Language Trainers Blog

In honour of the 125th anniversary of the language, students in Stoke-on-Trent have started a campaign to promote Esperanto as the second language of choice.

Esperanto is a language which was devised in 1887 by Ludwig Lazarus Zamenhof. It is considered to be an easy language to learn, as the grammar has no irregular verbs, and people in almost every country have learned to communicate using it. An estimated 2 million people speak the language worldwide, with almost 1000 of those in the UK.

But why are students in Stoke-on-Trent so interested in Esperanto? Well, the headquarters of the language association is based in the village of Barlaston, just outside Stoke-on-Trent. The offices are based on the campus of Wedgwood Memorial College, which has been teaching courses in Esperanto since 1960. The library there holds over 13,000 books in the language.

Stoke-on-Trent has a road named after the founder of the language, Zamenhof Grove, and there is also an Esperanto pub, The Green Star. It’s even host to the 4 day Esperanto Summer Festival.

More information can be found here.

Latvia is set to hold a referendum on February 19th, to decide whether Russian should officially be the country’s second national language. Currently, 44% of the population are Russian speakers, however, 16% of the population are ethnic Russians, who do not hold Latvian citizenship thus are not eligible to vote.* According to Latvian law, more than half of Latvian voters must vote in favour for the proposition to pass.

The proposal does not have the backing of President Andris Berzins. “Granting the Russian language the status of the second state language is the denial of Latvia as a national state and it contradicts the basics of the Satversmes (Constitution),” he said. Parliament rejected the bill in December, after a petition signed by 187,000 citizens was forwarded to the Government by the Dzimtā valoda (Mother Tongue) organisation.

Latvia most recently regained independence from Russia following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. In 2004, Government reforms introduced restrictions on the use of the Russian language in schools.

*Figures sourced from New Europe Online

December sees the 19^th anniversary of the first text message. The very first SMS message was sent in the United Kingdom on 3 December 1992. The content?  “Merry Christmas”.

Vodafone engineer Neil Papworth messaged his boss, Richard Jarvis, from his computer, starting a new trend in communication. However, it wasn’t until the turn of the century that text messaging really took off. It’s estimated that 8 trillion messages will be sent worldwide in 2011.

Earlier this year, the Oxford English Dictionary added abbreviations commonly used in text messages to its online edition. OMG, and LOL were added in the March update, (the dictionary publishes four updates per annum) and joins other similar entries such as TMI and IMHO.

Language is constantly evolving, so it’s quite natural that certain words will be replaced and updated. When you read Shakespeare, for example, there is often an index of words to refer to since they are no longer in use today. A new survey has found that text speak is diminishing the usage of such traditional British words. The study of 2000 adults was carried out to mark the launch of Planet Word, the book which accompanies the series of the same name.

J.P. Davidson, the author of Planet Word said: ”This could be viewed as regrettable, as there are some great descriptive words that are being lost and these words would make our everyday language much more colourful and fun if we were to use them. But it’s only natural that with people trying to fit as much information in 140 characters that words are getting shortened and are even becoming redundant as a result.”

The book lists a top 20 of the unused words.

1. Bally: A word from 1885 - a euphemism for bloody

2. Laggard: An 18th Century word to describe someone who lags behind or responds slowly

3. Felicitations: To express congratulations

4. Rambunctious: Boisterous or unruly

5. Verily: From Middle English, simply means true or in truth

6. Salutations: A welcome greeting

7. Betwixt: Originated before 950, and means neither one nor the other

8. Lauded: From the Latin laudāre, to praise

9. Arcane: Known or understood by very few

10. Raconteur: A person skilled in telling stories, originated in the 19th Century, from the French verb, raconter, to tell. Most known now from Jack White’s band, The Racounteurs

11. Cad: An ill-bred man, originates from 19th Century, derived from the word Caddie

12. Betrothed: The person to whom one is engaged

13. Cripes: An expression of surprise

14. Malaise: A vague or unfocused feeling of mental uneasiness

15. Quash: To put down or suppress completely; quell

16. Swell: Originates before 900 from the Middle English verb swellen, meanings include the verb to inflate and an adjective which describes if something is excellent

17. Balderdash: From the 1590s, it was originally a jumbled mix of liquors (milk and beer, beer and wine, etc.), before being transferred in 1670s to ’senseless jumble of words’

18. Smite: To strike, deal a blow

19. Spiffing: From the word spiff, meaning well-dressed, means superb

20. Tomfoolery: Foolish behaviour

Are there  any words you’d like to see banished to history?

I’m very particular about the English language. I love the language, and I like to see it used properly. I notice even the tiniest of mistakes, and I think the descent into txt speak is abhorrent. Unsurprisingly, I often forget that English hasn’t always been what I consider to be correct, and even within my lifetime people have changed the way that they speak English properly.

I was reminded of this after reading Alison Flood’s recent article on The Guardian’s website. She also brought to my attention that dreaded unnecessary abbreviations were in existence 150 years ago, when people were still being encouraged not to drop their H’s.

Because it turns out, you see, that we Brits have been lamenting declining standards of English for centuries: all the way back in 1712 Swift wanted to “fix our Language for ever” to stop any more change. The British Library exhibition will also highlight a 19th-century pamphlet, which attempted to persuade the lower-middle classes to stop dropping their “h”s if they wanted to get ahead, and it makes the point that far from being a curse of today, text speak was actually prevalent around 150 years ago, as shown by its exhibit of Charles C Bombaugh’s poem Essay to Miss Catharine Jay. Just take a look: apparently the poem was much admired, but it looks like the sort of thing one of today’s teenagers could dash off in a minute: “an S A now I mean to write / To U, sweet KTJ”; “I 1 der if you got that 1 / I wrote 2 U B 4″, etc. (Although I’m quite impressed by the line “in X L N C U X L” … can anyone beat that?)

Meanwhile, I think I’ll still continue to be crochety about language, and eventually someone will start thinking that I am incorrect.

Some people love it, some people hate it, a lot of people need it, and for many, it’s all they have.  But how many people celebrate the diversity that is the English language?  A staggering 2 billion people speak it to some degree, and the minority are native speakers.  It’s often claimed that it’s a difficult language that cannibalises words from everywhere, but to many, this is a sign of progress and something to be glad of.

The English Project has taken it upon themselves to designate October 13 English Language Day.  Because October 13 (in 1362) was the first time an English speech was used to open parliament in the UK, the theme of the first English Language Day is the often-confusing topic of legal language.  As even native speakers can find legalese difficult, it puts native and non-native speakers on more of an even playing field.

Check out the Ideas page to get some inspiration for how to celebrate.  Even if you’re not in the UK, you can participate by logging onto the website and filling in the survey.

A Chinese student from Sichuan province failed his gaokao (final examinations) essay because it was written in ancient characters, some of which were from thousands of years ago.  From Shanghaiist:

The script, called “甲骨 Jia Gu” (oracle bone script) is from the Bronze Age and is usually found on ox bones or turtle shells. Professors who translated the essay into modern Chinese found that 19-year-old Huang Ling’s character use was largely correct, but his essay was awarded an 8 out of 80 (later lowered to 6).

The student’s score would normally mean that he would not be accepted into university, as Chinese requirements are usually very strict.  However, examiners were impressed by his knowledge, and correct usage, of the so-called Oracle Bone script, and he may be accepted into Sichuan University after all.

Although I applaud his risky performance, I wonder if the results would be as positive if a British student wrote an essay in Middle English, or a French student in Gaulish.  I kind of like to hope so.

In the aftermath of the recent Iranian election, the protests that followed, and the ensuing violence, the availability of accurate information is becoming rarer, and more crucial.  Hotels in Tehran have been locked down to prevent foreign journalists from reporting anything to the outside world.  Live video footage posted to YouTube and messages sent through Twitter by protesters and people amidst the violence have become important sources of news for people within the country, and around the world.  Unfortunately, the people in power in Iran have realised this, and done their best to shut down mobile and internet networks, and it has escalated to the point where anyone seen openly carrying a laptop, mobile phone, or camera runs the risk of being attacked by paramilitary groups.

Internet giant Google has pushed forward their release of Google Translate in Persian, or Farsi, which is the major language of Iran.  This will hopefully make more international information and news available to people within Iran, and Persian speakers around the world, as well as allowing outsiders to get an idea of what is happening inside the country.

The Twitter service is playing an arguably more important role on the ground, as protesters are using it to organise demonstrations as well as spread news to the outside world.  It has even been recognised as crucial by the US State Department, who urged the company to delay a planned upgrade in order for service to continue uninterrupted in Iran.

If you’re interested in knowing more about what’s happening, I found quite a good summary on Reddit, there’s a lot of information in the news, and there are plenty of Twitter, news, and blog feeds being updated all the time.  As well as wanting to keep up-to-date with the actual situation, I’m fascinated by the changing roles of media, technology, and communication.  Is the blocking of a single website or internet service tantamount to a human rights issue these days?

A new education strategy from the UK government is recommending that teachers stop teaching the traditional spelling ‘rule’ “I before E except after C”.

Although it’s familiar to generations of English speakers, the National Strategies document Support for Spelling says there are too many exceptions to the rule, and the mnemonic could be more confusing than useful.  Though they say that it is useful only for ee sounds (as in receive), the rule still has exceptions - seize, seizure, and the ee versions of either and neither.

Campaigners for plain English and simple spelling reforms have taken this as support for their cause, but Judy Parkinson, author of I Before E (Except After C): Old-School Ways to Remember Stuff, suggests that teachers should be able to make up their own minds about using the phrase in their classes.

For instance, one predominantly American variation of the rhyme includes the lines “…or when it sounds like an A; as in neighbour and weigh“.  This happily deals with the exceptions veil, beige, eight, and sleigh.

I think it would be more trouble than it’s worth to try to include all of these other exceptions: counterfeit, leisure, caffeine, science, ancient, foreign…

Full article from Times Online.

You’d think that the word ‘billion’ would mean the same to all English speakers, but, in fact, the two different meanings of the word are vastly different - 1,000,000,000 and 1,000,000,000,000 (one thousand million and one million million).  The first is the current ‘global’ understanding of the word (using the short scale, sometimes known as American usage), and the second, much larger number, uses the long scale or British usage.  As the numbers get bigger, the difference between them gets larger, as the short scale increases by thousands (e.g. a trillion is a thousand billions, or 10¹²), and the long scale increases by millions (e.g. a trillion is a million (long scale) billions, or 10¹⁸).

Most countries use the short scale, these days, but many still use the long scale.  Some countries, such as France and England, have used both scales at different times in history, so it’s important to check sources if you ever come across billion, trillion, etc in older publications.

The French word billion, German Billion; Dutch biljoen; Swedish biljon; Finnish biljoona; Danish billion; Spanish billón and the Portuguese word bilião all refer to 10¹², being long scale terms. Therefore, each of these words translates to the modern English word: “trillion” (10¹² in the short scale), and not “billion” (10⁹ in the short scale).

On the other hand, the Brazilian Portuguese word bilhão (note the alternate spelling to the European Portuguese variant) and the Welsh word biliwn both refer to 10⁹, being short scale terms. Each of these words translates to the English word “billion” (10⁹ in the short scale).  [Wikipedia.]

I think the best thing to do if you have to communicate in such large numbers is just to use the numerals instead of the words!