Channel: Advanced English Skills
Advanced English Skills
2007, Vol. 4, pp. 1-52 "Between typology and diachrony : some formal parallels in Hebrew and Maltese" by Alexander Borg Abstract Hebrew and Maltese are obliquely related members of the Semitic language family. Past comparative research inspired by Bible…
A. H.) and a new settlement in 1048-49 (440 A. H.) composed of Muslims and slaves. Depopulation between the conquest and the settlement is suggested by the lack of both Muslim and Christian cemeteries, and also by the local toponyms which recall the Arabic place-names of Medieval Sicily, especially by the component of raħal or Ħal (Rahal gidit and Rachal saphy in Sicily, Raħal Ġdid and Ħal Safi in Malta). The Maltese language, too, has a marked affinity with the Maghrebin variety that was spoken in Sicily in the Norman age. Roger’s conquest introduced Romance elements in Sicily and Malta, where Arabic customs prevailed from 1091 to 1127 until Roger II reasserted his rule and society took on a European lifestyle.
Another vital section of Brincat's article is titled "From Punic to North African Arabic":
Definitions of the Maltese language differed: the locals saw it as unique and called it lingua maltensi (1436), lingua melitea (1549), whereas foreign travellers heard unfamiliar sounds and called it parlata africana (1536), parlar saracino (1558), “un langage arabe corrompu” (1694). Hieronymus Megiser was intrigued: “Although they are Christians, they make use of a language which is Saracen, Moorish, or Carthaginian or ‘lingua franca’, which is a kind of Arabic and which has its origin in Hebrew”. The scientific classification of the Semitic languages was still distant, but Megiser deserves credit for printing a booklet on Maltese, the Propugnaculum Europae in 1606, listing 121 words in German translation. Jean Quintin (1536) associated the Maltese language with the Punic inscriptions and, although the script had not been deciphered yet, the idea pleased many scholars in Malta and the myth was perpetuated for political, religious, and racial reasons. However, the historian Gian Francesco Abela (1647) had understood the real origins of Maltese, was aware of the Arabic substrate in the Sicilian dialect and knew that a similar language was spoken in Pantelleria. In 1810 Wilhelm Gesenius gave scientific proof that the origins of Maltese lied in a North African dialect of Arabic, but the Punic myth was upheld by some local scholars up to the 20th century.
The standardization of Maltese was a slow process. At first only a few isolated words appeared in notarial deeds and in the minutes of the local government, mostly place-names and domestic objects, but around 1470 Petrus Caxaro wrote a poem of sixteen lines, a cantilena, modelled on Romance genres. It is revered as the earliest text in the Maltese language. Occasional phrases in administrative texts show that Sicilian/Italian words were adapted according to Maltese grammar rules. An example from 1473 in a Sicilian sentence shows the word “isfeduene” which is from sfidare, to defy, with initial i for today’s j, a morpheme in the conjugation of verbs in the present tense, third person singular and plural, with the inflectional ending –w, that indicates the third person plural, jisfidaw (they defy), and the pronominal suffix –na, which means “us”, therefore “they defy us.”
Brincat then moves on to outline the impact of war and religion on the development of Maltese:
A knight from Provence, Thezan, wrote instructions on firing muskets for Maltese-speaking troops, a short grammar and a glossary of 3,000 words in two sections, Maltese-Italian and Italian-Maltese. Thezan faced a dilemma which troubled sixteenth and seventeenth-century writers: the spelling of sounds that are not Latin. Today Maltese has only two such sounds, aspirate h (ħ) and the glottal stop (q), but in those days pronunciation was closer to the Arabic. Thezan added ten Arabic letters to the Latin alphabet, but Gian Pietro Francesco Agius De Soldanis opted for a wholly Latin alphabet in his grammar (1750) and dictionary of 12,000 entries. Later, Michel Antonio Vassalli published his grammar in 1791 and 1827, and a lexicon in 1796 with 18,000 entries, adopting twelve letters from Greek [...]
Another vital section of Brincat's article is titled "From Punic to North African Arabic":
Definitions of the Maltese language differed: the locals saw it as unique and called it lingua maltensi (1436), lingua melitea (1549), whereas foreign travellers heard unfamiliar sounds and called it parlata africana (1536), parlar saracino (1558), “un langage arabe corrompu” (1694). Hieronymus Megiser was intrigued: “Although they are Christians, they make use of a language which is Saracen, Moorish, or Carthaginian or ‘lingua franca’, which is a kind of Arabic and which has its origin in Hebrew”. The scientific classification of the Semitic languages was still distant, but Megiser deserves credit for printing a booklet on Maltese, the Propugnaculum Europae in 1606, listing 121 words in German translation. Jean Quintin (1536) associated the Maltese language with the Punic inscriptions and, although the script had not been deciphered yet, the idea pleased many scholars in Malta and the myth was perpetuated for political, religious, and racial reasons. However, the historian Gian Francesco Abela (1647) had understood the real origins of Maltese, was aware of the Arabic substrate in the Sicilian dialect and knew that a similar language was spoken in Pantelleria. In 1810 Wilhelm Gesenius gave scientific proof that the origins of Maltese lied in a North African dialect of Arabic, but the Punic myth was upheld by some local scholars up to the 20th century.
The standardization of Maltese was a slow process. At first only a few isolated words appeared in notarial deeds and in the minutes of the local government, mostly place-names and domestic objects, but around 1470 Petrus Caxaro wrote a poem of sixteen lines, a cantilena, modelled on Romance genres. It is revered as the earliest text in the Maltese language. Occasional phrases in administrative texts show that Sicilian/Italian words were adapted according to Maltese grammar rules. An example from 1473 in a Sicilian sentence shows the word “isfeduene” which is from sfidare, to defy, with initial i for today’s j, a morpheme in the conjugation of verbs in the present tense, third person singular and plural, with the inflectional ending –w, that indicates the third person plural, jisfidaw (they defy), and the pronominal suffix –na, which means “us”, therefore “they defy us.”
Brincat then moves on to outline the impact of war and religion on the development of Maltese:
A knight from Provence, Thezan, wrote instructions on firing muskets for Maltese-speaking troops, a short grammar and a glossary of 3,000 words in two sections, Maltese-Italian and Italian-Maltese. Thezan faced a dilemma which troubled sixteenth and seventeenth-century writers: the spelling of sounds that are not Latin. Today Maltese has only two such sounds, aspirate h (ħ) and the glottal stop (q), but in those days pronunciation was closer to the Arabic. Thezan added ten Arabic letters to the Latin alphabet, but Gian Pietro Francesco Agius De Soldanis opted for a wholly Latin alphabet in his grammar (1750) and dictionary of 12,000 entries. Later, Michel Antonio Vassalli published his grammar in 1791 and 1827, and a lexicon in 1796 with 18,000 entries, adopting twelve letters from Greek [...]
Advanced English Skills
A. H.) and a new settlement in 1048-49 (440 A. H.) composed of Muslims and slaves. Depopulation between the conquest and the settlement is suggested by the lack of both Muslim and Christian cemeteries, and also by the local toponyms which recall the Arabic…
and Punic but not from Arabic.
In the meantime two important steps were taken in the domain of religion. Ignazio Saverio Mifsud wrote sermons in Italian and in Maltese, and enriched the latter with many Italian words and Latin phrases, attempting a literary style that rose above everyday speech. Even more far-reaching was the translation of the Italian catechism into Maltese by Francesco Uzzino in 1752. This had no literary ambition but for the first time all Maltese boys and girls learned it by heart for their First Holy Communion. Religious terms like fidi, liġi¸ sagramenti, Apostoli, Spiritu Santu, etc. were learnt by constant repetition. As for most domains, both high (administration, culture, law and medicine) and low (carpentry, fishing, building), words denoting religion, churches and their furniture, are largely of Sicilian origin.
Brincat then moves on to examine Napoleonic and English attempts to influence the development of Maltese more toward Francophone and Anglophone usages at the expense of Italian ones, but I won't go into the details of that here.
The final sections of Brincat's article trace the growth of English in the language mix on Malta after it became a British colony in 1813 and the rise of the Maltese language among the population.
Knowledge of Italian and English was limited to educated persons: in 1842 the former was spoken by 11% and the latter by only 5% of the population, but when English became compulsory for employment with the British forces, the Police, the Civil Service, and for emigration, the figure rose to 22.6% in 1931. After the Second World War Malta changed completely. English became fashionable, cinemas showed English and American films, pop songs replaced opera and, most important of all, in 1946 primary education became compulsory, teaching only Maltese and English. The battle against Italian was favourable to the Maltese language because the English had realized that its promotion was indispensable to end the long cultural battle.
Throughout the 19th century Maltese literature grew and found its highest expression in Dun Karm Psaila in the early 20th, while grammars, dictionaries and schoolbooks completed codification. The alphabet was standardized, consisting of Latin letters with a few diacritics: dots distinguished palatal ċ and ġ from velar k and g, voiced s became ż, crossed ħ identified the aspirate, j and w were adopted for the semi-consonants, x was adopted for sh and q for the glottal stop. This followed the principle of one letter for one sound but għ and h, both mute, were retained for etymological reasons. In 1924 cable radio relayed the BBC on one channel and Maltese programmes on the other, and for the first time standard Maltese was heard everywhere by illiterate dialect speakers. A chair of Maltese was set up at the University in 1937 and exams in both official languages were compulsory for jobs in the Civil Service.
How and when did Maltese become an official language on the island of Malta?
Maltese was given official status with English and Italian in 1934. Italian was removed in 1936, but came back in 1957 when Italian television could be viewed from Malta. It assumed a new role now: no longer official, nor limited to culture, it became a passive tool for entertainment and information, kept the highest audience up to the 1990s when local stations got a bigger share, and is still watched by about 20% in prime time. Italian is also the favourite foreign language in the secondary schools. English is the teaching medium of half the subjects in the schools and of all subjects except languages at University. It is also preferred for reading and sending emails and sms, and for ATM banking, but Maltese is spoken by over 90% of the population and boasts two daily newspapers (three in English), three major TV stations, and local radio channels. Production of books and plays is also healthy. In 2003 Maltese became one of the official languages of the European Union.
Where does that leave "pe[...]
In the meantime two important steps were taken in the domain of religion. Ignazio Saverio Mifsud wrote sermons in Italian and in Maltese, and enriched the latter with many Italian words and Latin phrases, attempting a literary style that rose above everyday speech. Even more far-reaching was the translation of the Italian catechism into Maltese by Francesco Uzzino in 1752. This had no literary ambition but for the first time all Maltese boys and girls learned it by heart for their First Holy Communion. Religious terms like fidi, liġi¸ sagramenti, Apostoli, Spiritu Santu, etc. were learnt by constant repetition. As for most domains, both high (administration, culture, law and medicine) and low (carpentry, fishing, building), words denoting religion, churches and their furniture, are largely of Sicilian origin.
Brincat then moves on to examine Napoleonic and English attempts to influence the development of Maltese more toward Francophone and Anglophone usages at the expense of Italian ones, but I won't go into the details of that here.
The final sections of Brincat's article trace the growth of English in the language mix on Malta after it became a British colony in 1813 and the rise of the Maltese language among the population.
Knowledge of Italian and English was limited to educated persons: in 1842 the former was spoken by 11% and the latter by only 5% of the population, but when English became compulsory for employment with the British forces, the Police, the Civil Service, and for emigration, the figure rose to 22.6% in 1931. After the Second World War Malta changed completely. English became fashionable, cinemas showed English and American films, pop songs replaced opera and, most important of all, in 1946 primary education became compulsory, teaching only Maltese and English. The battle against Italian was favourable to the Maltese language because the English had realized that its promotion was indispensable to end the long cultural battle.
Throughout the 19th century Maltese literature grew and found its highest expression in Dun Karm Psaila in the early 20th, while grammars, dictionaries and schoolbooks completed codification. The alphabet was standardized, consisting of Latin letters with a few diacritics: dots distinguished palatal ċ and ġ from velar k and g, voiced s became ż, crossed ħ identified the aspirate, j and w were adopted for the semi-consonants, x was adopted for sh and q for the glottal stop. This followed the principle of one letter for one sound but għ and h, both mute, were retained for etymological reasons. In 1924 cable radio relayed the BBC on one channel and Maltese programmes on the other, and for the first time standard Maltese was heard everywhere by illiterate dialect speakers. A chair of Maltese was set up at the University in 1937 and exams in both official languages were compulsory for jobs in the Civil Service.
How and when did Maltese become an official language on the island of Malta?
Maltese was given official status with English and Italian in 1934. Italian was removed in 1936, but came back in 1957 when Italian television could be viewed from Malta. It assumed a new role now: no longer official, nor limited to culture, it became a passive tool for entertainment and information, kept the highest audience up to the 1990s when local stations got a bigger share, and is still watched by about 20% in prime time. Italian is also the favourite foreign language in the secondary schools. English is the teaching medium of half the subjects in the schools and of all subjects except languages at University. It is also preferred for reading and sending emails and sms, and for ATM banking, but Maltese is spoken by over 90% of the population and boasts two daily newspapers (three in English), three major TV stations, and local radio channels. Production of books and plays is also healthy. In 2003 Maltese became one of the official languages of the European Union.
Where does that leave "pe[...]
Advanced English Skills
and Punic but not from Arabic. In the meantime two important steps were taken in the domain of religion. Ignazio Saverio Mifsud wrote sermons in Italian and in Maltese, and enriched the latter with many Italian words and Latin phrases, attempting a literary…
ripheral" Arabic, a question that is vital to the debate on the Arabic vernaculars that has been taking place on Language Log for the last few years? The status of Maltese is crucial for the whole debate, which has significant implications for linguistic taxonomy that go well beyond Arabic and Semitic.
A snapshot of today’s language is revealed by the composition of the lexicon. In Joseph Aquilina’s Maltese-English Dictionary (1987-1990) Arabic words make up 32.4%, Sicilian and Italian 52.5%, English 06.1%. The MED includes archaisms and rare terms among its 41,016 entries, but the Concise version reflects actual usage: its 22,649 entries show more Sicilian and Italian words (61.61%), less Arabic words (22,42%) and a slight increase in English words (8.45%). However, Arabic words comprise grammatical terms and the fundamental vocabulary, and are more frequently used. Together with the rules of grammar (although simplified) they define the language as a variety, albeit “peripheral”, of Arabic. A few examples from the domain of the family will suffice here: members of the inner nucleus have Arabic names: omm, iben, bint, ir-raġel, il-mara, tifel, tifla, (mother, son, daughter, husband, wife, boy, girl), but the word for father is Sicilian, missier. The other members have Sicilian/Italian names: nannu, nanna, ziju, zija, neputi, neputija, kuġin, kuġina, (grandfather, grandmother, uncle, aunt, nephew/grandson, cousin), and the word for family is familja and for relatives qraba. The complementary nature of Arabic and Sicilian/Italian is also seen in the days of the week (Monday to Sunday): it-Tnejn, it-Tlieta, l-Erbgħa, il- Ħamis, il-Ġimgħa, is-Sibt, il-Ħadd; but the months of the year are: Jannar, Frar, Marzu, April, Mejju, Ġunju, Lulju, Awissu, Settembru, Ottubru, Novembru, Diċembru. This stratigraphy marks all the other domains; for example about “bread” we see: ħobż, hobża, qoxra, lbieba, frak, ftira (bread, loaf, crust, crumb, crumbs, low circular shaped bread); bezzun, tal-kexxun, panina, ċabatta, malji (roll, sandwich loaf, flat roll, braided roll); sandwich, toast, baguette.
Informal everyday speech sees a lot of code-switching: firstly, because as most subjects are taught in English their terms are the first words that come to mind; secondly, because young parents prefer to speak English to their babies. At present this is not leading to language shift, because as they grow up children see Maltese as an adult language. Nowadays, the source of innovation is no longer Italian but English: some common words are adapted (kettle > kitla), others are Sicilianized (evaluation > evalwazzjoni), others become false friends (related > relatat, involved > involut), and new formations are created (enforceable > inforzabbli, developers > żviluppaturi, privacy > privatezza, occupancy > okkupanza). This is necessary for the language to keep up with social progress. A tricky problem is how to write unadapted English words, like bicycle and washing-machine (bajsikil? woxing maxin?). It is not easy to decide whether they are irreplaceable or translatable. Otherwise, being recognizably English, they can be attributed to code-switching, in which case they are written in their original spelling.
Brincat's concluding paragraph is profoundly telling:
Understandably, the pressure of English in a bilingual situation like Malta’s is very strong. As the 2011 Census shows, almost all Malta-born citizens know Maltese (99.6%) and English (91.3), many also know Italian (61.3%) and French (21.4%), but few know German (5.1% ) and Arabic (4.3%).
One thing is certain, the Maltese are proud of their language and have done much to study and preserve it, even in the face of overwhelming influence from English.
I am grateful to Mark for prodding me to look deeper into the evolution of Maltese as a language that is indeed "unique" and to examine the island nation of Malta as a[...]
A snapshot of today’s language is revealed by the composition of the lexicon. In Joseph Aquilina’s Maltese-English Dictionary (1987-1990) Arabic words make up 32.4%, Sicilian and Italian 52.5%, English 06.1%. The MED includes archaisms and rare terms among its 41,016 entries, but the Concise version reflects actual usage: its 22,649 entries show more Sicilian and Italian words (61.61%), less Arabic words (22,42%) and a slight increase in English words (8.45%). However, Arabic words comprise grammatical terms and the fundamental vocabulary, and are more frequently used. Together with the rules of grammar (although simplified) they define the language as a variety, albeit “peripheral”, of Arabic. A few examples from the domain of the family will suffice here: members of the inner nucleus have Arabic names: omm, iben, bint, ir-raġel, il-mara, tifel, tifla, (mother, son, daughter, husband, wife, boy, girl), but the word for father is Sicilian, missier. The other members have Sicilian/Italian names: nannu, nanna, ziju, zija, neputi, neputija, kuġin, kuġina, (grandfather, grandmother, uncle, aunt, nephew/grandson, cousin), and the word for family is familja and for relatives qraba. The complementary nature of Arabic and Sicilian/Italian is also seen in the days of the week (Monday to Sunday): it-Tnejn, it-Tlieta, l-Erbgħa, il- Ħamis, il-Ġimgħa, is-Sibt, il-Ħadd; but the months of the year are: Jannar, Frar, Marzu, April, Mejju, Ġunju, Lulju, Awissu, Settembru, Ottubru, Novembru, Diċembru. This stratigraphy marks all the other domains; for example about “bread” we see: ħobż, hobża, qoxra, lbieba, frak, ftira (bread, loaf, crust, crumb, crumbs, low circular shaped bread); bezzun, tal-kexxun, panina, ċabatta, malji (roll, sandwich loaf, flat roll, braided roll); sandwich, toast, baguette.
Informal everyday speech sees a lot of code-switching: firstly, because as most subjects are taught in English their terms are the first words that come to mind; secondly, because young parents prefer to speak English to their babies. At present this is not leading to language shift, because as they grow up children see Maltese as an adult language. Nowadays, the source of innovation is no longer Italian but English: some common words are adapted (kettle > kitla), others are Sicilianized (evaluation > evalwazzjoni), others become false friends (related > relatat, involved > involut), and new formations are created (enforceable > inforzabbli, developers > żviluppaturi, privacy > privatezza, occupancy > okkupanza). This is necessary for the language to keep up with social progress. A tricky problem is how to write unadapted English words, like bicycle and washing-machine (bajsikil? woxing maxin?). It is not easy to decide whether they are irreplaceable or translatable. Otherwise, being recognizably English, they can be attributed to code-switching, in which case they are written in their original spelling.
Brincat's concluding paragraph is profoundly telling:
Understandably, the pressure of English in a bilingual situation like Malta’s is very strong. As the 2011 Census shows, almost all Malta-born citizens know Maltese (99.6%) and English (91.3), many also know Italian (61.3%) and French (21.4%), but few know German (5.1% ) and Arabic (4.3%).
One thing is certain, the Maltese are proud of their language and have done much to study and preserve it, even in the face of overwhelming influence from English.
I am grateful to Mark for prodding me to look deeper into the evolution of Maltese as a language that is indeed "unique" and to examine the island nation of Malta as a[...]
Advanced English Skills
ripheral" Arabic, a question that is vital to the debate on the Arabic vernaculars that has been taking place on Language Log for the last few years? The status of Maltese is crucial for the whole debate, which has significant implications for linguistic…
fascinating linguistic laboratory. Afterword Britannica (this article has extensive coverage of all aspects of Malta's land, climate, flora and fauna, people (including ethnic groups and demographic trends), religion, economy, government, education culture, and history) Maltese and English are the official languages of Malta as well as official languages of the EU. Maltese resulted from the fusion of North African Arabic and a Sicilian dialect of Italian. It is the only Semitic language officially written in Latin script. English is a medium of instruction in schools. Italian was the language of church and government until 1934 and is still understood by a sizable portion of the population. The country of Malta became independent from Britain and joined the Commonwealth in 1964 and was declared a republic on December 13, 1974. It was admitted to the European Union (EU) in 2004. Selected readings
* "Maltese Google" (5/18/10)
* "Maltese email ARC" (6/9/21)
* "Mayor Pete's multilingualism" (4/18/19) — his father is from Malta
* "Recommended reading" (6/24/13)
* "Arabic proficiency levels" (6/23/07)
* "THE PROBLEM WITH FUSHA" (6/23/07)
* "Arabic proficiency levels" (6/23/07)
➖ @EngSkills ➖
* "Maltese Google" (5/18/10)
* "Maltese email ARC" (6/9/21)
* "Mayor Pete's multilingualism" (4/18/19) — his father is from Malta
* "Recommended reading" (6/24/13)
* "Arabic proficiency levels" (6/23/07)
* "THE PROBLEM WITH FUSHA" (6/23/07)
* "Arabic proficiency levels" (6/23/07)
➖ @EngSkills ➖
Word of the Day
Word of the Day: innate
This word has appeared in 107 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?
➖ @EngSkills ➖
Word of the Day: innate
This word has appeared in 107 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?
➖ @EngSkills ➖
NY Times
Word of the Day: innate
This word has appeared in 107 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?
Word of the Day
escritoire
Definition: (noun) A writing table; a desk.
Synonyms: secretaire, writing table, secretary.
Usage: In the large shining mahogany escritoire Mr. Osborne had a drawer especially devoted to his son's affairs and papers.
Discuss
➖ @EngSkills ➖
escritoire
Definition: (noun) A writing table; a desk.
Synonyms: secretaire, writing table, secretary.
Usage: In the large shining mahogany escritoire Mr. Osborne had a drawer especially devoted to his son's affairs and papers.
Discuss
➖ @EngSkills ➖
TheFreeDictionary.com
escritoire
Definition, Synonyms, Translations of escritoire by The Free Dictionary
Language Log
Brown Revisited
A couple of months ago, I told you about a project to recreate the Supreme Court oral arguments associated with Brown v. Board of Education ("Spontaneous SCOTUS", 3/2/2024):
Years ago, Jerry Goldman (then at Northwestern) created the oyez.org website as
a multimedia archive devoted to making the Supreme Court of the United States accessible to everyone. It is the most complete and authoritative source for all of the Court’s audio since the installation of a recording system in October 1955. Oyez offers transcript-synchronized and searchable audio, plain-English case summaries, illustrated decision information, and full-text Supreme Court opinions
He rescued decades of tapes and transcripts from the National Archives, digitized and improved them, and arranged the website's interactive presentations of the available recordings. Jiahong Yuan and I played a role, by devising and validating a program to identify which justice was speaking when (See "Speaker Identification on the Scotus Corpus", 2008).
More recently, Jerry has inspired an effort to recreate oral arguments from famous cases that took place before the recording system was installed, starting with Brown v. Board of Education. Rejecting the idea of producing "deep fakes" using the existing transcripts and extant recordings of the justices involved, he and his colleagues decided to create what we might call "shallow fakes", where actors will perform (selections from) the transcripts, and a voice morphing system will then be used to make their recordings sound like the target speakers. The recreated clips will be embedded in explanatory material.
All the scripts have been written, and in a few months, you'll be able to hear the results — which I expect will be terrific.
And here it is, at https://brown.oyez.org!
There's also a YouTube video "How We Recreated the Brown v. Board of Education Oral Arguments":
A few earlier posts where the overall oyez.org project came up:
"Fun with co-voting percentages", 12/1/2006
"Stress in Supreme Court oral arguments", 6/17/2008
"Mining a year of speech", 1/19/2010
"Big Data in the humanities and social sciences", 5/31/2012
"NPR: oyez.org finishes Supreme Court oral arguments project", 4/25/2013
"Hearing interactions", 2/28/2018
"Vocalizations of wolves and justices", 2/17/2023
FWIW, I was on the advisory committee for the Brown Revisited project:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/BrownAdvisoryCommittee.png
➖ @EngSkills ➖
Brown Revisited
A couple of months ago, I told you about a project to recreate the Supreme Court oral arguments associated with Brown v. Board of Education ("Spontaneous SCOTUS", 3/2/2024):
Years ago, Jerry Goldman (then at Northwestern) created the oyez.org website as
a multimedia archive devoted to making the Supreme Court of the United States accessible to everyone. It is the most complete and authoritative source for all of the Court’s audio since the installation of a recording system in October 1955. Oyez offers transcript-synchronized and searchable audio, plain-English case summaries, illustrated decision information, and full-text Supreme Court opinions
He rescued decades of tapes and transcripts from the National Archives, digitized and improved them, and arranged the website's interactive presentations of the available recordings. Jiahong Yuan and I played a role, by devising and validating a program to identify which justice was speaking when (See "Speaker Identification on the Scotus Corpus", 2008).
More recently, Jerry has inspired an effort to recreate oral arguments from famous cases that took place before the recording system was installed, starting with Brown v. Board of Education. Rejecting the idea of producing "deep fakes" using the existing transcripts and extant recordings of the justices involved, he and his colleagues decided to create what we might call "shallow fakes", where actors will perform (selections from) the transcripts, and a voice morphing system will then be used to make their recordings sound like the target speakers. The recreated clips will be embedded in explanatory material.
All the scripts have been written, and in a few months, you'll be able to hear the results — which I expect will be terrific.
And here it is, at https://brown.oyez.org!
There's also a YouTube video "How We Recreated the Brown v. Board of Education Oral Arguments":
A few earlier posts where the overall oyez.org project came up:
"Fun with co-voting percentages", 12/1/2006
"Stress in Supreme Court oral arguments", 6/17/2008
"Mining a year of speech", 1/19/2010
"Big Data in the humanities and social sciences", 5/31/2012
"NPR: oyez.org finishes Supreme Court oral arguments project", 4/25/2013
"Hearing interactions", 2/28/2018
"Vocalizations of wolves and justices", 2/17/2023
FWIW, I was on the advisory committee for the Brown Revisited project:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/BrownAdvisoryCommittee.png
➖ @EngSkills ➖
National Archives
Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
EnlargeDownload Link Citation: Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Opinion; May 17, 1954; Records of the Supreme Court of the United States; Record Group 267; National Archives. View All Pages in
Word of the Day
formicary
Definition: (noun) A nest of ants.
Synonyms: anthill.
Usage: Hours after accidentally stepping on a formicary, she was still picking stray ants off of her jeans.
Discuss
➖ @EngSkills ➖
formicary
Definition: (noun) A nest of ants.
Synonyms: anthill.
Usage: Hours after accidentally stepping on a formicary, she was still picking stray ants off of her jeans.
Discuss
➖ @EngSkills ➖
TheFreeDictionary.com
formicary
Definition, Synonyms, Translations of formicary by The Free Dictionary
Phrasal Verb of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
sit up (2)
to not go to bed until later than usual
➖ @EngSkills ➖
sit up (2)
to not go to bed until later than usual
➖ @EngSkills ➖
Englishclub
sit up (2)
Idiom of the Day
the granddaddy of them all
The biggest, oldest, most impressive, or most respected person or thing of his, her, or its kind. Watch the video
➖ @EngSkills ➖
the granddaddy of them all
The biggest, oldest, most impressive, or most respected person or thing of his, her, or its kind. Watch the video
➖ @EngSkills ➖
TheFreeDictionary.com
the granddaddy of them all
Definition of the granddaddy of them all in the Idioms Dictionary by The Free Dictionary
Word of the Day
Word of the Day: demarcation
This word has appeared in 26 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?
➖ @EngSkills ➖
Word of the Day: demarcation
This word has appeared in 26 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?
➖ @EngSkills ➖
NY Times
Word of the Day: demarcation
This word has appeared in 26 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?
Language Log
Nonword literacy
Upon first hearing, the very idea sounded preposterous, but when I searched the internet, I found it all over the place as "nonword reading / repetition", "nonsense words", "non word phonics / fluency", "non-word decoding", "pseudowords", etc. In other words (!), it's a real thing, and lots of people take the concept seriously as a supposedly useful device in reading theory and practice, justifying it thus:
"as a tool to assess phonetic decoding ability" (here)
"contribute to children's ability to learn new words" (here)
"a true indicator of the alphabetic principle and basic phonics" (here)
etc., etc., etc.
I would not have taken the topic of nonwords seriously and posted on it, had not AntC pointed out that it is actually being applied in the classroom in New Zealand.
I was brought up short by an article syndicated in today's New Zealand press:
the reported evidence is based on children’s ability to read non-words, and their ability to read words was not consistently assessed. The report suggests that the approaches are successful in teaching children to blend sounds together to decode words. What is not clear yet is if learning to decode benefited children’s writing and comprehension more than current methods.
There's a 'Bryant Test of Basic Decoding Skills', used internationally, where 'decoding' means being able to sound out words on the page. Seems to be the Bryant ref'd on this wikip.
Then the scenario Dr. Jesson seems to be highlighting is that learners can 'read' a text in the sense of sound it out; but not understand it. Then neither will that help their writing. The situation is particularly critical for newly-arrived immigrant families, where English is not their first language. NZ education has essentially no ability to teach in any other language.
The recently published "independent evaluations of the various structured approaches " seems to be this.
How is literacy education assessed in the U.S.A.? Particularly in districts where English is not the predominant language.
And how in Sinitic cultures, where there's no hope of 'sounding out' from the text?
The back story: New Zealand has a new Government as of late last year. They're now getting into their stride of changing everything the previous administration had initiated, including of course education. This week they've announced a new initiative. What this 'new' masks is that by cutting in-progress initiatives, they're effectively reducing the overall education budget for literacy skills. 'Expert commentary' here — including from Dr. Jesson.
The idea of "sounding out" nonsinoglyphs made me chuckle. It reminded me of Xu Bing's "A Book from the Sky" that consists solely of characters that look real but that he had made up out of thin air. These nonsense characters drove literate Chinese readers mad with frustration when they tried to make sense of them. They also remind me of the "junk characters" we recently discussed, which — although "real" (they exist in some hyper arcane glossary or occurred once in the whole of history in an obscure manuscript, etc.) — their sound and meaning are known not even to one out of a million literate persons. Do Xu Bing's made-up glyphs and the Kangxi's junk characters have an analogous function to the nonwords of English reading theory? Selected readings
* "Unhinged on phonics" (7/26/07)
* "Phonics" (12/30/06)
* "'Book from the Ground'" (12/5/12)
* "The infinitude of Chinese characters" (9/9/20)
* "How many more Chinese characters are needed?" (10/25/16)
* "'Book from the Ground'" (12/5/12)
* "The unpredictability of Chinese character formation and pronunciation" (2/6/12)
* "How to generate fake Chinese characters automatically" (12/30/15)
* "Cucurbits and junk characters" (3/30/24)
➖ @EngSkills ➖
Nonword literacy
Upon first hearing, the very idea sounded preposterous, but when I searched the internet, I found it all over the place as "nonword reading / repetition", "nonsense words", "non word phonics / fluency", "non-word decoding", "pseudowords", etc. In other words (!), it's a real thing, and lots of people take the concept seriously as a supposedly useful device in reading theory and practice, justifying it thus:
"as a tool to assess phonetic decoding ability" (here)
"contribute to children's ability to learn new words" (here)
"a true indicator of the alphabetic principle and basic phonics" (here)
etc., etc., etc.
I would not have taken the topic of nonwords seriously and posted on it, had not AntC pointed out that it is actually being applied in the classroom in New Zealand.
I was brought up short by an article syndicated in today's New Zealand press:
the reported evidence is based on children’s ability to read non-words, and their ability to read words was not consistently assessed. The report suggests that the approaches are successful in teaching children to blend sounds together to decode words. What is not clear yet is if learning to decode benefited children’s writing and comprehension more than current methods.
There's a 'Bryant Test of Basic Decoding Skills', used internationally, where 'decoding' means being able to sound out words on the page. Seems to be the Bryant ref'd on this wikip.
Then the scenario Dr. Jesson seems to be highlighting is that learners can 'read' a text in the sense of sound it out; but not understand it. Then neither will that help their writing. The situation is particularly critical for newly-arrived immigrant families, where English is not their first language. NZ education has essentially no ability to teach in any other language.
The recently published "independent evaluations of the various structured approaches " seems to be this.
How is literacy education assessed in the U.S.A.? Particularly in districts where English is not the predominant language.
And how in Sinitic cultures, where there's no hope of 'sounding out' from the text?
The back story: New Zealand has a new Government as of late last year. They're now getting into their stride of changing everything the previous administration had initiated, including of course education. This week they've announced a new initiative. What this 'new' masks is that by cutting in-progress initiatives, they're effectively reducing the overall education budget for literacy skills. 'Expert commentary' here — including from Dr. Jesson.
The idea of "sounding out" nonsinoglyphs made me chuckle. It reminded me of Xu Bing's "A Book from the Sky" that consists solely of characters that look real but that he had made up out of thin air. These nonsense characters drove literate Chinese readers mad with frustration when they tried to make sense of them. They also remind me of the "junk characters" we recently discussed, which — although "real" (they exist in some hyper arcane glossary or occurred once in the whole of history in an obscure manuscript, etc.) — their sound and meaning are known not even to one out of a million literate persons. Do Xu Bing's made-up glyphs and the Kangxi's junk characters have an analogous function to the nonwords of English reading theory? Selected readings
* "Unhinged on phonics" (7/26/07)
* "Phonics" (12/30/06)
* "'Book from the Ground'" (12/5/12)
* "The infinitude of Chinese characters" (9/9/20)
* "How many more Chinese characters are needed?" (10/25/16)
* "'Book from the Ground'" (12/5/12)
* "The unpredictability of Chinese character formation and pronunciation" (2/6/12)
* "How to generate fake Chinese characters automatically" (12/30/15)
* "Cucurbits and junk characters" (3/30/24)
➖ @EngSkills ➖
Phrasal Verb of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
think back
to think about a past event or a past time
➖ @EngSkills ➖
think back
to think about a past event or a past time
➖ @EngSkills ➖
Englishclub
think back
Slang of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
top
a man who takes the active role in gay or homosexual sex
➖ @EngSkills ➖
top
a man who takes the active role in gay or homosexual sex
➖ @EngSkills ➖
Englishclub
top
Idiom of the Day
have a yen for (something)
To have a very strong and persistent desire or craving for something. Watch the video
➖ @EngSkills ➖
have a yen for (something)
To have a very strong and persistent desire or craving for something. Watch the video
➖ @EngSkills ➖
TheFreeDictionary.com
have a yen for (something)
Definition of have a yen for (something) in the Idioms Dictionary by The Free Dictionary
Word of the Day
Word of the Day: veranda
This word has appeared in 28 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?
➖ @EngSkills ➖
Word of the Day: veranda
This word has appeared in 28 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?
➖ @EngSkills ➖
NY Times
Word of the Day: veranda
This word has appeared in 28 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?
Word of the Day
bonhomie
Definition: (noun) A pleasant and affable disposition.
Synonyms: affability, affableness, amiableness, geniality, amiability.
Usage: The good humor and bonhomie called up by this last evening amongst his old friends had disappeared.
Discuss
➖ @EngSkills ➖
bonhomie
Definition: (noun) A pleasant and affable disposition.
Synonyms: affability, affableness, amiableness, geniality, amiability.
Usage: The good humor and bonhomie called up by this last evening amongst his old friends had disappeared.
Discuss
➖ @EngSkills ➖
TheFreeDictionary.com
bonhomie
Definition, Synonyms, Translations of bonhomie by The Free Dictionary
HTML Embed Code: