language

North American Accents

Languages of even small countries can have very regionally specific accents. Accents help give cultures their place-based charm, and a hyper-regionalized sense of place.

In the embedded video above with comedian/actor Fred Armisen (of “Portlandia” fame), he demonstrates how he performs a variety of accents in the United States (and at the tail end of the video you get the difference between Mexican and Cuban Spanish as a bonus). Super strong accents are quite rare, and although they can be emblematic of a place, most people in a place have some elements, but not elements of a regionally distinctive accent.

For Fun, two “bonus” accent clips: first, Fred Armisen again doing accents around the world.

And second, here is one for us Rhode Islanders.

GeoEd TAGS: culture, language.

March 18, 2023 0

Different Dialects

This is a flippant, silly video (with some language that you might not want young kids hearing), but it shows that the speakers of the same language can still has some have some significant barriers to understanding each other. Dialects of a same language have different pronunciations but also distinct vocabulary that is often place-specific. Dialects and accents create variety in cultural geography that makes traveling around the world enticing and exhilarating because there is always something else to learn about this crazy Earth.

GeoEd Tags: language, Australia, Oceania, video.

December 2, 2019 0

The Case for Embracing Linguistic Diversity

“For all our current interest in identity politics, there’s no corresponding sense of identity linguistics. You are what you speak—the words that run throughout your mind are at least as fundamental to your selfhood as is your ethnicity or your gender. And sometimes it’s healthy to consider human characteristics that are not inborn, rigid, and outwardly defined. After all, you can always learn another language and change who you are. And the more languages you know, the more you appreciate how hard it is to label another person, because each mind contains its own unique collection of words. An individual who wrestles with a difficult language can learn to be more sympathetic to outsiders and open to different experiences of the world. This learning process—the embarrassments, the frustrations, the gradual sense of understanding and connection—is invariably transformative.” SOURCE: Time

In pop culture and the media, race and gender are usually touted as the most important part of a cultural identity, but in the APHG CED, language, religion, and ethnicity are the ones explicitly mentioned. This article calls for a more nuanced understanding of how language opens up the world and is a part of identity. It uses a few examples to show how language shapes our world as well as our perceptions of the world: 1-the politics of monolingual presidents and 2-Chinese men selling lingerie in Egypt (trust me, the examples actually work).

GeoEd TAGS: culture, language, media.

September 28, 2019 0

Language Warriors

"The three Dixon brothers: one goes about teaching how geography influences global culture while another goes around the world teaching about how language learning improves global culture. The smart one makes money."

Source: language-warriors.com

My brother recently he introduced me to his new online course, Learning How to Learn a Language (complete with a really fun book), as well as a companion website. If you want to improve your language skills, you will find a lot of free resources on his Facebook group (just search Language Warriors) and his website.

In fact, in the Our Story portion of the website, you get the story of what made me go back to grad school and eventually become a geography professor. My brother, ever the storyteller, explains how this family story relates to the challenges of learning a language.

As you fellow geographers know, learning a new language is a great way to explore the world. For the next five days, he’s offering geography teachers a 60% discount on his online course and book by clicking here. I’m loving this course so far and would love to hear about your experiences learning other languages.

February 12, 2019 0

Language shapes the way we think

“There are about 7,000 languages spoken around the world — and they all have different sounds, vocabularies and structures. But do they shape the way we think? Cognitive scientist Lera Boroditsky shares examples of language — from an Aboriginal community in Australia that uses cardinal directions instead of left and right to the multiple words for blue in Russian — that suggest the answer is a resounding yes. ‘The beauty of linguistic diversity is that it reveals to us just how ingenious and how flexible the human mind is,’ Broditsky says. Human minds have invented not one cognitive universe, but 7,000.”

Source: www.youtube.com

Sense of direction, numerical concepts, gendered traits, even the colors that we perceive with our own eyes…all these are shaped by the language(s) we speak. If language shapes how an individual shapes their own worldview, a cultural group’s worldview is also powerfully impacted by the language that frames how they think.

Scoop.it Tags: language, culture, TED, video.
WordPress TAGS: language, culture, TED, video.

January 21, 2019 0

How language shapes the way we think

"There are about 7,000 languages spoken around the world — and they all have different sounds, vocabularies and structures. But do they shape the way we think? Cognitive scientist Lera Boroditsky shares examples of language — from an Aboriginal community in Australia that uses cardinal directions instead of left and right to the multiple words for blue in Russian — that suggest the answer is a resounding yes. ‘The beauty of linguistic diversity is that it reveals to us just how ingenious and how flexible the human mind is,’ Broditsky says. Human minds have invented not one cognitive universe, but 7,000."

Source: www.ted.com

Scoop.it Tags: language, culture, TED, video.

WordPress TAGS: language, culture, TED, video.

October 8, 2018 0

Why no-one speaks Indonesia’s language

Bahasa Indonesia was adopted to make communication easier across the vast Indonesian archipelago, but its simplicity has only created new barriers.

Source: www.bbc.com

Linguistic diffusion faces many barriers, and an island state like Indonesia faces cultural centrifugal forces. Adopting a national language might be good political policy, but culturally, that doesn’t ensure it’s viability. This is a great case study for human geography classes that touches on many curricular topics.

Scoop.it Tags: language, culture, diffusion, Indonesia.

WordPress TAGS: language, culture, diffusion, Indonesia, SouthEast Asia.

September 24, 2018 0

Classifying languages is about politics as much as linguistics

CROSS the boundaries of the former Yugoslavia and you face a few hassles.

Source: www.economist.com

The linguistic differences between languages can be slight, but if politics and identity are involved (as they invariably are), these small linguistic differences can seem massive. "Languages" can occasionally be dialects with their own armies.

Scoop.it tags: language, culture, borders, political, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Slovenia.

WordPress TAGS: language, culture, borders, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Slovenia.

September 6, 2018 0

Are Americans trashing the English language?

“Are American’s trashing the English language? The Economists language expert, Lane Greene, knows a thing or two about English. Lane is a fan of words, lots of words, and Lane is an American living in London. He’s become accustomed to British English slang. But Lane often hears Britons complain that there are too many American words and expressions creeping into British English, these are called Americanisms. British writer Matthew Engel can’t stand Americanisms being used in Britain and even wrote a book about it. But are Americanisms trashing British English?”

Source: www.youtube.com

This video touches on important cultural and spatial dynamics of the linguistic change impacting the world’s current lingua franca…in other words, this is incredibly relevant to human geography.

Tags: language, culture, worldwide, English, diffusion,

colonialism.

March 5, 2018 0