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Este control de Buzzfeed es para nosotros que hablan espanol pero viven en EEUU. Me parecio un control muy divertido porque tiene una interpretacion de pronunciacion que es muy ludica. Vamos a ver como es tu pronunciacion segun esta control!

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Can You Pronounce These Spanish Words Correctly

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Tries to remember all the random words Pitbull screams about.*

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Lifestyle, Auto, Food & Drink, and Home & Garden online news and information

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Latinos en los Estados Unidos se estan perdiendo su idioma

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Latinos en los Estados Unidos se estan perdiendo su idioma

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La nueva generacion de ninos latinos que viven en los EEUU no hablan espanol frecuentemente, aunque sus padres hablan espanol mucho. Muchos padres son preocupados porque sus hijos no hablan espanol. Me interesa este problema porque se ocurre mucho en mi cultura tambien.

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Lifestyle, Auto, Food & Drink, and Home & Garden online news and information

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Code-Switching en una niña: un experimento

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Code-Switching en una niña: un experimento

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Este informe es de un experimento sobre 'code-switching' en una nina. La nina Isabella nacio en Venezuela pero mudo a EEUU cuando tuvo 2 anos. Sus padres hablaron en espanol, y ella aprendio ingles en escuela. Esta investigacion ve el problema con code switching y aprender dos idiomas a la vez.

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Este video es una comedia de 'Saturday Night Live' en donde Diego (retratado por Lin Manuel Miranda) esta llamando a su madre desde North Dakota. Diego    narra su vida en North Dakota en espanol, pero usa muchos ejemplos de 'code-switching' , calco gramatico, y jerga. Es interesante ver la version de un video que es en espanol pero fue creada para una audiencia que habla ingles. Es un video muy gracioso, espero que usted lo disfrute.

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Watch Saturday Night Live highlight 'Diego Calls His Mom' on NBC.com

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Nimrah Fatima Saleem (Bilingual Family Tree)

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Nimrah Fatima Saleem (Bilingual Family Tree)

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Me
Nimrah (USA) English and Urdu Dominant (fluent in Spanish as well)

Parents
Agha Sahir (Pakistan/ USA Immigrant)-- Urdu/English Bilingual

Sumbla (Pakistan/ USA Immigrant)-- Urdu/English Bilingual

Paternal Grandparents
Suraiya (Pakistan/ USA Immigrant) - Urdu/ English Bilingual

Syed Muhammad (Pakistan/ USA Immigrant)- Urdu-dominant very little English.

Maternal Grandparents
Parveen Sultana (Pakistan)- Urdu (she knew very little English)

Jawad Hussain (Pakistan/USA Immigrant)- Urdu, limited English

Notes

1. Parveen: She passed away in April 2009, and although she did visit the US a few times, she was never able to immigrate here. She spoke limited English.

2. Nimrah: Born and raised in the US but spoke (and still speaks) mostly Urdu at home and with family. Learned Spanish in school, none of my relatives speak Spanish, several can barely speak English.

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Elementos de Capitulo 8: Espanol en los EEUU

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Elementos de Capitulo 8: Espanol en los EEUU

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Ladino es el idioma de judeos de origen hispana. Los judeos fueron expulsados de espana pero continuaron en el desarrollo de su idioma. Fue hablado en partes de Turkey, Egipto, y partes de Estados Unidos, incluyendo Florida, Nueva York, Seattle, y muchos ciudades grandes. Pero el lugar con la mas grande poblacion de hablantes Ladinos es Israel.

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ladino ladino spanish judeo judeo-spanish judeo-espagnol judezmo spaniol dzhudezmo sefardic sephardic language

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Ladino, the Sephardic Language - Judeo-Spanish Judeo-Espagnol

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A Quick Explanation of Ladino (Judeo-Spanish)

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El rotacismo es la incapacidad de pronunciar los 'r's. Es un desorden que se ocurre en niños. Los ninos que tienen rotacismo se pronuncian la 'r' como 'l' y no tienen control sobre eso.

Hay ejercicios y asesoramientos para ayudar a estos ninos pero no se si tienen efecto positivo.

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Orientación Andújar - Recursos Educativos

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Es bastante frecuente que los niños que empiezan a hablar tengan problemas para pronunciar la "r" . A este trastorno se le llama rotacismo, es el nombre que se le da a la dislalia selectiva del fonema "r". Una dislalia es una incapacidad para pronunciar correctamente ciertos sonidos o grupos de sonidos.

El trastorno para pronunciar la letra "r" suele ser pasajero, por eso es una de las últimas en adquirir, pero se corrige a medida que el niño va practicando el habla y afinando la audición.

Aqui os dejamos una recopilación PARA TRABAJAR CON NIÑOS Y ADULTOS CON Problemas para pronunciar la "r" Rotacismoen la que aportamos cuentos, canciones, programas, bingos actividades, fichas para trabajar el rotacismo, ejercicios, praxias, etc.

RAMÓN EL DRAGÓN
RAMÓN EL DRAGÓN cancion
MATERIALES DE ARASAAC

Descripcion: Varias actividades y soportes para trabajar el fonemas /R/ suave y su integración en el lenguaje espontáneo.

Autor/es: Lola García Cucalón
DESCARGATE LOS DOCUMENTOS EN PDF Lectura_de_Pictos_R_Inicial Lectura_de_Pictos_R_Media Lotos_R_Acciones_R_Inicial Lotos_R_Acciones_R_Inicial_ByN Lotos_R_Acciones_R_Media Lotos_R_Acciones_R_Media_ByN Lotos_R_Animales Lotos_R_Animales_ByN Lotos_R_Inicial Lotos_R_Inicial_ByN Lotos_R_Media Lotos_R_Media_ByN Memory _R_Inicial_y_Media Memory_R_Animales Presentacion_fonema_R _2 Presentacion_fonema_R_1 Presentacion_fonema_R_ByN PARA TRABAJAR LOS SINFONES DESCARGATE LOS DOCUMENTOS EN PDF Libro de sinfones Fichas Discriminacion Libro de Autodictados Sinfones Libro de Loto de Sinfones
LOTO ERRE INVERSA
LOTO r suave
Bingos de sinfones de /r/

Descripcion: Conjunto de bingos, elaborados con el creador de bingos, con palabras que contienen sinfones con el fonema r.

Autor/es: Nuria Lázaro
Bingo_sinfones_BR_4x4_3_cartones Bingo_sinfones_FR_3x3_3_cartones Bingo_sinfones_GR_3x3_4_cartones Bingo_sinfones_PR_3x3_3_cartones ARTÍCULOS Y PROGRAMAS INTERESANTES
PROGRAMAS DEL C.P.R. de Avilés

PROGRAMACIÓN DEL FONEMA /R/ PROGRAMA_DE_R

Interesantísimo programa completo del COLEGIO DE PP. ESCOLAPIOS
"Dulce Nombre de María"
Programa completo para trabajar en nuetras clases con ejercicios y actividades rotacismo CUENTOS QUE AYUDAN A LA PRONUNCIACIÓN DE LA R
PARA AYUDARNOS A DIFUNDIR NUESTROS VIDEOS DAR AL ME GUSTA

EN NUESTROS VIDEOS DE YOUTUBE Y DEJAD VUESTROS COMENTARIOS

RIMANDO ANDO
RIMANDO ANDO CUENTO CANCION

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Problemas para pronunciar la "r" Rotacismo: coleccion de materiales programas, videos, cuentos, etc -Orientacion Andujar

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Es bastante frecuente que los niños que empiezan a hablar tengan problemas para pronunciar la "r" . A este trastorno se le llama rotacismo, es el nombre que se le da a la dislalia selectiva del fonema "r". Una dislalia es una incapacidad para pronunciar correctamente ciertos sonidos o grupos de sonidos.

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Sabemos que la pronunciacion puede afectar la ortografia. En este caso, en ingles, 'Going to' es 'gonna' en lengua moderna. Es decir, que las palabras se combinan a ser una palabra en la pronunciacion.

Es un cambio morfologico y de lexico. Cuando alguien dice 'gonna' en vez de 'going to' es muy informal y casual.

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Reader SL asks for intervention in an disagreement about whether newspapers should use "gonna" in quotations:

I got in an argument with a colleague, who used to be a journalist, even, about this. She said there is nothing wrong with transcribing what someone says accurately. My point is that this is a clear case of diglossia in English; everyone always says "gonna" but it should always be written as "going to". She disagreed, and I said, "Well, I'm going to write to Language Log about that." Actually, I said "I'm gonna", but I wouldn't write that.

The first problem, as discussed here, here, and here, is that there are not just two possibilities. Among other reduced variants in the context "I'm going to VERB" - and ignoring the quality and extent of diphthongization in the pronunciation of "I'm" - we might find

There's also the whole set of [gʌnu]-like variants. In other contexts, the range of phonetic possibilities would expand still further. And in individual cases, there would often be legitimate disagreement about what the right transcription is.

So "transcribing accurately what someone says" is not straightforward, even using a well-defined phonetic transcription method. Using the resources of standard English orthography, it's even tougher. As a result, the transcription guidelines for corpora of conversational speech - including those that I've been responsible for - typically mandate using the full "going to" form, no matter what the transcriber thinks the speaker might have said. The phonetic details can then be sorted out later.

But in journalistic quotations, the fact that finer phonetic distinctions exist isn't in itself a very strong argument for banning coarser ones.

And it's reasonable to argue that this has become a morphological or lexical matter, not just a phonetic one. Gonna has become a quasi-standard form, the commonest version of aspectual "going to" for most speakers in all but the most formal or emphatic contexts, just as "can't" is the commonest negated form of "can".

(The fact that gonna-type reduction is not available for the verb of motion has long been cited as evidence for the lexicalization - and maybe grammaticalization - of the aspectual use of "going to".)

On this view, quoting Dean Skelos as saying "We're not going to work under time constraints", when what he (probably) said was "We're not gonna work under time constraints", is like quoting Anthony Weiner as saying "I cannot say with certitude" when what he said was "I can't say with certitude".

A stronger counter-argument is that readers no longer see contractions as culpably informal, as they might have 150 years ago, whereas the written form "gonna" is still stigmatized, even though it's what almost everyone says almost all the time. So if a publication decides to allow both "going to" and "gonna" in quotations, there ought to be some guidelines to ensure that it's used somewhat accurately, and not simply as a way to depict some speakers as being uneducated or ethnically marked.

Links to past discussions:
"The internet pilgrim's guide to g-dropping", 5/10/2004
" Empathetic -in'", 10/18/2008
" Palin's tactical g-lessness", 10/18/2008
" Pickin' up on those features also", 22/29/2008
" Pawlenty's linguistic 'southern strategy'?", 3/17/2011
" Symbols and signals in g-dropping", 3/23/2011
" Automatic classification of g-dropping", 6/12/2011

Update - in a comment, Ben Hemmens writes:

In the will not and won't case, certainly that we still pronounce both and write both in sentences depending on rhythm and emphasis. Same goes for can not and can't, I am and I'm. There's a use for both forms.

But I don't see any such duality with going to / gonna [...] as far as I can tell, I simply do not have the "going to" pronunciation.

I can't speak for Ben's speech, but in English usage overall, this is surely false. As part of a collection effort for a corpus of political speeches, I've been gathering the weekly radio addresses of the past few presidents. The first of Obama's addresses where I found instance of "going to" (using egrep and thus in filename collating order, 010910_WeeklyAddress) has three examples in its closing paragraph, two of which are unreduced:

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We enter a new decade, now, with new perils - but we're going to meet them. It's also a time of tremendous promise - and we're going to seize it. We will rebuild the American Dream for our middle class and put the American economy on a stronger footing for the future. And this year, I am as hopeful and as confident as ever that we're going to rise to this moment the same way that generations of Americans always have: as one nation, and one people. Thanks for listening.

Here's George W. Bush, from his weekly radio address on 1/11/2008, where an aspectual "going to" is unreduced (including a full vowel in the "to"):

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We have faced difficult tests in the past. The American people have always risen to meet them. And that is exactly what we're going to do again.

I've also been making a collection of campaign speeches, and again, the first "going to" that I found in this collection was a pair of examples in John McCain's 2008 RNC acceptance speech, where the second one is reduced but the first one isn't. It seems plausible that the lack of reduction in the first case is for emphasis:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

But let there be no doubt, my friends, we're going to win this election. And after we've won, we're going to reach out our hand to any willing patriot, make this government start working for you again, and get this country back on the road to prosperity and peace.

(N.B. I've edited out some of the long period of recorded cheering.)

I have no systematic evidence about what the distribution of various more or less reduced forms of aspectual "going to" in various sorts of American speech is really like. However, it's quite clear that we still see exactly the sort of variation here that Ben Hemmens claims not to have in his own usage.

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" previous post | next post " Reader SL asks for intervention in an disagreement about whether newspapers should use "gonna" in quotations: I got in an argument with a colleague, who used to be a journalist, even, about this. She said there is nothing wrong with transcribing what someone says accurately.

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Quien sea el juez? Mucha gente pronuncia la 'h' en Wheat Thins muy fuerte, y mucha gente la salta. Vi un episodio de Family Guy en donde fue un debate entre Brian y Stewie sobre este tema exacta.

La pronunciacion de 'wh' en ingles ha cambiado mucho y todavia hay mucha variacion. Algunos dialectos, como la de Escosia, Reino Unido, y el sur de EEUU se pronuncian la h como /hw/. Como es su pronunciacion?

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I DO NOT OWN ANY PART OF THIS VIDEO ALL RIGHT ARE TO THE WHEAT THINS COMPANY As the salty snack that helps you "Do What You Do," Wheat Thins new commercial features Stewie and Brian from "Family Guy" doing exactly what they do best: fighting.Stewie's has difficulties with a certain pronunciation.

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Elementos de Capitulo 7:  Variacion linguistica en español

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Elementos de Capitulo 7:  Variacion linguistica en español

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Este video es un comercial para un telefono movil de Cingular. Es un comercial muy gracioso porque el significado de las palabras contrasta al tono. La madre y su hija parecen que son peleando pero en realidad son felices. Creo que el tema de este comercial es que la semantica detras de una palabra puede cambiar en una manera non-verbal.

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This is the Mother Love commercial by Cingular. I searched everywhere for it! lol.

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Analizar un mensaje de text-- sobre analizar el text

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Analizar un mensaje de text-- sobre analizar el text

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Hoy aen dia, comunicamos usando mensajes de text. Son mensajes cortitos, gracios, y rapidos. Pero tambien son una causa de ansiedad para nosotros que estamos esperando una respuesta de un amigo-- o de un novio potencial.

Es muy comun sobre analizar un text. Tambien es muy comun perder una menjsaje en las semanticas de un text. Muchas veces, las chistes en mensaje son interpretadas en serio como insultos. Tambien, es dificil tener una conversacion importante sobre text. La solucion es que en vez de estar en el celular todo el tiempo debemos juntar en persona. Es mas divertido, yo creo.

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The Stock Exchange or The Text Exchange: ask people which they find more stressful and texting might just give the Stock Exchange a run for its money. According to this article from Forbes, there are eight major sources of stress these days: job stability, intimate relationships, housing costs, health problems, family responsibilities, work, the economy, and money. Maybe Forbes should have counted to fifty instead of eight. They forgot to include a few things, like the threat of terrorism, global warming, nuclear weapons, divorce, death of a loved one, and the fear of ending up old and alone with 35 cats. Oh, and as if there aren't enough legitimately important things to worry about, there's always text messaging; after all, crafting a text can often be as confusing as it is convenient.

Technology has undoubtedly made our lives easier in many ways, but I'm not so sure I like the effect it's had on dating. Where it was once necessary to actually leave your house to meet someone, you can now do so from the comfort of your own couch using sites like OKCupid and Match.com; blind dates are no longer blind, thanks to Google and Facebook; and the art of conversation has been whittled down to the ability to express oneself in approximately 140 characters. We try to protect ourselves from rejection by hiding behind not-so-emotionally-bulletproof plastic screens, but at the end of the day, technology can only shield us from so much.

Inspired by Jeff Wilser's recent piece from The Cut, " The 10 Ways That Men Text Women", I got to thinking about texting in general, and, more specifically, the ways in which we tend to overanalyze text messages. Disclaimer regarding the use of the word "we": my hunch is that over-analysis transcends gender altogether. I by no means want to imply that all women overanalyze, or that all men don't-in fact, I happen to know few guys who are wayyy more obsessed with texting than all of my female friends combined-but, that said, I can only speak from my experience as a woman. Basically, I'm talking correlation, not causation.

Dr. Ria Van Ryn, an assistant professor of sociology at Yeshiva University, raises a fantastic point regarding over-analysis: You can analyze communication in a completely legitimate way, without it being considered "overanalyzing." "Who decides what the 'right' amount is? There's a hugely gendered thing going on here where women are expected to craft these perfect, witty messages but then not expected to expend any energy doing so," Dr. Van Ryn explains.

When it comes to the role digital devices play in dating these days, the movie adaptation of He's Just Not That Into You sums it up pretty well (albeit in the gendered way Dr. Van Ryn identifies above): "I had this guy leave me a voice mail at work, so I called him at home, and then he emailed me to my BlackBerry, and so I texted to his cell, and now you just have to go around checking all these different portals just to get rejected by seven different technologies. It's exhausting." Seriously. And once you add in the complexities of communicating via social media? Forget it.

I often wonder how many minutes (fine, hours) of our lives young- to mid-20-somethings devote to text messaging. I'm sure I'm not alone when I confess to spending an embarrassing amount of time composing and analyzing and discussing and dissecting texts, as if the use of a period instead of a comma might have some sort of subliminal meaning. (Which-according to Wilser's piece -it could. Ugh.) Can't we all just level the playing field and come up with a few basic rules of thumb(s) for texting? Or is that too much to ask?

The 10 text message trends I most often end up analyzing and/or overanalyzing:
1. The text itself as a means of communication
The good ol' texting vs. calling debate. There doesn't seem to be one right answer, but whatever the means of communication, I'm likely to overanalyze it. I'm not sure when it was exactly that the text message replaced the phone call. As a friend of mine recently said, "What the eff ever happened to the phone call?! I know how to speak. What I don't know is how to talk in 160 characters or less." Some people argue that if you're into someone, you call him or her to ask for a first date. After all, it's more personal to hear someone's voice... right? Then again, others-myself included- hate talking on the phone and would do anything in their power to avoid it. So who am I to fault a guy for texting instead of calling if he's the one putting himself out there and making the first move? Of course, each option comes with its own set of pros and cons:

Texting

Pros: Less intrusive; gives you time to think of a clever response; convenient no matter where you are

Cons: Less personal; texts may be dissected, overanalyzed, and misinterpreted; have to watch your spelling and punctuation

Calling

Pros: More personal to hear someone's voice; gutsy; no character limit

Cons: More intrusive ("What if I'm interrupting?"); talking on the phone is inevitably awkward at first with someone you don't know; more pressure to think on your feet

2. Who goes first?
For some people, it's not even a question: if someone has your number, a cell phone, and at least one appendage with which he (or she) can type, the ball is in that person's court. If that person doesn't initiate, he or she's not interested.

But who's to say a man has to initiate? It's a two-way street: if you've exchanged numbers, why not go for it and text him first? The media constantly bombards women with mixed messages when it comes to making the first move. One day, it's best to be a confident and empowered woman of the 21st century and do the asking; the next day, it's best to revert back to the 1950s and wait for men do the pursuing. No wonder there's so much anxiety surrounding that first text.

"There's something bigger going on here," notes Dr. Van Ryn. "It's not just about initiating a date; it's about women initiating any kind of power-laden conversation with men. Are these so-called 'rules' shifting as more and more of straight people's peer groups include LGBT people? Or is the 'lean in' phenomenon, if problematic, at least on everyone's minds?"

At the end of the day, I think it's best to just follow your instincts, trust your gut, and text if you feel like texting.
3. The three-day rule
Once upon a time, in a kingdom far, far away, there was a magical thing called the "three-day rule": if you met someone and exchanged numbers, there was an enchanted 72-hour period during which you were supposed to communicate for the first time, or else the bubble would burst and you had to go back to square one. But just how outdated is that three-day rule? And did anyone really abide by it in the first place?

In a digital age where many people are practically surgically attached to their phones, there's an underlying pressure to respond to texts, calls, and emails immediately. We've grown increasingly dependent on instant gratification, and in its absence, find ourselves searching frantically for an explanation-especially at first. You want to believe that if someone's interested in you, he or she will reach out within the first 24 hours and then respond to your texts in a timely manner. In theory, why shouldn't they? Technology makes it so easy. And yet there's this thing called "life" that sometimes takes priority over digital demands. Despite the flexibility and convenience that technology affords, it can be more of a burden than a luxury if you feel pressure to be available 24/7. I vote we all just cut each other some slack. The whole playing-it-cool thing is exhausting. And now, of course, iMessages mean you can tell when the other person is typing. It's like knowing what cards are in the other player's hand. Thanks, technology, for ruining our game.
4. Mirroring text behavior
In person, mirroring another person's body language indicates connection on a subconscious level, but I'm yet to see how that could possibly translate to a text message. Is it just me, or is there nothing subconscious about texting? You know that scene in Mean Girls when Lindsay Lohan's character says to her crush, "I pretended to be bad at math so that you'd help me. But the thing is, I'm not really bad at math. I'm actually really good at math. You're kind of bad at math. Anyways, now I'm failing. Isn't that funny?"

Obviously pretending to be bad at something you're good at is a far cry from funny, but I have a confession to make: I've totally felt this way before when it comes to texting (and not just with someone I'm potentially interested in). If someone uses emoticons, I'm more likely to use emoticons. He or she uses abbreviations? I'm more likely to use 'em too, even though I hate 'em (see #8 below.) You get the gist.

Then there's the question of response time: before answering, do I have to wait at least as long as the other person waited before texting me? Sometimes I wish that flirtation were a science instead of an art, and that there were a Periodic Table to help us decide when to text back-something numbered and color-coded with a key at the bottom that explained everything.

"Again, what we're talking about here is power," says Dr. Van Ryn. "To whom are you giving the power to say there is a right way to communicate with someone you're interested in?" Good question. I'm not exactly sure, but I'm all for taking said power back.
5. Time of day (or night)
A text that comes in at 2am is very different from one that comes in at 2pm. Just sayin'. Same goes if you're initiating.
6. What to say/how to say it
In theory, texting should be casual. Brief. Timely. But then there's pressure-perhaps from the media, perhaps from our peers-to come across a certain way in those precious 160ish characters. You want to be lighthearted and flirtatious, but not flaky or too sexual. You want to show that you're interested, but not desperate; flexible, but not too available; smart, but not a know-it-all. Exhausting much?

The pressure to strike a careful balance is something that Dr. Van Ryn argues applies to dating-related communication in general: "[Wanting to come across a certain way] speaks to me about gendered presentation of self even beyond texting," she says. "There are all things I think many single, relatively privileged, straight women feel pressure to do in a bar as much as via text."

The real question: why do we feel like we have to meet expectations, anyway? What's wrong with being exactly who we are? (To that point, Dr. Kelly Flanagan recently posted a gorgeous letter to his daughter encouraging her to be just that. I highly recommend it!)
7. Emoticons
As Wilser writes, "there's a fuzzy line between friendly banter and cutting insult... garnish[ing] a text with an exclamation point or emoticon, this can lighten the tone, sell a joke, and transform caustic to playful." Well said-but I think everyone, regardless of gender, has the power to distinguish between banter and insult. Use of emoticons isn't reserved for women. I vote that the occasional smiley face is fine, especially if it helps to clarify tone. But emoticons peppered throughout every single text? Not necessary.

Also-and this is weird to admit-I'm put off by the use of emojis early on. (What age are we living in that I'm actually analyzing the placement of emojis?! I'm pretty sure I should be embarrassed.) Anyway. I tend to save emojis for conversations with my friends and family - people who would surely know what I meant if I sent them a mouse and then a heart and then a martini glass....
8. Abbrevs
Abbrevs. I hate them. Usually. Sure, sometimes I'll use "tom" or "tmrw" for "tomorrow" or "b/c" for "because"-a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do-but I h8 it when ppl r 2 lazy 2 use full wrds. U c y? (See Wilser's definition of the "Buy-a-Voweler" for more on this subject.) Autocorrect makes it nearly impossible not to type full words. Use that to your advantage.

And a quick note about the use of LOL: even if you're actually laughing out loud, "LOL" makes me doubt you. And when I see things like "LOL" and "LMFAO", I get confused and think maybe I somehow texted a 16-year-old girl by mistake. And that's a terrifying feeling.
9. Punctuation, capitalization, and spelling
Word nerd that I am, I love proper grammar. Unfortunately, semi-colons aren't exactly commonplace in text messages, and when you have a limited number of characters, punctuation is one of the first things to go. I try to be as non-judgmental as possible when it comes to punctuation. So what if he used a comma instead of a period? Is that really a deal breaker? That said, something I'll never get past is the proper use of your/you're and their/there/they're. Misspellings make me cringe, even if it is all autocorrect's fault.

Side note: I'm a huge fan of ellipses (or what Wilser refers to as the "Cliff-hanger.") They're just so versatile. Not as terse as a period, but less enthusiastic than an exclamation point. I look at them as the Switzerland of punctuation.
10. The final word
Last but not least: ending a conversation. How are you supposed to decide when it's appropriate to end the conversation? And how do you go about it? Do you stop asking the other person questions? Let it trail off casually and just hope that it's not awkward? Leave it open-ended...
Special thanks to Dr. Ria Van Ryn for her help with this article. You can follow her on Twitter @riavanryn

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The 10 Ways That We Overanalyze Texts - I. M. H. O. - Medium

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The Stock Exchange or The Text Exchange: ask people which they find more stressful and texting might just give the Stock Exchange a run for its money. According to this article from Forbes, there are eight major sources of stress these days: job stability, intimate relationships, housing costs, health problems, family responsibilities, work, the economy, and money.

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La barrera semantica es un obstaculo causado por problemas de interpretacion en las denotaciones y conotaciones de palabras. En esta enlace, vamos a ver una escene de la telenovela 'Scrubs' en donde el doctor tiene que informar a su paciente que ella no va a vivir gracias a una malestar terminal. La paciente no interpreta el mensaje y en lugar de entender su situacion, ella cree que va a vivir.

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Este video ilustra los estereotipos asociodos con nuestra manera de hablar. En clase, nosotros discutimos sobre los prejuicios asociados con la manera de hablar y que la gente suele hacer supestos asociados con una demografica.

Es importante recordar que la imagen de un estadounidense tipico esta cambiando. Es decir que los americanos son gentes de muchos colores, razas, e etnicidades. Eso es la america nueva. Y me gusta mucho.

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Elementos de Capitulo 6: significado, semantica, pragmatica. 

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Elementos de Capitulo 6: significado, semantica, pragmatica. 

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NO se si esta tema sea parte de origen de lengua pero me interesa ver las similaridades entre idiomas y he dado cuenta de que en muchas lenguas la palabra para "pineapple" es "ananas" (en Urdu, turco, y aleman por ejemplo) aunque son lenguas muy diferentes en otras aneras.

Es muy intteresante ver cognados de esta manera, y busque un diccionario mundial en donde puedes buscar traslaciones de muchas lenguas al vez.

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how to say pineapple in different languages

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Do You Know How to Say Pineapple in Different Languages?

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Looking for ways to say pineapple in other languages? Check out our list for saying pineapple in different languages. Be ready to meet a foreign friend!

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Busque un sitio de Web que tiene mapas de varios periodos de tiempo que ilustran los idiomas hablados en diferentes partes de europa.
Segun las mapas mas modernas y recientes, los idiomas slavas son la mayoridad del mapa.

Las mapas me interesan porque puedo ver la geografia de cada lengua y cuales poblaciones hablan cuales lenguas. Voy a tomar mas clases de linguistica y me parace interesante ver cada region de lenguas desde una perspectva geografica.

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Linguistic Maps Of Europe | Languages Of Europe

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Various linguistic maps of Europe depicting the idioms spoken in each European country and their geographic distribution throughout the time's passing.

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Hay muchas palabras de espanol que vienen del origen arabe. La historia es que durante el edad medio, habia mucha influencia del egipto en la lenguaje del peninsula Iberica.

Aqui hay 10 palabras que tienen origen arabe. Es interesante notar que muchas de esas palabras empiezan con "al-" que significa "el" o 'la" en arabe.

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The previous list that I submitted to Listverse was entitled " Top 10 English Words of Arabic Origin." Some commenters noted a disparity between this title criteria and the included entries (i.e. "jihad" isn't an "English word," but rather the English iteration of and Arabic/Islamic phenomenon). This may be a valid argument; however, titles are tricky and the real purpose of such a list is entertainment and education for those interested in etymology, history and other related subjects. In this vein I have made another list consisting of words and terms that have sparked my interest while studying foreign language. Anyway, haters gonna hate (I don't know how to say that in either Arabic or Spanish).

Islamic armies consisting of Arabs and Berbers began a conquest of the Iberian Peninsula in 711 and maintained a presence until being finally expelled in 1492. Inevitably the invading culture left an impression on the language of the conquered. Below are a number of Spanish language expressions that owe their existence to this chapter in history.

*Please note - transliteration of Arabic terms are based on my own estimation as there is no agreed upon standard.

I feel amiss for not including this word in my previous list, seeing as how I did a report on its etymological origin in college. Several commenters mentioned its absences as well. The term returns to the crusades and come from the term "حشاشيين - hashasheen" meaning "smokers of hash." According to legend, the term was given to a group of warriors who took their marching orders from a mysterious "old man in the mountains." The assassins were most likely members of the Ismaili branch of Shia Islam based in Syria. They were known for attacking prominent leaders who threatened their movement, killing the target but making no attempt to escape. There are two legends as to the drug connection. The first comes from the belief that these warriors indulged in the use of this herb in order to stoke courage and numb the fear inherent with performing a political killings. The second, more fantastical theory, is the idea that they were pampered in all manner of pleasures, narcotic or otherwise, in their mountain lair. Supposedly this taste of paradise motivated them when the time came for undertaking an attack against a rival of their cryptic commander. Enraptured by the thought of a permanent return to such a land of pleasure they gladly carried out their task, making no effort to escape. Instead they carried out the deed and then awaited death in hopes of spending eternity enveloped in the pleasures they had previously known.

I first learned this term while watching the latest Sherlock Holmes movie with the Spanish subtitles (a good tool for foreign language maintenance). This comes from the Arabic word for elephant and refers to the piece known to English speaking players as the bishop. The game of chess probably started in India and came to the Arabic world via Persia. Since the Persian word for elephant is the same as the Arabic, "fil - فيل", it might be more appropriate to call this a Spanish word of Persian origin, but such is the vermiform path of etymology.

Not so much a word as a place name, this fabulous historical site takes its name from the Arabic "الحمراء - alhamra" meaning "the red one." It is the site of the surrender of the Muslim Kingdom of Grenada in 1492, marking the end of an Islamic presence in Iberia and the ascendancy of colonial Spain. The fort itself was not attacked during the Reconquista and therefore remains splendid example of Moorish architecture in Spain.

Holding roughly the same semantic weight as the English word "until" this comes from the Arabic word "حتى - hata," which is a preposition of approximately the same meaning (prepositions are always tricky to define word-for-word). Perhaps more than any other item on this list, this entry shows the deep influence that Arabic has had on Spanish. Nouns and verbs, especially those dealing with new technological or social phenomena, are frequently transferred between languages; however, in my limited linguistic experience, I cannot think of another example where a preposition from a foreign language subsumes the extant form of the same term in the original language.

English speaking students of Spanish might recognize this term from the subjunctive section of your lessons. Meaning "hopefully" it comes from the Arabic exhortation " لو شاء لله - wa sha allah" which means "should God will it." As the subjunctive tense deals, in part, with expressing a wish for as of yet uncertain outcomes this term is always used with it. ¡Ojala que recuerde este lexicón para su próximo examen!

From the Arabic word "الزيت - az-zait" this refers, both in Arabic and Spanish to the liquid derived from olives and not to the fossil fuel. I know that the Portuguese word is phonologically similar and there are most likely similar words in other languages.

Readers will no doubt notices at this point that many of the entries begin with the letter "a". This owes to the fact that the Arabic definite article is "ال - al" and has been maintained in many word transfer. It is not certain whether this word replaced the original Spanish word or if the concept of a stuffed fabric sleeping device was introduced to Spanish lands by Islamic invaders.

The sweetest entry and another food-related item. Like "alfil" it came to Spanish from India via Persian and then Arabic. This is another word that has found its way into many languages.

The root of the original Arabic word "رهين - raheen" means "to deposit as security." I remember coming across this word a number of years ago and it prompted me to investigate the connection between the two languages. I wish that I had additional etymological information to make this a more captivating addition to the list.

I'm not sure how this became the name for everyone's favorite frequently petitioned software update however the namesake mud brick structures have an understandably ancient origin. I excavated the following explanation from Wikipedia and found no reason to alter it:

The word can be traced from the Middle Egyptian (c. 2000 BC) word dj-b-t "mud [i.e., sun-dried] brick." As Middle Egyptian evolved into Late Egyptian, Demotic, and finally Coptic (c. 600 BC), dj-b-t became tobe "[mud] brick." This was borrowed into Arabic as al-tub (الطّوب al "the" + tub"brick") "[mud] brick," which was assimilated into Old Spanish as adobe [aˈdobe], still with the meaning "mud brick."

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Top 10 Spanish Words of Arabic Origin - Listverse

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The previous list that I submitted to Listverse was entitled "Top 10 English Words of Arabic Origin". Some commenters noted a disparity between this title criteria and the included entries (i.e. "jihad" isn't an "English word, but rather the English iteration of and Arabic / Islamic phenomenon).

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Hoy en dia, mucha gente que viene de Espana habla con un ceceo, es decir que pronuncian la /s/ y /z/ como [θ] en vez de [s]. Yo queria investigar el origen de este ceceo.

Hablabamos en clase sobre los fonmeas originales de castellano y tambien el proceso de desonorizacion (cuando los fonemas sonoras pierden sus voces y siguen siendo sordas). Este proceso se resulto en el fonema de

[θ].

Mi segunda curiosidad fue sobre la ubicacion del ceceo. Porque hay un ceceo en Espana pero no en Latinoamerica. Lei que la gente que mudo a las Americas nunco tenia tiempo de adaptar al ceceo en Espana. Es importante notar que eso sea una teoria y hay mucha debate sobre el origen todavia.

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Elementos de Capitulo 5: Historia de la lengua

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Elementos de Capitulo 5: Historia de la lengua

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Una sentencia sendero del jardín,  es una frase gramaticalmente correcta que comienza de una manera tal que la interpretación más probable de un lector será incorrecta; el lector es inducido a un análisis sintáctico que resulta ser un callejón sin salida o se obtiene un significado claramente no deseado.

Este sitio de web explica los "garden path sentences" y tiene ejemplos muy graciosos. Es una lexica ambiguosa.

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Try reading the following sentences. They are called garden path sentences because they are easily misunderstood (they lead you down the garden path) even though they are all grammatical! Don't worry if some of these sentences seem like nonsense at first (you have been garden pathed); they will be explained below.

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Hemos aprendido que cada idioma usa syntaxis que es distinta. Entonces,

¿cómo es posible que Google traduce al instante se puede traducir frases, páginas y sitios web enteros incluso casi al instante?

Google Translate utiliza patrones de varias idiomas. Estos patrones tienen su origen en textos creados por humanos, como documentos del ONU, libros, papeles, et cetera.
Tambien, Google Translate usa patrones creada por frases que son trasladados por humanos, y los patrones que son significantes estan usados en el mecanismo de la aplicacion.

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Este articulo habla sobre un diagrama de una oracion y como se usa para identificar las partes de una frase. Es un articulo con tono muy ludico que habla sobre el uso de diagramas y como se pueden usar hoy en dia para analizar la gramatica.

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By Writer's Relief staff:
Back in ye olden days (okay, about thirty years ago) elementary school students were taught how to diagram sentences. The theory was that it would be easier to learn the parts of a sentence by seeing the underlying structure. However, as educators moved in the direction of free expression and away from basic mechanics, the diagramming system developed by Reed and Kellogg fell out of fashion.

But, like fresh apple pie made from scratch, sometimes sticking to the basics is best. Diagramming a sentence creates a clear visual that helps you analyze what you're writing. So if you want to brush up on your fundamental sentence skills -- or you're just a grammar nerd -- here's a brief primer on how to diagram sentences.

How to Diagram A Sentence
Start with the key elements: subject and verb. Simply put, the subject tells you what the sentence is about; the verb tells you what the subject is doing. If you're feeling rusty about identifying the different parts of a sentence, you may want to do a quick review before you attempt to diagram.

Here's how to draw a diagram for a simple subject and main verb:

Woo-hoo! Now let's get fancy with the adjectives and adverbs that modify the subject, verb, or direct object by placing them under the appropriate word on a slanted line:

More Helpful Hints For Diagramming A Sentence

Always write the main sentence line first and then fill in the modifiers.

Don't use punctuation, but do use capitalization and apostrophes.

Multiple-word proper nouns (names and titles) and hyphenated words are kept together as a single word.

When two different adjectives or adverbs modify the same word on the main sentence line, put them in the same left-to-right order as in the original sentence.

"I really do not know that anything has ever been more exciting than diagramming sentences." -Gertrude Stein, Lectures in America

You may not feel quite as thrilled as Ms. Stein about the prospect of diagramming sentences, and we'll let you draw your own conclusions as to how effective the technique is for improving your grammar skills. But if you're interested in reading an in-depth study of sentence diagramming and learning more about its offbeat history, you should definitely check out Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog by Kitty Burns Florey.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article described the word 'to' as a linking verb rather than a preposition, and referred to an imperative sentence as declarative.

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This Old-School Grammar Trick Will Make Your Life So Much Easier

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By Writer's Relief staff: Back in ye olden days (okay, about thirty years ago) elementary school students were taught how to diagram sentences. The theory was that it would be easier to learn the parts of a sentence by seeing the underlying structure.

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¿Por qué es tan atractivo Trump a algunas personas? Su sintaxis puede tener la respuesta.

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¿Por qué es tan atractivo Trump a algunas personas? Su sintaxis puede tener la respuesta.

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En lo personal, creo que la retórica de Trump es una locura. Se hace afirmaciones sin fundamento de fuego substaintial, ni tiene ningún respaldo probatorio. Pero no voy a entrar en la política. Lo que realmente me intriga es la forma Trump excita a una audiencia. ¿Qué hay en la forma en que habla de que es tan atractivo para sus seguidores? Uno de los artículos, cortesía de The Washington Post, sostiene que el encanto de Trump se encuentra en su sintaxis, es decir, la forma en que los grupos de ciertas palabras y frases que atrae a varios votantes.

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Barton Swaim worked for Rep. Mark Sanford (R) when Sanford was governor of South Carolina, from 2007 to 2010. Swaim is author of "The Speechwriter: A Brief Education in Politics."
Almost every political commentator in America has now written at least one piece attempting to explain the mystery of Donald Trump's appeal. Most have dealt with the man's demeanor, his talent for attracting media coverage and his disdain for party and intellectual elites. Some of these I find cogent.

The thing I find most distinctive about Trump, though - and perhaps it's at least a component of his success so far - is the structure of his language.

Everybody senses that Trump doesn't speak like other politicians. But how is his speech different, exactly? Is it just the swagger, the dismissive tone and clipped accent? Maybe in part. Trump does seem emotionally engaged in a way none of his competitors do; he is perpetually annoyed - exasperated that things aren't as they should be - but somehow also good-humored about it. (Chris Christie and John Kasich seem perpetually annoyed, too, but there is nothing funny or cheerful about their versions.)

To get at what makes Trump's language different, take a look at the shape of his sentences. They don't work the way modern political rhetoric does -- they work the way punchlines work: short (sometimes very short) with the most important words at the end.

That's rare among modern politicians, and not simply because they lack Trump's showmanship or comedic gifts. It's rare because most successful modern politicians are habitually careful with their language. They are keenly aware of the ways in which any word they speak may be interpreted or misinterpreted by journalists and partisan groups and constituencies and demographic groups.

And so in important situations - situations in which they know a lot depends on what they say or don't say - their language takes on (at least) two peculiar characteristics. First, their syntax tends to abstraction. They speak less about particular things and people - bills, countries, identifiable officials - and more about "legislation" and "the international community" and "officials" and "industry" and "Washington" and "government."

Second, their sentences take on a higher number of subordinate clauses and qualifying phrases - "over the last several years," "in general," "in effect," "what people are telling me," and so on. This is the kind of language you use when you're aware that your words might be misinterpreted or used against you.

When used well, it conveys competence and assures listeners that the speaker thinks coherent thoughts and holds reasonable positions. It suggests that the speaker cares about the truth of his claims. But politicians are frequently too careful with their language, and this conscientiousness can begin to sound like deceit or cowardice. When they rely too heavily on abstractions, when they avoid concrete nouns, when all their statements seem always hedged by qualifying phrases, they sound like politicians, in the worst sense of the word. To my ear, anyway, Hillary Clinton sounds this way almost all the time.

Whether used well or poorly, however, the language of a typical modern politician has a distinctive sound to it. It sounds complex and careful -- sometimes sophisticated, sometimes emotive, sometimes artificial or over-scripted, but always circumspect and inevitably disingenuous.

Trump's language is from another rhetorical tradition entirely. Consider his hour-long media availability on Sept. 3, just after he'd signed a "loyalty pledge" that he wouldn't run as a third-party candidate if he loses the GOP nomination. Some of his answers last only a few seconds, some are slightly longer, but almost all consist of simple sentences, grammatically and conceptually, and most of them withhold their most important word or phrase until the very end. Trump's sentences end with a pop, and he seems to know instinctively where to put the emphasis in each one.

Near the beginning of the news conference, he says: "I don't need money. I don't want money. And this is going to be a campaign, I think, like no other. I'm not controlled by lobbyists. I'm not controlled by anybody."

This is not the language of a typical politician.

Someone asks Trump about New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's (R) remark that he, Christie, didn't need the chairman of the Republican National Committee to meet with him in order to beg him to sign a loyalty pledge. Another politician - a politician wanting to take a shot at Christie - might have answered, "Well I'm not sure why anybody would need Gov. Christie to sign a loyalty pledge, given his standing in the polls right now."

That would have gotten a chuckle. But Trump worded his answer far better:

"Well, you don't have to be met when you're at 2 percent."

His comedic instinct, I think, told him it was worth some awkward wording at the beginning of the sentence ("you don't have to be met") in order to put the words "2 percent" at the very end. Pop. Hardy laughter.

Trump's lengthier answers, too, involve mostly short, grammatically uncomplicated sentences, with very few of the complicating phrases you hear from an ordinary politician who's trying hard not to say something obviously false or stupid. Oftentimes his answers, when transcribed one sentence per line, read like free verse poetry. Asked a question about Jeb Bush, for instance, Trump replies:

Jeb Bush is a very nice man.

I'll be honest; I think he's a very nice person.

I think he's a very low-energy person, and I don't think that's what the country needs.

I hear that he's going to spend a lot of money on negative ads on me, and honestly -- look, he's getting the money from special interests.

He's getting the money from lobbyists and his donors.

And they're making him do it because he's crashing in the polls.

So I don't know what's gonna happen.

If he spends $20 million or $25 million on negative ads, I don't know.

I know that my life will continue.

I just don't know.

I mean, nobody's ever spent money on ads against me.

But he probably has to do that, although it would not be the way I would do it.

His sentences get even shorter when he lapses into his campaign boilerplate. Politicians do this all the time. When the question is general enough, they move quickly from answering it to expatiating on general themes. But when Trump does it, his sentences contract to little more than a subject, a verb, and usually a direct object. Most range between five and fifteen syllables.

Our country could be doing much better.

We have deficits that are enormous.

We have all bad trade agreements.

We have an army that the head [Gen. Raymond Odierno] said is not prepared.

We have a military that needs help, and especially in these times.

We have nuclear weapons that - you look at "60 Minutes" - they don't even work.

The phones don't work.

They're 40 years old.

They have wires that are no good.

Nothing works.

Our country doesn't work.

Everybody wins except us.

We need victories in this country.

We don't have victories anymore.

Our country will be great again, but right now our country has major problems.

The words themselves are mostly preposterous. Other than "We have deficits that are enormous" and the one about Odierno, they range between laughable exaggeration and nonsense. What makes them effective in their way is that they don't sound like political speech. Politicians in modern democracies just don't talk this way.

Trump makes no effort - or seems to make no effort - to measure the effect of his propositions on different constituencies. He seems genuinely unaware that anybody might try to pick them apart. He makes no effort to hedge his statements or phrase them in such a way that they are at least defensible. Indeed, you don't feel you're listening to a politician at all. You feel you're listening to a man who has rejected the conventions of electoral politics altogether -- someone who's opted out of the whole charade.

The result, for probably the great majority of people who follow politics, is alternately comical and horrifying. But for people who've grown weary of politicians using vague and convoluted language to lull or impress their listeners, to preserve their options and to avoid criticism, Trump sounds refreshingly clear and forthright. I don't share their view, but I find it hard to blame them.

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donald trump; speech; the fix; barton swaim

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How Donald Trump's language works for him

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Barton Swaim worked for Rep. Mark Sanford (R) when Sanford was governor of South Carolina, from 2007 to 2010. Swaim is author of "The Speechwriter: A Brief Education in Politics." Almost every political commentator in America has now written at least one piece attempting to explain the mystery of Donald Trump's appeal.

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¿Quién decide qué palabras son reales? En este día y edad, muchas personas utilizan palabras que no están en el diccionario. Por otra parte, muchas personas argumentan que el idioma Inglés se está deteriorando debido a las tendencias como Facebook y Twitter. Aunque varios argumentan que las siglas y palabras de argot son el lenguaje degradante, Anne Curzan, un historiador del idioma Inglés, sostiene que la jerga es muy valiosa para la formación de un idioma. Se fomenta la creatividad y el mundo dentro de una palabra. Su enfoque de la lingüística es verdaderamente fascinante y emocionante. Espero que disfruten de esta charla.

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Anne Curzan: What makes a word “real”? | TED Talk

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One could argue that slang words like ‘hangry,’ ‘defriend’ and ‘adorkable’ fill crucial meaning gaps in the English language, even if they don’t appear in the dictionary. After all, who actually decides which words make it into those pages? Language historian Anne Curzan gives a charming look at the…

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Busque un librito que explica la morfologia en ingles y urdu y hace una comparacion y contraste entre ambos. Es muy interesante ver los similitudes porque hay muchas.

Por ejemplo, ambos idiomas usan morfema plural y morfema de genero. Tambien hay morfema de pasado en ambos idiomas.

Las diferencias mayores entre las dos idiomas son interesantes tambien. Aunque ingles tiene muchas morfemas, el urdu solo tiene tres. En ingles, muchas veces el superlativo cambia toda la palabra, pero esto no pasa en urdu.

Pero lo que me interesaba muchisimo era el uso de "mehmal" en urdu, que es un morfema que no tiene significado pero esta usado mucho en urdu para generalizar frases. Eso me interesaba porque es semejante al morfema de japones de que nos hablabamos en clase.

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A short research work on comparison and contrast of morphology of English and morphology of Urdu... Differences and Similarities of English and Urdu morphology. All the languages have a universal grammar and they have similarities and differences....

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Los mensajes de texto va a arruinar su gramática

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Los mensajes de texto va a arruinar su gramática

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He encontrado un artículo que discute una correlación entre el aumento de la mensajería de texto y el lenguaje abreviado asociada a ella, y la disminución del rendimiento de los estudiantes en la gramática. Un profesor de la Universidad de Northeastern llevó a cabo un estudio de investigación en el que daba sexto grado una prueba de gramática sencilla y todos se lleva a cabo muy mal. Afirma que esto puede ser el resultado de su mensajería de texto, y peor aún, de la utilización del mismo idioma de los mensajes de texto de sus padres. Los niños son más propensos a imitar manera de hablar de sus padres, por lo que si crecen en un período de tiempo expuesto a "LOL" y "gr8" en lugar de "great", que pueden caer en algunos hábitos malos gramática.

Es verdad que la corelacion no significa causacion, pero creo que es interesante investigar el modo de mandar mensajes de texto y su efecto en nuestra lenguaje.

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Texting while walking could change you gait enough to cause accidents, a new study finds.

Credit: Supri Suharjoto | Shutterstock

Texting could lead to a decline in language skills, warns a new study that found tweens who text are more likely to fall short on grammar tests.

Many tweens take shortcuts or use so-called techspeak when sending text messages. "They may use a homophone, such as gr8 for great, or an initial, like, LOL for laugh out loud," Northwestern researcher Drew Cingel explained in a statement. Other shortcuts include dropping non-essential letters, such as changing the word "would" to "wud."

To study the effect of these habits, Cingel gave a group of middle school students in central Pennsylvania a grammar assessment test. The students were then given a survey that asked them to detail how many texts they send and receive, their opinions on the importance of texting and the number of shortcuts in their last three sent and received text messages.

The results of the survey and the test, which were reported in the journal New Media & Society, showed a link between poor grammar scores and frequent texting. What's more, both sending and receiving techspeak-riddled texts seemed to affect how poorly the students performed on the test. This suggests tweens might not be initiating all of their bad language habits, but might also be influenced by the grammatically incorrect messages sent by their friends and family.

"In other words, if you send your kid a lot of texts with word adaptations, then he or she will probably imitate it," said S. Shyam Sundar, a Penn State communications professor who worked with Cingel. "These adaptations could affect their offline language skills that are important to language development and grammar skills, as well."

In addition to a natural desire to imitate friends and family, the researchers speculated that some texting tweens made poor grammar choices in more formal writing because they had trouble switching between techspeak and the normal rules of grammar.

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Texting could lead to a decline in language skills, warns a new study that found tweens who text are more likely to fall short on grammar tests. Many tweens take shortcuts or use so-called techspeak when sending text messages.

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"Clipping": Cortando palabras es una forma de creatividad

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"Clipping": Cortando palabras es una forma de creatividad

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Clipping es el proceso de crear nuevas palabras usando partes de palabras de otros idiomas, de palabras compuestas, o de nuestra creatividad. Esta lectura de TED es muy devertida y habla de fabricar palabras para nuestro lexico.

Erin McKean es una lexicologa que crea diccionarios. Pero ella no crea palabras, sino que ella usa palabras creada y usada por nosotros. En su lectura, McKean dice que el proceso de cortar palabras es un proceso natural, y que las reglas de gramatica no deben controlar nuestra creatividad.

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Erin McKean: Go ahead, make up new words!

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In this fun, short talk from TEDYouth, lexicographer Erin McKean encourages - nay, cheerleads - her audience to create new words when the existing ones won't quite do. She lists out 6 ways to make new words in English, from compounding to "verbing," in order to make language better at expressing what we mean, and to create more ways for us to understand one another.

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Los fonemas mas dificiles para gente aprendiendo inglés

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Los fonemas mas dificiles para gente aprendiendo inglés

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Este artículo demostra fonemas de inglés que son dificiles para gente que está aprendiendo el inglés por primera vez.

Los ejemplos se incluyen el /th/, /dh/, como en "The' o "That". El /h/ sonido, que es nuevo para gente que habla frances o español,

Discutimos en class sobre letras en inglés que cambian sus pronunciaciones en diferentes palabras, como la /d/ en "schedule" o la /s/ en "mission". Creo que estas dificultades surgen porque el inglés es una mezcla de elementos de muchas lenguajes, por eso, no hay mucha consistencia entre los fonemas.

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Students' mother tongue may in one way or another influence their ability to pronounce particular sounds in foreign languages and this is often the main reason why some students speak English with a really strong accent of their native language.

SEE ALSO: 10 English Grammar Mistakes Almost Everyone Makes

The sounds that don't exist in other languages are usually the greatest problem for students of English because it can be extremely difficult for them to understand and learn how to articulate these sounds.

Though this list may vary between speakers, here are the five English sounds that are most frequently regarded as exceptionally difficult to learn:

1. TH or /θ/

The sound /th/ as in thing, thought or th eater, doesn't exist in many Germanic, Romance and Slavic languages. This is why European students of English often have difficulties with it.

Though this sound can quite easily be pronounced in isolation, speakers often find it difficult to use it correctly in a word so it wouldn't resemble /f/, /s/ or /t/. In Cockney, which is one of the most widespread non-standard dialects in England, the sound th is almost completely replaced it by /f/ in medial and final positions and with /t/ in word-initial positions.

This video by Fluency MC may help you understand the complexities:

2. DH or /ð/

Similar to the previously described /th/ sound, /dh/ sound may also cause a lot of trouble for an ESL learner. Dh appears in the words such as this, that or they which are very frequent.

Its manner of articulation largely resembles that of the sounds /z/ and /d/ and this is the main reason English learners find it difficult to pronounce it correctly.

In Cockney, this sound is completely replaced by /v/ in medial and final positions and with /d/ in initial ones.

3. R - /r/

is problematic for many non-native speakers of English because its manner of articulation and use differ among varieties of English. The most important difference is that RP and GA speakers don't pronounce /r/ in same contexts. While the RP speakers don't pronounce it in word-final positions or after long vowels, in GA this is not the case.

Furthermore, features of this sound vary geographically. Scottish people, for example, pronounce a very strong /r/ in front of /l/, /m/, or /n/. This is called rolled r (trill) and is regarded as a completely different phoneme from the alveolar approximant found in RP and GA.

4. H - /h/

This sound is frequently considered to be one of the hardest English sounds because of its peculiar manner of articulation and the fact that it doesn't exist in some Romance languages.

French speakers are usually unable to pronounce this sound, so they often completely omit it from the word. Its articulation is so difficult for them that they cannot even find a substitute for it.

5. L - /l/

English l has several different manners of articulation depending on the surrounding phoneme context. Thus a word-final l won't sound the same as a word-initial one. What's more, to a non-native speaker it may even sound as a completely different phoneme.

The two ls in words bottle and lane are interchangeable but their proper articulation can often cause troubles for ESL learners.

This is especially related to Chinese speakers who have a single alveolar consonant for both of these sounds.

How about you? Are there any English sounds you find difficult to pronounce?

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5 Most Difficult English Sounds for ESL Students | Saundz | American English Pronunciation Software

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Students' mother tongue may in one way or another influence their ability to pronounce particular sounds in foreign languages and this is often the main reason why some students speak English with a really strong accent of their native language.

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Estas son grabaciones de lecturas de la Biblia. Son en Rotokas.

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Audio-visual Bible lessons in 40 sections with pictures. Contains Bible overview from creation to Christ, and teaching on the Christian life. For evangelism and church planting.

Program Number: C19991
Language name: Rotokas

Program Length: 41:33

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About our audio recordings

GRN has audio Bible stories, Bible lessons, Bible study tools, gospel songs, mp3 Christian music and evangelistic messages translated in over 6,000 languages and dialects, most available online for free download. Popular with Christian missions organisations and Christian churches, the free mp3s and scripts are suitable for evangelistic purposes and church planting as well as for use within the Christian church environment. Spoken or sung by heart language speakers, the Bible stories, songs and music are intended to communicate the gospel of Jesus Christ in culturally relevant ways, and especially in oral societies.

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Audio-visual Bible lessons in 40 sections with pictures. Contains Bible overview from creation to Christ, and teaching on the Christian life. For evangelism and church planting. Program Number: C19991 Language name: Rotokas Program Length: 41:33 These recordings are designed for evangelism and basic Bible teaching to bring the gospel message to people who are not literate or are from oral cultures, particularly unreached people groups.

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Rotokas: La lengua con la menoria de los fonemas

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Rotokas: La lengua con la menoria de los fonemas

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La lenguaje de Rotokas tiene 4.2000 hablantes y solo tiene 17 fonemas y generalmente está hablada en una isla llamada Bougainville, que está ubicada en Papua New Guinea.

Es dificil buscar informacion sobre Rotokas, solo que tiene pocos fonemas. Busqué un enlace de un sitio donde hay informacion muy limitada sobre Rotokas. También encontré una grabación de un hablante de Rotokas. He incluido la grabación en otra entrada.

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PNG Language Resources: Language distribution maps

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Una vocal retraida es un sonido vocálico que se articula con la lengua retraída, acercando el dorso hacia el velo. Acústicamente, son orales, gravesy bemolizadas, y se caracterizan porque su segundo foremente es inferior a 1200 Hz (en español), frente a las vocales centrales y anteriores, cuyo segundo formante tiene una frecuencia más alta.

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Elementos de capítulo 2: Fonetica y fonologia

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Elementos de capítulo 2: Fonetica y fonologia

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!Xoo: La lengua con la mayoria de los fonemas. 

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!Xoo: La lengua con la mayoria de los fonemas. 

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El idioma de !Xoo (también llamada Taa) solo tiene 3000 hablantes, ubicados en Botswana y Namibia. Esta lengua tiene mas de 60 consonantes, 20 vocales, y 4 tonos, y eso no se incluye sus fonemas que utilizan el 'click' sonido.

He incluido un video de PBS en donde un investigador viaja a Namibia para hablar con la gente nativa y los bosquimanos. El investigador intenta aprender !Xoo pero no tiene much éxito. Es una lenguaje muy compleja.

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No hay un castellano correcto, sino que hay varios dialectos que contribuyen a un idioma.

El español tiene muchos dialectos y no hay uno que es mas correcto que el otro. Varios paises tienen acentos y palabras diferentes, y la diversidad de lenguaje es lo que defina un aspecto de cada cultura.

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Even within a single language or language group there may be major differences in speech. The term dialect refers to those differences in intonation and pronunciation - and even words and expressions that exist in some branches of a language while absent in others.

Spanish has a rich history that spans continents and epochs, and offers a prime launching point for examining the origins and proliferation of dialects. What follows is a basic explanation of the ten major Spanish dialects, where they are spoken, and how they differ:

SPAIN (Peninsular Spanish):

Castilian
This term applies to the official Spanish language, spoken in northern and central Spain.

Andalusian
This dialect, spoken in southern Spain, is the second-most popular in the country after Castilian. However it differs greatly from northern Spanish in the ceceo/seseo distinction, the emission ("elision") of the consonants 'd' and 'r', the aspiration of the consonant 's' at the end of words, and the dropping of final consonants. These factors result in a softer and more fluid sound than that of other Spanish dialects.

Murcian
This dialect is spoken in the Autonomous Region of the Community of Murcia in the southeast of Spain.

Distinct Language Groups
There also exist several distinct language groups in Spain: Catalan, the official language of Andorra and spoken in parts of northern Spain; Basque, the language isolate of an autonomous Spanish community in the Pyrenees; Galician, the Portuguese-influenced language of Galicia, in northwestern Spain; and Extremaduran, a three-branched language spoken in the autonomous community of Extremadura of western Spain.

Canary Islands:

Canarian
The dialect of the Spanish Canary Islands closely resembles the Caribbean Spanish dialect, characterized by the aspirated 's', elided consonants, and the pronunciation of the letter 'h.' The Canarian vocabulary is also heavily influenced by Portuguese due to Portugal's efforts to colonize the islands.

Gibralter:

Llanito
Llanito is a combination of Andalusian Spanish and British English. The existence of Gibraltar as a British overseas territory results in this peculiar language combination.

The Americas:

Latin American Spanish
This is the dialect of urban mainland Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, and the majority of Central and South American countries. While there are differences in how Spanish is spoken amongst people in these countries, Latin American Spanish is usually referred to as thus in order to differentiate between it and the Spanish spoken in Spain. The difference is similar to English as it is spoken in England vs the U.S.; U.S. English speakers can understand each other with little effort even though someone from the Midwest speaks very differently than a person from the Northeast or a person from the Southeast.

Rioplatense Spanish
This dialect is spoken in the River Basin region between Argentina and Uruguay, as well as in both countries. The predominant difference between Rioplatense and other Spanish dialects is the intonation of its speakers, which resembles Italian more so than Spanish. The 19th-century saw many Italian immigrants to this region and particularly to Buenos Aires.

Caribbean Spanish
This dialect is spoken in Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and along the East coast of Mexico and Central America; it is characterized by elided middle consonants and omitted final consonants, as well as an aspirated 'r' that is pronounced like the Portuguese 'x.'

Africa:

Equatoguinean Spanish
This dialect represents the only official Spanish spoken in Africa; it has incorporated some vocabulary and pronunciation patterns from both native Guineans and immigrant Germans of Cameroon.

Coda
When you decide to take those Spanish lessons, whether it's for professional reasons, or if you want to travel, you will probably want to find out from your instructor or program director about the dialects they offer. Most of the time, the answer you'll hear is Castillian. That will be great about 98% of the time, but take the geographic, and cultural information in context, and make an informed decision! ALTA offers online language training to businesses and government agencies, so feel free to contact us for information.

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10 Spanish Dialects: How Spanish is Spoken Around the World - ALTA Language Services

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Even within a single language or language group there may be major differences in speech. The term dialect refers to those differences in intonation and pronunciation - and even words and expressions that exist in some branches of a language while absent in others. Spanish has a rich history that ...

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La Teoria de Gramática Universal-- Noam Chomsky

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La Teoria de Gramática Universal-- Noam Chomsky

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Quería saber mas sobre Chomsky y sus creencias sobre la lingūistica.

Su teoria dice que cada niño o niña tiene la capacidad inherente de aprender una lengua, una estructura que ya existe en nuestra mente desde nacimiento.

La gramatica universal consiste de reglas inconscientes en nuestra mente que controlan el conociimiento de gramatica.

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During the first half of the 20th century, linguists who theorized about the human ability to speak did so from the behaviourist perspective that prevailed at that time. They therefore held that language learning, like any other kind of learning, could be explained by a succession of trials, errors, and rewards for success. In other words, children learned their mother tongue by simple imitation, listening to and repeating what adults said.

In Chomsky's view, the reason that children so easily master the complex operations of language is that they have innate knowledge of certain principles that guide them in developing the grammar of their language. In other words, Chomsky's theory is that language learning is facilitated by a predisposition that our brains have for certain structures of language.

But what language? For Chomsky's theory to hold true, all of the languages in the world must share certain structural properties. And indeed, Chomsky and other generative linguists like him have shown that the 5000 to 6000 languages in the world, despite their very different grammars, do share a set of syntactic rules and principles. These linguists believe that this "universal grammar" is innate and is embedded somewhere in the neuronal circuitry of the human brain. And that would be why children can select, from all the sentences that come to their minds, only those that conform to a "deep structure" encoded in the brain's circuits.
Universal grammar
Universal grammar, then, consists of a set of unconscious constraints that let us decide whether a sentence is correctly formed. This mental grammar is not necessarily the same for all languages. But according to Chomskyian theorists, the process by which, in any given language, certain sentences are perceived as correct while others are not, is universal and independent of meaning.

Thus, we immediately perceive that the sentence "Robert book reads the" is not correct English, even though we have a pretty good idea of what it means. Conversely, we recognize that a sentence such as "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously." is grammatically correct English, even though it is nonsense.

A pair of dice offers a useful metaphor to explain what Chomsky means when he refers to universal grammar as a "set of constraints". Before we throw the pair of dice, we know that the result will be a number from 2 to 12, but nobody would take a bet on its being 3.143. Similarly, a newborn baby has the potential to speak any of a number of languages, depending on what country it is born in, but it will not just speak them any way it likes: it will adopt certain preferred, innate structures. One way to describe these structures would be that they are not things that babies and children learn, but rather things that happen to them. Just as babies naturally develop arms and not wings while they are still in the womb, once they are born they naturally learn to speak, and not to chirp or neigh.

Observations that support the Chomskyian view of language

Until Chomsky propounded his theory of universal grammar in the 1960s, the empiricist school that had dominated thinking about language since the Enlightenment held that when children came into the world, their minds were like a blank slate. Chomsky's theory had the impact of a large rock thrown into this previously tranquil, undisturbed pond of empiricism.

Subsequent research in the cognitive sciences, which combined the tools of psychology, linguistics, computer science, and philosophy, soon lent further support to the theory of universal grammar. For example, researchers found that babies only a few days old could distinguish the phonemes of any language and seemed to have an innate mechanism for processing the sounds of the human voice.

Thus, from birth, children would appear to have certain linguistic abilities that predispose them not only to acquire a complex language, but even to create one from whole cloth if the situation requires. One example of such a situation dates back to the time of plantations and slavery. On many plantations, the slaves came from many different places and so had different mother tongues. They therefore developed what are known as pidgin languages to communicate with one another. Pidgin languages are not languages in the true sense, because they employ words so chaotically-there is tremendous variation in word order, and very little grammar. But these slaves' children, though exposed to these pidgins at the age when children normally acquire their first language, were not content to merely imitate them. Instead, the children spontaneously introduced grammatical complexity into their speech, thus in the space of one generation creating new languages, known as creoles.
Chomsky and the evolution of language
Many authors, adopting the approach of evolutionary psychology, believe that language has been shaped by natural selection. In their view, certain random genetic mutations were thus selected over many thousands of years to provide certain individuals with a decisive adaptive advantage. Whether the advantage that language provided was in co-ordinating hunting parties, warning of danger, or communicating with sexual partners remains uncertain, however.

Chomsky, for his part, does not see our linguistic faculties as having originated from any particular selective pressure, but rather as a sort of fortuitous accident. He bases this view, among other things, on studies which found that recursivity-the ability to embed one clause inside another, as in "the person who was singing yesterday had a lovely voice"-might be the only specifically human component of language. According to the authors of these studies, recursivity originally developed not to help us communicate, but rather to help us solve other problems connected, for example, with numerical quantification or social relations, and humans did not become capable of complex language until recursivity was linked with the other motor and perceptual abilities needed for this purpose. (Thus recursivity would meet the definition of a spandrel offered by Stephen Jay Gould.) According to Chomsky and his colleagues, there is nothing to indicate that this linkage was achieved through natural selection. They believe that it might simply be the result of some other kind of neuronal reorganization.

The minimalist program

In the 1990s, Chomsky's research focused on what he called the "minimalist program", which attempted to demonstrate that the brain's language faculties are the minimum faculties that could be expected, given certain external conditions that are imposed on us independently. In other words, Chomsky began to place less emphasis on something such as a universal grammar embedded in the human brain, and more emphasis on a large number of plastic cerebral circuits. And along with this plasticity would come an infinite number of concepts. The brain would then proceed to associate sounds and concepts, and the rules of grammar that we observe would in fact be only the consequences, or side effects, of the way that language works. Analogously, we can, for example, use rules to describe the way a muscle operates, but these rules do nothing but explain what happens in the muscle; they do not explain the mechanisms that the brain uses to generate these rules.
Criticisms of Chomsky's theories
Chomsky thus continues to believe that language is "pre-organized" in some way or other within the neuronal structure of the human brain, and that the environment only shapes the contours of this network into a particular language. His approach thus remains radically opposed to that of Skinner or Piaget, for whom language is constructed solely through simple interaction with the environment. This latter, behaviourist model, in which the acquisition of language is nothing but a by-product of general cognitive development based on sensorimotor interaction with the world, would appear to have been abandoned as the result of Chomsky's theories.

Since Chomsky first advanced these theories, however, evolutionary biologists have undermined them with the proposition that it may be only the brain's general abilities that are "pre-organized". These biologists believe that to try to understand language, we must approach it not from the standpoint of syntax, but rather from that of evolution and the biological structures that have resulted from it. According to Philip Lieberman, for example, language is not an instinct encoded in the cortical networks of a "language organ", but rather a learned skill based on a "functional language system" distributed across numerous cortical and subcortical structures.

Though Lieberman does recognize that human language is by far the most sophisticated form of animal communication, he does not believe that it is a qualitatively different form, as Chomsky claims. Lieberman sees no need to posit a quantum leap in evolution or a specific area of the brain that would have been the seat of this innovation. On the contrary, he says that language can be described as a neurological system composed of several separate functional abilities.

For Lieberman and other authors, such as Terrence Deacon, it is the neural circuits of this system, and not some "language organ", that constitute a genetically predetermined set that limits the possible characteristics of a language. In other words, these authors believe that our ancestors invented modes of communication that were compatible with the brain's natural abilities. And the constraints inherent in these natural abilities would then have manifested themselves in the universal structures of language.

Another approach that offers an alternative to Chomsky's universal grammar is generative semantics, developed by linguist George Lakoff of the University of California at Berkeley. In contrast to Chomsky, for whom syntax is independent of such things as meaning, context, knowledge, and memory, Lakoff shows that semantics, context, and other factors can come into play in the rules that govern syntax. In addition, metaphor, which earlier authors saw as a simple linguistic device, becomes for Lakoff a conceptual construct that is essential and central to the development of thought.

Lastly, even among those authors who embrace Chomsky's universal grammar, there are various conflicting positions, in particular about how this universal grammar may have emerged. Steven Pinker, for instance, takes an adaptationist position that departs considerably from the exaptation thesis proposed by Chomsky.

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Tool Module: Chomsky's Universal Grammar

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During the first half of the 20th century, linguists who theorized about the human ability to speak did so from the behaviourist perspective that prevailed at that time. They therefore held that language learning, like any other kind of learning, could be explained by a succession of trials, errors, and rewards for success.

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El Mito de Oportunidades Perdidos es un articulo que se habla del periodo critico de aprender la lenguaje.

Este articulo dice que el problema con el mito del periodo critico es que se desamina adultos que quieren aprender mas lenguas, es decir que en vez de crear tantas dudas, es importante recordar que aprender lenguaje es posible en cada edad.

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The Myth of Missed Opportunities
A popular misconception regarding second-language learning is that there is a window, or critical period, for learning a second language that shuts down around the onset of puberty. In his article, "Is There a 'Child Advantage' in Learning Foreign Languages?" Brad Marshall points out the harm this misconception can cause. Adults may become doubtful of their ability to learn a new language. Their teachers may become skeptical too, tending to "plod through their classes feeling there is little hope of success." When it comes to learning a foreign language, many believe that the adult brain is in "a state of shutdown" relative to the child's "neurological state of readiness."

Early Foreign Language Instruction is "Not a Magical Tool"
In The Age Factor in Second Language Acquisition, David Singleton concedes that in second-language instruction, "younger = better in the long run." But this is a general rule with plenty of exceptions. The exceptions include the 5 percent of adult bilinguals who master a second language even though they begin learning it when they are well into adulthood, long after any critical period has presumably come to a close.

Both research and the informal observations of those who are in daily contact with second-language learners suggest that an early start in a second language is neither a strictly necessary nor a universally sufficient condition for the attainment of native-like proficiency. Given the enormous variation in people's experience of second languages-even (or especially!) in the classroom-this ought to be a truism.

As John T. Bruer, author of The Myth of the First Three Years, states: "One of the dangers of the...emphasis on critical periods, is that it prompts us to pay too much attention to when learning occurs and too little attention to how learning might best occur." Marshall agrees, pointing out that learning a foreign language in elementary school-what most researchers generally agree is the ideal time-is not a "magical tool for creating perfect second-language speakers." Timing, in other words, is not everything.

Many assume that critical learning periods apply not only to second-language learning, but to other school subjects, like math and reading. Such beliefs, writes Bruer, have "raised needless concerns among educators." For instance, once a critical period is over, is "lost academic ground" irrecoverable? Such concerns arise from a simplistic and over-generalized application of critical periods to learning. The extreme view that children must learn a foreign language "early or not at all" grows out of popular images of critical periods as closing abruptly, like windows slamming shut.

Foreign-Language Learning and Critical Periods
The question of whether or not there is a critical period for learning a foreign language is not easily answered. But there is certainly no specific age at which the window of opportunity closes completely. As with the visual system, the language system consists of several features, and is not, as Singleton writes, a "monolith." Certain features of the language system may be more related to distinct critical periods than others. According to Ellen Bialystok and Kenji Hakuta, authors of In Other Words, "The controversy over the optimal age for learning a second language really hinges on the acquisition of a subset of possible linguistic features and functions."

The Grammar-Learning Window Never Completely Closes
Although acquiring the grammar of one's first language does seem to be subject to a critical period which ends around puberty, the issue of whether or not there is also a critical period for second-language grammar acquisition is more complex. In The Myth of the First Three Years, Bruer does not state that there is a critical period for second-language grammar learning; instead, he claims that there "may be some maturational constraints on second-language grammar learning."

Bialystok and Hakuta complicate the response to whether or not there is an optimal age for second-language grammar acquisition even further. They point out that learning some linguistic features, like tense, seems to be affected by age; yet other linguistic structures, like word order, "are resistant to any effect of the learner's age." In their book In Other Words, Bialystok and Hakuta state that syntax "remains accessible throughout life, even though the circumstances of our lives may muddy that access." Overall, "the amazing human ability to learn grammar," they argue, "remains with us as long as we remain human."

Phonological Acquisition Is Age-Sensitive
Unlike grammar learning, second-language phonological acquisition is subject to a sensitive period. The decline in "unaccented learning" of a foreign language is progressive, however, and not characterized by a predictably abrupt change. According to a study by James Flege, similar and not entirely novel sounds are the ones that are affected by age. In other words, new sounds are easier to pronounce with native-like accuracy than sounds that are similar but not identical to those found in one's first language.

According to Bruer, "we know almost nothing about the stages within the critical period for phonological learning...." We do know, Bruer continues, that "the system remains plastic and able to tune itself to a second phonology...until early in the second decade of life."

Vocabulary Learning Has No Critical Period
Of vocabulary acquisition in one's first language, Singleton writes, "there is no point at which vocabulary acquisition can be predicted to cease." There is also, Singleton suggests, no critical period for learning vocabulary in a second language.

According to the results of a study by Helen Neville using brain recordings, semantic information seems to be processed in the same way by both speakers of English as a second language and native English speakers throughout life. In The Myth of the First Three Years, Bruer relates this consistency in how we acquire vocabulary throughout life to brain maturation: "how we process vocabulary does not change with brain maturation, as one would expect it would if it were a form of time-limited, experience-expectant learning. It seems instead that the neural circuitry we need to process semantic information and learn vocabulary comes on-line early in development and does not change as we mature."

Conclusion: "Younger = Better in the Long Run"
It may be that the image of a window slamming shut as an analogy for the effect of age on one's ability to acquire a foreign language should be replaced by Bruer's analogy of a reservoir that "gradually evaporates." This analogy suggests a progressive rather than abrupt decline in ability over time. Regarding critical periods in second-language acquisition, Bialystok and Hakuta suggest that the difference between child and adult learners is more quantitative (or a matter of degree) than qualitative: "Overall...the evidence of a critical period for acquiring a second language is, at best, confusing." Although the evidence, argue Bialystok and Hakuta, indicates that the learning process is the same for both adults and children, and that second-language learning is not necessarily subject to biological critical periods, they do state that "on average, there is a continuous decline in ability with age."

Older beginners often show an initial advantage over younger beginners in learning a new language; however, over time the younger beginners usually overtake the older beginners. There seems then to be, according to Bialystok and Hakuta, a "tortoise-and-the-hare effect"; or as Singleton has put it, "younger = better in the long run." For this reason, we should by no means discount the importance of learning a second language early. As Bruer states, "The brain and early childhood literature is correct to emphasize that second-language learning is increasingly important and that often American schools provide too little language instruction too late."

What should be questioned or re-evaluated are the underlying assumptions that side-step the issue of how best to teach foreign languages. The "age at which one first encounters a second language," explains Singleton, "is only one of the many determinants of the ultimate level of proficiency attained in that language." We must not neglect other considerations, including what neuroscience is now telling us about how second languages might best be taught and learned.

References
Bialystok, Ellen, and Hakuta, Kenji. In Other Words. BasicBooks, A Division of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 1994.

Bruer, John T. The Myth of the First Three Years. The Free Press, A Division of Simon and Schuster Inc., 1999.

Marshall, Brad. April 16, 2000. Is there a 'child advantage' in learning foreign languages? Education Week. Vol. 19, number 22, pages 39, 41.

Singleton, David, and Lengyel, Zsolt. The Age Factor in Second Language Acquisition. Multilingual Matters Ltd., 1995.

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Is There a Critical Period for Learning a Foreign Language? - Brain Connection

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The Myth of Missed Opportunities A popular misconception regarding second-language learning is that there is a window, or critical period, for learning a second language that shuts down around the onset of puberty. In his article, "Is There a 'Child... Continue Reading →

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El concepto de un dialecto pidgin es universal, es decir que existe en muchos paises y situaciones.

Según este artículo, la lenguaje de Urdu se originó como un dialecto pidgin. Las condiciones sociales entre las comunidades en Pakistan se ha creado una version pidgin de Urdu. Nos vemos este artículo.

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"Punjabi families no longer speak Punjabi with their children". This generalisation we usually hear whenever we talk about the long-standing issue of language in Pakistan. This is, though, a generalisation and cannot be applied to the whole of Punjab; however, it is true enough for most of the urban elite suburbs of Punjab.
Since much of Pakistan's political power and military might is exercised by an elite urban feudal class in Punjab, we very often tend to forget the larger rural Punjabi community which faces the same problems as anyone living in rural Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa or Balochistan. In some aspects the rural Punjabi lives an even worse life. A trip to the interior of Punjab will be enough to shatter the myth about the 'big brother'. In rural Punjab one comes frequently across with people who can neither speak nor understand Urdu.
Urdu language historians and our textbooks tell us that the etymology of the term 'Urdu' is Turkish 'lashkar' suggesting that Urdu is actually made of various elements from different languages when the speakers of those languages came into contact with each other because of trade and military manoeuvres.
Linguists call such a language 'contact language' or pidgin. This is not unique to Urdu only. When two or more language communities come into contact for trade they usually need a 'makeshift' language, which later becomes pidgin.
Pidgins are made by social conditions in order to enable communication between different language communities. Pidgin thus becomes the 'second language' for the communities in contact; it is in addition to their indigenous languages, which they use for intra-communal communication. This is very true for Urdu in most of Pakistan. Urdu is now a second language for many citizens in Pakistan.
When a society is bilingual in their indigenous language and the dominant language of the 'nation-state' we find that each language has its own functions, and

switching from one to the other underlies specific identifiable patterns. This we notiernce when a Punjabi, Sindhi, Pakhtun or a speaker of the Dardic languages of north Pakistan speaks Urdu.
A 'nation-state' usually needs a national language; and a national culture, too. After Independence both India and Pakistan faced the issue of how to build their 'nations' out of the multiple ethnicities within the new countries that would be legitimately different from each other as well.
Prior to Independence, the primary language issues in the Subcontinent were linguistic diversity, and the relative status of Urdu, Hindi, Bengali, English and other regional languages. Urdu use was (and is) mostly associated with Muslims in South Asia, but spoken Urdu is generally understood by Hindi speakers and vice versa.
In order to claim a unique identity, mostly charged by religion, the ideologues and demagogues of the two-nation theory stressed the use of Arabic and Persian lexicon instead of that of Sanskrit in Urdu. On the other end, the Hindu nationalists began to revive more and more Sanskrit words in Hindi. These people had applied ethnogenesis. The divergence was the political need of that time otherwise there is virtually no difference between Urdu and Hindi except the religious jargons in both the languages.
A 'nation-building' project based on a single language and culture is very often counter-productive. In reality there is no 'nation-state' today in the world. The nation-states are actually multiethnic and multicultural with different ethnic communities within. Europe and the United States are presented as examples of nation-states. In today's America we see the Navajo, like many other American Indians, asserting their identity and rejuvenating their language - Navajo.
Pakistan has seen the counter-effects of imposing a single language and culture on a multiethnic society in the transformation of East Pakistan into a separate state, Bangladesh. But, as in every case, the power-wielders always learn the opposite lessons - whether it is the ethnic unrest or outcomes of using religion for geostrategic purposes.
Instead of getting the right lesson of giving the right status to multiethnic communities in Pakistan, those with power took the cultural multiplicity of Pakistan as a threat. They blamed the Bengalis and Indians for breaking the country, ignoring what they had themselves been doing since the very idea of a separate homeland for the Muslims of the United India.
The recent laudable but impracticable judgement by the Lahore-based chief justice of Pakistan to switch over to Urdu instead of English as the official language of Pakistan indicates the love our urban Punjabi brothers have for Urdu. The judgement would have been lovelier if the honourable judge had mentioned the need to protect the rich linguistic diversity of Pakistan as well.
As mentioned earlier, our urban Punjabi establishment is shy of their language and identity. They love Urdu; and regard its exclusion an incomplete agenda of their 'nation-building' project. They recommend Urdu for us in education and in the public sphere but ironically they educate their children in elite English medium schools in Pakistan or abroad.
The middle urban class of Punjab is shy of their language. They regard it a symbol of backwardness; too rustic and often slang as we mostly hear Punjabi from them when they are in a light mood. They don't deem Punjabi 'civilised' enough to be transmitted to their children, and so avoid its use at homes. They are actually making creole of a pidgin.
When a pidgin takes the place of the first language (native language) of a people, it becomes a creole. Urdu is now being made creole in urban Punjab. The middle class tries to make it creole for their children whereas the elites give English that status. However, the question that still remains unanswered is: will such a scheme in education and public work, as - unfortunately - Pakistan's 200 million people are not all elite?
The writer heads IBT, an independent organisation dealing with education and development in Swat.
Email: [email protected]

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"Punjabi families no longer speak Punjabi with their children". This generalisation we usually hear whenever we talk about the long-standing issue of language in Pakistan. This is, though, a generalisation and cannot be applied to the whole of Punjab; however, it is true enough for most of the urban elite