French Translation

(1) In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (2) Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. (3) And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. (4) God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. (5) God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning-the first day.

Au Commencement, Dieu a creé le ciel et la terre. Le terre était sans forme et vide. Les ténèbres couvraient la mer et l’esprit de dieu planait sur les eaux. Et Dieu a dit “ Soit lumière” et il y a eu la lumière. Dieu a vu que la lumière était bonne et il a sépareé la lumière des ténebres. Dieu a appelé la lumère le jour et les ténèbres il a appelé le nuit. Et il y a eu le soir et il ya a eu le matin – le premier jour.

Translation Notes: There were many stylistic choices that I had to make in order to preserve the meaning. I am not very familiar with passé simple so I used passé compose instead – although passé simple would actually be used in written texts. I did not include an article with Dieu because it is not the God it is merely just God – even though normally almost every noun has an article. Also I had to differentiate between imparfait and passé compose a couple of times. I used passé compose when the action was finished and compete – definite and the imparfait when the state/action lasted for a while. In addition, it was difficult figuring out which vocabulary to use. I don’t really know how to express the difference between the deep and the waters so I used “mer” and “eau” even though I know that that is not a perfect translation. I also wasn’t very sure about what construction to use for “let there be light.” I did the best that I could – trying to preserve the meaning over all else.

When comparing my translation with the actual French Bible, I noticed some differences in style. My translation is very literal where as the actual one uses more lyrical phrases that I am not familiar with. There are certain ways of phrasing the lines that I just don't know because I am not a native speaker.

The Ever Present Problems with the 2010 Census

The purpose of the Census is not only to count how many people reside in different areas in the United States, but it is also to find out what ethnicity these populations consider themselves to be. This is extremely important for logistical purposes. However, the language used in the census can drastically affect the answers elicited. For example, the diction used on the Vietnamese translation of the census conveys a tone reminiscent of a communist investigation. Therefore, fewer Vietnamese citizens may be inclined to submit personal information, thinking it is serving a sinister purpose. Because many Vietnamese have recently had a frightening history relating to communist governments, this wording could skew census results from Vietnamese populations.

More problematic, however, is that non-English speakers sometimes do not have correct instructions about filling out the census form. It is confusing for them to have to supply a distinct ethnicity not present as one of the choices available. But the difficulty is compounded when census workers urge respondents to mark an incorrect ethnicity. In Queens, New York, one of the most richly diverse areas in the United States, census workers directed people of Bangladeshi background to check the “Indian” box. The distinctions between Indians and Bangladeshi people are very pronounced, but this difference is not being accounted for in the recent survey. Glenn Magpantay, the director of the democracy program at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, addresses this inequity as he declared, “To have someone identified as something they’re not is not only offensive, but it also drives a misallocation of resources and representation.” The most important difference between ethnic groups, however, is in terms of language. Various governmental services whose workers are fluent or familiar with a certain language are assigned to locations based on the information provided by the census. For example, hospitals will include signs in Bangla if the census determines that there is a large enough population of Bangladeshi people in the surrounding area.

Officials are hurriedly trying to correct mistakes in this census. There are more than 30,000 questionnaire assistants nationwide to help anyone who doesn’t understand the census directions. There are bound to be many mistakes because this process is not scientific. Mr. Magpantay’s organization is trying to rectify the Bangladesh/Indian confusion because the census information has such reverberating consequences.

The very concept of identifying their race is confusing to some immigrants because it often does not happen in other cultures. “The concept of picking a race or ethnicity for non-American-born folks is not common.” Many immigrants don’t understand the lasting impact that filling out this piece of paper will have on them for at least the next ten years. More education efforts need to be enacted to make this 2010 census as accurate as possible

The Texting Revolution: Not Just Technological but also Linguistic

Texting has revolutionized the very concept of a conversation. Over a short period of time, it has become a dominant form of communication especially amongst the younger generations. However, for me, I know that a technological trend is permanent when my mother attempts to get in on the craze. It is definitely not just a passing fad. Instead, texting has had a deep impact on our society in general.

A unique culture has developed from the texting world that has its own distinct vernacular-textese. There are words/abbreviations that are appropriate in text conversations that just aren’t used in normal speech. Grammar rules are completely different than normal English; spelling patterns normally are too. Yet somehow, meaning is still decipherable through all these differences. Textese could almost be categorized as a foreign language. If the definition of a foreign language is that there can be jokes made that are only understandable in this languages subtext, than texting would classify under these standards. The website Texts from Last Night is dedicated to hilarious text messages. Yet, these are only funny sentences and phrases within the context of the texting medium. Even if it hasn’t quite earned that status of a foreign language, it definitely still has a large culture of followers. In the article “Hugely popular text messaging spawns language change” the scope of the mania of text messaging is revealed: “This week, the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association will announce that Canadians sent 35.3 billion texts in 2009, up 70 per cent over the previous year. Per day, the current rate is an astonishing 122 million.” That is a lot of text messages – and that is just Canada alone. The CTIA did a study on American texting habits and found that 1.5 trillion text messages were sent or received. Because texting has penetrated so deep into American culture, it obviously brings about some change. And most noticeably, texting has had a deep impact on linguistic transformation.

Texting lingo normally consists of abbreviations. This is because they are just much easier to type and so they save time. JK, LOL, NBD, GR8 are all examples of the textese. There are actually on-line dictionaries completely devoted to texting acronyms, terms and even smiley faces that are used in SMS conversation. Most of these websites are aimed at the older generations – those that did not grow up in this text obsessed culture. Just like learning any other foreign language, it is harder for adults to grasp textese. Many different terms have also arisen from the text-crazed culture. The texting article mentioned the various “ext” words: sexting, chexting, drexting, hexting, objexting, wexting. Some of these terms are used more frequently than other - even the New York Times uses the word sexting because of Tiger Woods' scandal. Text vernacular has a much more informal register than normal spoken English. Most grammatical rules have gone out the window because of convenience. Convenience is the driving factor behind many of the linguistic changes in textese. Only time will tell which textese words will survive for generations to come.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/technology/Hugely+popular+text+messaging+spawns+language+change/2930387/story.html

http://www.netlingo.com/acronyms.php

textsfromlastnight.com

http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/ctia-survey-1-5-trillion-text-messages-sent-in-2009-20100324/

Language in Higher Education Settings

Learning a new language is normally mandated in middle and high school because of the obvious benefits that accompany this new skill. Yet at the university level, emphasis is instead placed on different areas of study. Learning new languages is undervalued, as this practice is not actively encouraged in most higher education settings. Schools are taking away their foreign language requirements (George Washington) and are replacing them with critical thinking requisites instead. Universities are even generating their own definitions of the phrase “foreign language.” Certain schools don’t classify sign language as a foreign language because it is “dependent on the English language.” However, at some schools foreign language programs are actually flourishing. Some relatively obscure languages (aka not spoken in the Western World) have increased enrollment as they are receiving more attention due to political situations.

General Education (Gen Ed) requirements are a standard at most colleges. They mandate certain areas of study that each student should engage in before leaving for the real world. At many schools, a foreign language is included in these Gen Eds. However, recently George Washington University rescinded this standard, which has sparked much debate. GW is trying to broaden its Gen Eds and make them more applicable to settings in the “real world.” Instead of concentrating on certain areas of study, GW now mandates students to take classes that are geared towards certain types of learning like critical analysis. However, these administrators are largely overlooking the deep effect that learning a new language has on a person. Learning new languages changes how one thinks, broadens one’s perspective and introduces new cultures – all of which are aspects of critical thinking. All of these skills are immensely important in the “real world.” Therefore, this process should be highly valued. Just because a lot of memorization accompanies learning new languages, it does not mean that critical thinking and analysis are devoid from these fields. Instead, languages are rich in reasoning and analytical interpretation.

Another fierce debate in higher education about the importance of certain languages is the issue of sign language. Many people do not value sign language as a different language from English because it relies on the same words. They argue that it is indistinguishable from English. Again, these critics are not taking a close enough look into this rich, complicated form of communication. Sign language has a vastly different culture associated with it than English does. Learning sign language is a very complicated and difficult endeavor. However, again, it introduces students to a completely different way of viewing the world. It trains them to discriminate differently than a normal English speaker would. Students start to understand the difficulties that a deaf person has to face on a day-to-day basis solely by learning this new way of communicating. This language should in no way be underappreciated. It is actually now the forth most studied foreign language as it is offered in 150 higher-level schools.

Despite all of these negative accounts about university attitudes toward languages, there have been some success stories. Iowa University’s Arabic department is its fastest growing foreign language program. Because of the media’s attention to the Middle East, more people have realized the importance of studying this global language. Arabic and Chinese have become more popular, in accordance with political trends across the globe. Students are more willing to branch out and take a language not normally associated with the western world these days. This diversity is exactly what the United States needs to help ameliorate its position in the international setting.

Learning new languages whether Arabic or sign language has deep effects on one’s lives and so should be emphasized and not discouraged by higher level education.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-04-19-IHE-foreign-college_N.htm

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/education/ct-met-sign-language-20100416,0,2337497.story

http://www.omaha.com/article/20100416/NEWS01/704179851

Cursing: Still Forbidden Lingo or Accepted Vernacular

Cursing is a unique phenomenon. Certain words hold strong negative connotations and then are labeled “bad language.” They demonstrate deep emotion in ways that normal language usually cannot convey. Curse words carry a “shock value” usually used to emphasize the speaker’s meaning. Yet they can be construed as extremely offensive and are often forbidden among young children by concerned parents. How did these words develop so distinctly that they form their own category of linguistic variety? Looking at this forbidden set of words, they are not phonetically unique from other words. They are composed of regular phonemes that also make up non-forbidden words. Apparently only certain combinations contain meanings that provoke anger and fear from those who hear them. The “forbidden-ness” of swearing is normally prorogated by parents teaching their children right from wrong. When parents scold and prohibit kids from saying these words, they give more importance to words that would otherwise be no different phonetically. Therefore, when a child starts to experiment with these words, he understands that not only is he saying a societally inappropriate word, but he is also violating his parents’ wishes. Thus, the act of swearing not only violates social conventions but it is also a conscious rebellion against parental control. These connotations learned early in life persist throughout one’s life. In addition, cursing is a construct of various languages that differs among the various world languages. Most bilingual speakers claim that they feel deeper emotion when they swear in their native language because they understand the weight these words carry in their society. Societal expectations shape the relative acceptance of these words. And there has been an increasing trend toward introducing more cursing into normal vernacular.

Swearing used to be rare, used only in moments of great passion and generally associated with the lower classes. However, through the years, people increasingly devalue the associations these words carry and use curse words in a normal conversational manner. The New York Times posted an opinion section in its learning blog about the effects of cursing on younger generations. Katherine Schulten poses the question, “How much do you curse? Why?” to the nation through this blog after first asking experts on language. Deborah Tannen argues that cursing is more common in “private conversations” and more frequently these private conversations are taking place in public. This is indicative of the deteriorating barriers between private and public spheres, which lead to more swearing overall. This starts to change the popular feeling toward cursing in general. If a swear word becomes a word that is used frequently in conversation, it starts to lose its weighty power. And that is exactly what has happened in the United States. Words that would have been socially unacceptable are now being heard on television. These effects are demonstrated in the later part of the blog. More youngsters are starting to swear because it has become more socially acceptable. The next logical question is if these words lose their “forbidden” powers, will new curse words appear to replace the older ones so that there can always be dirty language?

The Spy Shot the Cop with the Revolver

Ambiguity. The world is strewn with it to a shocking degree. From vision to hearing and especially language, ambiguities define daily life. However, our brains are very good at resolving ambiguity and at deriving meanings in difficult situations. The article “Present Imperfect: Is the human brain ill adapted for language?” presents Gary Marcus’s viewpoint that “syntactic ambiguities throw a wrench that the human brain is well evolved – or even optimally evolved – for language.” This is a simplistic perspective that fails to take into consideration the true complexities under which the brain operates and even discounts the important process of resolving ambiguities in other cognitive processes.

As language has been a much more recent human development than vision, it is true that human brains have had more time to evolve in response to the sense of sight. Therefore, Marcus states that because of this significant difference, the human handling of sight is much more elegant and perfected than our dealings with language. The example that is given to demonstrate the abundance of ambiguities in our language is a favorite of many linguists: “the spy shot the cop with the revolver.” Structurally, it seems to be a simple sentence, but it contains ambiguities most people would not even recognize. Who had the revolver? The spy or the cop? This statement would not normally elicit further analysis, but there could be some confusion as the sentence is not completely clear. Despite Marcus’s argument that our brains are not set up to deal with language rationally, we are in fact surprisingly good at handling ambiguities like this and at understanding the usual intentions. This process of resolving ambiguities is more important than the fact that they are present in speech in the first place.

The underlying premise of Marcus’s argument is inherently flawed. He bases his idea that the brain is not “evolved or even optimally evolved” on the existence of simple syntactic ambiguities. Yet he gives no merit to the fact that humans are skillful at figuring out the meaning of a sentence based on context and external cues. This process is actually analogous to vision, a process he stated was much more evolved than language. When one examines the mechanics of sight, it becomes apparent that it is a series of resolutions of visual ambiguities. We do not see the world as it truly is because there is either too much information for our brains to process it all or there is not sufficient information to produce a coherent view of the world. The brain makes many assumptions in the process of seeing. And it does the very same thing in the process of understanding language. While sight is not a construct of the human brain as language is, both rely on the same overarching principle of resolving ambiguities. Therefore, although language may not be the most rational expression or way of communication, it should not be said that the presence of ambiguities in language denigrate the capacities or complexities of the mind.

Reviving the Languages of the Past

Language is an integral instrument in understanding a distinct culture. Subtleties that define a certain group of people are captured in its language. Nuances about a culture can sometimes only be truly demonstrated through its unique linguistic patterns. Therefore, losing this important key is detrimental to the history of many peoples. However, despite this reality, languages are disappearing from the world at an alarming rate. Because of technological advancements, the world community is becoming more assimilated which has both positive and negative consequences. This normally results in smaller ethnic groups conforming themselves to the more dominant, powerful ones. There are 6,059 languages with 1 or more speakers but there are only 80 languages with 10^7 or more speakers. This great diversity of linguistic variation is slowly waning. However, some ethnic groups are fighting this trend, desperately trying to maintain their link to their culture and their history.

Indian tribes in the United States are currently in the process of reviving their dead languages. They understand that language is an essential component of their culture, and by promoting its learning, their culture will become more accessible to the generations of today. According to the article “Indian Tribes Go in Search of Their Lost Languages,” some of these Indian tribes are starting almost completely from scratch. The American Indians on Long Island have very few records of their written language and have to try to resurrect their dead language from those rare manuscripts. However, they are persistent in their efforts because they understand the significance their project will have on their cultures. This linguistic resurrection from the dead actually has proven successful before. Modern Hebrew is the success story for language rebirth. It was not spoken for 2,000 years, but with the advent of the creation of Israel, it became adopted and popularized. While these languages will not ultimately sound exactly like they did 2,000 years ago, the insight that they offer into these ancient cultures is unparalleled.

Reviving a dead language is an extremely difficult proposition. However, it is done much more successfully if it becomes “cool” to teenagers to speak this old language. Marten Youssef admits this in his article “Want to be cool? First, you have to learn the language” by describing his process of learning a new language. He immigrated to Canada and was put into ESL programs. To become better integrated into the community, he learned English to the best of his abilities. Like Youssef, youngsters are much more likely to spend time learning and speaking a new language if it is deemed to be “cool.” How the older individuals who are trying to spark this renaissance will manage to create a sense of “cool” is a difficult question. Hopefully, some strong-willed teenagers who don’t want their parents to understand what they are saying will take an interest in these new languages which will help to combat the negative consequences of globalization.