Stiod Sharing: Talking Dictionary for Endangered Languages

Logo for Wikipedia:WikiProject Endangered languages (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I read gladly of this idea for saving memory and existence of small communities languages with a talking dictionary. That is of great importance because of preservation of endangered languages and moreover to saving their own sounds. So far we had the creation of grammars and some written dictionaries that does not help as much to preserve the language itself. Who of us can recall the real Latin? Every group has its own way of pronunciation of this now only written language   as a matter of fact.

It was only the good and old Latin who died. There have been said that every two weeks one language dies around the world. But how is in important to notice.

A language does not die alone. The culture it is related to dies as well, the sense of community and the pride for the ethnicity it represents dies as well. A language is the mark of a motherland. Why do languages die, is a long long question to be debated, but I believe among other many reasons that people’s unwillingness to declare and/or believe that there are different ethnic groups, different branches of culture into a same country is killing many languages – and many cultures.

Some language thinkers believe that things exist because they are named. One passage that describes it can be found in  Through the Looking Glass (Chap. 3) by L. Carroll. Alice comes to the wood where things have no name. There she cannot distinguish anything, nor herself as a human being or the so. Isn’t our not giving name to things making them un-existing so to say?

Similarly if small communities stop naming the things with their own names, or even naming themselves they will slowly stop existing. As there is never absolute synonyms there is not absolute translation to things, as the way I perceive one thing is sure other then you, dear reader do.

Well much of a reflection by now it is only to give my perception of the necessity of helping these small languages to keep on existing and as a consequence keep the memory and pride of their using communities.

Related articles

• 55 endangered State languages to be documented (assamtribune.com)
• Video news: Linguist K. David Harrison launches talking dictionaries for endangered languages (manenomatamu.wordpress.com)
• Cyber zoo to preserve endangered languages (smh.com.au)
• Internet may save endangered languages (telegraph.co.uk)
• Native Americans Fight to Save Endangered Languages (livescience.com)
• Dying languages to be preserved in talking dictionaries (independent.co.uk)
• Poliglot (local) radio (stupidideasoftheday.wordpress.com)
• Reinfeldt har rätt – men det räcker inte. (svd.se)

Stiod Opinion: Gender Inflection for saving women equality

Presidenta Dilma (credit: Wikipedia)

I’d like to thank a linguist friend for the insight. Portuguese is a gender inflected language. That means if you say “beautiful woman” in Portuguese, you have to mark “beautiful” such a way it tells you it is feminine. Check: “Bonito” (masculine beautiful) and “Bonita” (feminine beautiful) etc.

Now Brazilian President (the Brazilians speak Portuguese) shall to inflect the word President (presidente and presidenta) etc. Now there is a law for that. It does not exactly control the spoken language, but at least the written ones, diplomas, certificates etc. So, if you are a master it will be different if you are man or woman (mestre, mestra), if you are Chemist (químico, química) etc. It was not so in many professions that were common for both genders.

It represents a step forward if you think of the position of women in the work market etc., but it is in fact a step backward: just think of the freedom of sexuality/ gender. Sad. Moreover, you cannot rule a language, or dictate about a field you are not expert in.

To the presidenta’s and other politicians’ trying to be “politically correct”, I give her some tips:

• Allow women having menstrual leave two or three days a month at work and school;
• Demand women having long hair (and forbid that from men), so to say their femininity;
• Free makeup program: It is not fair women being ugly and less feminine – check her look before and after her journey to the presidency.
• Epilation in the state health clinics (different kinds, for respecting the woman’s personality)

I do like Dilma Rousseff in a bunch of aspects, and admire her as politicia. But let’s be realistic, she`s not linguist and did she consult any of them, tell me so I satirize her/him instead,

Related articles

• ‘Gender-Queer’ at QM: the Complexities of Gender (qmequality.wordpress.com)
• Gender Differences in Emotional Health (everydayhealth.com)
• ‘Social Construction of Gender’ by Agrawal (introtosociology.wordpress.com)
• Gender and Health Inequality (offoxesandhedgehogs.wordpress.com)
• What American Women Do For Work (wnyc.org)
• Masculinities in the Performative (queeristan.org)

Poliglot (local) radio

Avenida Paulista . SP, Brazil (credit: Wikipedia)

How many foreigners are there in your area?

Perhaps this stiod occurred me because I live in a metropolis, and an afternoon walk through Avenida Paulista allows me to hear lots of other languages around. Why not give this groups the chance to listen to their mother tongue once or twice a day? That is also a way of sharing their culture and decentralizing the music world from EMI, (MTV) EMA, Grammy nominees circles.

Just a listen to the contesters to Eurovision (and the winners some years back) you can see how nice it can be listening songs from other countries, in other languages! Now I have many facebook friends from other countries, and just checking their posts about music reveals great rhythms, nice melodies and so on (Ok I don’t have idea what they are singing about, but it is pleasant).

So, you give foreigners the chance to show their culture, have a news digest in their own language (nice to listen when in traffic, etc.) and to locals to expand their horizon and culture range.

The Radio frequency would be shared by different countries representatives. I believe in some subsidy would help to get kicked off, but latter just selling the schedule and etc. just as a standard radio works.

Related articles

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• Musings – Sharing the passion (joyeurovision.com)
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• TED on the Radio (freetech4teachers.com)
• Azerbaijan: Journalist Viciously Attacked By Police (eurasiareview.com)