My buddy Clark Boyd is on TV tonight. If you followed that link, sorry- Clark will not be cooking under duress , or dancing, or singing (all that ended in whisky-soaked tears on the Night of a Thousand Kilts in deepest Vermont). But he will be sleuthing in Guatemala for PBS’s Frontline World.
Here’s the story: More [...]
Entries from May 2008
May 27, 2008
words have their say in guatemala
May 26, 2008
podcast #5: Americans’ language-learning adventures abroad and the linguistic sensitives of a Eurotrashy song contest
Citing national security, the Bush Administration now offers grants to Americans to study languages such as Arabic. We travel to Cairo where language schools are full of American students. Also, a conversation with self-described language fanatic Elizabeth Little. And we also take a journey through the linguistic politics – and just plain silliness – of the [...]
May 19, 2008
podcast #4: public radio cliché yes, but the obsessions of these people may be saving languages
It couldn’t last. I come from public radio. I just couldn’t resist putting out a podcast on endangered languages. And so after three good, honest attempts at tracking non-endangered global linguistic trends, I spoil it all with this offering. Despite this moth-to-light obsession, podcast #4 probes some of the weirder aspects of language-saving. First we spend some time a Chilean [...]
May 13, 2008
silvery-blossomed tree in bosnian
My friend and colleague Jeb Sharp is on assignment in Bosnia right now, prepping for a series that I’ll be editing this fall. I’m keeping up with her whereabouts by reading her blog. So, all you ex-Yugos: what’s the name (in English) of that silvery-blossomed tree on the road from Sarajavo to Goradze?
May 12, 2008
podcast #3: a linguist’s fantasy island and Seinfeldian diplomacy
In this edition of The World in Words, the stories of a couple of people who aimed just a little too high. Linguist Derek Bickerton talks about his lifelong love of creoles and his attempt to create a new language by importing a half-dozen families onto an uninhabited desert island. Bickerton’s memoir, Bastard Tongues, is a page-turner, and [...]
May 6, 2008
podcast #2: putinology and don’t exaggerate on your resume
In this week’s podcast, the focus is on the Russian language. There are those names of leaders: Putin, Stalin, Medvedev. They all mean – or at least connote – concrete things to Russians. (A lot of non-Russians, btw, have great trouble pronouncing Medvedev. ) Then we enter the linguistic world of outgoing president Vladimir Putin. The man likes to juice up his [...]
