Archive for the ‘linguistics’ tag
The Passing of a Language #
In memorializing Marie Smith, the last speaker of the Eyak language, The Economist takes a fun little journey through the language and the most basic aspects of linguistics.
BEYOND the town of Cordova, on Prince William Sound in south-eastern Alaska, the Copper River delta branches out in silt and swamp into the gulf. Marie Smith, growing up there, knew there was a particular word in Eyak, her language, for the silky, gummy mud that squished between her toes. It was c’a. The driftwood she found on the shore, ‘u’l, acquired a different name if it had a proper shape and was not a broken, tangled mass. If she got lost among the flat, winding creeks her panicky thoughts were not of north, south, east or west, but of “upriver”, “downstream”, and the tribes, Eskimo and Tlingit, who lived on either side. And if they asked her name it was not Marie but Udachkuqax*a’a’ch, “a sound that calls people from afar”.
An Interesting Look at the State of the Union #
Slate’s provided a way to make last night’s State of the Union interesting, and placed it within a historical context. Though I can’t vouch for the accuracy of their process, it does create interesting results. Through a “natural-language analysis” they’ve found the speeches fall into four distinct phases.
Monday night, a fourth and final Bush emerged, Crawdad tells us: “Legacy Bush.” New and year topped the list, along with leader, Congress, and agreement. Iraq(i) was also influential.
“As is common in most State of the Unions, Bush framed his thoughts in a nationalistic manner, using the words America(n), nation, good, people, and world very significantly,” Dooley tells Slate. “We note that Bush believes his legacy is still very much tied to Iraq and the Iraqi people.
You can also skip straight to their table of all of Bush’s addresses.