Endangered languages are intertwined with world-wide social, physical and mental health issues. I offer three examples: Endangered Languages #1: The Case of Mayan in Guatemala An already-available February 2018 issue of The Lancet, a well-known medical journal, has an article concerning endangered languages and the health outcomes of their speakers... read more
Harith Iskander, a Malaysian, won the Laugh Factory Funniest Person in the World in Helsinki, Finland in 2016. I discovered him just now. I’ve been editing my old travel blogs and just finished the one I wrote on Globalization Through the Lens of Malaysia in May, 2016. I took a break,... read more
Title Image: Te Puia, a geothermal center in Rotorua owned by the Māori. The geyser viewing comes at the end of the evening’s entertainment. My trip to New Zealand was inspired mostly by wanting to look into the Māori language situation. It is often talked about in linguistic circles as... read more
Gotta love a good alphabet. This is a repost of a blog on Goodreads from June, 2014. I was put in mind of it because I just watched My Happy Family, a film on Netflix that takes place in Tblisi, Georgia, which I visited in June, 2014. I loved the movie.... read more
We English speakers are sometimes surprised to discover that we split our perspective on how we view things in the universe. As it turns out, we make a clear distinction between count nouns and mass nouns. Count nouns are – not surprisingly – nouns you can count: one book, two... read more
Title image: Florida governor Rick Scott giving updates on Hurricane Irma. Note the American Sign Language interpreter to the left. I’m sitting high and dry in Durham, North Carolina, and glued to television hurricane coverage because my principal residence is in downtown Orlando, and hurricane Irma is barreling toward my stuff... read more
Kazakh Language: signs with both the Cyrillic and Latin alphabet abound – very helpful! In Astana I met friend and co-author Phillip Carter. Our first job was to find a Kazak language teacher. It’s what we do, and our linguistic adventures certainly played a part in writing: Before arriving, Phillip’s... read more
Title Image: Traditional Romanian dress. The focus of this blog is the linguistic phenomenon known as folk etymology. Last week, a well-known pharmacy in Romania launched a campaign that drew my attention. Farmacia Catena advertised that from June 22 to June 24, if you come into one of their stores... read more
Japanese Language: Baby Steps 日 ‘sun’ + 本 ‘origin/tree’ = Japan 日本語= Japanese Language I’m in Japan now. Sure, I can say ohayō gozaimasu ‘good morning’, arigatō gozaimasu ‘thank you very much’ and order basic food items, e.g. I have shōchū rokku ‘(Japanese) vodka on the rocks,’... read more
It is a truism that beginning writers stick fairly closely to the senses of sight and sound and tend to ignore the sense of smell. I, therefore, challenge beginning writers to try their hand at a werewolf romance. The minute werewolves come into the picture the sense of smell steps... read more
