John Mcwhorter's Book

          In the book Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue by John McWhorter, the author is attempting to explain how the meaningless do and ing ending came into the English language. The author also discusses his belief of the Celtic language influencing the English language. McWhorter through very humorous and sarcastic language criticizes other linguists who negate Celtic influence because they claim the Celts all were killed in a genocide, which is mentioned at the beginning of the book. He then goes on and tries to find similarities of the meaningless do in other languages around the world and does find some but not necessarily used as in the English language. The second assumption he talks about is that the meaningless do just happened to come up for no reason.

          One particular part that really caught my attention and made me remember previously discussed material in class was the concept of “borrowing.” “This leaves us with a simple fact about what happens when languages come together: they mix. There is no recorded case in human history in which languages were spoken side by side and did not spice one another with not only words, but grammar” (McWhorter, 15). I believe this is a very strong and clear remark in holding his opinion that it is unrealistic to believe that there was no Celtic influence in the language. Just as we have seen in our readings this semester, borrowing is a very common concept that takes part in language communication through out the world. In the articles of From English to Chinglish, we learned how English words have been adopted into the Chinese language and how this has caused changes in grammar when translating. In my own experience through my travels to Mexico, Costa Rica and Ecuador, I have witnessed how some English words have been borrowed into the Spanish language of those countries in their everyday language.

          The beginning of the book is interesting and humorous but I do find myself getting confused with the many examples he uses of different languages in comparison to English.  I don’t think there is any single passage that I have not understood quite clearly yet, except for the beginning as to what is the reason that some linguist refuse to accept that English was influenced in part by the Celts. This passage is the first assumption made on pages 11 through 17 of the book.

The Linguists Video Response

After viewing the video of Dr. David Harrison and Dr. Gregory Anderson and keeping in mind the information of our previous readings, I believe that the most important themes of language to be addressed are encouraging the use of languages despite criticism of society and recording the languages through out history. It seems that the death of many languages is the result of institutions and society suppressing the use of them because of new ideas that are adopted or globalization. In the article of From English to Chinglish, we learn how English has become many times the neutral language of choice between people. Also, our guest speaker from Pakistan spoke about the ideology behind teaching children English in hopes of a more successful future even if that meant their mother tongue would be neglected.

It is natural and human to have a desire for success, many of us are willing to do and work as hard as we can to strive and be accepted by society. In the film we see how it is evident through Vasya, their driver. Even though he was asked initially if he spoke Chulym, he denied it. As the film goes on and the first speaker of Chulym is interviewed, Vasya finally begins to speak Chulym with the older Chulym speaker. It was a surprise for the linguists since they didn’t expect him to speak the language after he had been asked and denied knowledge of it. Eventually, when Vasya opens up to them, he does tell them how embarrassed he felt of speaking his mother tongue because of society discouraging the use of it. Not wanting to feel as an outcast or judged by others he opted to accept the death of his language, Chulym.

In Pakistan, English and Urdu are the official languages. However, as our speaker explained through her studies and information gathered, English is the language preferred by many as the path to success. She explained to us that a child in Pakistan is usually exposed to at least four languages: their mother tongue, Urdu, English and Arabic (religion). The education in Pakistan is taught in two languages, Urdu and English. However, a person with superior information is educated only in English. Ironically, when she did a study through a survey among parents of different schools, many agreed that Urdu was a good language for moral and ethics but despite their beliefs English was still superior only as a path that would ensure their success and well being. Once again here we can see how society plays a major a role in setting pressures that eventually may lead to the death of languages as our society continues to advance.

Another important theme of language that would help in preventing the extinction of a language is recording it. According to the article From English to Chinglish “The disappearance of a language is tied directly to the death of a culture in some cases. Linguists have estimated that half of the world’s languages do not have a written form. For example, of the 231 endangered languages spoken in Australia, at least 50 of them have never been written down” (60-63).  In the film, Chulym faced the same problem, there was no written record of it. The speakers of Chulym just like many other ancestral languages are passed down orally. I believe that if we focus on encouraging the use of these languages in danger of extinction and also encourage the speakers of them to record them in writing or even better yet through the use of videos, many languages can be saved. We need to encourage and voice how important languages are to understand every culture and our ancestors. It should be encouraged to feel proud of knowing a language that might not be known by many but that was once the culture of our ancestors.

Works Cited

"From English to Chinglish: The Globalization of Languages." Globalization101.org. The State University of New York, 23 July 2008. Web. 14 Apr. 2012. <http://www.globalization101.org/from-english-to-chinglish-the-globalization-of-languages/>.

PBS. Dir. Seth Kramer, Daniel A. Miller, and Jeremy S. Newberger. Perf. Dr. David Harrison and Dr. Gregory Anderson. PBS. PBS. Web. 19 Apr. 2012. <http://www.pbs.org/thelinguists/For-Educators/>.

  

I rather have friends than frenemies or as I would call them “Mayras” lol..

Image Credits

Frenemy in the dictionary is a noun and refers to a person or group that acts friendly towards each other for convenience but have deep feelings of resentment, rivalry and are in competition with each other. The word is pronounced using a fricative voiceless /f/,liquid voiced /r/, front vowel /ɛ/, nasal voiced /n/, /ɛ/, nasal voiced /m/, front vowel /i/ and ends with a fricative voiceless /s/. Together makes: /frɛnɛmis/.The etymology of this word dates back according to the dictionary to 1953. The word first appeared in print by The Nevada State Journal in an article by Walter Winchell on May 19,1953 “Howz about calling the Russians our Frienemies?”  The word is an example of what can be compounding and blending. By compounding you take two words and make them one. With blending you would take the beginning of a word and the end of the second word and combine them both. For example: “Friend” and “enemy” we would take the beginning of the first word, “Fr” add the second word “enemy” = “Frenemy”. I chose this word because I remembered an old frenemy with which our relationship did not end well because of the constant rivalry and competition with me. As the definition say’s, she was constantly in competition with me to put me down and make herself seem superior to me but was very friendly and insisted on being close to me. It was a weird and confusing friendship from my point and no better word can describe it than “frenemy,” Mayra my frenemy.

Works cited:

"Frenemy." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 28 Mar. 2012. Web. 31 Mar. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frenemy>.