A new book about the history of English

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More than 50 years ago, Barbara Strang published her highly innovative book A History of English (1970, Methuen £2.25) which, daringly, began its chronological treatment of the English language in the (then) present-day, with “Changes in living memory” (Strang was born in 1925), and then worked its way backwards. The first chapter in the chronological sequence was devoted to “1970-1770”, and the final chapter covered the period “Before 370”.

The obvious advantage of this strategy is that you can start readers off in a place they are familiar with, and then take them on a journey to increasingly remote and less familiar periods of time. Strang’s way of dealing with this material was an intriguing and attractive one, and in … ↪

Rhyme and Reason

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gustav forsidebillede 1

“A letter may be coded, and a word may be coded. A theatrical performance may be coded, and a sonnet may be coded, and there are times when it seems the entire world is in code.”

 This piece of philosophy comes from one of my favourite childhood authors, and it’s one which can often provide some comfort when the world feels mysterious and unreasonable: It’s not that the world doesn’t make sense, it’s that the sense it makes is obscured by a layer of puzzles and codes just waiting for you to figure them out.

That’s if you read the quote as referring to the more general meaning of the word ‘code’. For my exam in computational linguistics, I decided … ↪

Esperanto as a national language: the Italian army invaded a rebellious foreign power

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806f80ca64b37cac163dba3cfaeb299b

Today it is Esperanto Day. For that occasion, we investigate truth and reality of one of the states that had Esperanto as a national language. Now a major film.

In 1968, the world was in uproar. Demonstrations by young people against the establishment in major cities in Europe, North and South America. That year, an Italian engineer in his 40s, has succeed in building an island, somewhat like a drilling platform, outside of the territorial waters of Italy. Giorgio Rosa was his name. His micronation, covering 400 square meters, had a bar, a post office, a restaurant. Tourists arrived by boat, mainly from the harbor of Rimini in Italy, a 20-minute sailing tour. The builders of the island declared independence, … ↪

Micronations and their national languages

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Ladonia

What is a micronation? Maybe some people think of small countries like San Marino or Andorra. No, those are too big. A micronation can be as small as 186 square meters, as the Barony of Caux, surrounded by the city of Toronto, Canada. Or even smaller. One of them is even mobile.

There are several dozens of micronations. In the tourist guide “Micronations. The Lonely Planet Guide to Home-Made Nations” many of them are dealt with, including just as many shortlived ones. The cover contains a warning: REAL PEOPLE. REAL PLACES. 100% TRUE. The copy in my possession is from 2006. It has not been updated or reprinted since. Below you can find links to uptodate information about most of … ↪

Free Ukrainian! Special linguistic operation for the Ukraine: Free Ukranian-Danish-Ukrainian dictionary for displaced Ukrainians and their helpers.

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udvalgt billede

(див. український текст нижче)

When I visited an old friend, a farmer, in the countryside, he told me that he had given a safe haven in his farmhouse to a couple of Ukrainians who had fled the violence in their homecountry. The ladies and their families were very happy with their new place. In the meantime, they have moved on to Horsens and Hammel.

The challenge was, that my friend and the Ukrainians could not communicate with each other, because they had no language in common. The Ukrainians only spoke Ukrainian. It is an illusion that “everybody” speaks English. I estimate that one in 30 of the refugees speak some (some) English.

Then I thought: there is a task for … ↪

LingoSlam 2022! More exciting than ever!

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pokal

It happened again! On April 22, 2022 (please also note the date!) 5 ingenious linguistics students competed with great humorous and performative (pun intended) abilities against each other to win in the four categories “poetry”, “academia”, “creativity” and “humor”, and not least – in anticipation for the overall winner – the LingoSlam trophy. The latter led to a surprise, but more on that later. Everything was, as usual, carried forward by a high-spirited and cheering crowd!

LingoSlam is a long-standing tradition that has always been a testament to the ingenuity, high professionalism and not least the ability and willingness of linguistics students to entertain a large crowd of like-minded people.

LingoSlam was invented and for many years organized by Peter … ↪

Report from Liet International 2022 – Corsican victory and almost a Danish-language winner

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Liet International 2022

The music competition Liet International is specific to minority and regional languages. In the time before I became a linguistics student, I heard about it through the then-existing Sprogmuseum, and I remember finding the topic very interesting. Back then I did not expect that over 10 years later I would get the opportunity to be among the live audience – when in took place in Denmark, Tønder, on Friday 13th of May 2022, right between the semifinals and grand final of another song contest. I went there together with three other participants in Lingoslam.

At Liet International, there were 13 artists, each with one track. None of the participants sang in English, but they represented one language (or more) … ↪