Recently in Random Links Category
One of the nice benefits of the new media outlets on the Internet is the ability to preview non-English language music - both modern and traditional.
If you are in a Russian frame of mind, you may enjoy Far From Moscow, a blog about the Russian Pop music scene. It's from UCLA and written for the American music audience. Entries include clips of sample songs, brief artist bios (with a touch of politics) and links by musical genre (such as reggae and folk). And since it's from UCLA, I'm assuming that most of the clips are legal (they're certainly high quality).
I would recommend listening to some of these tracks...even if you don't know a word of Russian. I'm feeling hipper already
The World Atlas of Language Structures Online (http://wals.info/feature) from the Max Planck Digital Library is a great new resource that maps languages with phonological, morphological or syntactic features.
For instance, someone asked if front-rounded vowels (e.g. German /ü,ö/ or French /œ/) were only found in languages originating from northern Eurasia. The map at http://wals.info/feature/11 actually shows that while most languages with front round vowels are in Northern Eurasia, there are a few further south in tropical regions including a few in the Amazon basin. In case you're wondering the maps are in the Google maps format and can be exported into KML and XML format.
The sources are well cited so the data is trustworthy and lots of features are mapped out. There's also a subsidiary set of language profile pages. A nice academically rich use of Web 2.0 technlogy.
This one is interesting from a technology point of view because it's a "traditional Web site" which hides a modern del.icio.us interface. Built for both Web 1.0 and Web 2.0!
I'm always on the lookout for good language teaching resources, so here's one for Hebrew teachers.
http://www.laits.utexas.edu/hebrew
They have some interesting instructional resources including videos and audio. I particularly like the verb root Flash demo in which the root consonants are highlighted in the different verb forms.
http://www.laits.utexas.edu/hebrew/heblang/tutorials/new/visualv/nifal/nifal.html
In Hebrew and related languages (including Arabic), the consonants may be grouped together or separated by vowels depending on the verb form. The closest English parallel would be something like drive ~ drove where the consonants /dr-v/ remain the same, but the internal vowel changes depending on the tense.
Just ran into a Web site called the Asian Pacific Islanders
Name Pronunciation Guide from Susan Kullmann. Originally developed at Cal Poly Pomona, the site features lots of typical names from Japanese, Chinese (Mandarin & Cantonese), Cambodian, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, Filipino and Indonesian with spoken versions
You know that neighbor across the street you meet at the mailbox? He's as sweet as can be and just plain "good people", but boy does he talk a lot.
If you don't know that neighbor...you can meet him at http://www.americanaccent.com/.
Click the button doo-hickey for "Mr Thingamajig" and he will tell about how all the brouhaha and shenanigans that can happen in just one morning. It's just chock-full of down-home sayings and idioms you know but had totally forgotten about.
Aren't these new-fangled gadgets gosh darned great?
P.S. I know some foreigners complain that Americans talk too much, but the fact is...it's sort of true.
UCLA has a journal of heritage language learning at
http://www.international.ucla.edu/languages/heritagelanguages/journal/
Heritage Language learners often refer to students whose parents are either immigrants from another culture or are members of a minority language community. These students may know how to speak their heritage language (or perhaps familiar with only a few phrases), but have never been formally trained in educated "grammar" (including spelling or writing).
Heritage learners usually don't need to start from zero, but typically do need information on what the educated standards, information on technical vocabulary and exposure to the culture's literary classics (in the actual language).
Depending on the situation, a heritage learner may be stigmatized by the educated speakers of the language as "not really speaking correctly".
Note, there may also be learners whose ethnic background is associated with a certain language, but are at the same stage as true beginners.
I just found this blog which reports cognition studies at
http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/.
If nothing else, it's interesting to think about the neural wiring for activities we assume are "automatic".
