Hawaiian Sign Language

A recent article on CNN discussed Hawaiian Sign Language, a language still used by only about 40 people, most of whom are elderly. Researchers are working now to document this language before it's too late. According to the article, roughly 80% of HSL signs and the HSL grammar are distinct from ASL, making it its own language, rather than a dialect of ASL.

KITV News also covered the story, along with demonstrations of the differences in signs between HSL and ASL:




A college student in Hawaii also made a video to teach seven common signs used by most Hawaiian people (deaf or not):

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

What does it mean for a word to be beautiful? That question is what Robert Beard (Dr. Goodword) tackled when he compiled the list of the 100 most beautiful words in the English language.

After looking through the words, I am guessing he was going for sound and not meaning; otherwise, words like beleaguer and untoward surely wouldn't have made the list. But there must have been more than just sound being considered because words like bucolic and ripple just don't sound any more "beautiful" to me than other words that didn't make the cut.

I would imagine that most people would find less common words to be more beautiful than more common ones (after all, people tend to be more attracted by the things they don't encounter as often), and many English speakers would probably find borrowed words more beautiful than native Germanic words (I'm going with the foreign-is-exotic-and-thus-beautiful theory on that one). I've long been fond of words like facetious, quotidian, felicity, draconian, stygian, inveigle, fastidious, melodic, and phenomena because of the way they roll off the tongue--their meaning doesn't add beauty or intrigue (especially words like quotidian, stygian, and draconian), but they sound nice to me. It's entirely subjective, though--I can't say why one word sounds "pretty" but another doesn't. And the words that sound pretty to me probably don't sound pretty to other people. All these examples are of English, yet other languages have words that can be deemed as more beautiful than others by its speakers or by its learners. I rather enjoyed saying αληθεια and αμαξια while learning Ancient Greek (pardon my lack of diacritics on the words)--even moreso than the other words I learned.

If you read the description that's on the website, Dr. Goodword wants to help people beautify their language use, and yet I'm not sure what it means to have beautiful language. What do you think? Can words be beautiful? And if they can, what makes one word more beautiful than another? And, more importantly, what words do you find "beautiful"?

How linguists play telephone

Do you remember that classic game of telephone that most of us played when we were younger? It's that game where one person starts by whispering a line into someone else's ear. It could be something like I think she needs to wear a blue blouse tomorrow. It gets whispered from one person to the next until it reaches the last person in line, who says what (s)he heard out loud to the rest of the group. By the time it gets to the end, the sentence might have turned into something like She sees a blue mouse and wants to borrow it. Usually some of the same sounds stay in the words, but it's difficult to hear someone whispering in your ear, especially when there are usually anticipatory giggles erupting all around you as the other kids are waiting to see what the sentence will turn into. If you've never played it before, you should give it a go. You never know what stress relief playing a game of telephone might bring.

Pamela Fox, who must be a linguist--or at least must be one at heart, came up with a new version of telephone: Translation Telephone. When you go to the website, you'll see a text box; type a sentence into that text box and hit the "Go!" button right next to it. Your sentence will be translated (by Google Translate) into a different language and then from that language into another language, and from that language into yet another language... until it has been translated into 20 different languages. After the 20th language, it will get translated back into English for your amusement. Keep in mind that the chain of translation is being done by a machine, so it's not perfect, and also keep in mind that the translation is going from language to language and not from your original sentence into 20 different languages. Along the way, your sentence is going to get, um, misshapen, if you will. By the time your sentence comes back out of the translation telephone game, it will most likely look quite different.

For example, I typed the following sentence into the text box: I just drew a ghost for my son on his paper, and he colored it black. I waited (with some anticipatory giggling) and watched as it went from English to Catalan to Chinese to Albanian and on and on until it was finally translated back into English. The end result?

I have my thesis, my son, his spirit, and he was black.

After laughing, I can go back and trace through the languages I know enough of to see where the sentence started going wrong (ghost, as you might imagine is translated quite differently, depending on the language). You can see the whole train of translation here. Every time you do a translation, the languages and order of those languages will differ, which makes this even more fun.

What makes this priceless is that no machine will translate perfectly from one language to the next and that no two languages will word a sentence with the exact same words that have the exact same meaning, leaving some ambiguity for the next translation.

After you do some translation telephone games of your own, you should share your end results in the comments so we can all get a laugh!

It's always the linguists...

A few years ago, David Chess wrote what appears to be a blurb of a science-fiction type story, in which things are going wrong, and it can all be directly blamed on the linguists who taught a culture concepts they had previously had no words for; you can check out the short story/blurb here. What I love about his post is that he explores this notion of whether or not people can think about concepts they have no words for. If a language has no word for yellow, does that mean they can't see the color yellow? If a language has no word for kazoo, does that mean they cannot fathom an instrument that makes noise by humming into it? Then again, since English has no word for bakku-shan, does that mean we can't envision a woman who is only pretty when being looked at from the back? (You can check out this article for other cool words English needs.) How much does our language and its words say about us and the way we think?

If you're interested in this, you might also be interested in the course on Language and Culture in the spring.

Language Fail via YouTube

Thanks to a student, I am sharing a video with you that I've now watched several times and laughed every one of them. The humor is based on misparsing words in a song--when you hear a string of sounds, you may hear something different than what was originally said. For instance, many kids grow up thinking the "Star Spangled Banner" starts out with "Jose, can you see?", and I was convinced that a donzerly was a type of light because of that song. Another famous mistaken lyric is in Creedence Clearwater Revival's song "Bad Moon on the Rise"; many people think the chorus is saying "there's a bathroom on the right." While misparsings often lead to humorous results, I don't think I've ever seen one as humorous as this.



Challenge yourself to see if you can--without looking at the lyrics to the song--figure out what English words the singer is trying to sing. Can you tell where she is misparsing the words to create nonsense words?

New Languages Still Being Found

Students often ask how many languages there are in the world, which is a trickier question to answer than you might guess at first. Several problems with identifying the number of languages revolve around varying definitions of language (as opposed to dialect) and language death; however, a more exciting issue with counting the number of languages is that linguists still haven't identified them all. A recent discovery of Koro, a language spoken in rural India, made the news last week, with stories about it in The New York Times and on CNN. Finding a new language is rather exciting and reminds us linguists that we still have more to discover about language.

Oops... I've Been a Bad Google User

As I scrolled through the Twitter updates this evening, I ran across an interesting tweet from @mightyredpen, who posted a link to an article about how to use the word Google: Google Permissions.

Before I begin, let me first say that I love the Google company and all that it has done for search engines and internet fun (including my beloved Gmail and Chrome and Blogger). Now that I've professed my love, though, I must say that if you read the entire page, you might be left scratching your head--just as I am.

Allow me to quote some of my favorite specifications for how to properly use the word Google:

Use the trademark only as an adjective, never as a noun or verb, and never in the plural or possessive form.

Oops. I google things daily and talk about Google as an entity. Apparently I need to say 'I used the Google search engine today', but that just sounds way too wordy for my taste.

One of the conditions for all uses is that you can't mess around with our marks. Only we get to do that. Don’t remove, distort or alter any element of a Google Brand Feature. That includes modifying a Google trademark, for example, through hyphenation, combination or abbreviation, such as: Googliscious, Googlyoogly, GaGooglemania. Do not shorten, abbreviate, or create acronyms out of Google trademarks.

After reading this, I'm begging Google inventors to come up with something Googliscious or a new feature called Googlyoogly. I mean, really, how can they resist?

Don’t use Google trademarks in a way that suggests a common, descriptive, or generic meaning.

That includes not using Google to refer to using a search engine in general, which I am also guilty of (e.g., telling someone to google something, when what I really mean is to perform an online search).

Because I love the Google company (not only because they use cute graphics around holidays on their websites but also because they are such a rockin' company), I formally apologize for misusing the Google name. However, along with that apology, I ask that the big wigs of the company reconsider the ban on using Google as parts of speech other than an adjective. It's just more convenient to tell someone, 'Go Google it!' Do you think they'll mind as long as I capitalize the verb to show it's a proper search engine I'm referring to?

lolcats: A new type of English?

I'm fascinated by the turns English takes, especially as the internet plays a bigger role in developments of language change. One change I've never quite understood, though, is the use of 'shortcuts' when texting or instant messaging someone. I don't understand how typing 'l8r' saves energy when it takes me longer to find and reach the appropriate number key than it would for me to type the 'ate' in the middle of the word. It also takes more energy for me to find the '^' key than it does for me to simply type 'up.' Since I don't see how shortcuts are actually shortcuts, I tend to think people use them to be "cool". I have obviously never been cool in the texting world, as I happily correctly punctuate and capitalize my sentences with words that are correctly spelled when I text.

My students introduced me to an online site that takes English computer lingo to the next level: lolcats. On the site, you can find examples of English like this:

We r adding favorite buttons 2 sum classic lolz, so u can favorite dem!

Check awt sum other classic lolz dat nao have favorite buttons!

I find it hilarious that in the middle of these sentences, you see words like 'sum' and 'awt' interspersed with correctly spelled 'adding' and 'favorite' and 'classic.' Why do 'sum' and 'awt' and 'dem' but not 'klasik' and 'favrit' (or some other shortened/changed spelling)?

Banner on 'lolcats' homepage, which is icanhascheezburger.com

Even the website's name, 'i can has cheez burger', has such a discrepancy: Why not use 'haz' instead of 'has'?

During the summer session, I have a student who wants to work with the language used with lolcats, so I'm looking forward to seeing what she uncovers in her investigation. In the meantime, I'll be staring at the words on the website, wondering why anyone would take the time to develop such crazy spellings for English words when English spelling is crazy enough as it is.

Attitudes about Language: Banning the Dictionary

In Structures of English, we've been talking about attitudes people have toward language, especially toward particular words or accents in English.  Quite often, those attitudes are, unfortunately, on the negative side.  We tend to have feelings about words or constructions that should or should not be used in the English language and judge other people according to those feelings.  Yet, who has the right to dictate what words should or should not be used (or even belong) in the English language?

The English dictionary is a book set apart from other books in its long tradition of supplying definitions based on usage for words found in our language.  It is possibly the most useful reference book students, writers, readers, and language lovers can consult.  And yet... It was recently banned from a school for its inclusion of "colorful" language (read about it here).  Banning dictionaries takes the idea of banning books to a whole new level and makes me question just how attached American English speakers are to the idea of being able to monitor--and control--language use.

I would like to hear what other people think about this.  Should dictionaries be banned?  Further, should they be better censored for content if being published for use in elementary schools?  Or should dictionaries be allowed to grace bookshelves everywhere in their full glory?

Debate: Language or Communication?

I first heard about the whistled language of Gomera from a student in my Introduction to Linguistics course; as soon as class ended, I YouTubed "whistle language" and found this video.



It's a fascinating display.  My question for you is whether the "whistle language" is truly a language or is actually a communication system.  For anyone unfamiliar with the differences between the terms language and communication system, one primary distinction between the two is that humans are said to have language while animals have communication systems.  Animals can communicate specific needs (such as danger, food sources, or mating rituals) but do not have full-fledged languages that allow them to produce new and creative utterances, abstract notions (they can only address the 'here and now'), and pragmatic features like sarcasm or humor.  Language, on the other hand, allows humans to talk about any chosen time period, focus on any person--real or fictional, discuss theory, produce unique utterances that have never been used before but still have meaning, and use intonation and pitch to show emotion in speech.

What do you think?  Is the "whistled language" a communication system?  Or a language?

Inspiration for the Crazy Cool English Post

I just realized that in posting my spiel on language change in action, I forgot to mention the two sources of inspiration for the post.  The first is an online article titled "Twitter Abracadabras Weasley Whereabouts Clock into Reality."  I think the title speaks for itself as to why it would inspire my last post on how words can be used in different grammatical categories than expected; this was the first time I had ever seen abracadabra used as a verb, and the compound Weasley Whereabouts Clock is just icing on the cake for making that title linguistically interesting.

The second is is a short online article called "Verbification at Work" that talks about the new trend to "-ify" any noun (or even adjective) you so please: healthify, friendify, and greenify are some of the examples they share.  It goes one step further to then turn those words back into nouns: healthification, friendification...  Our language is amazing.

English: A Crazy Cool Language

English can do some pretty crazy/amazing/frustrating things with words, which is a distinguishing factor about English among the world's languages.  In History of the English Language this week, we discussed how words from one grammatical category can easily be "persuaded" into another grammatical category; for example, Pluto is a noun, yet it can be used as a verb ("to pluto" something means to demote it).  The comic strip above plays with the ability of gerund, a noun, to be used as a verb and even as an adjective: you can gerund any word; a gerunded word.

One area of our language that is taking off with this ability is computer-based language, especially the language used with social networks.  I've seen plays on Twitter in words like "twitterverse" and "twitizens."  Furthermore, twitter was originally a verb that, over time, became used as a noun, and now the trend is once again reversing.  When most people hear twitter, they think of a noun because of that social-networking website, yet we can now say someone twittered, meaning they sent a message via Twitter (so the noun has become denominalized to mean something completely different from the original verb).  Twitter is further changing the landscape of the English language through the limitation of only having 140 characters to express your thoughts, which encourages abbreviations, shortened terms, and sentences lacking verbs or nouns that would otherwise be warranted.  Take the "tweet" (another word that has been denominalized for Twitterers around the world) shown at the beginning of this paragraph for example (from one of my favorite "tweeple"): Poverty not been an entirely horrid experience.Challenging tho. No resentment of people with money but even more respect for those without.  The tweet consists of three sentences, none of which are complete; typically speaking, you'd expect something like Poverty's not been... It's been challenging... I don't have resentment...  Also, the word though now occurs in its shortened form, tho, in many of its appearances.

Another social engine that is associated with language play is Facebook:

You can facebook someone, you can friend someone, and you can even de-friend/un-friend someone (which one of those is preferred differs among speakers).

In English, we take things one step further and distinguish between different forms of the same word; for example, my students noticed that they use crept as the simple past tense of the verb creep when they are using it to mean they snuck (sneaked?) somewhere (I crept into the room), but they have to use creeped as the simple past when saying something like He really creeped me out.  Another example is that what used to be the normal plural of brother is now restricted in its use (brethren) while the new, regularized form that took over is used in all other instances (brothers).  Once you start thinking of the irregularities of our language and word usage, you can't help but find incongruities everywhere.  For native speakers, it can be liberating to know that you can easily morph existing words into new ones by simply using it in a new way; for anyone trying to learn to speak English, it can be quite a headache to figure out why you can pepper a wall with paper or paper a wall with pepper.  Okay, so maybe I reached a bit for those last two examples, but they make my point: English is a crazy cool language.  Or if you're in Boston, perhaps you think it is a wicked cool language?

Bespoke Blogging

I was having a conversation the other day--conversation is the best word I can think of to apply to twittering (tweeting?) back and forth with someone--when my twitter partner used a word I knew the meaning of from studying older versions of English but had never heard used in modern English: bespoke.

bespoke [past of BESPEAK]
adjective [attributive] chiefly British
(of goods, especially clothing) made to order: a bespoke suit.
(of a trader) making such goods: bespoke tailors.

My first thought when I saw it used in my twitter conversation was, "What a great word!"  My second thought was, "Why don't we use it more often?"  After looking in my handy Mac Dictionary, I saw the small, yet important, usage note: chiefly British.  That told me I live on the wrong side of the pond to have heard bespoke used in everyday conversation.  Once that mystery was solved, my next thought was, "How did that word come to mean 'made to order'?"

Originally, the word comes from the Old English bisprecan, which meant 'speak up' or 'speak out.'  The prefix in the word, be-, is still seen in modern forms like bejeweled, bewitched, unbeknownst (notice all forms are past participles).  It is a great little prefix that doesn't receive half the credit it's due; in fact, I never really paid much attention to it until my graduate adviser, Laura Michaelis-Cummings, lectured on its applications and situations where it can or cannot be used.  If you're interested in learning more about the be- prefix, check out the entry for it on the Affixes website; for a more technical discussion of the prefix, check out Petré and Cuyckens (2008).  Going back to the word as a whole, the word bisprecan underwent some semantic changes, later resulting in the meaning 'discuss' or 'decide on.'  It is the latter of those ('decide on') that led to the extension of the meaning to 'arrange' or 'order' (and, thus, to the modern usage).  Semantic change in action--how could that not make your Monday morning more exciting?

So, who is with me in saying that this needs to become an American term, too?  Anyone?