The revival of Manx

The last native speaker of the Celtic language Manx, spoken on the Isle of Man, died in 1974 and the language was declared extinct. Now there is a primary school teaching Manx, a radio program in Manx, and even a vampire novel written in Manx! The following article from the BBC news contains a fascinating account of the attempts to revive this language, and wonderful interviews with the school children leaning Manx:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21242667
“Come-overs” (that is, people who have come to the Isle of Man from other parts of England) seem to be especially interested in learning Manx.
(Note that the Canadian term equivalent to “come-over” is “come from away”, or CFA, a person who is not from Atlantic Canada.)

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In honor of the 200th anniversary of the publishing of Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen was a frequent user of the “epicene they” decried by prescriptive grammarians. Henry Churchill has compiled a list of these and provides a short discussion of this linguistic “error”:

http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/austheir.html

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“The whole nine yards”

Did you ever wonder about the meaning of this expression? Here’s a discussion in the New York Times:

http://nyti.ms/V4BUQr

 

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“900 years of beef”

Professor Avuncular Feldspar, aka Ari Hoptman (of Verner’s Law fame and the grammatical analysis of Copacabana — see earlier posts) gives a hilarious account of the Norman Conquest:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7-nIFIKM7c

 

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English a Scandinavian Language?

Professor Jan Terje Faarlund argues that Modern English actually derives from the language of the Scandinavians in the Danelaw area, not from Old English, and thus is  a North Germanic language. Read more:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121127094111.htm#.UL-248eoWbg.email

 

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When pronunciation has political consequences

In Missouri, where there is a hotly contested Senate race, the pronunciation of the name of the state is also in dispute. Should one say “Missouree” (with final [i]) or “Missouruh” (with final [ə]) — or one or the other depending upon the audience?

http://nyti.ms/R4mCKI

 

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A reversal of trends?: British English affecting American English

According to this New York Times article, Americans are using more British expressions such as “Cheers” and “kit”:

 

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The “Language Wars”: Descriptivism vs. prescriptivism

In this recent New York Times article, Robert Lane Greene, author of You are What you Speak, takes the descriptivist side, and Bryan A. Garner, author of Garner’s Modern American Usage, takes the prescriptivist side. In the course of the long exchange, they discuss the which/that “rule” for restrictive relative clauses and the question of whether native speaker’s make mistakes:

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/09/27/which-language-and-grammar-rules-to-flout

 

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Virginia Woolf on words, their character and their work

watch?v=E8czs8v6PuI

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English 320 students note – Verner’s Law explained!!

Professor Avuncular Feldspar (Ari Hoptman of Copacabana fame – see earlier post) has three videos explaining the First Sound change:

Part 3 may be a bit too detailed for our purposes.

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