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Linguistic Anthropology Roundup #5

Fifth linguistic anthropology roundup, by Leila Monaghan

Linguistic Diversity

Linguistic diversity has been in the news in the last few weeks in a couple of different guises.

First, there was an article about the many languages of New York City (particularly Queens)

Listening to (and Saving) the World’s Languages

The chances of overhearing a conversation in Vlashki, a variant of Istro-Romanian, are greater in Queens than in the remote mountain villages in Croatia that immigrants now living in New York left years ago.
Just starting are Twitter adventures: Twitter.com

As you have only 140 characters per tweet, twittering has some very arcane ins and outs.

Nova Publishers

This morning I received two separate emails from Nova Publishers inviting me to contribute to upcoming books.

After several minutes of reflection, I have decided not to submit my work.

Refreshingly careful definitions of “Socialism”

The word socialism seems to be much in vogue in the United States recently, primarily as an epithet for one’s political opponents, especially for representatives of the Obama Administration or the Democratic Party, but also for “the Media” collectively.

I was therefore pleasantly surprised to find two recent blog posts pointing out how this usage differs from the traditional definition of socialism as a political position.

Linguistic Anthropology Roundup #3

Linguistic Anthropology Roundup #3

The Boston Globe’s “The Word”, Conversations with Ron Scollon, Monkeys with Internet Access, Voting Osage, and more

Wyoming Language, Culture and History Conference

We got so many interesting paper proposals that we have extended the conference for an extra half day so we could fit them all in. The Wyoming Language, Culture and History Conference now runs from Thursday, July to Saturday, July 3. See full blog post for the preliminary program

Accent, Race, and Social Preferences

A piece in Scientific American Mind called “Accents Trump Skin Color” reviews work by Katherine Kinzler and colleagues suggesting that, for young children, accent is as important as visual cues to race, gender, and age in selecting friends. The magazine article was interesting, and led me to look for the research paper it was based on.

Toyota and Japanese orthography

A radio quiz program suggested that Toyota uses a character written with eight strokes, while Toyoda uses one with ten, and that eight is a more auspicious number. This is strange for at least two reasons.

It turns out that BBC News contributor Kathryn Westcott published an article last week addressing the question, “Why is the car giant Toyota not Toyoda?” which does a pretty good job explaining the apparent inconsistency.