Book of the Day: Spoken Here

Spoken Here: Travel Among Threatened Languages by Mark Abley


Potts gave me this book last year, and I just finished up the last few chapters today (a bit behind "schedule"). As you might guess, it ruminates on languages with few remaining speakers. A few of these languages are thriving (Welsh, for example), but most present little promise for survival. Abley argues - and I'm pretty sure I agree - that the loss of a language is akin to the loss of a species: the "philosophical" diversity lost, so to speak, weakens the entire "ecosystem" of human thought. Ethnologue reports that there are over 1600 languages with fewer than 1000 speakers each, and it lists over 500 of those languages as "nearly extinct."

In any case, here's an excerpt from the book to think about:

Unless I have severely misread Dr. Bhattacharya, though, the glory of the language [Boro] lies elsewhere.

onguboy: to love from the heart
onsay: to pretend to love
onsra: to love for the last time

Verbs like these go beyond all borders: the ideas or sentiments they express transcend the culture that articulates them . . . While I love the surprising verb dasa - it means "not to place a fishing instrument" - I accept, with some reluctance, that my own language might have little use for it. But onsay and onsra are a different story. Having met those words in Dr. Bhattacharya's book, how can I do without them? I covet them, just as I covet the verbs for expressing anger by a sidelong glance or for feeling partly bitter. They are more than just fresh sounds on the tongue; they are fresh thoughts in the mind.

High Gas Prices?

Can you believe gas prices these days? Hmmm . . . wait a minute . . . check out this graphic. Maybe that's (at least part of) the reason that the average fuel economy of European cars is about 43 mpg and the average fuel economy of American cars is about 29 mpg.

Good Music of the Day

Today's pick: The Gipsy Kings: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZwEE2s3qxE&NR=1 . I dig flamenco. It's just so . . . sensual.

Craggers

Here's a great article from the BBC on "CRAGgers": Carbon Reduction Action Groups. These people "take action" to reduce carbon emissions in their own lives - well, more than that. They commit to taking action. The things they do are, for the most part, straightforward and simple: turn off the lights, keep the heat low, share a car. One guy even refuses to fly. I'm not sure I'm ready to make a commitment that deep - I'll stick to the minor leagues of the environmental movement for now - but this stuff just makes so much sense. Why don't more people buy into it?

Check out the article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/6635759.stm

Photo of the Day: Crystal Beach

Summer is just around the corner: Crystal Beach, coming up!