credited with the influx of call centers in the country, which in turn have been credited with propping up our economy. Its use as the medium of instruction in our schools is constantly being debated, and writers and academics constantly argue as to whether the future of our literature lies in English or in our native tongue.

But is the English that we use today really a colonial legacy best discarded? Or is it something that has become uniquely Filipino through the passing years?

This was the focus of discussion at the recent Second Access Philippine English Language Conference, organized by the British Council and the University of the Philippines (UP), and held alongside the recent Manila International Book Fair.

“We Filipinos take our English very seriously. English incites such passions in these parts,” remarks UP professor Judy Ick, one of the three speakers at the conference.

“But despite seemingly random differences, both sides rest on a single assumption: That the English that arrived was the English that stayed.”

Aside from Ick, the two other speakers in the conference included Palanca-winning authors Jose “Butch” Dalisay and Jessica Zafra.

Full story...

“Ma’amsir” to “major major”: How English is a Philippine language
By Sam L. Marcelo, BusinessWorld

Venus Raj snatched defeat from the jaws of victory during the Miss Universe pageant when she flubbed the interview portion. Her answer to judge William Baldwin’s question “What was the one big mistake that you did in your life? And what did you do to make it right?” was so bizarre that it launched a thousand (and more) tweets and became a trending topic on Twitter.

Her 20-second reply became an international news item. It was dissected and analyzed, quoted and re-quoted until people on the street could repeat parts of it from memory: “In my 22 years of existence, I can say there is nothing major major problem that I have done in my life.”

A month later, “major major” is still a catch-phrase. And Ms. Raj, a journalism graduate who works as an information assistant, was still relevant enough to be a recurring topic at a forum held during the recent Second Access Philippine English Language Conference, which ran concurrently with the Manila International Book Fair.

“I don’t personally think that [Ms. Raj] made a mistake,” said a University of Santo Tomas (UST) professor who attended the conference. In fact, she added, “major major” has made it easier for her to teach lessons on the varieties of English.

Full story...

Education at Crossroads
By Aleck Francis “Koy-koy” T. Lim, The Bohol Standard

We’ve read many reports saying that quality of Philippine education is declining.

Depending on where you want to attack the issue, there are varied causes of this decline. And as what we had tackled before in this corner, the exodus of brilliant Filipino teachers who seek better pay abroad can be one of the relative causes of the problem. When we lose one inspiring, genius teacher, we lose thousands of opportunities for that teacher to make a difference in the lives of his/her students.

Another cause of the decline is the irrelevance of subjects being taught in high school and colleges. Some of the subjects in high school – like Filipino, Algebra, or Trigonometry – are still being taught in college when in fact they have basically the same teaching approach and coverage. A college student is supposed to be concentrating on his/her special field of interest, assuming that he/she had studied all the minor subjects in high school, but is distracted by many unimportant subjects.

On the other hand, there are those who claim that our problem in Philippine education starts in the formative years of the child. These Filipino educators argue that the use of English and Filipino in early childhood education can be damaging to a child’s mental framework.

Full story...