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Suggested by
QuizFortune
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A quick fun quiz on languages from around the world. If you consider yourself a bit of linguist, this quiz will be 'nada' problem for you!
An infographic of the etymology and cultural origins of the names that made the United States of America.
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Scooped by
Seth Dixon
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Africa may have achieved independence, but the old colonial ties are still important as France’s decision to send troops to Mali to fight Islamist extremists shows.
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Scooped by
Seth Dixon
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"Ogooglebar. That's Swedish, and means "something you can't find with the use of a search engine." At least, that's what the Language Council of Sweden wanted Ogooglebar to mean--until Google stepped in, fearing that the word had negative connotations for the firm."
The Ultimate Language Resource on the Web.
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Suggested by
Tara Cohen
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Readers Nick and Riela have both written to ask how and when English colonists in America lost their British accents and how American accents came
France declares war on the English language. Erin Burnett reports....
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Scooped by
Seth Dixon
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It is Italy's richest province, and has been part of the country for almost 100 years - but some in South Tyrol just do not feel fully Italian.
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Scooped by
Seth Dixon
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This map is a fantastic geovisualization that maps the spatial patterns of languages used on the social media platform Twitter. This map was in part inspired by a Twitter map of Europe. While most cities would be expected to be linguistically homogenous, but London's cosmopolitan nature and large pockets of immigrants influence the distribution greatly. Tags: social media, language, neighborhood, visualization, cartography.
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Scooped by
Seth Dixon
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This is a most decidedly dated reference for pop culture, but a great movie for making explicit the idea that the way we speak is connected to where we've lived (also a good clip to show class differences as well as gender norms). The clip highlights many principles and patterns for understanding the geography of languages.
Tags: Language, class, gender, culture, historical, London, unit 3 culture and place.
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Scooped by
Seth Dixon
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Meet the "hairy Ainu" of Japan, Taiwan's Saaroa, the Kusunda of Nepal, the last Manchus and the Jarawa of India's Andaman Islands. The rapid spread of Mandarin, English, Spanish, Hindi-Urdu and Arabic as the 5 largest languages (most native speakers) is connected to the spread of globalization and the cultural aspects of that phenomenon. These 5 declining languages represent the flip side of those cultural patterns.
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Scooped by
Seth Dixon
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The Endangered Languages Project is a website for people to find and share the most up-to-date and comprehensive information about the over 3,000 endangered ... This short video is a great primer for understanding the importance of linguistic diversity. Why the loss of linguistic diversity (a global phenomenon) related to other themes on geography, such as political and economic autonomy for minority groups? Why are so many languages vanishing today? What forces are creating these emerging cultural patterns? For more on the project, see: http://www.endangeredlanguages.com/
"It may seem surprising, but in this age where geographic mobility and instant communication have increased our exposure to people outside of our neighborhoods or towns, American regional dialects are pulling further apart from each other, rather than moving closer together. And renowned linguist William Labov thinks there’s a connection between political and linguistic segregation. "Labov suggests that it’s these deep-seated political disagreements that create an invisible borderline barring the encroachment of Northern Cities Vowels. When he looked at the relationship between voting patterns by county over the last three Presidential elections and the degree to which speakers in these counties shifted their vowels, he found a tight correlation between the two. And the states that have participated in the vowel shift have also tended to resist implementing the death penalty. "Social identities are complex, and can be defined along a number of different dimensions like class, race, or ethnicity. Not everyone feels that politics are a part of their core identity. But I suspect that political ideology may become an anchor for accents to the extent that large social groups collectively identify themselves by their political beliefs. According to Bill Bishop, author of The Big Sort, this is happening more and more as Americans voluntarily cluster themselves into homogenous, politically like-minded communities."
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Scooped by
Seth Dixon
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There are 8 major English dialect areas in North America, presented on the map. These are shown in blue, each with its number, on the map and in the Dialect Description Chart below, and are also outlined with blue lines on the map. The many subdialects are shown in red on the map and in the chart, and are outlined with red lines on the map. All of these are listed in the margins of the map as well.
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Scooped by
Seth Dixon
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The Caucasus region, dominated by the imposing Great Caucasus mountain range and stretching between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, has long been known as one of the world’s ethnically and linguistically most diverse areas.
"What we know as the English Language today has evolved over thousands of years, influenced by migrating tribes, conquering armies and peaceful trade. Do you know the origins of the language you speak? Have a look at this detailed infographic from Brighton School of Business and Management."
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Scooped by
Seth Dixon
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Scooped by
Seth Dixon
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Failure by Belgium's political parties to form a government since elections in June have prompted fears of a split in the tiny European country. Al Jazeera's...
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Scooped by
Seth Dixon
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Watch the video Boontling: A Lost American Language on Yahoo! Screen
The terms cooks enter into search engines can provide clues as to what dishes are being cooked around the nation. Some fascinating (if not entirely scientific) maps that show the most common searches on www.allrecipes.com and regional differences in food preferences. More importantly, it also is an interesting glimpse into the geography of language. Some similar dishes are called by more regional names (e.g.-"Stuffing" in the Northeast and West, "Dressing" in the Midwest and South). This set of maps also reinforces the concepts of regions. This is a fun way to teach some actual content and enjoy the holiday.
Tags: language, food, diffusion, regions, seasonal.
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Scooped by
Seth Dixon
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Although English is America’s common tongue, immigrants’ efforts to learn it present challenges to institutions and individuals alike. These graphics compare regions, schools, and communities where newcomers have settled to learn and integrate.
The interactive map feature of language and the accompanying spatial patterns reveal much about the major migrational patterns in the United States.
Tags: Migration, USA, statistics, language, immigration, unit 2 population.
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Scooped by
Seth Dixon
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One of the great things about Twitter is that it’s a global conversation anyone can join anytime. Eavesdropping on the world, what what! While many educators have been using http://popvssoda.com/ to show the linguistic regions in the United States, this is a similar map, with the added social media component. To map out these regions, the cartographer used the word choice on geo-tagged tweets as the data source. For another twitter, map, the following link shows which regions are most actively engaged on Twitter: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/06/top-countries-on-twitter_n_1653915.html What do these regions show us? What types of regions are these?
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Scooped by
Seth Dixon
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Issues in Focus East Sea... Does it matter if I call the sea to the east of the Korean Peninsula the "East Sea" and if you call the body of water the west of Japan the "Sea of Japan?" Absolutely. When dealing with matters of diplomacy, a name reflects how a country is viewed. For many years the Sea of Japan has been the defacto name internationally and South Korean officials have lobbied (quite successfully) to bolster the legitimacy of the name within the media, publishers and cartographers. What other places have multiple names? What are the political overtones to the name distinctions? To watch a 10-minute video on the history of the name, see: http://bit.ly/Lu5puJ
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Scooped by
Seth Dixon
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Like a detective at a crime scene, chief language inspector Antons Kursitis scans the lobby of a hotel in downtown Riga. He spots a brochure that lists hotel services in Russian only, a flagrant violation of Latvia's language laws. "Protecting the Latvian language — that is, safeguarding its supremacy over Russian — has been a priority here since the Soviet occupation ended two decades ago. Those efforts face their biggest test yet on Saturday, in a referendum on whether to make Russian the country's second official language." What historical, political and demographic factors shape this cultural issue of language? Why is language often seen as so crucial to cultural identity? The Latvian voters have spoken: in a massive voter turn-out, they struck down the referendum that sought to make Russian an official language. "Latvia is the only place throughout the world where Latvian is spoken, so we have to protect it," said Martins Dzerve, 37, in Riga, Latvia's capital. "But Russian is everywhere." For more on the vote, see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17083397
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