Word of the day – iqqanaijaaqajjaagunniiqtutit

By Simon

Today’s word appears in an article on CBC Canada News which discusses a new policy that will require all senior government officials in Nunavut to speak Inuktitut by 2008. The language requirement will eventually be extended to other staff as well. The word iqqanaijaaqajjaagunniiqtutit roughly translates as ‘you won’t have any work anymore’ – the fate that apparently awaits those who fail to learn the language.

Nunavut is a huge, sparsely populated territory in the far north of Canada where the majority of the inhabitants are Inuit. The majority of the population – some 85% – speak Inuktitut as their first language and some speak no other language. In this light, the policy makes a lot of sense. In Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages, Mark Abley mentions that many of the officials in Nunavut spoke only English when he visited the territory, and that much of the administration of the region was undertaking in English. This new policy should help to raise the status of Inuktitut.

How many speak Mandarin?

By Simon

Whenever Mandarin or Chinese are mentioned in the news reports and other articles – something that seems to be happening frequently recently – the number of speakers is often mentioned and is usually given as over one billion. The assumption that the vast majority of people in China speak Mandarin is very common both outside and inside China.

According to a survey undertaken by the Xinhua news agency however, ‘only’ half of the population of China, some 690 million people, actually do speak Mandarin. Urban dwellers are more likely to be Mandarin speakers than those who live in rural areas, and while approximately three quarters of those under 30 speak the language, only a third of those over 60 do.

Other varieties of Chinese (dialects/regionalects/topolects/Sinitic languages) are spoken by 86% of the population, which suggests that many people are bilingual in their local ‘dialect(s)’ and Mandarin. Non-Chinese languages are spoken by about 5% of population who belong to China’s 55 officially recognised ‘National Minorities’.

The other main concentrations of Mandarin speakers are in Taiwan, where about 20 million – the majority of the population – speak the language, and in Singapore, where about 1.5 million speak Mandarin, and the government is attempting to encourage more to do so. There’s another million or so speakers of Mandarin in Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, Thailand and Mongolia, according to Ethnologue, and about 175,00 in the USA, according to the MLA.

That gives us a total of 712,675,000 speakers of Mandarin. A huge number, but not quite a billion.

Languages in primary schools

By Simon

There was some discussion on the radio this morning about a plan to make the teaching of foreign languages compulsory in primary schools in England. A review of languages policy has been undertaken by Lord Dearing and Dr Lid King, National Director for Languages at the Department for Education and Skills. They are recommending that languages become a compulsory part of the curriculum for children between of 7 and 14, that language courses are made ‘more engaging’, and that there is more investment in the training and support of teachers. A summary of recommendations can be found here.

Apparently languages are already taught in 70% of primary schools. In secondary schools, the number taking languages after the age of 14 fell dramatically after they were made optional and the government wants to try to reverse this trend.

Only a few obstacles will stand in the way of this plan: the lack of language teachers, trying to fit language lessons into an already over-stuffed curriculum, and the possible negativity or indifference about languages among the kids and their parents.

At what age are languages introduced in your country?

Word of the day – pendramwnwgl

By Simon

Today’s word, pendramwnwgl [pɛndram’ʊnʊgl], is the Welsh word for headlong, topsy-turvy or pell-mell. This word is made up of three parts: pen (head), dra – a mutated form of tra (beyond) and mwnwgl (instep/neck). I came across it the other day and just liked the sound of it. Related words include pendraphen (head beyond head) and wynebwaered (face descent).

Phrases on Omniglot

By Simon

Today I put together a new page of useful phrases in Arabic. They all come from the multilingual pages, but I thought it would be handy to have the phrases for one language all together on one page. I know some of you have asked for this. I’ll add other languages when I have a spare moment or two.

As usually, your comments, corrections and additions are very welcome.

Fluenz

By Simon

The other day I stumbled on an interesting new language course called Fluenz. At the moment it’s only available for Mandarin Chinese, but a Spanish version is planned.

The course comes on a DVD-ROM and consists about 110 hours of interactive and video instruction. An American instructor, who studied Mandarin in China, explains everything in English on the videos. There are many different exercises, a glossary, and online live support is available.

The emphasis is on teaching you to communicate in Mandarin, so everyday, immediately useful language is used, and words are all written in pinyin romanization. Also included is an audio CD containing audio exercises that compliment the DVD lessons, and a booklet with all the phrases used in English, pinyin and Chinese characters.

A free demo of the course (quite a large file) is available for download on the Fluenz website

Tourism and minority languages

By Simon

The other day, I came across an article that discusses the impact of tourism and migration on minority languages, particularly on the Welsh language. While tourism brings a significant amount of money to Welsh-speaking areas, it can also have a negative impact on the language.

When relatively large numbers of non-Welsh speakers visit or move to a Welsh-speaking area, the local people often feel some pressure to speak English rather than Welsh, and English-speaking parents who move to such areas aren’t all convinced of the benefits of education through the medium of Welsh or bilingual education.

Many in-migrants to Welsh speaking areas are apparently those who have been there on holiday before and/or who have a holiday home or a caravan there. Quite a few holiday home owners move to those homes when they retire. One negative aspect of in-migration is on house prices, which tend to rise beyond the reach of the locals.

I suspect similar tensions can be found in other areas where minority languages are spoken, such as the gaeltachtaí in Ireland, parts of Scotland, Brittany and so on.

The original Welsh version of the article can be found here.

Regional variations

By Simon

Last week’s language quizzes got me thinking about how the pronunciation of languages varies from region to region and country to country. When I hear someone speaking English, I can usually work out or guess which country they come from, and possibly which region. I don’t always get it right – I’m not very good at distinguishing US and Canadian accents, for example – but this is mainly due to lack of familiarity with the accents in question.

I can tell the difference between the Spanish of Spain and Latin American Spanish, but can’t pin speakers down to a particular country. The recordings I used for the quiz yesterday were all from radio stations, and I suspect that radio presenters tend to speak a fairly standard version of Spanish, which perhaps minimises the differences between the countries. If the recordings had been of ordinary people, maybe the differences would have been more noticeable. Or maybe Spanish doesn’t vary from country to country as much as English. Can anyone shed more light on this?

Can you tell where people come from by the way they speak your language?