Who doesn't speak English in the US?

I've been waiting for early news from the US Census on language. And here's some. It's not actually the current Census, of course, but the American Community Survey. (The little article in the link is mostly valuable for the link to the Census report.)

There's plenty of interesting information in the report (check out Appendix A for the history of language questions on earlier censuses), but note for the moment that it gives pretty detailed information on people who don't speak English very well.

One of the most bizarre memes out there among the anti-immigration folks is that Spanish is overrunning English — that English is endangered in parts of this country. If you have heard such stuff, just consider the number of people who report knowing English 'not well' or 'not at all'. Out of 280 million people, 4.5 million report not speaking English at all. (Click on the graphic to see a good version of it.)

Noah's Ark found, yeah sure

Seen the latest round of 'hey, we found Noah's Ark' stuff in the news? If not, click here.

The scholars consulted on the article sound about like historical linguists when asked about Proto-World: Trying to be patient, but having to work at it.

So, language fans, next time you're asked about the latest claimed discovery of the Mother Tongue, just quote the Cornell archaeologist Peter Ian Kuniholm: the reported find is a "crock."

Image from here.

Althouse

I bet we don't share many readers, but if people read Althouse, the local free weekly, the Isthmus, just did a cover story on Madison's most famous blogger here. Seems like a pretty fair profile to me.

You had me at 'recursiveness': Überlinkfest

A Walk in the WoRds (their spelling) is doing this:

Because language is recursive, I thought it would be fun to post links to linkfests from some of my favorite linguistics blogs.

I always like the linkfests, starting I think with Fritinancy's. So here's a non-festive link, I guess!

That's *Mister* Verb to all of you: Titles

The kids these days. See this piece on titles, starting with discussion with leading sociolinguist Jack Chambers from the Toronto Star, called

Don’t call me Mister, unless you really want to
In our increasingly casual world, social titles spell confusion

Definitely call me Mister.* Chambers is surely right that most of society has become less concerned with titles.

The article quotes somebody as saying that he

calls men “Mr.,” but says the women present “a real quagmire.” There are just too many options.

Well, I'm not sure. On Ms., see Janet Fuller's 2005 article on The Uses and Meanings of the Female Title "Ms.", in American Speech 80(2): 180-206. Here's the abstract:

This article examines the use of the female title Ms. by students, faculty,and staff at a Midwestern university in the United States using data generated with the written survey used by Donna Lillian (1993) in a similar study in Canada. Findings show that faculty are fairly consistent in their understanding of Ms. as a neutral title to be used for all women and are more likely to choose this title than students and staff. Student responses show a wide range of meanings for Ms., with the meanings `young' and `single' being the most common. Female students were far less likely to select Ms. than male students, showing a gender gap in the student data that is not seen in the staff and faculty responses. These data show multiple meanings and patterns of female title use in the United States today, with little evidence pointing toward a decrease in this variation.

So, even this relatively new title seems pretty stable.

*Hey, it's my name.

20-0?!?!?!?

I'm glad baseball season is here. I was a little down that the Brew Crew got off to a kind of slow start but things didn't really look bad watching them ... pitching wasn't quite working but they've got better talent this year, for example. I was too busy to check the day game score against Pittsburgh today and just saw what had to be a typo:

Brewers 20, Pirates 0.

That is not a typo but a blow out. Details here.

at

@ Mr. Verb,

So there seems to be this new use of the @-sign in Facebook World, where if you want to address a response to someone's comment you prefix their name with "@". Kind of like "I'm directing this comment at so-and-so"? Any idea where this comes from?

Curiously,

Monica

p.s. I searched on Language Log, since they have always already discussed every topic, but when I searched for "@" my computer's head exploded.

'to scrap', 'a scrap'

I’m only vaguely aware that scrapbook keeping has become a massive hobby, but had noticed that it had been verbed, 'to scrapbook'. This morning, I heard a shorter form, as a noun:

They had an all-day scrap.

Somebody else (who didn’t know the speaker) commented on that and the speaker gave a long explanation, including these points:

Yeah, we use it so much we shorten it, 'to scrap'. Pretty soon, it’s going to be just “scr” [skər] I guess. And when we say it, we don’t mean 'to get into a fight'.

Pretty good on-the-fly analysis from what I'm willing to bet was a non-linguist.

In fact, I had come into earshot just in time to hear only “they had an all-day scrap”, and they only way I could interpret that is as being about a fight. (The noun scrap is ambiguous, but in the sense of ‘remnant’ you wouldn’t normally have an all-day one, of course.

For some reason, as a person who doesn’t have any connection to morphology, I’m hearing constant cases where ‘blocking’ doesn’t seem to be working. Go figure.

Image from here.

My story: Mr. Verb

People keep asking who I am, and what I look like. OK, here's the story. And here's my pic:


When we started this blog, none of us, I think, had any idea that parts of speech are so often personified by teachers.

Tattúínárdœla saga: Outgeek THIS

Recently, I posted something on graffiti at the University of Chicago in a variety of often-obscure languages (here), suggesting that our Wisconsin students needed to fly the geek flag here. In response to the post, Janet S. commented:

UChicago outgeeks all rivals. Wisconsin is not even on UChicago's radar of geekery.

On being asked about the topic, various colleagues and students report a range of obscure graffiti around campus. (Our contributor Joe got nervous that when he called attention to that post that some students might now be inspired to produce new graffiti — probably in Gothic, Runic and Old High German, knowing what he's teaching these days. Not the intent, obviously.)

Just as I was starting to worry that Janet S. might be closer to right than I'm able to concede, people told me about this, which is aptly captured by the blog's title and subtitle:

Tattúínárdœla saga
Yes, this is Star Wars in Old Norse.

A grad student from Wisconsin — hear me now, believe me later — is translating Star Wars into saga form and writing it in Old Norse, even providing an English translation. Reports are that the Old Norse is very good.

I can only stare in slack-jawed wonder at this stunning exercise. Thank you, Jackson Crawford, thank you for rescuing Wisconsin's geek cred. Your work clearly pushes the geekvelope, redlines the geekometer and opens whole new vistas in geekmacation. Above all, it's thrown down a Star Wars gauntlet to other schools and other language heads. And, yes, the image is from an ad and you can buy them, here. (And to the missus, my birthday is coming up.)

And here's hoping that things in present-day Iceland settle down quickly. For the pressing language angle on the volcanic eruption, see this on the Log.

Nakation

This morning I heard on the radio a reference to "clothing optional vacations", which apparently extend to clothing-optional travel (or maybe I misunderstood!?!?). This is called, among the relevant population, a [ne:kenʃən], which is spelled nacation or nakation. This is not new (see here), just new to me.

Staycation is a now very established blend and it's attested since at least 2003 (see wikipedia) and has spawned a day similar blends, like daycation. Interestingly, one variant is, according to Wikipedia:

The alternate naycation (nay + "vacation") has been used to signify total abstention from travel.

I guess if the nekkid holiday version has encroached on this territory, that word failed, eh?

More importantly, staycation was on Lake Superior State's list of banned words last year (see again wikipedia). Man, it feels good to use those!

Literally and figuratively

XKCD may have your nightmare here:



(It's not MY nightmare ... .)

Broadening our set of sociolinguistic variables

I had honestly never considered this, but there's a point in it:

Sometimes it's not so much what you say, but how you say it. Also, whether you're naked, high on methamphetamines, and standing in an abandoned parking lot at the time.

Yup, The Onion, horoscope for PISCES in the latest issue.

Can ‘Neuro Lit Crit’ Save the Humanities?

That's the question in this article.

I got your answer, I think: No, probably not.

Here's hoping that the humanities are saved. Or save themselves, or however you wanna put it. But it ain't gonna come from some slipshod 'next big thing'.

Everett talk update

The Linguistics Club at Marquette University is pleased to present a free public lecture “Cognitive Fire: Language as Cultural Tool” by linguist, anthropologist, and cognitive scientist, Dr. Daniel L. Everett, Tuesday April 13, 5:30 PM, in the auditorium of the Todd Wehr Chemistry building (room 100) on the campus of Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Please extend this invitation to your colleagues and students, and please post the accompanying flyer with information about the event.

Dr. Everett draws upon his decades of linguistic fieldwork in Amazonia among the Pirahã people to reach some startling conclusions about the nature of the evolution of human language and the nature of human cognition as it relates to language structure and use. Everett’s work has generated intense discussion among linguists and anthropologists.

Everett is the author of several books including the critically-acclaimed Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle, which was named an “Editor’s Choice” by the London Sunday Times and has already been issued in translation in German, French, and Korean among other languages. He has a forthcoming book entitled: Cognitive Fire: Language as a Cultural Tool.

His articles have appeared in the leading academic journals Language, Current Anthropology, and Cognition. Interviews with Everett and features on his work have appeared in The New Yorker, Discover Magazine (top 100 science stories of the year in 2009), GEO Magazine, The Chicago Tribune, and on the BBC, NPR, and CBC.
For more information see http://mulinguistics.tk/, or contact bradley.rentz@marquette.edu.

Moribund blogs ... A question

I normally deal with loss straightforwardly enough — it's ugly but it's real and you gotta face it. But I'm finding it hard to deal with blog loss. I've been a fan of PolyglotConspiracy since I first saw the name, surely, and now that fine blog, which had been inactive, is officially "Essentially discontinued". That's a blow. Good old Wishydig at least has promised to get back in the game more actively (here), but even he had to say "I am still here, and this link is not defunct." A couple of other (non-lingua-)blogs on my blogroll are likewise at the very least on long-term vacation, MIA or maybe dead.


So my question: Do I leave them, as reminders of fine old blogs that I really liked? Or is it bad enough to have moribund links that the unhappy housecleaning is required? Seriously, I'd appreciate advice.

And yeah, I know the pic doesn't quite fit the post, but I'm kind of a sucker for PunditKitchen.com.

Daniel Everett in the (Wisconsin) news

Daniel Everett is coming to Wisconsin. Just got passed this announcement:

On April 13, 2010, the Marquette Linguistics Club will be hosting Dr. Dan Everett for a talk at 5:30pm in Todd Wehr Chemistry 100. The event will be free, open to the public and Dr Everett will be discussing (among other things) his book Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle.

I imagine a couple of carloads will head over from Madison for that.

But there's more. Everett also gets a big write up in the April edition of Freethought Today, publication of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, a piece called "The Pirahã: People who define happiness without God." The April issue isn't on-line yet, but this is basically his talk from their annual convention held last November. Long story short: You can add to the very long list of things Everett says the Pirahã do not have, namely any belief in the supernatural.