Esperanto

Esperanto was developed in 1887 by Dr L.L Zamenhof who lived in the Western part of the Russian Empire. This language was developed to become a nutral international language for everyone to learn as a second language accross the globe. Zamehof's intention was not to only crate a language of equality between countries but to also resolve conflicts and bring peace.

Esperanto has acheived to become a language and there is tens of thousands throughout the world are known to speak it. There are organised groups such as the Universal Esperanto Association and has members in at least 114 countries.

This is an easy language to learn, research shows; it takes 1/3 of the time taken to learn a common studied language. The language is written phonemically (one sound= one letter) with regular grammar. When Esperanto is spoken it sounds like a siter language of Spanish or Italian. There is also Germanic roots within the language and simalar to English most words are Latin and Germanic.

Finnish in the Medieval Period

Finland was added to Catholic Sweden in the Middle Ages, prior to this, Finnish was an oral language. After this, the language of larger-scale business was Middle Low German, the language of administration was Swedish and religious activities were in Latin, leaving few possibilities for Finnish-speakers to use their mother tongue in everyday situations.
The first known example of written Finnish was found in a German travel journal dating back to c.1450: Mÿnna tachton gernast spuho somen gelen Emÿna daÿda
Modern Finnish: "Minä tahdon kernaasti puhua suomen kieltä, [mutta] en minä taida";
English: "I willingly want to speak Finnish, [but] I can't").
According to the travel journal, a Finnish bishop, was behind the above quotation.

I haven't thought of anything to write yet.. but there's a picture of will smith in the fresh prince of bel-air in the mean time :) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Influence of the Dutch on English language

400 years ago explorer Henry Hudson sailed his ship the Halve Maen (Half Moon) along a body of water we now call the Hudson river. He did so under the auspices of the Dutch trade organisation VOC (Dutch East India Company). He, along with a crew of 20 men, founded a colony called New Amsterdam. Now, this colony is better known as New York City, the city that never sleeps, the Big Apple. But it is not just the old name of New York City that is a testament of Dutch influence in contemporary America.

The Dutch settlers following Hudson lived in small isolated communities where Dutch was the language spoken by all. Gradually the Dutch lost most of their colonies to England, and Dutch settlers were exposed to other immigrants. This resulting in the Dutch language disappearing from everyday live. However, the roots of this bit of Dutch history of the American capital, and ultimately, the entire nation, can still be found in the English language and in names of American towns or neighbourhoods. Words like apartheid, bling, dapper, mast and even Santa Claus all stem from Dutch. And places like Harlem, Brooklyn and Hoboken are named after Dutch towns. Here a few more examples with their origin. A lot of these, as you will find, have strong ties with trade and naval industries.

Gin – from jenever. A spirit drink made from juniper berries. The Dutch word for juniper is jenever .

Schoener – From schoener, a type of boat

Santa Claus– From Sinterklaas which comes from Saint Nicholas, the children's patron saint. Both in Germany and Belgium, the feast of Sinterklaas is celebrated in early December.

Skipper – from schipper, which means shipper.

Yankee – From Jan Kees, a typical Dutch personal name. It was mockingly used for the Dutch settlers in New Amsterdam

Wildebeest and Aardvark– Wildebeest from Wild Beest, whichliteralymeansWild Beast. Aardvark comesfrom aardor aarde, both meaning soil or earth, and from varken, which means pig

How Senses Affect Linguistic Communication pt 1

I used my adoration of philosophy to fuel my research into linguistics of the deaf and blind. As we generally think in words, I often wonder how blind people think, or if those who are deaf think their thoughts in hand signals. I wonder too, what people who are blind from birth see when they dream.
It's strange - when we think in words, we do not tend to visualise the word. If deaf people think in sign language, must they visualise it to think it? Does it become second nature to think that way, and they do not neccessarily need to visualise their thoughts? If blind people dream, do they dream in words, and sounds and music? If so, do they dream in touch, taste and smell too?

I plan on doing a lot more research into the linguistics of sign, specifically, but also the communication of those who can't see.
For both the blind and the deaf, how does their inabilities affect their process of language? And how to their other senses compensate for their inabilities, and their need for communication?

That weird voice thingy

First post on this thingemo, just thought I might add my input to it.

Theres a program on every windows computer called Microsoft SAM, its basically a voice modelling program, and it reads out text that's inputted into it. It can pronounce any normal properly spelled english word, except when newer words such as l33t$p3@K words, where they have to be spelt phonetically, but maybe we'll get to the point in having a language that is spelt easily enough to understand as a second language learner at first look. If a computer can't do it, then how in the world is a human supposed to do it?!

Hieroglyphics

Troughout The long history of Hieroglyphics, this system of writing utelizing ancient egyptian symbols underwent many changes.There were six primary periods during witch this ancient language was used in egypt. It is thought that from the first use of language until around 500 A.D, there were thousands of symbols used. While all these symbols were not primarily used to write hieroglyphics at the same time, the language still remains Extremely Hard To Learn.


The use of hieroglyphics were faded out during the rise of the roman empire due to its unpopularity, By the time of Napoleon's army invaded egypt in 1798 subsequently discoverd the 'rosetta stone' a year later, the system of using ancient egyptitian symbols was a thorough mystery to forieners.

The devolpment of the english language was the cause of so many anceint languages just like the egyptian hieroglyphs to die out.

So, this is my first post on this blog thingy and to be honest it took me ages to get to here. Now I'm here I'm unsure what to talk about.... But here goes, off the top off my head, not a slab of boring copied and pasted paragraphs. Languages and peoples opinions on them are so diverse. Some worry about languages fading out and others believe to just go with the flow. But imagine being the only person in your village or town speaking the language that had faded out, you could only communicate with yourself (which apparently is a sign you're going insane) and to order at a restaurant would be almost mission impossible. To keep all Mother-tongues and preserve language is also preserving ur history and cultural background. Where you came from. Just think about it, your background contributes to who you are today.

Ive been struggling to decide what topic to blog about, so Ive decided at least for this post I will speak about how each language has their own veiwpoint in the world.

Languages don't all have words that mean a single other word, for example a word in english won't have a word in chinese that means exactly the same thing. What each of our words means reflects greatly on our culture, how we live and our veiw on the world.
Now days we can travel around the world in under a day and each of our cultures are starting to merge together, as this is happening we are losing different veiwpoints on the world. At this rate we will all have the same veiw on the world in the years to come.

Thats all for now.

The loneliest people in the world.

We all know that English and Mandarin are the most spoken languages in the world. With English the Lingua-Franca and China with such a large population, its not a hard concept to grasp. These languages are so well known and most people know at least one English word or expression, even if it is the embarrassingly bogan 'G'day mate'. But who knows what Zulu, Aina, Bikya, Eyak or Ket is? These are the smallest languages in the world, spoken by the loneliest people imaginable, and they're the topic I have chosen to research. The number or speakers for these languages range from below 50 to a mere 10, or in the most extreme cases, only 1 speaker. WOW. What a lonely life that would be !

A woman living on the Cameroon-Nigeria border is believed to be the last speaker of 'Bikya', also known as 'Furu'. This is a small tribal language that originated somewhere in Cameroon. A short film of an elderly African woman was taped by an English linguist, Dr. Dalby, so a small part of this language would be captured forever. This was AFTER research was done to say there was only 4 speakers left in 1986, (one of whom is fluent) so hopefully we haven't seen the last of Bikya yet. It must be so upsetting for that woman though, to have so many words to say and no-one to say them to. Maybe if people of the world STOPPED looking at language as 'a way to get ahead' financially and technologically and STOPPED putting all their effort into learning English, Mandarin and Spanish, they could START focusing on and recording their OWN beautiful native languages and then hopefully we could preserve the languages and prevent further extinction. It's not that hard people, PRESERVE AND PREVENT!

Spread of Diverse Languages!

Pidgins are an interesting change in language across the globe, they are unique in that they have no home and aren't a person's first language, they are more flexible to change and less complex in comparison to native languages. A creole is the name given to a pidgin once it is nativised and taught as a first language. It's fascinating to think about how all the creoles/pidgins have come into existence. Sure they would have originally only been spoken by a small number of people but it is amazing how they've spread so widely and become something people may teach their children as a first language.

So, last week in the movie the class watched on languages I found that one idea really stuck out to me.
"Every time a language dies, a vision of the world dies with it"
So I've decided to follow that stream of thought and find out whether language really does contribute to the way we percieve the world around us and if so, how does the idea of the world in the eyes of English speakers differ to those speaking other languages.

At the moment my mum is over in Africa with a couple who are currently living in a small village in Cameroon developing a written language for a people who's language is dying out.
To get a better idea on the subject I am going to be following I will be living vicariously through my mother to find out how her perception of what is going on differs to those around her who speak the language being developed.
:)

Im going to tell you a little bit about Esperanto's history.

After 10 years of creation Esperanto the first book of Esperanto was published in 1887, the number of speakers increased rapidly in East & West Europe, the Russian Empire, the America's, China and Japan. Since then, World Congresses have been held each year, except during the world wars, and usually attract anywhere from 2,000-6,000 people. although it has never been accepted as an official secondary language of any country, some linguists believe it should be, and in 1968 self proclaimed artificial island micro-nation, Rose Island, was the first place it was used as an official first language.

The Language Of Witchita

Witchita is a moribund caddoan language spoken in Oaklahoma by the Withcita Tribe. However, due to the loss of nearly all but one of it's native speakers (Doris McLemore) this language may be lost forever, and hundreds of years of history could vanish in the blink of an eye.

The University of Colarado, (led by professor David Rood) have taken steps to prevent this language disappearing forever and began a documentation process, in which they have written down all of what Doris translates for them and listened to recordings of her voice when speaking fluent Witchita. She commented saying 'I never expected to be the last speaker, I never even imagined it'. Unfortunately Withcita is not the only native language this is happening too. It has become a statistic in the 199 languages that are critically endangered and having less then 10 speakers fluent in each. It is rather fascinating to think that several hundred individuals spoke Withcita fluently four decades ago and now there is only one speaker left.


'When she's gone, a unique form of expression will disappear' Professor David Rood said. With already having lost around 2,500 languages there has been a history, culture and way of life that have disappeared with them, and with documenting hopefully the language of Witchita will be preserved.

Above image is of the native Witchita Tribe and across the right is the last speaker Doris McLemore.

Can computers imitate our languages?

With technology becoming an increasingly frequent occurrence in our daily lives, we find that computer technology is advancing faster than anyone had ever predicted. Compared to the start of the 21st century, computers can do almost everything. However can it imitate a language? A program that has blown in popularity is a Japanese 'synthesizer' program known as VOCALOID, a program used to create songs. With this program, you type out sounds phonetically to create lyrics for the program to sing. Producers all over the Internet make songs, and release them on Youtube and a Japanese site called 'Nico Nico Douga' These programs take the form of characters, which adds creative grounds for music videos. vocaloid is a huge sensation in both Japan and the Internet. In recent years there have even been vocaloid concerts.


Kagamine Rin and Len singing 'Migikata no Chou' (butterfly on your right shoulder)
This was sung at at Miku's 39 giving day, a vocaloid concert held in Japan.

Though the most famous vocaloids are Japanese,there are vocaloids that have been released in Chinese, Korean and even English. However, to someone who doesn't speak or learn Japanese, the pronunciation of the twins Rin and Len in the above video sound fine. However, vocaloids actually have quite poor pronunciation. Most vocaloids are limited to Japanese, however one is bilingual, and can speak English. However her English is not perfect either. The English vocaloids that were released also have bad pronunciation as well. One reason for the bilingual vocaloid Luka, is the absence of phonemes in japan. In japan 'L' 'V' and 'TH' do not exist. On top of this, all consonants in Japanese are followed by a vowel, save 'N', which can stand alone as a sound. This causes problems for English pronunciation, and the Japanese language is so restricted to certain sounds. as phonemes in English are quite varied and do not certain follow rules, English is hard to imitate completely. However last year patches known as 'append' were released for three of the vocaloids, improving Japanese pronunciation and clarity immensely. As well as this it has allowed the vocaloids to sound more human. With enough advancement in synthesizer technology,these vocaloids will become capable of imitating their native language completely. The most popular of the vocaloids, Hatsune Miku is soon to have an English release. I wonder how well they'll be able to imitate English?

Hatune Miku APPEND singing 'Hirari Hirari' (flutter flutter)
Append is a good example of how well vocaloids are able to imitate japanese, with clear and concise pronouncitation

Hatsune Miku means First sound of the future (hatsu,first;ne,sound;miku,future)
Who knows, maybe vocaloids really are the sound of the future?

Travelling with English

Travelling around the world these days is easier and less interesting. If you go to one capital city, you know what the rest of the capital cities look like. If you speak English, you don't need to know any other language. This makes you feel more comfortable and at home, no matter how far away you are.

When I was in Germany last year, there was only one person to serve me in a shop who didn't speak enough English to serve me. Walking around Frankfurt I felt like I was walking around Melbourne. It was multicultural and all the buildings looked the same. When I got seriously lost on the trains it was fine because all the conductors spoke English.

If English (or any language for that matter) took over all the other languages then the world wouldn't be diverse and interesting. There would be no point of travelling.

Where did Dubstep originate from?

Reggae Original Dub and how is it similar too Dubstep
Dub is a Genre of Music which grew out of the form of music called Reggae in the 1960's, Reggae is a from of music developed by the Jamaican people. Many think that Reggae is the only type of music that Jamaicans play and produce where they have many other styles/Genres of music, and Music is a very important part of the Jamaicans culture amongst other things, and their Culture has influenced out music. in the was that the slow style and culture of the Jamaican Reggae music influenced the Genre Dub. but Dub it is considered a Sub Genre because it's not that popular, as apposed to Dub step.
The main idea of this genre of music is too remove vocals from a recording, and to reshape the beat. It is quite similar to the genre Dub step, in which the artist removes the vocals from a recording, and adds audio effects too the beat of the song too make it "drop heavy Bass" and as refereed too people "Dirty Bass", and then they also "play" with the vocals, so that it sounds different from the original, and each Artist has their own unique style of remixing.
 
An example of Reggae Dub Music is above with the Marijuana leaf as the logo (I didn't set it as that, that's the you tube video).
And to the left is a example of Modern Dub step, this example isn't a "Dirty Bass" type as such, but you can tell the Bass Drops that have been added in, and where the Tempo of the song has been changed.

So as you can see the Music that the Jamaican Community produce, has influenced some of the most popular songs these days.


^^This isn't all about the language as such, BUT is about the culture and origins of music, and how some of our music is influenced by the Jamaicans Music.

info found at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dub_music

How language shapes the way we think.

In these blogs I will be displaying my research of how language affects our thinking. There is much debate on this topic, two of the main arguments I've found so far are:

• Language alters the way we perceive the world.


• Everyone perceives the world the same way, different languages just express it differently.

This is a topic I find quite amazing; it realy makes you wonder how other languages see the world. Can habits and patterns form language really overflow into our perseptions?

Esperanto

Esperanto is a language created for neutral communication. It is used by 1-2 million people world wide. The language has many advantages to it, some including: it can be used in international meetings, books, magazines, music, international festivals, training etc. There are 34 letters in the Esperanto language.

These letters include:

• A -- pronounced like the A in PAPA, FATHER. pala, sana


• B -- pronounced like the English B. bano, rabo


• C -- pronounced like the TS in TSAR, RATS. laca, caro


• Cx -- pronounced like the CH in CHURCH. acxa, cxamo


• D -- pronounced like the D in DAD. dato, ada


• E -- pronounced like the E in PET, LED, REP. de, pale


• F -- pronounced like the F in FAT, LEFT. pafi, felo


• G -- pronounced the the G in GAG, GET. agi, gemo


• Gx -- pronounced like the G in GEM, FUDGE. agxo, gxemi


• H -- pronounced like the H in HORSE. halo, homo


• Hx -- pronounced like the german CH in ACH. hxoro, ehxo


• I -- pronounced like the E in ME. fina, ido


• J -- pronounced like the Y in YET, BOY. jono, ejo


• Jx -- pronounced like the S in PLEASURE. jxus, ajxo


• K -- pronounced like the K in KID, BLOCK. kelo, ekbrili


• L -- pronounced like the L in LID, BILL. lumo, rolo


• M -- pronounced like the M in MAT, RUM. muso, ema


• N -- pronounced like the N in NUT, BUN. nazo, dankon


• O -- pronounced like the O in NOTE, VOTE. oro, povas


• P -- pronounced like the P in PUSH, CUP. porko, kapo


• R -- pronounced with a very slight burr. ruza, moro


• S -- pronounced like the S in SING, BUS. sidi, aso


• Sx -- pronounced like the SH in SHIP, BUSH. sxultro, masxo


• T -- pronounced like the T in TAKE, CUT. temi, kato


• U -- pronounced like the OO in BOOT. utero, multaj


• Ux -- pronounced like the W in BROW. hodiaux, Euxropo


• V -- pronounced like the V in VAT, CAVE. vazo, lavi


• Z -- pronounced like the Z in ZOOM, BUZZ. zomi, frazo


• Aj -- pronounced like the EY in EYE. bonaj


• Ej -- pronounced like the long English A in MATE. vejno


• Oj -- pronounced like the OY in BOY. bojkoti


• Uj -- pronounced like the UJ in HALLELUJAH. prujno


• Aux-- pronounced like the OW in BROWN. morgaux


• Eux-- pronounced like the AYW in WAYWARD, but without the Y. neuxtrala
  
  
  
  To listen to the audio version click on the following link :)
  
  

  http://youtu.be/kWzUIyf_GuQ

Sheng

Sheng is a slang language made up of Swahili and English, it was first spoken in Nairobi, Kenya.
It originated in the 1970s as a way of urban youths being able to communicate without their parents being able to understand what was being said, but now it is widely spoken and used with electronic media such as radio.

Some examples of Sheng are;

zi/nada/do: no

fegi/mozo/ngale,fuaka: cigarette

ndai/moti/murenga/dinga: car

karao,gava,sanse - police

Here's some Sheng rap ;)

English = THE BLOB

I imagine the growth patterns of the English language as the same of the popular 1950's horror film The Blob starring Steve McQueen.

For those who don't know their movie history The Blob is a organism that lives to destroy, it starts of very small but with every victim it grows in size. English is doing a strangely similar if not the exact same thing Eg: English started in england as the primary language of the people but not of anyone with power, then it over threw the crown and took control.

The Blob crawls through a town digests everything then keeps on crawling looking for its next meal. English does the same thing, Once it had made a strong foothold in England it boarded boats and went traveling spreading the toxic disease where ever it went. It soon occupied places like : America, india, canada and Australia.

It was from these places that it spread even further with English movies spreading the Language right around the globe making English more powerful then any language before in history.......
But it is not just one dialect of the language each country that use's this language has its own different pronounciation and vocabulary some examples of this are : Franglish ( France ), Chinglish ( china ), Spanglish ( spain ).

So i don't think that like in the movie it is a completely evil thing, i think it is a Kind Blob. How else would we help old ladies cross the road safely if there wasn't road safety signs in English. How would doctors keep patients alive if there wasn't medication written in English.

So my point too you is.... Do we need too fight this All controlling creature if it is helping us live easier safer lives, or does it have furter plans for the human race ?.....

Peace and love- Fuz

Saving Dying Languages

So I'm researching the ways that people go about preserving languages that have very few remaining speakers and/or have never been written down. According to good old wikipedia, about 417 languages are in danger of extinction.

Many of these programs seem to be run by universities. Linguistics and anthropology students get to go to places like Thailand or South America and spend time talking to the people there and essentially creating dictionaries. It's a really interesting process because often words can be translated in a variety of ways, so the translators have to really get to know the culture to get an accurate documentation. They listen to and write down the traditional stories as well. It's not just a process of saying "this word means such and such".

Another thing they do in these programs is to encourage the kids to speak their native language in school, which is the most effective way to stop a language from dying out.

There's so much to find out about this stuff, but that will probably do for now.

Pars Partis Unus

Hello all my fellow Bloggers!

So it seems that we must blog on our most interested topic regarding the current topic. Well i've searched through every possible topic, and there was one, just one, that really took my interest. This topic is one that is both many years old, yet work is still continuing on it everyday. The topic that i speak of is of course... EXTINCT LANGUAGES!!!! This is a topic that has been on my mind for many months now, as one day i came across a page about Latin. Now if you've every read about Latin, or heard it, or even know of a second cousin twice removed on your mother's sister's step brothers side of the family that knew what R.I.P. (it's requiescat in pace in case you were wondering) was in Latin, you know it's a freaking awesome language! Now, this is supposed to be about dead languages i know, well that's what i said it's going to be about, but since Meg (yes Meg, i'm talking about you) it could be about anything, i thought i might just focus on Latin, cos well, the other languages don't really comepare to the almighty mightiness that is Latin, i don't think i'll bother wasting valuable typing time on those when i could be talking about Latin. Ok so now that all the talking about talking about Latin is done, down to work. Let's start with a quick background on this wonderful dead language, so um, yeah Latin is... all about the... penguins? i'll be right back, just gotta check out a few facts before i start, might actually help if i knew what i was talking about.

Ok so now onto the back ground information (after a few trips to wikipedia). Let's get the boring stuff out of the way first up. Latin originated from the proto language Indo-European. Here's a fun fact, Latin and it's daughter languages are the only surviving branch of Italic language family. Now when it originated, even it had shifts in how people spoke it. Two main forms of Latin originated, Classical Latin and Vulgar Latin. Classical was the high end part of Latin. Those of the higher upper class spoke it quite well, whereas those of the lower class spoke Vulgar Latin. This is not to say that Vulgar Latin was of a lesser standing than Classical Latin, it was merely just an easier way of speaking at the time. Most people wrote in Classical Latin, as that was what they were taught to do, it is how people communicated, but when it came to speaking, well let me tell you, it was a whole different ball game. Vulgar Latin was the easiest way to communicate via the spoken medium , so as this was the case, it was the most commonly heard out in the streets. Vulgar Latin got it's name not from the fact that those who spoke it were vulgar, or that it was formed on a basis of vulgar words. It actually used to mean something similiar to common, so when it was said that someone was a vulgar person, it merely meant that they were of common background.

It's your turn to share something interesting!

So here are your ideas! Pick yours or someone else’s, or yours and someone else’s, or...you get the picture and let us get this thing rollin’!

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This is my postage...you can respond to this if you'd like!

Upon my endeavors to find ‘the most descriptive language’, I stumbled across Greenlandic.-

It’s descriptive in the sense that a loan Greenlandic word can hold the meaning for what we English speakers would need several words or a sentence to be able to convey.

I love this!- The word 'computer' is 'qarasaasiaq' in Greenlandic, which directly translates to mean 'artificial brain'. 'Potato' is called 'naatsiiat' , which literally means 'something for which one waits for a long time to grow up'.- this truly warms my heart.

Greenlandic is a ‘polysynthetic’ language, which means that words are formed with a root, and one or more affixes and a suffix. –

This will be the first post of many to demystify Greenlandic culture and heritage through entry point of its Language. I’m excited!

I’m thinking my next post will track down other polysynthetic languages, and how Greenlandic came to be...