The recently established Fondation Chirac in collaboration with the Musée du quai Branly and Unesco is organising a one-day public event to be held on Monday 9th June in Paris called “SOROSORO pour que vivent les langues du monde!” (SOROSORO long live the languages of the world! ). Sorosoro in the Araki language of Vanuatu means “breath, word, language”. The event will highlight the current situation of language diversity and endangered languages and includes presentations by linguists from France, Gabon, Guatemala, UK and Vanuatu.
The programme begins at 3pm in the Claude Levi-Strauss Theatre at the Museum and includes the following presentations (my translations of the French original):
General News
FollowOzCLO – Inaugural Computational and Linguistics Olympiad
The Australian Computational and Linguistics Olympiad (OzCLO) is a linguistics competition aimed at high school students from years 9 to 12. The state rounds will be held at University of Sydney, and University of Melbourne on the afternoon of June 25th 2008, with the national round to be held (in each location) on August 6th … Read more
Endangered Languages on TV
A series of five documentaries on languages is scheduled to air on OBE (Original Black Entertainment) TV in the UK starting on 13th April 2008. OBE TV is a freeview 24 hour Channel on Sky Digital Channel 204 with a primary target audience from the African, Caribbean and other ethnic communities in the UK and Ireland, Europe, North Africa and beyond. OBE TV reaches over 7.8 million satellite subscribers in the UK and Ireland alone.
The documentary series is called World – Speaking in Tongues and the episodes are…..
2nd Sydney Papuanists’ Workshop
It’s been almost two years since the first Papuanists’ Workshop and now it’s time for another. The linguistics departments at Sydney University and in RSPAS at the ANU are organising the second Papuanists’ Workshop. It will be held on Saturday and Sunday 28-29 June 2008 at the University of Sydney, right before Lingfest gets started. … Read more
Update on Ngapartji Ngapartji – Public Forum on Indigenous languages
A theatre production by Ngapartji Ngapartji (who run the interesting online Pitjantjatjara course I posted about in 2006) is having a sell-out run at the Belvoir St Theatre in Sydney, with amazing reviews (links here) (e.g. The most important Australian work to inhabit our theatres for a long time. AussieTheatre.com).
(Information: Belvoir St Theatre on (02) 9699 3444 or www.belvoir.com.au | www.sydneyfestival.org.au)
[Update 4/2/08 – this has led to more publicity for the plight of Indigenous languages, e.g. here on the ABC]
They are also having a public forum on Australian Indigenous languages Can you say ‘how do you do’ at Uluru? together with Big hART.
WHEN: 6-7pm, Wednesday January 30th 2008
WHERE: Belvoir Street Theatre. Belvoir St, Surry Hills, Sydney
HOSTED BY: Prof. Larissa Behrendt – Research Director, Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning, UTS
Language Revitalisation and Maintenance Workshop 9 February 2008
The Endangered Languages Academic Programme at SOAS is holding a Workshop: Issues in Language Revitalisation and Maintenance Saturday 9 February, 2008 Convenors: Peter K. Austin, Julia Sallabank The theme of this workshop is issues in language revitalisation and maintenance. The goal of the workshop is to highlight and discuss theoretical and practical issues in revitalising … Read more
I speak English, and I can prove it
One of my prized possessions after having lived in the UK for five years now is a “Pass Notification Letter” which I received on 30th October 2007 when I sat for the Life in the UK Test administered by the Border and Immigration Service of the Home Office. The letter states:
Following your test today in knowledge of life in the United Kingdom this is to certify that you have reached the level required for the purposes of obtaining indefinite leave to remain – Your success in this test also demonstrates that your level of competence in English meets the required standard for naturalisation or indefinite leave to remain. No further proof of this is needed.
I had to sit the test because my work permit ended on 10th November and I wanted to apply for “indefinite leave to remain”, ie. permanent residence (rather than apply for a further 5 year work permit extension). Since April this year everyone applying to stay in the UK or become a naturalised citizen has to sit and pass the test, or else take a certified ESOL course. The test is administered by computer and has 24 questions that must be answered within 45 minutes – a pass of at least 75% is required. I bought a Life in the UK Test Study Guide (which says on the cover it is “the essential study guide for British citizenship & settlement tests, over 100,000 copies sold”) for £7.99 and boned up on the five chapters (A Changing Society, UK Today: A Profile, How the United Kingdom is Governed, Everyday Needs, Employment) and took the 10 sample tests in the back. Feeling apprehensive but somewhat prepared I paid my £34 fee and joined 25 other hopeful applicants in the basement of my local registered test centre where we were shouted at by a Test Authoriser that we were “under examination conditions – if anyone looks at another person’s computer screen they will be removed from the test room, reported immediately to the Home Office for cheating which is sufficient grounds for deportation”. Thanks, just what we all needed. Anyway, I managed to answer enough questions correctly and passed.
So what does the test actually test?
Inuit language at the crossroads
The Canadian territory of Nunavut, created in 1999, has a population of 26,665, of whom 85% claim Inuit identity (2001 Census data). Of these approximately 85% claim to speak the Inuit language at home. (ibid. “Inuit Language” subsumes two major dialect groupings: Inuinnaqtun in the west and Inuktitut in the East.) With their huge political majority and their geographical isolation, the Inuit ought to have no trouble maintaining their language, but the challenges they face demonstrate that minority language maintenance is a difficult process, even when the odds appear to be extremely favourable.
The government of Nunavut has recently introduced two language-related bills, which have now progressed to second reading in the legislative assembly. The first, Bill 6, is an official languages act which establishes Inuit Language, French and English as official languages of the territory. The second, Bill 7, is an Innuit language protection act that seeks to promote the maintenance of the Inuit Language.
Prof. Ian Martin, language policy consultant to the Nunavut government and to the Inuit organization, NTI (Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated), presented his assessment of the stituation in a talk at Glendon College of York University this past week.
Spotted on a bus in İstanbul
As I was waiting for the tram the other day in İstanbul I spotted an ad for Sony digital cameras on the side of a bus. The text of the ad ran:
Herkesin bir Sony Cybershot’ı var.
This could be glossed as:
Herkes-in
Everyone-3p.possessorbir
oneSony Cybershot-ı
Sony Cybershot-3p.possessedvar
exist
The sentence can be translated idiomatically into English as ‘Everyone has a Sony Cybershot.’ The term ‘Sony Cybershot’, a trademark used to identify a particular model of Sony camera, has clearly been coined in English, from ‘cyber-‘, a prefix normally used to describe something that relates to computers or other modern digital technology (and which sounds really cool), plus ‘shot’, meaning a photograph. This trademark could be pronounced in several different ways, depending on which variety of English it is said in. But the text of the original Turkish ad provides a hint as to what pronunciation the advertisers intended.
Postdoctoral fellowships – University of Sydney 2007 for 2008
If you have an outstanding track record of publications, and you got your PhD between 1 January 2002 and 31 December 2006, and you’d like to work in the Department of Linguistics, University of Sydney, or PARADISEC, then, consider applying for a University of Sydney postdoctoral fellowship. They’re open to all disciplines, so they’re highly competitive. But on top of your salary they give you a once-off research support grant of $25,000, which is pretty useful for doing fieldwork.
If you want to work on endangered languages, especially in the Australia-Pacific area, then e-mail me (jhs AT mail.usyd.edu.au) for help with an application, and copy it to the chair of department, Professor James Martin (jmartin AT mail.usyd.edu.au). If you want to work on music or digital archiving, then e-mail Linda Barwick (lbarwick AT usyd.edu.au). Deadline to get to us: 9 August.