polyglot conspiracy

I wasn’t going to write about this because I don’t really have time, and Mark Liberman’s already covered it (in fact: hat tip), but there is this WSJ article about leetspeak, focusing on how to pronounce some internet-emergent words/spellings/phrases. Nothing’s really surprising, except when I got to this sentence I nearly snarfed my coffee:

The words’ growing offline popularity has stoked the ire of linguists, parents and others who denounce them as part of a broader debasement of the English language.

Ack! Mark doesn’t mention this (hopefully) misguided attribution. Thankfully someone thought to ask someone who studies the most treasured English language user of all time what Shakespeare would think of all this, and this puts our minds at ease:

Gail Kern Paster, director of the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., has reason to believe that a certain English poet and playwright would cheer the latest linguistic leap. Just as the rise of the printed word and the theater spurred many new expressions during Shakespeare’s time, the computer revolution, she notes, has necessitated its own vocabulary — like “logging in” and “Web site.”

“The issue of correctness didn’t bother him,” says Ms. Paster. “He loved to play with language.” As for leet, “He would say, ‘Bring it on,’ absolutely.”

If it’s good enough for Shakespeare… The author also mentions some work on leet by Katherine Blashki, a new media studies professor in Australia. I am glad to hear of her work because I hadn’t before, but check out how it’s discussed:

Her subsequent, semester-long research on the subject found their use of leetspeak stemmed partly from wanting to find faster ways to express themselves online. As with other forms of jargon, it also enhanced a sense of belonging to a community, she says.

“It’s ultimately about creating a secret language that can differentiate them from others, like parents,” says Ms. Blashki. “That’s part of being a teenager.”

She presented her work at a conference in Spain and has since written nearly a dozen research papers on the topic. She admits she hasn’t received much grant funding for her work. “My peers were aghast,” she says.

I am confused about why they were aghast - aren’t they media studies people? I think the author is trying to suggest that **even the uber-liberal relativistic academics are freaked out by leet**. And I honestly doubt that’s the case - though if it is, it would be something good for me to learn now. I don’t know about the media studies field, but in linguistics, people might be aghast at such study just because it’s looking at writing and not speaking, and therefore studying something that lots of people still don’t see as worthwhile to study. But it’s not because they think that leet is awful or annoying or a sign of the downfall of society or language. No no.

There was an interesting story yesterday on PRI’s The World, about software in the Aymara language being introduced among Aymara-speaking Bolivians. Ostensibly a very good thing - speakers can now use computers in their native, indigenous language rather than English or Spanish - and introducing such software can help bolster the language’s survival in the midst of these other more dominant languages. But the story covers some interesting downsides, or at least potential failures of the project: namely, that the community itself may not be ready to deal with computers in an integrated way. Says one Bolivian sociologist:

When they bring new technologies to indigenous communities, it only makes them more dependent on others.

The reporter points out one thing that may make this implementation different from other situations, though: the software is open-source, rather than commercial. The AbiWord program which the story references is in fact a word processing program that has also been translated into Quechua, and the volunteer organization responsible (Runasimipi) plans other program translations, as well (and has already also translated a Quechua spellchecker for OpenOffice):

Our dream is to create Andean versions of the most widely used free/open source software (FOSS) applications, so that indigenous people are not forced to abandon their native language just to participate in the “information society”. In the future we hope to create Quechua and Aymara versions of FireFox (a web browser), Pidgin (online chat utility compatible with all the major chat protocols), OpenOffice (an office suite similar to MS Office), GNOME (a graphical user environment similar to Windows), and Edubuntu (a distribution of GNU/Linux with many educational tools and games).

But here’s the really interesting part of the mission (note that none of this was mentioned in the PRI piece, so I’ve found it all myself - which means they may or may not be the best or most representative links for the program):

The largest group who frequent the cybercafes are Andean youth who congregate in the cybercafes to play first-person shooter and battle strategy games and to chat online. While they are busy playing computer games and downloading the latest music from international stars such as Shakira, Andean youth are inculcated with the message that their indigenous culture and language are less prestigious and less useful than the dominant transnational cultures and languages. We believe, however, that this perception would change if they were using software in their indigenous language to chat online and download music and video. If they receive the “modern” world through an interface in Quechua or Aymara, they would revalue their native tongue as a conveyor of modernity which can be useful and prestigious in the current context.

Of course computer software alone cannot change the perception that indigenous languages in the Andes are “backward” and “uncool”, but there is a growing movement in the Andes to revitalize and promote indigenousness. Bolivia and Ecuador (and Peru to a lesser degree) have witnessed a recent explosion of indigenous political and social movements. Today it is not uncommon for politicians in the Andean highlands to preface their political speeches with an introduction in Quechua or Aymara. Likewise, slogans in Quechua or Aymara are often heard to be shouted at political demonstrations.

We hope to contribute to this process of cultural revitalization by providing the technical tools which make it possible for Quechua and Aymara to be used as modern languages which function as a written medium and are used to operate technology. Part of the problem is that most Quechua and Aymara speakers do not have access to the tools to write in their native language.

So that’s your ideological bit. And on a different, more technical note, here’s Amos B. Batto, founder of the project, on the difficulties of translation:

Translating over the internet will allow us to invite people from many regions to create versions in different dialects of Quechua and Aymara, which is essential if we want to use technology in a way that supports local cultures and promotes linguistic diversity. Unfortunately, technology has been traditionally used in a way that undervalues and even destroys cultural and linguistic diversity, but we want to use the computer in a different matter which empowers users to configure their computer to support their local culture. In other words, technology should adapt to people, rather than forcing people to adapt to technology.

Oh wait, no, that’s still the ideological part. And, let me add, I couldn’t put it better. Now to the neologism discussion:

We also plan to create online forums using phpBB to discuss and debate the definition of computer terminology in Quechua and Aymara. In order to survive and thrive all languages have to change over over time, but Quechua and Aymara are showing signs of linguistic debility in their inability to change and adapt. What is needed is a conscious effort to create new vocabulary which embraces urban and technological contexts. We hope to create an online forum where Quechua and Aymara speakers are invited to participate in the creation of new vocabulary for their languages. We hope that an open process of discussion and debate in the definition of neologisms will help create a environment where no group feels excluded. This process of soliciting suggestions on how to translate technical terms such as “keyboard” and “monitor” will probably slow down the translation and create many debates, but hopefully it will generate a consensus around the use of neologisms so they will be adopted in the wider society. In the past, particular authors or institutions have tried to create neologisms but they have largely failed because the neologisms were created through an exclusionary process and their results were not widely promulgated.

Well, this definitely has a feel of community involvement to it that is unlike many technological implementations in indigenous language communities that I have read about. I have a classmate who works in Bolivia (with Quechua speakers), so if I get any good comments from her about the whole thing, I’ll report back.

If you have a blog or website and ever check your stats, you know how fun it is sometimes to see what kind of crazy searches have led people to your site. As I gear up for the new semester, let us reflect on the past with a smattering of interesting keyphrases taken from my stats engine.

sms language is not effecting english language
overage charges
past of shrink
get your groove on meaning
freudian slip linguistics
pronunciation missouri
myspace conspiracy
what is sociolinguistics
girls locked up for 7 years developed an almost unintelligible
shakespeare text messaging
drop down and get your eagle on meaning
wards emoticon hotmail
conspiracy facebook myspace
small beer picture
why do we use z instead of s
you are very mean
english accent intelligent
reasons why flight attendants should know foreign languages
different forms of communication that you employ in your daily life and conversation
president bush english good enough jesus
linguistics not science
mr. verb identity [!]
are you going to the mall later thats what i am asking
paradise lost uncyclopedia
pinyin sex phrases
z-spelling s-spelling
a bunch of big words that mean nothing [!!]
descriptive words on antarctica and the emperor penguin
american pop culture trends that don t work in other countries
you know you make me wanna shout lyrics original [?]
do i suck at scrabble
how to read peoples myspace messages without them knowing
why people fail to recognize their own incompetence
the baddest swear word ever
myspace ruined my marriage [:-(]
be an audience member on iron chef america [WTF]
dear optimist a few years ago i inadvertently declared war on the wrong country.
don t fuck my grandma [I am the first hit for this. ?!?!]
ginnifer godwin butt
missouri family conspiracies
homosexuality in country and western singers
websites devoted to words and phrases that people misinterpret
fucking log me into facebook
what do the words i heart you mean?
is the word shit in the scrabble dictionary
a word that means confused and in love
conspiracy academia degrees
the five most insulting words in cantonese
linguists who believe in prescriptivism
i have a phd and work at mcdonalds
when is the mcrib coming back?

It’s actually very interesting to type these in to google and see what else comes up other than my site (which usually comes up waaaay last, probably). You would be shocked at how many of the search phrases have to do with MySpace, the word “grandpa,” Scrabble, or “heart.” Or swear words. Or McDonald’s.

Two things that I know you’re dying to hear how they go together. Well, several days ago a buddy and I had a little wall-to-wall exchange on Facebook, which looked like this (for the Wall-illiterate, start reading at the bottom):

Yes, we’re terribly clever. Anyway, note two interesting things: one, his comment about “lingual relativist,” as a good example of what most people probably think about linguists (largely true but sometimes not true in the sense they think it, I remember some LangLog posts about this in past); two, the nod to evolution and gay monkeys as emblematic of liberal academic-ness.

This seemed at first like just a clever retort on Mike’s part, but about a day later, I opened the link from a listserv email to this story, with this headline:

Who’s Afraid of Incestuous Gay Monkey Sex?

Whoah! Apparently gay monkeys are a hot topic right now, and I had no idea. The article is about how academics often can’t get their research approved or funded because people view it as too controversial (also translate: liberal?). Themes: IRBs don’t understand social science; qualitative social science research oughtn’t be held to the precise same procedural standards as experimental research (e.g. psychological research); academics are just whiney. As usual, the comment thread is interesting - and telling - as well.

Headline in South China Morning Post today -

Prodigy may face problems: experts

I have noticed that this newspaper tends to construct attributive headlines in this way, where it’s the quote or whatever, followed by a colon and followed by the source. Template:

Proposition at issue: source of content

I am not sure if American newspapers do this, but intuitively it seems like I wouldn’t notice this as much if I were used to it.  Maybe for us ”Proposition, experts say” or actually more typically something like “Proposition, experts warn” (always fearful!) is a more common format.

David Beaver appears to have become the latest victim of the media-and-public conspiracy against linguists, via (yet again!) the NYT.  Read his account here.  Although many of the comments on the NYT blog thread are supportive of the academic endeavor, so that’s kind of nice.  One (= me) really wants to see a study examining a) how academic research gets framed by an original media piece, related to b) how the research is then digested by readers, and c) what media source it comes from, and d) who the readers are.  All typical kinds of concerns for media/audience people, but narrowed a bit to what type of content you’re talking about.  Because no doubt that public disdain for academics has always been there - about which there is a relevant discussion in the final chapter in Verbal Hygiene which I very much appreciate - what seems new is the public getting to respond so prominently in the media itself, via blog-type formats.  I am almost certain that someone in the Comm. studies kind of area has examined this, so please send links if you’ve got them.

OK, so I apologize to the communal spirit of blogging for my lack of contact with other blogs these past couple of weeks.  At my parents’ house I use the internet on their home desktop, which means that my RSS feed - which is on Safari on my laptop (because I used to use Bloglines but it was less convenient, and I never set up another browser-independent feed, which to be frank is probably a good thing because vacation is for vacation, dammit!) - is unavailable.  So, I’ve been sporadically checking on some blogs for interesting things, and here are some random comments in no particular order, mostly about Language Log (because it’s centrally located).  This is a rare post where I do almost nothing but present reactionary opinions, so if you’re not interested in that, you should probably give up now.

-Mark Liberman on how people hate the words “moist” and “panties.”  I know almost no woman who doesn’t hate these two words, either separately or (oh god, don’t even make me imagine it) in combination.   Mark spends a post wondering why this should be, but there’s a really simple answer: they’re icky.  They’re totally icky words.  Well, “moist” is icky and “panties” is insulting.  And together they will destroy the world.

-Ben Zimmer on more peeveblogging.  His post just compels me to recommend everyone (EVERYONE) read the book Verbal Hygiene by Deborah Cameron.  I am positively *ashamed* not to have read it before now (thanks for insisting on this one, Sai), but I have been reading it the past couple weeks (slowly - I’m on vacay!), and it is so good.  It is a study in peevology - and linguistic naming and shaming, and prescriptivism - as well as a study in the study of these things, all of which are forms of what Cameron terms verbal hygiene.  Actually, I find that Zimmer has already made this connection, so here, I leave him to it, and forcefully add my own recommendation.

-Mark Liberman on the differences between people who use “I mean” and “you know” as discourse markers.  He makes an admirable first-pass at some corpus data, trying to answer a reader’s question of whether there are “personality” differences between people who use “I mean” or “you know” more often.  All that I will say is that if you’re looking at “personality differences,” or even demographic differences as Liberman does, you’re only going to get one piece of the picture from the raw frequency of these phrases in a corpus.  What I’m thinking is that these two phrases are often used in different places within discourse; “I mean” is almost never used to terminate a turn or clause, whereas “you know”often is (and with rising intonation - tag question).

I mean, it’s not like men and women are any different.

You know, it’s not like men and women are any different.

It’s not like men and women are any different, you know?

I mean, it’s not like men and women are any different, you know?

This is how *I* use them, at any rate - my point is, it’s not going to get you very far to just say that some people use one more often and some people use the other more often - without knowing where they occur and with what intonation, you can’t really know what purpose they’re serving in the discourse.  So I think a discourse-analytic approach would be much more useful in addressing a question like this than a corpus-based one, although putting the two together would make for one fine dandy analysis.  I’d love to see it! Also, here is a reference to an article about “you know” and “I mean” as discourse markers:

Fox Tree, J.E. and Schrock, J.C. (2002). Basic meanings of you know and I mean. Journal of Pragmatics 34(6): 727-747.

-Mr. Verb on country music.  There should be more stuff about country music done from sociolinguistic viewpoints.  Turn on a country music radio station and you hear *plenty* that’s worthy of attention.

[If you want a PDF of that J.Pragmatics article and don't have library access, shoot me a friendly email.]

 Now, I am being kicked out of my parents’ office.  Til whenever!  Also, when I get back I am going to have like 6 8 million RSS articles, none of which I’m going to read…if I missed anything particularly juicy over the past couple weeks, somebody let me know.

From a sign at the Po Lin Monastery on Lantau Island [check item 10]:

Also, there are cows in the road there, reminiscent of when I was driving once on Maui, south around Haleakala, and my road was blocked by like 5 cows just chillin’:

And I saw a truck for Hon Kee Removal.  I hope they’re not coming after me…

Finally, there is, as my guidebook puts it, an “unfortunately named” town on Lantau called Tong Fuk.  Of course when I first saw it I snickered a bit, then I had this internal monologue:

Me1: But you know, it’s probably not pronounced like [fÊŒk], really. Maybe it’s said more like [fÊŠk]. And that wouldn’t make it funny for English speakers anymore. So it’s not that unfortunately named.

Me2: Buuuut I bet that British English speakers say “fuck” something like [fÊŠk], so for them it would still be funny.

Me1: Oh yeah!  I remember that [name of here-unnamed British friend]’s “fuck vowel” is somewhere between [ɤ] and [u].  Yeah.  It’s totally still funny.

Me2: And, for the island, sort of unfortunate.

Me1: But not really, because to them it’s not funny.

And so on in a very boring fashion.  Finally finally, if you would like to see why I haven’t been out of my parents’ apartment very much since being here (which, to be frank, is fine with me; it’s the best relaxation I’ve had in a very long time), it’s stuff like this:

(view from our balcony, notice ominous cloud)

(view of Central from across the harbour in Kowloon)

(impressive non-view from our balcony during, I believe, typhoon 1 of 2)

Oh boy.  (Extra points for whoever spots a malapropism first.)  Slightly different version, with interestingly less symbol-using, here.

The Motorola KRZR: apparently it’s a crazer, but half my money was on it being a cruiser (mostly because crazer isn’t in my lexicon).  Didn’t we already go through this with the SLVR?