Balanguru – a Kalasha village in northern Pakistan described

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It is book review week here on Lingoblog! Today, we are bringing you a review of “Balanguru: mennesker og myter i en kalashalandsby i Hindukush [Balanguru: people and myths in a Kalasha village in Hindukush]”.

When I was a student and studied linguistic anthropology in Amsterdam, taught by the anthropologist Johannes Fabian (now 82 years old), one of the tasks that we got as students was that we all had to read an anthropological monograph of our own choice. An ethnographic description of a tribal group’s nature. Thus, while we read the book, we were instructed to be particularly aware of what the anthropologist wrote about language. Did they learn the language to be able to communicate with the natives? … ↪

The Danish pronoun ‘man’ used as ‘I’ in conversation

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In English, you is both a definite and an indefinite pronoun. This means that speakers can use the same form to refer to a specific person and to refer to someone unspecific, someone in general. In Danish, the pronoun man is used to refer to someone in general, just like the English indefinite you, and the word’s primary meaning, listed in dictionaries and grammars, is this generic function. However, there are instances in the language where man occurs as an indefinite pronoun with self-reference. These instances are only briefly mentioned in the literature and are not described in detail at all.

This blog post is based on a presentation and an article from the 17th MUDS – Møderne … ↪

Liet International 2020 in Aabenraa, Nordschleswig/Denmark: songs in 20 languages 

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UPDATE: Because of the Corona virus, the event has been cancelled/postponed.

The line-up of 20 participants of the 13th edition of Liet International 2020 on 3 and 4 April 2020 in Apenrade/Aabenraa, Denmark is set. 45 songs were submitted for Liet International 2020, the song festival for regional and minority languages. These 45 songs show a huge rise in applications, and showing a growing interest in Liet International.

A selection jury consisting of Anneke Holwerda (The Netherlands), chairman of the jury at Frisian song festival Liet 2019, Laura Fosten (United Kingdom), member of the Cornish band The Rowan Tree, winner of Liet International 2018, and Uffe Iwersen (Denmark), culture consultant at Bund Deutscher Nordschleswiger, the organisers of Liet International 2020, … ↪

Only 100 spoken words per day: Vox

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Can you imagine a world where you are only allowed to speak a certain amount of words per day? Imagine if the amount was 100 words. It does not take a conversation analyst to argue or explain that this number is incredibly low, just try counting the number of words you have used in your last conversation today, and you will see how the numbers add up pretty quickly. Imagine if a metal bracelet around your wrist keeps track of your verbal behavior. Then imagine that, if you exceed this number, the bracelet will give you an electric shock. Finally, imagine if this only applies to women.

This is the world that the author Christina Dalcher invites us in to … ↪

A Brief History of the Canadian Language Museum or How a Posting on Linguist List Changed My Life

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Cree at WIPCE 2017 1

On June 8, 2007 a posting was distributed on Linguist List with the following subject line: “An International Language Museum in Denmark”. I was teaching Linguistics at the University of Toronto at the time and received many messages from Linguist List daily, but this one caught my eye. I had never heard of a language museum before, and my first thought was ‘A language museum! If any country should have a language museum, Canada should have a language museum!’ There are more than 60 Indigenous languages in Canada; early European settlers brought both English and French, now the country’s official languages, and more recent immigrants have brought hundreds of languages from around the world. Issues, debates and conflicts … ↪

Tevfik Esenç & Ubykh: cenaze – begrafenis – begravelse – funeral

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TÜRKÇE: Ünlü Kafkas Ubihca dilinin son abidelerinden (konuSan) olan Tevfik Esenç, 7 Ekim 1992 hayatini kaybetti ve son yolculuğuna uğurlandi. Sadece danimarkali Ole Stig Andersen son fotoğraflari Cekebildi. Bu kendince bir ilk ve Tevfik Esenc kendisiyle  beraber ünlü Ubihca dilinin  ( kendine özgü 80 ünsüz sesli olan Ubihca) sonsuza veda etmesi oldu. Türkçe nin 22 ünsüz sesi bulunuyor.

ENGLISH: On the 7th of October 1992, Tevfik Esenç, the last speaker of the famous Caucasian language Ubykh, passed away. He was buried that same day. Ole Stig Andersen from Denmark was there. He was the only one who took pictures. These unique pictures are shown here for the very first time. With his photos, Ole Stig Andersen recorded a special event … ↪

The funeral of a language: The burial of Tevfik Esenç and the Ubykh language

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In June 2018, I (Peter Bakker) interviewed Ole Stig Andersen about the day he attended the funeral of Tevfik Esenç, the last man to allegedly speak the Ubykh language. It was October 7, 1992, 26 years earlier, that the funeral had taken place. In fact, Ole Stig Andersen had wanted to write himself about this funeral of a man and his language for Lingoblog.dk, and he wanted a text in at least three languages: Danish, English, Turkish. The text would have to be published together with the unique pictures he took of the funeral, and that have never been published or shown before.

He wanted to write no fewer than four articles in this connection: about Caucasian languages, about Caucasian … ↪