I tell the (admittedly obscure) tale I heard told …
Palauan is a Malayo-Polynesian language spoken in, unsurprisingly, Palau, which is also the home of the latest incarnation of Survivor, a show I tend not to watch.
From one of the more successful language revival programs:
“E heluhelu kakou,” Nako`olani Warrington tells her third graders — let’s read together.
But there’s no need to translate at Ke Kula Kaipuni o Anuenue, a public immersion school where all instruction for the 350 students is in the Hawaiian language.
The school represents a turnaround for the native language, which appeared to be fading away 20 years ago. A 1983 survey estimated that only 1,500 people remained in Hawaii who could speak it, most of them elderly.
Today there are probably 6,000 to 8,000 Hawaiian language speakers throughout the state, most of them under 30, said Kalena Silva, professor of Hawaiian studies at the University of Hawaii-Hilo.
I bought two bookcases this weekend, as the piles of unshelvable books were getting out of hand. These are probably the last two, as I’ve now run out of room to put bookcases. I guess I’ll have to get a bigger house.
In any case, I use Readerware to catalog my books. It’s very convenient for new books, as it can read barcodes and automatically download their information from online sites such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and the Library of Congress. I’ve cataloged >90% of my books, a process which has been going on for some time now. It beats buying books in triplicate.
Some of the search queries that brought people to this site:
As a bonus, here is another Nepali dictionary.
Maori Television, that is, celebrating its first anniversary:
Maori households such as Armstrong’s won’t be the only ones on Monday celebrating the first anniversary of the Maori Television Service. Teacher Karen Leuschke never misses an episode of Korero Mai, the nightly language and cultural instruction programme, with its built-in soap, Akina.
“It’s the first soap I’ve ever watched,” says Leuschke, the year 12 dean at St Cuthbert’s College, who has “not an ounce” of Maori blood.
“People know never to ring between 7 and 7.30. I organise my evenings around it. It’s got charm, it’s got integrity and it’s lots of fun.”
Akina has garnered the sort of viewer loyalty more commonly associated with Coronation Street or Shortland St: its producers flooded with mail when a character is written out, fans writing with condolences or to wish characters luck.
The programme uses repeated phrases, with timely interventions by presenter Piripi Taylor, to teach te reo. Episodes are repeated for three days with a revision programme on Sundays.
Here is another account - seems like the channel has had its share of controversy.
As to the continuing unrest in Kyrgyzstan, some people don’t know when to give up.
I was somewhat surprised to find out that IMDb actually lists a movie (sounds like a documentary) with Yapese dialogue - How Did You Know We’d Like TV? (1980). I keep a little weather button for Yap Island on my browser’s home page so I can see how much warmer it is there than here in New York.
Update: Just a few phrases in Yapese (also for some other Pacific languages).
In light of everything going on in Kyrgyzstan, I thought I would present some Kyrgyz (or Kirghiz) links:
More links to follow …
Broliai seserys! Imkit mane ir skaitykit …
Some info about Cherokee language revival through immersion classes (note that the Cherokee word for rabbit makes an appearance):
The program started in fall 2003 with kindergarten and classes for 3-year-olds. This year the program expanded to include first grade.
“We do what other classes do but it’s all in Cherokee,” says Anna Christie who teaches a combined kindergarten and first-grade class at the school. Ms. Christie talks to them in Cherokee, calling the children by their Indian names. At naptime, she tells Matthew Keener or “Yo-na” (Bear) not to put his mat too close to Lane Smith “A-wi” (Deer).
Cherokee songs play softly in the room. A Cherokee calendar hangs on the wall. Students practice writing words and numbers in Cherokee. First grader Casandra Copeland, “Ji-s-du” (Rabbit), counts aloud in Cherokee.
It’s called an immersion class because the children speak nothing but Cherokee. The Cherokee Nation in nearby Tahlequah, Oklahoma creates the curriculum.
I watched a bit of a really ridiculous movie Sunday night, and the protagonists attacking in formation (I always root for the fish) reminded me of the controversy surrounding the etymology of the word shark. The OED, noting the obscurity of its origin, suggests that:
The word seems to have been introduced by the sailors of Captain (afterwards Sir John) Hawkins’s expedition, who brought home a specimen which was exhibited in London in 1569. The source from which they obtained the word has not been ascertained. Cf. Ger. dial. (Austrian) schirk sturgeon …
The conjecture of Skeat that the name of the fish is derived from SHARK v.1 is untenable; the earliest example of the vb. is c 1596, and the passage alludes to the fish.
I recall having read that the word actually derived from a Mayan word for the fish, xoc - I’m not sure where the suggestion was (in A Forest of Kings, by Linda Schele and David Freidel?). I always thought it odd that the loan would occur so late for a fish that English mariners must have encountered at some point.
Some links about Seneca, a northern Iroquoian language with very few speakers:
Irish language flourishes at Notre Dame:
In Ireland, the Irish language is viewed by some affluent citizens as a peasant language that should be allowed to fade into oblivion.
But here in the land of the Fighting Irish, where students pay nearly $40,000 a year to attend the University of Notre Dame, the little-used language is enjoying a renaissance.
“There are a lot of kids here who are the grandchildren of the very successful and the very rich, and their grandparents were taught to forget about their Irish past,” said Eamonn O Ciardha, program director at Notre Dame’s Keough Institute for Irish Studies. “Now these kids are back and they want to know about their language, they want to know about their history, they want to know about their culture.”
Things seem to be less encouraging in the home country:
This morning’s reports said the document highlighted the fact that many pupils haven’t even attained basic fluency in Irish despite being taught the language for 13 years.
Maybe this madra can help.
A very large (2000+) collection of covers from Stephen King’s works. A number of foreign editions are included.
The French text of the play titled after my namesake, written by Jean Racine. It premiered January 13, 1673 in Paris.
I don’t recall how I wound up at this Edgar Rice Burroughs Bibliography site, but here are a few links relating to his works:
Since I’m linking to bibliographic references, here is a bibliography for Philip K. Dick, about whom I had posted before.
Continuing this post on Comanche resources:
The Comanche Language and Cultural Preservation Committee publishes a periodic newsletter, some of which is in Comanche. Can you guess what song this is?
American Rhetoric: The Power of Oratory in the United States - always did like Howard Beale’s speech in Network