Language Trainers Blog

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?

Language journal has published a study by three linguists at the University of Lyon, showing that certain languages are more or less equally efficient.

The study compared the efficiency of conveying information in spoken German, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, English, French, Italian, and Spanish.

Researchers took a sample group of 59 people, who each read a sample text in their native language. The recordings were then edited to remove the pauses, and syllables were tallied in order to draw conclusions regarding the density of information communicated in each language.

Japanese was found to be the fastest spoken language, with 7.84 syllables spoken per second. Mandarin Chinese was the slowest, with the average syllabic speech rate at 5.18. However, the researchers note that in ‘faster’ languages, the individual parts of words are shorter, meaning there are more syllables. They concluded that a higher rate of syllables by no means implies that content can be transmitted more quickly.

A more comprehensive study, carried out by University of Klagenfurt linguistics professor Gertraud Fenk-Oczlon in 2010, reached similar conclusions. In this case, 51 different languages were recorded, with Indian language Tegulu found to be the fastest, and Thai the slowest.

The latest study, in more detailed form, can be found here.

Some debate regarding language usage has been stirred up recently, after respected French language body L’Academie Francaise placed some English words on their blacklist of words to “ban”.

In reality, only two words/phrases have been listed so far – “le best of” and “impacter,” a word which means “to impact” and is a mixture of French and English. This move is intended to preserve and enrich the French language. It does not include English words such as “weekend” and “sandwich” which are in everyday use in France. Other words, such as “email,” are encouraged to be abandoned in favour of the correct French, in this case, “courriel”. Here in the UK, a lot of French phrases have been incorporated into everyday language; soiree, raison d’etre, baguette, rendezvous, and deja-vu, to name a few. The difference is that my keyboard doesn’t have the necessary accents to type the words correctly!

Both the French and English languages are historically in no way “pure”, they derive from the Latin and Germanic languages respectively, and have evolved throughout time, incorporating and adapting words from other languages. Whilst it is admirable that steps are being taken to preserve a language, a few crossover words, especially in an ever changing multi-lingual world, surely can’t hurt as long as they are recognised as foreign words?

Dictionary makers Collins have removed a selection of lesser-used words from their smaller dictionaries. These uncommon words have been tracked in recent usage and the least-used ones will now only be  marked obsolete and removed from current editions of dictionaries.

Some of the words to be removed are:

“wittol”– a man who tolerates his wife’s infidelity, which has not been much used since the 1940s.

“drysalter” - a dealer in certain chemical products and foods.

“alienism” - the study and treatment of mental illness.

“cyclogiro” - a type of aircraft propelled by rotating blades.

“charabanc” - a motor coach.

“stauroscope” - an optical instrument for studying the crystal structure of minerals under polarized light

Obviously, some of these terms refer to things that are no longer in use, but as they may still be helpful to historians and other experts, they will remain in the most comprehensive dictionaries (but not your average household edition).

Full article: Guardian.

A while ago, I wrote about the SarcMark, a proposed new punctuation mark to indicate that someone was being sarcastic. My conclusion was that people just wouldn’t get it. They would have to have it explained to them, and I sincerely doubt that someone would want to pay for the privilege of using it.

The latest attempt at expressing sarcasm in a universal form is Sartalics. Unlike regular Italics, Sartalics lean to the left to indicate that someone is being sarcastic. A team of design interns decided that it was time to introduce an easily-recognisable way to demonstrate sarcasm via Twitter, Facebook, and any text media. They hope to encourage, via a http://sartalics.com/, major companies like Twitter, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, YouTube, Apple and Tumblr, to enable people to lean their words the other way.

The designers want Sartalics to be able to be used with any font, instead of it being its own font. I give them credit for their efforts, and I think that Sartalics will be much easier to understand than the SarcMark, but considering Facebook hasn’t even allowed basic HTML editing (e.g. bold, italics) yet, I think it will be a while down the road.

Click here to learn more, or here to join the petition.

Google+ is the latest offering from Google - a social networking tool which may yet rival Facebook (although it’s in its early days). For many people, this development may seem like just another version of Facebook (without the ads and the silly games), but there is one big difference: Hangouts. A Hangout is basically a video chat room that anyone can start, and anyone with the invite link can join. It allows up to 10 people to all see each other, share links, talk, text chat, and watch videos together. This is a great social tool, but also has the potential to be a great learning tool.

If you are learning a language, you could create a ‘circle’ of others who are learning or teaching that language. You could then start a Hangout just with those people, and whoever is online can join you for a chat or discussion about a particular lesson or topic. Language tutors could host small group classes, or just be available at certain times for students to log in and ask questions.

In the past, video conferencing has been a little more difficult to access, with all participants needing the same software and often needing to know each other’s contact details. With Google+, it would be possible to tweet or otherwise share your Hangout address, and whoever in the world was interested could join in and start chatting.

I can’t wait to see what new developments Google comes up with, and how people will use them. For a list of a few more uses for Hangouts, see The 9 Creative Uses for Google+ Hangouts You Didn’t Think Of.

The 2014 Winter Olympic Games are being held in Sochi, Russia. With English being announced as the official language of the games, organisers and staff are scrambling to learn enough of the language in time for the games.

The organisers have announced Education First (EF) as their official language education provider. EF has already organised an online learning centre for the 70,000-strong Olympic support staff, which will offer online language classes and support, especially in English relating to the Winter Games. Because online and distance learning are still not common in Russia, this will be an interesting exercise. I hope that the time pressure and excitement of the games will actually affect the national view on online learning.

EF has already trained thousands of people in advance of big sporting events, including 60,000 for the Asian Games in Guangzhou last year, and 80,000 in English and Spanish for the 2014 football World Cup in Brazil in 2014.

Full article: Guardian.

At a recent TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) conference, an interesting point was brought up about the learning of English. Dr Peter Waters, from German University of Technology in Oman (GUtech), presented “Sounds: Avenues for Language Learning”, a presentation about English pronunciation. He addressed the common problem of students not being trained to understand just the sounds of English (rather than how words are spelled).

There are far fewer sounds in English than there are ways to spell them, and this inconsistency often brings up problems for English learners. But what if the spelling part took a back seat to the pronunciation? For most people, communication is the first priority, so I think that for people who use mostly spoken English, this focus could be very useful.

There is also the problem that for many learners, the audio content they receive is ’standard’ English. Unfortunately, if you have spent your whole learning career listening to people speak like the Queen of England, you won’t understand when ‘normal’ English speakers talk to you.

Luckily, there are a lot of websites these days that provide a wide range of pronunciations. I think the sooner learners hear more variance in their audio, the better for their chances of successful communication.

Full article: Zawya.com.

The two remaining fluent speakers of Ayapaneco, a language pre-dating modern Mexico, are not speaking to each other. Manuel Segovia, 75, and Isidro Velazquez, 69, who live 500m apart in the village of Ayapa in Tabasco state, are the only two people left speaking the ancient language. They, however, do not wish to speak it to each other. According to Segovia, who spoke Ayapaneco with his brother until his death about 10 years ago, there is no real animosity between him and Velazquez. Other sources say they simply don’t enjoy each other’s company. Segovia has tried to start classes in the language, and speaks it to his wife and son, who understand it but cannot speak it.

Segovia and Velazquez have both been helping to put together a dictionary of Ayapaneco, which has survived the pressure of Spanish until the present day. Unfortunately, they speak slightly different versions of the language, which I’m sure doesn’t help their relationship. Both versions will be available in the dictionary.

While it makes me sad that there is such definite proof of languages dying out, I can’t imagine what it would be like to dislike the only other speaker of your native language. To be put in a room to speak to them just for speaking’s sake would be awful. I’m glad that the language is being documented, and I hope that local classes will be a success in the future.

Source: The Guardian.