Friday Language Rant

Why do the languages of the world have to have such complicated sounds? In English we have the famous "th" sound that children and ESL-ers alike have difficulty pronouncing. In Spanish I struggle daily with the "rr" sound. Oh, it's easy, everyone tells me. Just pretend you are riding a motorcycle and make the sound with your tongue "rrRRrrRRrrRRrr". No, not that easy. Really. I also have problems with the "l". I think sometimes I wasn't to roll my l's. I don't know why. It's something that my tongue does with my brain telling it. In German, I also work hard to say the r's because they are tapped, not rolled, or barely pronounced like English. And the ö? Wtf is that? It sounds like someone hit you in the stomach "öh!"

Maybe, what I'm getting at is the basis for the accents we carry in a particular language. Our pronunciation affects everything. It affects how people understand us, and how well we understand others.

Would it be easier if there was a language that consisted of, say the easiest sounds ever? We could do away with the rr's, the ö's and the th's of the world and exist in more pronounceable world. Obviously, I'm dreaming, and venting a little.

What do you think? What are the hardest sounds for you to say in a given language?

Where Does Dialect Stop and Grammar Begin?

Examining dialect and grammar in emails.

Here's the scenario. You work with someone who is from the south, where the spoken dialect includes words such as ya'll and ain't. You are trying to sell something to this person, so in order to appear friendly, you adopt their lingo. The usage of these dialectal words shows up in emails as well. If words such as ya'll and ain't are used in an email, is it poor grammar (in this scenario, you are someone who is a prescriptionist) or is it an extension of dialect?

My argument is that it is an extension of dialect. Even within a business setting, many people write emails as if they were talking to the recipient - more informal than "professional." And if they write as if they were holding a conversation, then it makes more sense that using dialectal words is an extension of dialect rather than poor grammar.

What do you think?

Word Buzz Friday: Top 25 German Words

Hello everyone! I hope your week has been a little less hectic and chaotic than my own. I was just thinking recently that the last time I was in German was exactly two years ago. While I wish I could travel there more frequently, I will just have to settle for German online for now. That is why I discovered this list of the top 25 German nouns. Can you see how many of them are cognates? (Remember my last post?) For more German words click here. Bis Bald!

1. das Jahr, -e year	14. die Leute (pl.) people
2. das Mal, -e time (as in number of times)	15. die Arbeit, -en work, job
3. das Beispiel, -e example	16. das Prozent, -e percent
4. die Zeit time	17. die Hand, -¨e hand
5. die Frau, -en woman, wife, Mrs.	18. die Stadt, -¨e city
6. der Mensch, -en human being, man	19. der Herr, -en man, gentleman, Mr.
7. das Kind, -er child	20. der/das Teil, -e part
8. der Tag, -e day	21. das Problem, -e problem
9. der Mann, -¨er man	22. die Welt, -en world
10. das Land, -¨er country, land	23. das Recht, -e right, law
11. die Frage, -n question	24. das Ende, -n end
12. das Haus, -¨er house	25. die Million (Mio.), -en million
13. der Fall, -¨e fall, case

Language Learning Issues

As most travelers and expats know, language is very important. Maybe you already speak the language of your host country, but some of the words are different, like the difference between American and Australian English. Or maybe you know nothing. Not even "hello", "goodbye" or "please" and "thank you". Language can really make or break your experience because it's so vital to our everyday lives. One small slip up can be the difference between a friendly smile or a cold shoulder.

To make matters worse, many times there are words that you think you know because they appear so similar to your native tongue. But, be careful of these false cognates. Here are some in Spanish as provided by www.spanish.bz.

spanish word	actual english definition	how to really say English version
actualmente	at present	actually - la verdad es que
asisistir	to attend	assist/help - ayudar
carpeta	folder	carpet - alfombra
chocar	to crash	choke - ahogar/sofocar
embarazada	pregnant	embarassed - avergonzado
éxito	success	exit - salida
largo	long	large - grande
parientes	relatives	parents - padres
realizar	to actualize	realize - darse cuenta
recordar	remember	record - grabar
sensible	sensitive	sensible - razonable, sensato
soportar	put up with	support - mantener
últimamente	lately	ultimately - al final
vaso	drinking glass	vase - jarrón

Here are some false cognates in German from www.learnenglishonline.yuku.com.

(D for Deutsch or German, E for English)

D - handy = E - a mobile phone

E - handy = D - handlich

D - Bad = E - bath

E - bad = D - schlecht

D - blamieren = E - embarass

E - blame = D - Schuld

What has your experience been with false cognates? Do you know any embarrassing ones?

Word Buzz Friday

Yesterday's post was all about the one millionth word of the English language. Today's word buzz will be similar with some more of the newest words to make it into the Oxford dictionary as supplied by www.askoxford.com.

aerobicized or aerobicised

adj. (of a person's body) toned by aerobic exercise: aerobicized Hollywood women.

agroterrorism

n. terrorist acts intended to disrupt or damage a country's agriculture.

– derivatives

agroterrorist n.

blowback

n.

2. chiefly US the unintended adverse results of a political action or situation.

celebutante

n. a celebrity who is well known in fashionable society.

– origin 1930s: blend of celebrity and debutante.

crunk

n. a type of hip-hop or rap music characterized by repeated shouted catchphrases and elements typical of electronic dance music, such as prominent bass.

adj. US, chiefly black slang (of a person) very excited or full of energy.

– origin 1990s: perh. an alt. past part. of crank¹ or a blend of crazy and drunk.

elephant

– phrases

the elephant in the room a major problem or controversial issue which is obviously present but avoided as a subject for discussion because it is more comfortable to do so.

Yogalates (also trademark Yogilates)

n. a fitness routine that combines Pilates exercises with the postures and breathing techniques of yoga.

– origin 1990s: blend of yoga and Pilates.

zombie

n.

3. a computer controlled by a hacker without the owner's knowledge, which is made to send large quantities of data to a website, making it inaccessible to other users.

Have a great weekend!

One Millionth Word

Wow. I'll bet you never knew English had such an extensive vocabulary. Or if you did, pat yourself on the back.

This is what Yahoo Tech had to say about the new addition to our ever expanding language:

A U.S.-based language monitoring group crowned Web 2.0 as the one millionth word or phrase in the English language on Wednesday, although other linguists slammed it as nonsense and a stunt.

The Global Language Monitor, which uses a math formula to track the frequency of words and phrases in print and electronic media, said Web 2.0 appeared over 25,000 times in searches and was widely accepted, making it the legitimate, one millionth word.

It said Web 2.0 started out as a technical term meaning the next generation of World Wide Web products and services but had crossed into far wider circulation in the last six months.

Other linguists, however, denounced the list as pure publicity and unscientific, saying it was impossible to count English words in use or to agree on how many times a word must be used before it is officially accepted.

There are no set rules for such a count as there is no certified arbiter of what constitutes a legitimate English word and classifying the language is complicated by the number of compound words, verbs and obsolete terms.

"I think it's pure fraud ... It's not bad science. It's nonsense," Geoffrey Nunberg, a linguistics professor at the University of California at Berkeley, told reporters.

Paul JJ Payack, president of the Global Language Monitor, brushed off the criticism, saying his method was technically sound.

"If you want to count the stars in the sky, you have to define what a star is first and then count. Our criteria is quite plain and if you follow those criteria you can count words. Most academics say what we are doing is very valuable," said Payack.

He has calculated that about 14.7 new English words or phrases are generated daily and said the five words leading up to the millionth highlighted how English was changing along with current social trends.

This list included "Jai Ho!" an Indian exclamation signifying victory or accomplishment, and "slumdog," a derisive term for children living in the slums of India that became popular with the Oscar-winning movie "Slumdog Millionaire."

The list also included "cloud computing," meaning services delivered via the cloud or Internet, "carbon neutral," a widely used term in the climate change debate, and "N00b," a derogatory term from the gaming community for a newcomer.

"Some 400 years after the death of the Bard, the words and phrases were coined far from Stratford-Upon-Avon, emerging instead from Silicon Valley, India, China, and Poland, as well as Australia, Canada, the U.S. and the UK," said Texas-based Payack.

(Writing by Belinda Goldsmith, Editing by Miral Fahmy)

The Great Vowel Shift

Have you cursed the English language for its difficult spelling? Have you ever wondered why the spelling seems so messed up? A story from Sara's introduction brings to mind this idea. Here is what she said:

For seven months, I lived in Santiago, Chile teaching English. It made me realize how fortunate I am to have been born speaking English because if I hadn't I probably would never learn it. English, like French is not phonetic and that drives me crazy. It's why my Spanish speaking students doubted me when I told them about spelling bees. Why would anybody stage a competition around spelling when it's sooo easy? They had forgotten for a moment their own struggles to spell and pronounce some of our more difficult English words.

I cannot imagine how difficult it would be to learn English and attempt spelling. The languages that I've learned - Spanish and German - are both pretty easy to "sound out" (Spanish more so than German). This makes it easier to learn spelling and pronunciation. But English, not so much. A lot of English's "crazy" spelling can be explained by the Great Vowel Shift.

So what is the Great Vowel Shift? It is something that happened back between the years 1400 and 1600 C.E. (common era). Side note: My linguistics text book states 1400-1600 CE, but Wikipedia states this change happened between 1200 and 1600 CE. You see, languages tend to evolve over time. They change. The Great Vowel Shift is an example of one such change that has affected the way English speakers pronounce certain vowels. Evidence of this vowel shift remains in certain pairs of words. For example: please/pleasant, serene/serenity, sane/sanity. Do you hear the difference? The first word in each pair have been affected by the vowel shift, whereas the latter word has not.

So what does this have to do with spelling? At one time, English speakers DID pronounce words as they were spelled. Because spelling was pretty much already established at the time the Great Vowel Shift occurred, the pronunciation changed while the spelling did not. And that is why English has such "crazy" spelling.

Want to learn more about the Great Vowel Shift? Try starting here. You can also easily google it.

Word Buzz Friday: Wine Vocab

This Friday's word buzz has been on my mind a lot as I have been sampling more than my fair share of the delicious Chilean wines. Obviously, there is much more wine vocabulary as entire books have been written on the subject, but this is your weekend crash course. (The vocabulary was taken from http://www.wineschool.com/vocabulary.html.)

Aroma: that portion of the smell of a wine derived specifically from the grape variety,such as Cabernet-Sauvignon or Chardonnay, as opposed to that portion of the smell derived from other sources (see Bouquet).

Balance: a balanced wine is one whose constituents--sugar, acids, tannins, alcohols, etc.--are evident but do not mask one another. A young red wine--tannic and acidic-- is not considered balanced because these two characteristics mask the other flavor elements of the wine, which, given time, may display themselves.

Body: English wine authority Michael Broadbent puts it well in his Wine Tasting: "the weight of the wine in the mouth due to its alcoholic content and to its other physical components. These in turn are due to the quality of the wine, to the vintage, its geographical origin, and general style. Wines from hotter climates tend to have more body than those from the north (compare the Rhône with the Mosel, for example)."

Character: a wine of good character is one which doesn’t just slip down the throat and say "bye-bye"; it says "stop a while, friend. You have just come upon an above-average liquid. Think on it".

Complex: a complex wine is many-faceted; it contains not only acids, alcohols, tannins, etc., but more. Each sip brings another flavor, reveals another nuance.

Legs: a wine’s body or viscosity can be determined, often, by the way rivulets (or sheets, or "tears") of wine descend the inner glass after swirling. It has to deal with the surface tension and other technical stuff; but a look at the legs will give you tips on the wine’s nature: in a dry wine, slow falling legs indicate a full-bodied-wine; quick-falling indicate a light wine.

Tannin: a natural constituent of wines, especially reds. It is a bitter-tasting material which is partially responsible for preserving wines during their sometimes long aging periods. Bite a grape seed to experience the flavor of tannin or have a cup of tea, neat.

¡SALUD! CHEERS! PROST!

Talking Like a Boy: A Lesson in Manspeak

Has anyone ever told you that you should talk like a girl? Here in Tokyo, this has become a phrase I have become all too acquainted with. For, in Japan, men and women not only have separate train cars, they have separate language codes as well.

Before I moved to Japan, my Japanese friends were mostly men, so I learned the language of the Japanese male. Instead of saying "watashi" (I), I would blurt out "ore" which means the exact same thing, but in what I like to call manspeak.

Before I knew that there were different types of "speak", I was often unsure as to why I was getting strange looks on the trains or in local restaurants. I was pretty confident that what I was saying was correct, so I chalked up all the stares to the typical "Oh my, a foreigner is speaking our language" curiosity.

Then, one day, my boss heard me say "ganbare" to another coworker. Ganbare is manspeak for ganbatte, which means "good luck" or "you can do it" in Japanese. He literally sat me down and told me not to speak that way. When I asked him why, he simply replied, "It just sounds too weird. You should speak like a girl!"

Since then, my female coworkers have been trying to show me how to speak properly, cutesy and in high tones, like a proper Japanese girl should. I don't think it's working. I like the trills that occur in Japanese manspeak, and the harshness of the words. It sound more real. At least more so than the over-the-top squeaking that occurs in the ideal speech of a Japanese woman.

I know a girl here who has a Japanese father and an American mother. She speaks in Japanese manspeak, and makes no apologies for it. When I asked her why she speaks that way, she simply replied, "I'm not going to try to change the way I talk based on silly gender rules."

Maybe I should take a cue from her.

Have any of you ever lived in a place where men speak differently from women? If so, did you change your speech patterns or did you just go with the flow?

Share your thoughts!