Tag: language

Current Event Connection, Geography In the News

Deciphering Teenage Grunts. DUH.

SCIENCE Linguists Try to Decipher Teenage Grunts Clearly, linguistics exists just so we can give a technical description of those hard-to-spell sounds that erupt from callow youths. yeeah. The eye-rolls are vital. Discussion Ideas: Alveolar glides, affricates, glottal stops. Do students think linguists invented these terms to better understand teenage speech patterns? Unlikely. These are words or descriptions that apply to very specific sounds made … Continue reading Deciphering Teenage Grunts. DUH.

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Current Event Connection, Geography In the News

Linguists Identify 15,000-Year-Old Words

SCIENCE Linguists Identify 15,000-Year-Old Words Researchers have come up with a list of about two dozen words that have survived, fundamentally unchanged, for 150 centuries throughout Europe and Asia. Discussion Ideas: The Washington Post article explains how research into “proto-Eurasiatic” language focused on comparing words in different language families. Language families are not the same as languages. A language family is group of languages with … Continue reading Linguists Identify 15,000-Year-Old Words

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Current Event Connection, Geography In the News

Jump Mama: National Poetry Month

ARTS April is National Poetry Month, a time of year when “schools, publishers, libraries, booksellers, and poets throughout the United States band together to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture.” Listen to Kurtis Lamkin read his short poem “jump mama,” and follow along with the text. Lamkin is an American poet working in the style of ancient West African griots. A griot (GREE-oh) … Continue reading Jump Mama: National Poetry Month

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Wednesday Word of the Week: language

language (LAYNG-gwihj) noun. set of sounds, gestures, or symbols that allows people to communicate (National Geographic Education)

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As a “typical American”, I am uni-lingual.  Sometimes, I can use my Latin to feebly follow
very slow, simple conversations in the romance languages, but I say that
largely to make myself feel better. 
Truthfully, I can only speak in one tongue (if I am expected to be
understood).  Outside of the United
States, this is unusual.  Most of the
world speaks two or more languages; in fact, every European I’ve met has been
fluent in at least three. 


languagescultpture

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A sculpture sits in front of the University of Houston
library and lights up the building with different words from poems, novels and
prose from many languages. Photo courtesy of Melanie
Huff, MyShot, 4/10/2012.

Continue reading “Wednesday Word of the Week: language”

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