Of course it’s not an in-depth treatment of this fascinating matter, but it is certainly a neat way to introduce it.

This is the first video, Anglo-Saxon – The History of English (1/10):

The other ones can be found here:

The Norman Conquest – The History of English (2/10)

Shakespeare – The History of English (3/10)

The King James Bible – The History of English (4/10)

The English of Science – The History of English (5/10)

English and Empire – The History of English (6/10)

The Age of the Dictionary – The History of English (7/10)

American English – The History of English (8/10)

Internet English – The History of English (9/10)

Global English – The History of English (10/10)

If you are looking for something along the same lines to read while on vacation, The Stories of English by David Crystal is an interesting read.

The question is whether ish can be considered as a “liberated word form” or if it can only be used on its own when the word it should be attached to can be easily recovered in the context as in:

• Is he rich?
• Ish.

In the example above, of course, it means “richish”. But what about this example:

• Can I punch anyone on earth?
• Yes, ish.

Is ish referring to anyone or to the entire speech act? You can read the entire discussion here. I agree with those who claim that in this case ish has scope over the entire speech act. It should be interpreted to mean “sort of” and therefore it is used as a free word form to mitigate the illocutionary effect. Any other examples?

If you are on Twitter, please spread the word and use the tag #forjapanwithlove! Thanks!

“You’re in America, speak English.  It’s our official language.” “Today’s immigrants are not learning English as quickly as those of the past.” “Multilingualism threatens our national unity.”

The author defines these statements “myths” and profiles the top 12 minority languages in the USA (Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, French, Vietnamese, German, Korean, Russian, Italian, Arabic, Portuguese, Polish), with an additional chapter about Native American languages. She discusses the features of each language and concludes every chapter with a  prediction about the future longevity of each one of them.

Overall, the book allays possible fears that either English or American national identity should be threatened by language diversity, which the author sees as a resource for the US.

An argument along the same lines was made by David Crystal in his English as a Global Language (here is the Italian edition – L’inglese come lingua globale).

The interesting fact is that, while most changes are due to the influence of American English on British English, in some cases such as the one at issue, the change has nothing to do with the American standard and appears to be an “internal British affair”.

Apparently, there is some debate about whether English spelling needs to be simplified: “Unthinkable? Simpler spelling” and a reply: “These variations on English spellings simply won’t work“.

Wasn’t it already complicated enough?!

Pain in the English is a very interesting website. It essentially deals with all those things about English that are so difficult to figure out both for (some) native and (most) non-native speakers alike.

PainInTheEnglish.com encourages discussions of such gray areas of the English language, for which you would not find answers easily in dictionaries and other reference books.

(You can read more about the website’s “mission” here).

I always find very useful comments and explanations on the site and some interesting discussions too. A few examples:

• the use of gift as a verb. I hear it often enough, and I now understand it is a new development which is not universally accepted (or liked).
• Is there a gustative equivalent to the olfactory “malodour”? Well, in Italian of course we do have “saporaccio”, while “maleodore” is much less common.
• Correct prepositions following different.

Another blog that I love is The English Blog: an invaluable resource for teachers of English, even at the University level. The materials published in the blog posts are a true source of inspiration and got me off the hook more than once when I was in desperate need of data to exemplify specific phenomena. So if you need to teach your students how to describe trends and data, you could use this Valentine’s Day Economy Infographic!

I am always looking forward to any new update to The Virtual Linguist. The topics treated are varied: I enjoy posts about the meaning of words and the connections between language and society. See this brilliant post about the “unmentionables” or the very interesting article about language and the ability to count.

The Tower of Confusion has often good articles too. I found this about language acquisition especially interesting: Speaking too early is a waste of time.

There are many more cool language-related blogs out there, but I’m saving those for another time!

And more on ranting, an amusing article about… synonyms! My classic snowclone rant.

We now have proof that that is a idea is wrong. Barbara Berlusconi, the daughter of our Prime Minister, has just graduated in Philosophy at age 26. A 3-year, first level degree to be precise. She obtains her degree cum laude and she is offered a job on the spot as Professor in a brand new Faculty of Economics by Father Verzé, Vice Chancellor of the University Vita Salute San Raffaele.

Will she accept, will she not accept? who cares? The reality is that in the space of one minute we have all been brought back to the days when the clergy and nobles (in this case, the haute bourgeoisie) were united in their effort to control the poor people, to make sure they knew their place.

In this case the poor people are people like me, like the thousands of “precari”, researchers with a lot of work but no secure job, who for years have studied, taught, published and struggled to survive with the compensation they get for teaching an entire course for less than 1000 euros. Yes, 1000 euros. And not a month… but for the entire duration of the course. Exams included. For 3 years. And of course, in most cases regulations keep you from teaching more than one course at a time.

Basically, they get the ice-cream money that Dr Berlusconi keeps in her stylish handbag when she goes out to buy the newspaper (probably one of hers…).

People who by the age of 26 had already graduated when the old system was in place, and the University was still something that people took seriously, when you had to study for 3 months for a single exam without leaving your books, even if you studied humanities, that’s right.

People who have been waiting for years for a position to open up somewhere which has not already assigned to some 26 y.o. with a bachelor’s degree. People who try to do their best to convey their passion for learning and for their discipline, helping their students even if they make less than the guys selling bracelets on the street.

If Ms. Berlusconi has academic dreams, good for her. It would be good for the whole country if an heir to the ruling dynasty had to go through the whole process that people like me and like many of her fellow in philosophy graduates have had to go through, waiting for years in the (vain) hope that society becomes aware of what it is asking of a whole generation of people who stupidly believed that education was the key to a better life.

Personally I think many of us will never get a secure job at the University. So be it.

It would be much more honest if the government and parliament ceased to promise not to abandon us and had the courage to start doing openly what they’re doing already: deleting a whole generation of people who are working and have worked in the university for years and who started from scratch. We will just have to accept it.

But at least, replace us with some showgirl, or some calendar model. At least then we’ll know that the requirements for access to an academic career have simply changed and we’ll forget about PhDs and other graduate studies.

I would just like to understand how they are not ashamed of themselves. How many more insults will we have to put up with?

Apparently in Italy, the rule is publish AND perish.

Ora abbiamo la prova. Barbara Berlusconi, la figlia del nostro Presidente del Consiglio, si laurea a 26 anni in filosofia. Laurea triennale, capiamoci. E proclamata dottoressa con 110 su 110 e lode ottiene seduta stante l’offerta di una cattedra in una novella Facoltà di Economia da Don Verzé, sacerdote rettore dell’Università Vita Salute San Raffaele.

Accetterà, non accetterà? chi se ne importa. La realtà è che in un minuto si torna ai tempi in cui il clero e i nobili (in questo caso la haute bourgeoisie) si univano compatti contro i poveracci, tanto per essere sicuri che restassero al loro posto.

In questo caso i poveracci sono gente come me, come le migliaia di precari della ricerca, che da anni studiano, insegnano, pubblicano e si arrabattano per sopravvivere insegnando corsi completi per meno di 1000 euro. Sì, 1000 euro. E non al mese, a corso. E si sa. I corsi non sono neppure cumulabili nella maggioranza dei casi.

Praticamente i soldi per il gelato che la dott.ssa Berlusconi ha in borsetta quando esce per andare a comprare il giornale.

Gente che a 26 anni si era già laureata da un po’ e con i vecchi ordinamenti, quando ancora l’Università era una cosa che credevamo seria. Quando un esame ti costringeva a studiare per 3 mesi senza alzare il capo dai libri, anche in una facoltà umanistica.

Gente che aspetta i concorsi da una vita. Gente che cerca di fare del proprio meglio per trasmettere la propria passione per lo studio e la propria disciplina, senza mai tirarsi indietro con i propri studenti anche se prende meno di chi vende i braccialettini per la strada.

Se la dott.ssa Berlusconi ha aspirazioni da accademica, buon per lei. Sarebbe bene, per tutto il paese, se anche una della dinastia regnante potesse fare l’iter di quelli che come me e come molti suoi colleghi laureati in filosofia attendono da anni, nella (vana) speranza che la società si renda conto di cosa sta chiedendo a una generazione intera.

Personalmente ritengo che molti di noi non entreranno mai. Pace.

Sarebbe più onesto se lo stato smettesse di prometterci che non ci abbandonerà e facesse in modo aperto quello che sta facendo: cancellare una generazione di persone che lavora e ha lavorato tenendo in piedi l’università e ricominciasse da capo. Ce ne faremo una ragione.

Ma che almeno ci sostituiscano con una velina, o una modella da calendario. Almeno sapremo che i requisiti per l’accesso alla carriera sono semplicemente cambiati.

Vorrei solo dire, ma come fanno a non vergognarsi? Quanto ancora dobbiamo ingoiare?

So for instance, if you look up Italian, you will find a list of syntactic properties marked by “yes” if they are grammatical in Italian or “no” if they are not. On each of these pages, there is also a list of all the languages included in the site which indicates whether the same property is possible or not in those languages.

Very interesting.

SSWL – Syntactic Structures of the World’s Languages