Around Europe in Sixty Languages by Gaston Dorren. Book review.

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Dorren cover lingo

This post is a book review of Gaston Dorren’s Lingo: A Language Spotter’s Guide to Europe AND Lingo. Around Europe in Sixty Languages. First edition 2014. New York: Grove Press. Accompanying website: https://languagewriter.com/.

A friend of mine went all the way to the United States and all she bought for me was this book, “Lingo”. The similarity between the name of this blog, Lingoblog.dk and the book is purely coincidental. The author of Lingo is the Dutch language journalist Gaston Dorren.

Lingo is an English adapted version of his Dutch book Taaltoerisme, or “language tourism”, which Dorren wrote a few years ago. A respected friend and colleague had read the book in its Dutch version, and his judgment … ↪

Why are there so many different types of “R”?

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rhotic

One of the things that got us excited about linguistics back in the days wasn’t any kind of scientific holy grail, such as why only humans have language or whether we are born with an innate language faculty. It was something very simple, namely: why are there so many different types of “R”?

As a speaker of an Eastern-Dutch dialect, I (Jeroen) noticed I could never roll my R’s with the tip of my tongue like in Spanish or Italian. Rather, I roll my R’s with my uvula (the little “ball” in the back of your throat, see the picture below). Why, I wondered, do I roll my R’s in my throat, whereas most people in Amsterdam roll their R’s … ↪

Description, theory and linguistics as a science – an interview with William B. McGregor

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Bill fieldwork

Professor William B. McGregor is an Australian-born linguist who works at Aarhus University in Denmark. He has published various books on linguistic theory and Australian languages, which include Semiotic Grammar (1997), Verb classification in Australian languages (2002), The Languages of the Kimberley, Western Australia (2004), Linguistics: An Introduction (2009, 2015 second edition) and Sign Languages of the World: A Comparative Handbook (2015, coeditor with Julie Bakken Jepsen, Goedele A. M. De Clerck and Sam Lutalo-Kiingi). He has written extensively on a wide range of topics which include optional case marking, zero-markers, Australian historical linguistics and Shua syntax. He is also the author of various grammatical descriptions of Australian languages including Warrwa, Gooniyandi and Nyulnyul.

I interviewed him in Aarhus about … ↪

A creole book and a dedication to a creolist: Philip Baker

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Philip Baker March 2017 Giessentafel

Not long before Christmas, I received a parcel from Germany, presumably a book, and when I opened the parcel and it was indeed a book. Attached to the book was a small card with the following text:

Philip Baker, 26 July 1940 – 19 August 2017

This volume was published in February 2017, Philip Baker received it in March and had the satisfaction to see that all the data he compiled in London in the 1980ies – the famous “dossier bleu” – are now available in print (see p. VIII).

We mourn for our dear friend Philip and present this book to you to honour his memory.

Annegret and Willem Bollée

It was inserted in this book:

bollee

Annegret Bollée (Hg.)
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Name signs in Danish Sign Language

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Danish SL Figure 1 Danish sign^language

A name sign is a personal sign assigned to deaf, hearing impaired and hearing persons who enter the deaf community. The mouth action accompanying the sign reproduces all or part of the formal first name that the person has received by baptism or naming. Name signs can be compared to nicknames in spoken languages, where a person working as a blacksmith by his friends might be referred to as ‘The Blacksmith’ (‘Here comes the Blacksmith!’) instead of using the person’s first name. Name signs are found not only in Danish Sign Language (DSL) but in most, if not all, sign languages studied to date.

It varies greatly when – and by whom – a person gets her/his name sign, and … ↪

Welcome to Lingoblog

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Welcome to Lingoblog, a new online platform for the dissemination of knowledge about languages and linguistics.

According to Ethnologue and Glottolog, there are more than 7,000 known languages ​​in the world – and there are almost as many ways to study them. At Aarhus University, researchers and students work not only with Danish but also with languages ​​from Africa, North and South America, Asia, Australia and Europe, and with languages ​​as a phenomenon in general. We investigate language through life: All the way from childrens’ first linguistic signs to conversational grammar in elderly home care (look forward to submissions on both topics!)

Language is a topic that most people have an opinion about. Many people are worried about language … ↪