Saturday, October 29, 2005

sock hop

"sock hop," - Google Search

no more than american teens dancing with their shoes off in a school gym to 78rpm reords

BUT
Sayyid Qutb - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "It is evident that Qutb was extremely offended by the racism he witnessed in the United States, [NOTE 1948 to 1950 ] as well as the openness between the sexes in American society (he was aghast at events such as the 'sock hop,' popular at the time). His experiences in the United States partly formed the impetus for his rejection of Western values and his move towards radicalism upon returning to Egypt. Resigning from the civil service, he became perhaps the most persuasive publicist of the Muslim Brotherhood. The school of thought he inspired has become known as Qutbism"

Wahhabism seen in a Danish newspaper

about spelling

Wahhabism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "The term 'Wahhab' (Wahhabiya) refers to the movement's founder Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab. It is rarely used by members of this group today, although the Saudis did use it in the past.
The Wahhabis claim to hold to the way of the 'Salaf as-Salih', the 'rightly guided or pious predecessors' as earlier propagated mainly by Ibn Taymiyya, his students Ibn Al Qayyim and later by Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahab and his followers.
The term is considered offensive by some members who prefer to call themselves al-Muwahhidun (the monotheists) or the movement Salafism."
and misspelled by its oponents wahabism - Google Search

wahabisme - Google Search: "Le wahabisme est une h�r�sie de l'Islam sunnite qui revendique un Islam pur et
... En ce qui concerne le wahabisme, tout a commenc� en 1713, quand A'bdel ..."
French and Danish
Wahabisme: "Wahabisme, puritansk sunni-orienteret retning indenfor islam, statsreligion i Saudi Arabien. Den var det første større moderne udtryk for islamisk opvågnen i de arabiske lande i det 18. århundrede, og gav inspiration til mange politisk-religiøse bevægelser, der kæmpede mod den tyrkiske dominans og de europæiske landes forsøg på at trænge ind i den arabiske verden.."

Friday, October 28, 2005

morgue newspaper slang

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Can the English language survive George Bush ?

by email from my cousin Anthony in Australia:-

"The vast majority of our imports come from outside the country." - George W. Bush

"If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure." - George W. Bush

"One word sums up probably the responsibility of any Governor, and that one word is 'to be prepared'." - George W. Bush

"I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future." - George W. Bush

"The future will be better tomorrow." - George W. Bush

"We're going to have the best educated American people in the world." - George W. Bush

"I stand by all the misstatements that I've made." - George W. Bush

"We have a firm commitment to NATO, we are a part of NATO. We have a firm commitment to Europe We are a part of Europe." - George W. Bush ?

"Public speaking is very easy." - George W. Bush

"A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls." - George W. Bush

"We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur." - George W. Bush

"For NASA, space is still a high priority." - George W. Bush

"Quite frankly, teachers are the only profession that teach our children." - George W. Bush

"It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it." - George W. Bush

"It's time for the human race to enter the solar system." - George W. Bush ?

And something to be REALLY worried about:

God help America..... =-O

Friday, October 21, 2005

Dialect levelling in Britain: 1900-2000

Received pronunciation

British English in the 20th century has been characterised by dialect levelling and standardisation. It is probably useful to see this as composed of two stages, running in parallel.
The first stage affects the traditional rural dialects of the country, once of course spoken by a majority of the population, but by the beginning of the 20th century probably spoken by under 50%.


These dialects are very different from standard English in their pronunciation and in their grammar. What has happened is that, over one or more generations, families have abandoned these dialects in favour of a type of English that is more like the urban speech of the local town or city.
These more urban ways of speaking have been labelled modern dialects or mainstream dialects by Peter Trudgill (1998). What most characterises them is that they are considerably more like standard English in phonology, grammar and vocabulary."

Dialects of English:

"English is actually an unusual language. Already a blend of early Frisian and Saxon, it absorbed Danish and Norman French, and later added many Latin and Greek technical terms. In the US, Canada, Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and elsewhere, it absorbed terms for indigenous plants, animals, foodstuffs, clothing, housing, and other items from native and immigrant languages.

Plus, the various dialects, from Cockney to Jamaican, and innumerable sources of slang, from Polari to hip hop, continue to add novel terms and expressions to the mix. It is no surprise to hear from people learning English what a student once told me: English just has too many words!"

Sunday, October 09, 2005

Googlism

what is wakizashi
Wakizashi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A wakizashi was used as a samurai's weapon when the Katana was unavailable. When entering a building, a samurai would leave his katana on a rack near the entrance. However, the wakizashi would be worn at all times, and therefore, it made a sidearm for the samurai (similar to a soldier's use of a pistol). The samurai would have worn it from the time they awoke to the time they went to sleep. In earlier periods, and especially during times of civil wars, a tanto was worn in place of a wakizashi.

Friday, October 07, 2005

Codeswitching English and Welsh

Back to SLA topics By Second Language Users:

"English/Welsh: Come to the table. Bwyd yn barod (...food is ready)"

"a minority language conference in Spain. This one was on bilingual code-switching (you know, when people who know more than one language speak both of them at the same time)."

New corpus of spoken Welsh and Welsh-English code-switching

A new corpus of spoken Welsh and Welsh-English code-switching is now available to researchers as part of the LIDES project on www.talkbank.org.

The corpus, entitled the Bangor Corpus, consists of about 2.5 hours of recordings of informal conversations involving groups or pairs of speakers in North-West Wales and about 2.5 hours of excerpts from BBC Radio Cymru programmes.

The data can be used for research on Welsh-English code-switching as well as general research on spoken Welsh. The corpus was transcribed at the University of Wales, Bangor, as part of a small research project led by Prof Margaret Deuchar, funded by the British Academy, entitled "Structural aspects of Welsh-English code-switching".
The main theoretical aim of the project was to test Myers-Scotton's (2002)
Matrix Language Frame (MLF) model of code-switching with Welsh-English data.

For further information contact Marika Fusser (m.fusser@bangor.ac.uk)
or Prof Margaret Deuchar (m.deuchar@bangor.ac.uk).


Corpws newydd o’r Cymraeg llafar ac o gyfnewid codau Cymraeg-Saesneg

Mae corpws newydd o’r Cymraeg llafar ac o gyfnewid codau Cymraeg-Saesneg ar gael i ymchwilwyr fel rhan o’r prosiect LIDES ar www.talkbank.org. Cynnwys y corpws, sy’n dwyn yr enw "Bangor Corpus", oddeutu 2.5 awr o recordiadau o
sgyrsiau anffurfiol rhwng grwpiau neu barau o siaradwyr yng ngogledd-orllewin
Cymru ac oddeutu 2.5 awr o ddetholrannau o raglenni Radio Cymru.

Gellir
defnyddio'r data ar gyfer ymchwil ar gyfnewid codau Cymraeg-Saesneg yn
ogystal ag ymchwil gyffredinol ar y Cymraeg llafar. Trawsgrifiwyd y corpws ym Mhrifysgol Cymru, Bangor, fel rhan o brosiect ymchwil bach dan arweiniad Yr Athro Margaret Deuchar, dan nawdd yr Academi Brydeinig, a oedd yn dwyn yr enw "Agweddau strwythurol ar gyfnewid codau Cymraeg-Saesneg". Prif nod damcaniaethol y prosiect oedd profi model Myers-Scotton (2002) o gyfnewid codau, y "Matrix Language Frame Model" (MLF) gyda data Cymraeg-Saesneg.

Am ragor o wybodaeth cysyllter â Marika Fusser (m.fusser@bangor.ac.uk)
neu'r
Athro Margaret Deuchar (m.deuchar@bangor.ac.uk).

from
Latest News from Wales - Americas and the rest of the world! Oct 7th - 2005!!

Please let us know if you have any Announcments/ Up coming events/ Press releases /Questions or Comments. It's always great to hear from our readers!!!

E-mail: carwynedwards993@hotmail.com
or cymru20012000@yahoo.com

Matrix Language Frame Model of Codeswitching and Bilingual conversations

"Matrix Language Frame" - Google Search

Carol Myers-Scotton
:


"(1) Language contact phenomena. Major concern: grammatical consequences of bilingualism for languages, especially codeswitching and convergence, but also attrition, pidgin and creole development (Matrix Language Frame model and model of Matrix Language Turnover). Implications of such data for models of language competence and production.

(2) Sociolinguistics in general. Special interests: sociolinguistic theory and field methodology; interpersonal negotiations, especially as they are realized in switching languages or styles; language and gender; factors promoting bilingualism, language spread, and language shift.

(3) Models of grammar and language production (as related to studies of the structural constraints on language contact phenomena). Special interest: evidence for a production-based classification of morphemes (4-M model).

(4) Discourse analysis and stylistics. Study of the structure and content of both literary texts and natural conversation.

(5) Study of African languages, particularly with regard to multilingualism and related issues. Specialization: Swahili and the Bantu group of languages in general."

Codeswitching - Google Search

I do this all the time bilingual code switching bti I did not know it was called that

Codeswitching - Back to SLA topics By Second Language Users: "the choice of language shows the speaker's role. A Kenyan man who was serving his own sister in a shop started in their own Luiyia dialect and then switched to Swahili for the rest of the conversation to signal that he was treating her as an ordinary customer.
Types of codeswitching
1. reported speech
2. interjections
3. highlighting
4. topic switching
5 speaker�s role
6 qualifying topic
7 singling out one person
8 ignorance???
Codeswitching and language structure?
84% of switches within the sentence are isolated words, say the English/Malaysian 'Ana free hari ini' (Ana is free today) where English is switched to only for the item 'free'
10% are phrases as in the Russian/French 'Imela une femme de chambre' (She had a chambermaid)
6% are switches for whole clauses as in the German/English 'Papa, wenn du das Licht ausmachst, then I'll be so lonely' (Daddy, if you put out the light, I'll be so lonely).
Poplack (1980) claims that there are two main restrictions on where switching can happen:"

Monday, October 03, 2005

Urban Dictionary