LFL: Language wizard, intellectual agrarian, general bon vivant filled with bons mots.
About Me. Writer for Lexicon Valley; Linguistics Professor; occasional blogger of comics, dogs, and gay stuff. Still angsty after all these years.
My Sociolinguistic Self. Sociolinguistically, I’m a gay, white, man from St. Louis, Missouri by way of Austin, Texas. I’m a NERD and a ROCKER (so, maybe just NERDCORE?) and a RADICAL ANARCHO-FEMINIST. I use language very theatrically, with a lot of pregnant………. pauses and a lot of variation in pitch, volume, and speed (think Captain Kirk imitating the Gilmore Girls). I also pronounce words like “pen” and “pin” / “Kim” and “chem” / “gym” and “gem” exactly the same– my KIT and DRESS vowels sound the same before nasal sounds.
Favorite Music. Lately, I’ve been listening mostly to Yalls, Conveyor, and Seamonster.
Favorite Word. I think that “saudade” is the most perfect word in English (and it’s borrowed from Portuguese). It describes the particular kind of sadness or melancholy you feel from remembering the past. Also, I like the mouthfeel of the word. It starts out all oceanic– sssss — aaawwww…. and then crashes in with a big explosive DA and then mellows out again at the end… de.
Describe your ideal linguistic adventure. I’m looking for a fellow polyglot– a real DuoLingo junkie. We’d meet at a bar. You’d speak fluent German and Portuguese while I’d speak fluent French and Spanish. As we sip craft beer into the late afternoon, we’d use no English– just my stammering Germano-Portuguese and your amusing “Esfrangol.” Then we’d take a walk around the park and name everything we can with what little Klingon we both remember. “”sor” means TREE,” you’d say, and I’d laugh and correct you– “actually, it’s Sor.” Then we’d play scrabble or scategories in Russian.
“How is linguistics like a pine cone?” … you tell me!
San Diego Museum of Man
As we first step into the Museum of Man, we can see a big wall full of words in different languages that translate to beer in English. This is where I found most of the languages that we were supposed to look for. I had trouble finding the “Yahi Language,” but other than that everything else was pretty easy to spot. Most of the words that were in different languages were names and places.
I enjoyed this experience because if it wasn’t for this class, I would not have a chance to go to this museum. I found the torture exhibit to be the most interesting part of the trip because it is crazy to think about what people had to go through back in the days. I kept imagining what it would be like if I were to live during that time period… hm… I probably would’ve been tortured for saying something stupid. I find it so strange and terrifying that the inventors actually came up with these ideas of torturing people.
Overall, I had a great time with my friends, even if it meant sacrificing my weekend to stay in the dorm instead of going back home. The highlight of my day was seeing the huge boxes of pizza and… of course, receiving a souvenir pencil from Professor Bigham.
Also, I drew my name in Maya Glyphs… which took forever… so glad the English alphabet is easier to write.
“Jia Xu” in Maya Glyphs
Weee~ Field Trip
During my trip to the Museum of Man and Balboa Park, I noticed how many languages there were in the museum. When I first walked into the museum there was a whole section dedicated to beer. In that area, there was a whole wall with “beer” written in different languages on it and that was where I found most of the languages we were told to find such as Star Wars language, Greek, French, Lithuanian and Latin. Afterwards, I moved on to the area devoted to Mayan exhibitions where I found signs of the Mayan language. There was also a section dedicated to the Kumeyaay language on the second floor. Then when I went to the mummy exhibits I saw carvings and writings of Egyptian on the tombstones and coffins which I thought was pretty interesting. The only one language I couldn’t fine was the Yahi Language even though I walked around the whole museum but it was probably because I didn’t look careful enough. Other languages I found throughout the museum were Spanish of course, Chinese, Japanese and Korean. From this trip, I learned to saw beer in a lot of different languages but mot importantly I learned how linguistically diverse the world we live in is.
(Untitled)
So as amazingly cool as the museum of man was and as slightly terrifying as the torture exhibit was I really don’t feel like doing this write up about it. However, since I have to I will say that I learned a lot and really enjoyed myself. The pizza was amazing, which definitely makes up for the fact that I didn’t find all the languages Doug told us to. (Sorry P.Doug) Anywho it was fun and I definitely want to go again.
Museum of Man- Balboa Park
Last Saturday, our dorm went to Balboa Park to be exposed to different languages and cultures in the museums. In the Museum of Man, there was an exhibit on Mayan culture and there were many places where the Mayan language was displayed.
There were also exhibits that had to do with Egyptian culture. There were mummies on display and there were tablets that showed hieroglyphics and Mesopotamian language.
Not only this, but there was an area of the Museum of Man devoted to beer and how it is made. There was a wall with the word “beer” in many different languages and a bar with bottles of beer from around the world all over the shelf.
After going to the Museum of Man, we went to the Instruments of Torture Exhibit. Most of these instruments were used in Europe, and were used for even the smallest crimes. It was interesting to see how punishment has changed over time and I am glad it changed so it is less harsh. There was a map of the world that showed that in most of today’s world, it is illegal and immoral to torture people the way they were tortured in the past.
Going to Balboa Park has made me realize what a diverse world we live in. It was eye-opening to learn about different cultures and languages and their history. I admire how so many cultures are represented all in one place.
-Meg Collier
Trip to the Museum of Man part 2(:
Paula Soto
Kiara Grant
Mission to the Museum of Man
October 11, 2014
The day started slow. No energy to move. No desire to get out of the uncomfortable bed provided by a college education. However, we found the strength to make it out of bed. The supplement of coffee helped. With our fellow neighbors, we walk ourselves to front of the hall residence. Paula ran (being late, as always). We will fast forward the day until we get to the museum. To our surprise, Balboa Park is humongous. There are different museums. The exciting part was the people that were selling items, drawings of people, and face paintings. The Museum of Man was the first museum we visited–reason for that was because Torture Exhibit was full. The first object we see is a wall full of words. The words are all written in different languages. Noticing all the various languages, it was overwhelming. In the big wall of languages, we discovered languages like: Lithuanian and Galactic Basic Standard( Star Wars language). There were some type of Asian languages, but we did not catch their names. Moving on from the wall, we encountered the section of the Mayans. There were many artifacts of their writing on the walls. Going upstairs, we entered the exhibit of the mummies–Egyptians. We saw their hieroglyphics. Through the rest of the museum we did not find other languages. Well, only Spanish and English. Beyond on that, we only found the languages above.
The second part of our day was spent in the Torture Exhibit. That was intense. It was very interesting. The exhibit showed various instruments of punishment throughout centuries. We are not going into the objects that we saw. Just be aware, that it was thought-provoking. The day turned out to be a good day, by exploring different languages.
Pictures of our day:
Global Linguistics
During our time at The Museum of Man, I was able to find many different languages used throughout the exhibits. It made me realize how integral communication and language are on all cultural developments. For every single item in display, there was a concept that was mentally described using language, and then there was a discussion about this idea, and then the idea was able to take shape. Without language there would never have been any human advancement in history.
Language is Key (HW-4 )
Language is the key to uncovering who we are: the secrets of our past, present, and future!
By: Aaron Hayag, Cheyanne Tarango, Alonzo Garcia, Angela Almeida, Tian’ao Wang, and Aleena Nawabi
Dialect Quizes
I took the N.Y times quiz and I thought it was quite accurate in comparison to the gotoquiz quiz. The gotoquiz said that I basically had no accent which is impossible because I sound like a typical cali person.
For the locations for the NY times quiz I got Fresno, Long Beach and Corona which I thought was pretty legit but still unsure about Corona because I never been there or heard what people sound like from there.
D5 Creation