Irra Wangga Language Centre

Irra Wangga Language Centre

"The Irra Wangga Language Program is a professional Aboriginal-directed program, working both with and for the community. Staff at Irra Wangga are passionate about the preservation, revitalisation and maintenance of Aboriginal languages and culture, and it is this passion that drives the program. " [Thanks to John Bass for pointing out this site.]

This makes me think: you can have stunning academic expertise about languages and linguistics but it is feeling for language, loving it like your patch of land and your family, respecting it for all its carries of your people's lives and thoughts and history, that makes a living language. Because you are living in it and through it. Just using it day in and day out for practical and emotional life. It is not just an inert, abstract system. It is identity, it expresses who people are and what people do. Its living nature also makes learning the languages of others all the more difficult, demanding and delightfully rewarding.  Phil Mahnken

At the end of the day, it is what it is.

"... at the end of the day it can’t be helped, language changes, language extends and cross-pollinates, mainly through pretentious eejits carrying weird-sounding words across oceans and then it becomes something different, and then well what can you say but it is what it is, in all honesty?"

* Ivan Nahem is a writer and yoga teacher; he lives in Woodside, Queens.

Read more: Top ten Irish expressions an American picked up living there            IrishCentral

10 Quirky But Cool Uses of English by  MIKAEL LEVIN DECEMBER 22, 2012 (Thanks to Annie Robertson for pointing this out.)  e.g.  I've had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it.



Language is not harmless ... but can be health giving

Language is not harmless. It is through language that unspeakable horrors against blacks, women, Jews, and others were justified. [...] As historian Marjorie Spiegel notes, throughout history, when oppressors wanted to target a particular group, they used language to prepare the population for the coming destruction. Slavery was accepted because the terminology used to describe black people — mad dogs, coons, apes — did such a powerful job of turning humans beings into something 'other' that it was not considered a crime to sell them into bondage. [...] These are our teachable moments. It is through our reaction to these incidents that we can finally turn the fantasy of how we Australians perceive ourselves into the reality of a tolerant and equal nation.  
McGuire ape gaffe exposes Australian tolerance as myth Ruby Hamad  in Eureka Street 30 May 2013 

Here's an example from two very different countries using language in devious and dangerous ways:

Second, the issue is being misrepresented in Indonesia. Reporting on the Abbott visit, the Indonesian media have repeatedly described asylum seekers as illegal immigrants using the Indonesian term imigran gelap. Gelap means dark and suggests activity that is shadowy and suspicious. The Abbott Government uses similar language and is happy to see the issue defined this way. It allows a humanitarian and human rights issue to be reduced to one of criminality, justifies tough action and absolves one of a duty of care for those legitimately seeking sanctuary. Pat Walsh Abbott's mixed messages for Indonesia in Eureka Street 2 October 2013

Costa Georgiadis, the Greek-Aussie gardening & waste recycling prophet, reckons if you want to change culture, you have to change thinking and to change thinking you have to change the vocabulary people use. Costa looks at the positive health giving uses of language that leads us to do good things for ourselves. Stop saying trash, rubbish or garbage, to be dumped. Say "waste" and we think : "We are making this waste, we are responsible for our waste and we can recycle our waste." Orwell wrote about the sinister, harmful side of thought control through language. Wittgenstein said "Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of our language." We all know this. Buddhists say we should be mindful of every moment and every word and every thought. Hard work!

I find it interesting to compare our attitudes and vocabulary with that of the USA. Have a look at this page about the origins and meaning of Jim Crow at the Ferris University's Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia. That same university's brief pages promoting languages learning (only two: Spanish and French) and their page on their Festival of Nations stand in stark contrast to America's colonial, segregated and racist past. I wonder whether their take up rates for these language programs and intercultural activities are any better than ours. 

Rhythm link to language ability - and so much more.

   On our visit to Caloundra Primary School yesterday, I noticed six top hats pasted on the window and six labels about Edward de Bono's different problem solving & learning strategies. I commented to my travelling companion that it always seems to me that second language learning calls on so many different dimensions of mind, e.g. all sorts of memory of course; logic for grammar; acting ability for imitating accents and emotional delivery; awareness and control of rhythm and intonation to get the music of the language right; interpersonal and cultural sensitivity for the pragmatics of relationships though another language; emotional dispositions such as persistence and patience so that you allow yourself to go through a long apprenticeship and not be turned off because you do not understand all immediately; and more. Baroness Finchley once stated that it takes 200 brain centres working in coordination to put together that miracle called language competence.
   It's a complex universe and life. It takes a complex code to represent it. It takes a complex brain to master that code which is also a social and always evolving phenomenon. I think that diversity of components is what makes L2 learning so rewarding and, for some, so challenging. Perhaps similar challenges, but much richer authentic purposeful input, exist for first language acquisition too.
   I so wish foreign languages teachers had the time and opportunities to really train properly for their complex jobs (they don't in Australia -they should have specialised degrees - if lucky they get one or two courses in a DipEd) ... and to prepare properly in their jobs (they don't) to take advantage of all the huge range of life situations and mental-emotional faculties that language calls on.
   That's what this short newspaper article Rhythm link to language ability sent by Heather Kopp made me think ... when I should be finalising exams, revamping courses or marking.

Free Sample Articles from ACTFL

Free Sample Articles from ACTFL the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL).  This looks good OCTOBER 2012 Going for 90% Plus: How to Stay in the Target Language or from August 2012 Beyond Requirements: Why Do Students Continue with Language Study? Check out ACTFL webinars and other activities, they are on Facebook.

Turning 'Otherness' Into an Asset

Margaret Mead famously wrote about the profound changes wrought by the Second World War: “All of us who grew up before the war are immigrants in time, immigrants from an earlier world, living in an age essentially different from anything we knew before.” The same applies to thinking about the future; we all need to be looking at the future with the immigrant’s eyes, willing to discover a new land, learn a new language, a new way of doing things.  Turning 'Otherness' Into an Asset June 05, 2013 Marina G. Executive Director, Institute for the Future

Word hunters

This sort of novel may help seed linguistic curiosity in the young.

Word Hunters - The Curious Dictionary

'While stories build from words, it’s true, The words themselves have stories too. Who dares to read? Who dares to look? Who dares to hunt within this book?' 

An action-packed adventure story filled with humour, excitement and mysteries to solve, Word Hunters: The Curious Dictionary is sure to capture the imagination of children with an interest in history and language. Described as a ‘word nerd adventure’, the story winds through history showing how words evolve over time, such as tracking ‘hello’ back through time to ‘Ah, Rou’ in Rouen, France in 925. Visit the Word Hunters website.

Quoting from http://www.kids-bookreview.com/2012/09/review-word-hunters-curious-dictionary.html

Lingua Franca finale: "Unbreak my heart"

The very last Lingua Franca radio program replayed a program on morphology, especially the prefix un- in pop songs. "Unchain my heart" is right. "Unbreak my heart" is a rule breaker or linguistic special effect. You can't un-give someone a ring. Why not?
How come you can be hurt by an unknown assailant but you can't unknow or undiscover or unthink things or uncry your tears .... Why not?
How come we know intuitively what verbs we can un- and which ones we can't. This final 26 January 2013 Lingua Franca was triggered by the words of the popsong, 'Unbreak my Heart'. The reknowned grammarian and former keyboard player in the soul group the Ram Jam Band, Geoff Pullum, uncovered the reversing 'un'-cryptotype while visiting Australia.
  The entire Lingua Franca series is available online as transcripts and audio files. Wonderful stimulating fodder for language lovers. Thanks to the Australian Broadcasting Commission and Maria Zijlstra.

Every language is an old-growth forest of the mind

I believe we need to think about how a language dies. When you consider all that died with Bo Senior, it is sobering. As National Geographic Explorer Wade Davis has said, ““A language is not just a body of vocabulary or a set of grammatical rules. … Every language is an old-growth forest of the mind.” In other words, there was much more that died with Bo Senior than just a compilation of phonetics and phonemes. A history of a people of the world with all its stories and wisdom died too. It would seem that, as with the extinction of an endangered species, when a language dies, it leaves our world a little less charming and a lot less educated. How does a Language die? February 21st 2013 in Academy, Languages, Linguistics, One World. Also Speaking the language of your grandparents. Though Boa had no one to talk to in her native language she was often sighted talking to birds in her language as she maintained that birds were her ancestors and understood her. OBITUARY for Boa Senior, died 26th January, 2010, last speaker of Bo language.

Just six words, and I had already fallen in love with foreign languages.

Every teacher has students who just do everything you could hope for. I'm not talking about just those who become language teachers (would I wish that on them?) I'm talking about those who clearly love the language, and all it can bring them, who catch on, get the bug, persist, pursue it and use it in all sorts of professional or personal paths. Chelsea is one, now working for a development agency. Kiah now living in Japan is another, a language addict who studied both Indonesian and Japanese to advanced levels, worked and struggled in poverty as a student, got herself to both countries. And like me, it puzzles and concerns her that Australians in their droves turn off and turn away from study of other languages. Read Kiah's blog post in Japanese if you can (google translate does a hopeless job on rendering it in English. See, we need humans to learn each other's languages.) Kiah has translated it into English for us.

---

Australia's Big Problem. Recently I haven’t written a blog, so I thought I would write a blog about a topic that’s important to me today.
Recently I have been emailing my Indonesian professor from when I was a university student about ‘the importance of studying foreign languages.’ The number of students in Australia studying foreign languages is decreasing rapidly. There are too few language teachers, and interest in foreign languages is also being lost.
‘Why should I study foreign languages? Everyone should just speak English!’ I have met many Australians who ask these questions.
Why has this type of thinking sprung up? Is it because Australia is separated from other countries? Is it because English is the easiest language to learn? (This is definitely untrue. People who think this have clearly never studied English as a second language.) Why is the study of foreign languages so hated?
When I was in primary school (year 4 I believe) I first experienced studying a foreign language. At my primary school, students had to study Indonesian from year 4 to year 7. The first thing I learnt was:

Siapa nama Anda?
Nama saya Haruko.

(What is your name?
My name is Haruko)
Just six words, and I had already fallen in love with foreign languages. The reason why was because, by using completely different words, I could still express the same meaning. To a fourth grade me, that was cool!
From that day till now, I still love studying foreign languages. When I started high school, I continued studying Indonesian but I started wanting to learn another language. At my school library I found a Japanese textbook and started teaching myself. Studying Japanese was fun, so when I started university I made Japanese and Indonesian my majors. Thanks to studying foreign languages, when I was in university, I was able to do student exchanges to universities in both Japan and Indonesia.
Thanks to studying foreign languages, I have made many friends, I have experienced other cultures, and have many good memories. If I only spoke English, I don’t think I would have been able to experience the things I have. *** Research and papers on the advantages of learning foreign languages have been done, yet there are still Australian youth who say ‘I don’t want to study languages.’ It’s not only the fault of their attitudes. As there aren’t many language teachers in Australia, there isn’t consistency in the languages taught.
Example: My primary school taught Indonesian. The closest high school to my primary school also taught Indonesian. However, the primary schools in the next district taught Japanese and Chinese, therefore when those students began at our high school, they suddenly had to study year 8 Indonesian. Many students dropped Indonesian because it was too difficult. When I started high school there were over 100 students (in year 8) who were studying Indonesian. By the time I graduated high school, there were only five students (including myself) still studying Indonesian.
This problem is a nation-wide problem. This year the Australian Government released the ‘White Paper.’ In it is written that from now they will have Asian languages studied in schools. In particular: Japanese, Indonesian, Hindi and Chinese.
These four languages are important to Australia. However, because there are few language teachers and students’ attitudes towards languages are so poor, how are they going to properly teach these languages?
As far as I know, there are no schools teaching Hindi. Of course there are people who speak Hindi, so they can become teachers, but it will take time. The government wants students to start studying languages as soon as possible, but because it will take time, how will they fix the current problems? How will they get students to study languages to an advanced level? We need to answer these kinds of questions.
(I apologize for this blog post being so long. I will finish here and next time I’ll write about my attitudes towards foreign languages, my memories and what I get out of it.

How did Jacky Chan learn English?

Ellen: How did you learn English? You taught yourself English, right?
Jacky Chan: Yes.
Ellen: How did you learn?
Jacky Chan: By the song!
Ellen: What song?
Jacky Chan: Oh, all kind of song. Before, I tried to listen, I watch TV but I cannot repeat. So I buy cassette, oh, I'm talking about long time ago, no DVD, CD, cassette, the cassette, the country song! You know like Willie Nelson, so and so. And when you hear the song: [sings] "You are always on my mind, you are always on my mind." [audience claps.] Then, oh! Then I can talk to the girls, you know.
Ellen: Right, and when we come back, you are actually a very popular singer, and uh, like, one of your songs was downloaded 500 million times! So, when we come back, Jacky's going to sing for us.
Jackie Chan Ellen DeGeneres Interview 8/01/2010 (Full)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZxPKOzl6Q8
Comment on YouTube page:
Jackie Talking: *accent*
Jackie Singing: *no accent*

My war of independence with American English

By Tom Greaney

My voice is my identity. In a foreign land it defines me. I open my mouth and people know where I am from. I’ve been in America for over a year now and it looks like I will be here for the foreseeable but I have one major fear: Americanisms.

I’m not knocking the way our American friends speak. Good luck to them. But I’m from Reading in England. And I want to sound as if I’m from Reading in England. More

Australia Asia Research and Education Foundation (AAREF)

http://aaref.com.au/  Please check out a new venture pioneered by my inspirational former teacher and supervisor, Dr Thao Le. He writes: "We are so privileged to have Professor Noam Chomsky (MIT, USA) and Professor Teun Van Dijk to join our list of Honorary Professors."

Language learning on social media

If Australia is  going to take on online language learning in a big way, as the new White paper suggests, it's time we all really started to critically explore all angles. Two articles: 

On the attractiveness of social media for language learning: a look at the state of the art <http://alsic.revues.org/index2436.html>

Facebook-ing and the Social Generation: A New Era of Language Learning <http://alsic.revues.org/2413>

in a special issue on “Social media and language learning: (r)evolution” of the French journal ALSIC

(sourced by way of Joe Dale's Twitter stream).

Australia in the Asian Century White Paper

Australia in the Asian Century White Paper
See Executive Summary. Educators read Chapter 6: Building capabilities. Arts communities: Chapter 9: Deeper and broader relationships.

"Australia’s people-to-people links will be deeper and broader, through government support and through the actions of the entire community. This will include the substantial flows of people and ideas between institutions, such as parliaments, educational institutions, business and community groups and the public service."
View Prime Minister Julia Gillard's launch of the White Paper at the Lowy Institute  28 October 2012 on ABC TV 24.

A speech marking a historical step forward ? Up to all of us.

Lera Boroditsky: How language shapes thought - distributing attention and attributing agency

One of my heroes (wonderful public speaker) was on this week's Australian Radio National program "All in the Mind".

Lera Boroditsky from Stanford University  How language shapes thought

* Her discussion of accidental versus intentional action would help explain some Indonesian verb forms that do not have English equivalents (ter- and ke-an). I liked her expression "distributing attention" and therefore attributing agency, OR avoiding doing so. Language contributes to our social understandings, judgements and actions. Makes me wonder if Westerners are bigger on agency and therefore blaming and responsibility? Do Asian languages and thinking work more at saving face?

Lera B says: "Each language comes with its own cognitive tool kit, almost as if each has its own parallel universe that sees the world a little bit differently. [...] "How tragic then that we are losing a language every two weeks .. tremendous cultural loss .. incredible cultural treasure."

She also talks about linguistically laying the blame for Timberlake exposing Janet Jackson's breast and the power of metaphor in dealing with complex systems.

ABC blurb: It’s been controversial for centuries but new empirical research suggests that language has a powerful influence over the way we think and perceive the world. Lera Boroditsky from Stanford University suggests that Japanese and Spanish speakers have a different sense of blame, and some Indigenous Australians have a different sense of space – all because of the language they speak.

And last week was The bilingual brain "We explore how speaking more than one language influences our cognitive capacity."

Also see Lera Boroditsky on The Long Now Foundation series  26 Oct 2010.  It's brilliant. 

http://fora.tv/2010/10/26/Lera_Boroditsky_How_Language_Shapes_Thought

“Our language is like a pearl inside a shell. The shell is like the people that carry the language. If our language is taken away, then that would be like a pearl that is gone. We would be like an empty oyster shell.” Yurranydjil Dhurrkay, Galiwin’ku, North East Arnhem Land, Australia Our Land Our Languages Language Learning in Indigenous Communities  Report to Commonwealth Government of Australia, September 2012. The report suggests that of the 250 local languages spoken in Australia at the time of colonisation; only about 18 remain in strong use.

http://www.facebook.com/YouMeUnity

David Gill: In Love with Local Languages

David Gill: In Love with Local Languages The Jakarta Post Wednesday, August 1, 2012  "A country which ranks second in terms of the number of local languages (the first being Papua New Guinea), Indonesia remains the best place  for Gill to carry out research on minority languages, which often escape local linguists’ attention."[ ...] Gill says in the eyes of many parents and the public in general, using local languages is less prestigious than using Indonesian and a  much-spoken international language such as English. Yet, he refutes this widely-held perception, arguing that it is a sheer fallacy.

“In my view, being bilingual and bicultural is much better because it can raise cross-cultural sensitivity and also accord a language user a superior status,” the American-trained linguist added.

An excellent article and video talk by Bernard Lane in The Australian 12 June 2012 about languages education (at all levels). Article is at

Please watch Bernard's very convincing, common sense video summarising "Australia's Language Problem"