Biodiversity and language loss

Study links biodiversity and language loss
By Mark Kinver
Environment reporter, BBC News
13 May 2012
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18020636

A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) reported that the “decline of linguistic and cultural diversity is linked to the loss of biodiversity”. According to research data, “70% of the world’s languages were found within the planet’s biodiversity hotspots” and “data showed that as these important environmentalareas were degraded over time, cultures and languages in the area were also being lost.” 

The authors of the paper explained that “out of the 6,900 or more languages spoken on Earth, more than 4,800 occurred in regions containing high biodiversity”.  They concluded that biologists and ecologists are now in agreement that people are part of these ecosystems that contribute to the linguistic landscape. Click here to read the BBC article.

Further reading:

Linguistic ecology : language change and linguistic imperialism in the Pacific region  Peter Mühlhäusler.
London ; New York : Routledge, 1996.
Call no.: P381.P16M952
Location: HSS Library

The evolution of human language : biolinguistic perspectives
[edited by] Richard K. Larson, Viviane Déprez, Hiroko Yamakido.
Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, c2010.
Call no.: P116.E93EH
Location: HSS Library

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)

Librarian tip of the Day
Use ONESearch from the Library home page to retrieve more e-journal articles on linguistic ecology and other subjects. Key in subject-related keywords using the ONESearch box to get a list of related topics.

Nepal’s living linguistic treasure

Nepal’s mystery language on the verge of extinction
Bimal Gautam
BBC
12 May 2012
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17537845
According to BBC, Gyani Maiya Sen, a 75-year-old woman from western Nepal is the last surviving speaker of a language called Kusunda. As such, she has become “a linguistic treasure” of sorts.

Professor Pokharel, a linguist from Nepal’s Tribhuwan University, said that Kusunda is an isolated, stand-alone language which is not related to any common language of the world.

Although there are about 20 language families in the world such as the Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan and Austro-Asiatic group of languages, Prof Pokharel explains that “Kusunda stands out because it is not phonologically, morphologically, syntactically and lexically related to any other languages of the world.” Although there are 100 tribal people from the Kusunda tribe still in existence, only Ms Sen is fluent in the native Kusunda tongue.

Hence, Ms Sen, due to her Kusunda language fluency, is helping to keep the language alive by contributing to linguistic research and teaching the language to eager linguistics students. Kusunda is also one of the 10 Nepalese ethnic groups which forms part of the research in Nepal’s National Ethnographic Museum.

Click here for the full BBC article.

Further reading and linguistic sources from the Library:

Databases
Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA)
This database contains abstracts of articles covering all aspects of the study of language, including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. Complete coverage is also given to descriptive, historical, comparative, theoretical and geographical linguistics.

Oxford Reference Online
Check out e-books and the English Language Reference section for dictionaries on linguistics and more.
B. Grimes “Mahakiranti Languages”  International Encyclopedia of Linguistics. Ed. William J. Frawley. Oxford University Press 2005. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford UniversityPress.  NANYANG TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY.  14 May 2012 <http://www.oxfordreference.com.ezlibproxy1.ntu.edu.sg/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t202.e0641>

Scrabble, place names & wordsmiths

Copyright: Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

From the ‘Broncs’ to ‘Coney,’ New York as a Scrabble Board
By David Bukszpan
City Room, New York Times
April 13, 2012

This post in the New York Times is about Scrabble and its bond with New York and was written in celebration of National Scrabble Day. It was reported that the Queen of England bought a Scrabble set at New York’s Saks during her 1939 visit “and it was in the chess clubs of the West Village of the 1950s that the finer points of its rules became established and the level of play started to really explode.”  Curiously, New York’s street names such as “Manhattan” and “Broncs” are acceptable Scrabble words in the Scrabble lexicon. Students of lexicology and lexicography would find the above article an interesting read.  To spur you on, we have compiled some titles that we have at the library. 

For other wordsmiths who would like to explore further, the Oxford Wordsblog is a good source for postings on words, dictionaries, grammar and language in general.  There is also an Oxford Dictionaries Twitter feed if you are a Twitter fan and a write-up on Place names in the Oxford English Dictionary in the OED homepage.

Books

Lexical meaning in context : a web of words
Asher,Nicholas.
Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2011.
Call no.: P325.A825
Location: HSS Library

How to read a word
Knowles, Elizabeth.
Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, c2010
Call no.: PE1574.K73
Location: HSS Library

The mental lexicon
Miozzo, Michele. (Ed.)
Colcheste, Essex, UK : Psychology Press, 2008.
Call no.: QP360.C676 VOL.25/4
Location: HSS Library

Words in the mind : an introduction to the mental lexicon
Aitchison, Jean.
Edition: 3rd ed.
Malden, MA : Blackwell Pub., 2003.
Call no.: P326.A311 2003
Location: HSS Library Reserves

Lexicology : a short introduction
Halliday, M.A.K.  and Yallop, Colin.
London : Continuum, c2007.
Call no.: P326.H188
Location: HSS Library

The meaning of everything : the story of the Oxford English dictionary
Winchester, Simon .
New York : Oxford University Press, 2003.
Call no: PE1617.O93W759
Location: HSS Library

E-books

Oxford English Dictionary

Oxford Reference Online

Learning grammar on the go via smartphone apps

Homepage of The interactive Grammar of English

In a recent article published in English Today, the authors noted that school teachers often find teaching grammar a challenge, especially when they have not been specifically trained in grammar teaching. According to Aarts, Clayton and Wallis, teachers need a way to teach grammar such that students would enjoy learning it. 

Initially, the University College London’s Survey of English Usage published the Internet Grammar of English online but as smartphones are nowvery popular especially with students,researchers have created an smartphone application for learning grammar anytime and anywhere. The App (available in Apple’s App Store and Google’s Andriod Market) — interactive Grammar of English (iGE) – allows students to do grammar exercises via their smartphones while on the go. As such, learning grammar in today’s day and age no longer meant sitting in front of a PC or within the confined premises of a classroom.  For full details, click here.

Reference: Bas Aarts, Dan Clayton and Sean Wallis (2012). Bridging the Grammar Gap: teaching English grammar to the iPhone generation. English Today, 28 , pp 3-8

Useful sites for English grammar learners

English Today (Ejournal subscription by NTU Library)

The Internet Grammar of English

The interactive Grammar of English (App home page)

Books

Oxford modern English grammar
Aarts, Bas .
Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2011.
Call no.: PE1112.A114
Location: HSS Library

 A Comprehensive grammar of the English language
Quirk, Randolph  … [et. al.] 
London ; New York : Longman, 1985.
Call no.: PE1106.C737
Location: HSS Library Reserves

A student’s grammar of the English language
Greenbaum, Sidney & Quirk, Randolph
Harlow : Longman, 1990.
Call no.: PE1112.G798
Location: HSS Library

AV resource & software

David Crystal’s Introduction to language [videorecording] : a complete course.
Abingdon : Routledge, c2011.
Call no.: PE1065.D249
Location: Business Library

Clarity English software (available in Business Library Language Learning Rooms)
–Active Reading
–Tense Buster
–Clear Pronunciation
–Connected Speech

Please book a Language Learning Room via the Facilities Booking page before use.