Vanishing Alaskan languages

Some American languages are endangered-- not English, but the languages of indigenous people of Alaska are threatened.

Krauss suggests the erosion of Native languages could be due to television, which is mostly English and ubiquitous in villages nowadays, and "the likely lethal effect of the 'No Child Left Behind' (federal school mandate), requiring proof of proficiency in English but not Native language."

But he also says that Yup'ik and Inupiaq are being retained at rates much higher than the Aleut and Indian languages. Yup'ik is particularly strong, he writes, accounting for "fully 93 percent of those who speak an Alaskan Native language."

Voting with your tongue

Trilingual voting materials are now the law in Alameda County, Calif.

“The right to vote is the foundation of our democracy, and language barriers should never keep citizens from accessing that right,” Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, said in a statement. The “agreement ensures that Alameda County’s Spanish- and Chinese-speaking citizens will be able to cast an effective ballot and successfully participate in the electoral process. I congratulate Alameda County for their earnest cooperation in resolving this matter.”

Piling on different tongues

A study from the University of Haifa shows that bilinguals have an easier time learning a third language.

This team of scholars also noted that the fact that the Russian speakers had better Hebrew skills than the Hebrew speakers themselves indicates that acquiring a mother tongue and preserving that language in a bilingual environment does not come at the expense of learning a second language -- Hebrew in this case. In fact, the opposite is true: fluency and skills in one language assist in the language acquisition of a second language, and possessing skills in two languages can boost the learning process of a third language.

"Gaining command of a number of languages improves proficiency in native languages," Prof. Abu-Rabia explained. "This is because languages reinforce one another, and provide tools to strengthen phonologic, morphologic and syntactic skills. These skills provide the necessary basis for learning to read.

Some just call it El Lay

LA Times looks back at the ways to pronounce the name of the city. In a campaign speech, Texas Gov. Rick Perry is the latest to fumble it. But there's a long line.

Mispronouncing L.A. is an old tradition.

"There is no other city in the world whose inhabitants so miserably and shamelessly, and with so many varieties of foolishness, miscall the name of the town they live in," author Charles Lummis wrote in 1914.

As early as 1880 the Chamber of Commerce issued this reminder to visitors (and residents):

The Lady would remind you, please

Her name is not Lost AN-jie-lees."

But what is the lady's name? It depends, of course, on whether one is talking about a Spanish or Anglicized pronunciation

In the early 1900s, The Times advocated the Spanish version, carrying a box by its editorial page masthead that proclaimed the way to say Los Angeles was Loce AHNG-hayl-ais.

English speakers who found that difficult could only be thankful that the city had shortened its original name, which some scholars believe was El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula.

The Times' campaign aside, the United States Board on Geographic Names decreed in 1934 that the name should be Anglicized to Loss AN-ju-less.

Not only unconstitutional, but unfriendly

An English-only law has been revoked in New York.

An upstate New York town has repealed an ordinance designating English its official language and prohibiting officials from writing or speaking in others while conducting municipal business.

The Jackson Town Board's 4-to-1 vote Wednesday night repeals the measure passed last year. It follows a recent letter from New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman saying the ordinance was illegal, discriminating against non-English speakers.

Town Supervisor Alan Brown says there has been criticism from residents of the rural town who felt it was "an unfriendly way to greet strangers" and pressure from outsiders, with Schneiderman's letter the last straw.

Radio station's niche is its "voice from nowhere"

The language of the Native American Blackfoot tribe has made a small radio station in Montana a regional force.

In the Blackfeet language, the station is Ksistsikam ayikinaan. That translates to "voice from nowhere," but you can call it Thunder Radio.

At 30-watts, the community radio station doesn't reach too far beyond Browning, but its impact is growing.

"What I've heard is, it's our own," station manager Lona Burns said. "The Blackfeet people have our own accent so I guess they enjoy that it sounds like them."

The DJs are preachers, teachers, students and others but have one important thing in common.

"Every single one has a positive outlook on life," Burns said. "Their programs transform into positive energy for the listeners."

Another bit of pre-Columbian America to disappear

Very few remnants of the tribal past exist. The Guardian (UK) documents the evaporation of another one: There are only 2 fluent speakers of a Mexican indigenous language and they're not speaking to each other.

The language of Ayapaneco has been spoken in the land now known as Mexico for centuries. It has survived the Spanish conquest, seen off wars, revolutions, famines and floods. But now, like so many other indigenous languages, it's at risk of extinction.

There are just two people left who can speak it fluently – but they refuse to talk to each other. Manuel Segovia, 75, and Isidro Velazquez, 69, live 500 metres apart in the village of Ayapa in the tropical lowlands of the southern state of Tabasco. It is not clear whether there is a long-buried argument behind their mutual avoidance, but people who know them say they have never really enjoyed each other's company.

"They don't have a lot in common," says Daniel Suslak, a linguistic anthropologist from Indiana University, who is involved with a project to produce a dictionary of Ayapaneco.

The paper links to UNESCO's list of endangered and extinct languages 

Germany finds acting like America is hard

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said attempts to build a multicultural society have "utterly failed." 

She said the so-called "multikulti" concept - where people would "live side-by-side" happily - did not work, and immigrants needed to do more to integrate - including learning German.

That country that was divided by war is having problem living  at peace with itself.

He says one language unites us, and stumps for votes in Spanish

Florida's GOP candidate for US Senate, Marc Rubio is on the English-only bandwagon and campaigns in Spanish.

Forget that America was discovered by a guy exploring for Spain

The OC Weekly (Orange County, Calif,) reports that the city planner in a Spanish-named town, with city designs inspired by Spain, doesn't like Spanish-based street names because he can't pronounce them.

Historically, Mission Viejo has had street names drawn from Spanish. After all, the Dispatch points out, the city's original developer sent representatives to Spain in the 1960s to get design ideas for the new master-planned community.

The issue came up at a planning commission meeting, leading Lennar to submit a new batchof more Mission Viejo-ish names, like "Via Cielo" and "Via Panorama."

Planning commissioner Robert Bruchmann, though, wishes they'd kept the old names. Here's part of his letter to the Mission Viejo Dispatch:

"Frankly I liked the initial submission of names [by Lennar], mainly because I can pronounce them."

A law without power to solve a problem they don't have

The town of Forty Fort, near Wilkes-Barre, PA, intends to pass English-only law despite it having no power and there being no need, according to the Times Leader:

"... the ordinance is powerless in insulating the borough from action dictated by higher governments. While he did not know of any Pennsylvania state or federal laws requiring municipal documents be printed in languages other than English, should such a law be made, Dyller said, Forty Fort would be bound to follow it, ordinance or not.

“It doesn’t insulate them from anything,” he said. “What it does is tell Hispanic people: stay out.”"

English was just one language of the 13 colonies

So many people spoke German at the time of the country's creation that a bill was offered at the time to have laws printed in that language. That story got twisted into the apocryphal tale of German nearly being the official language of the United States.

DEA be wantin' a Prof. Henry Higgins

ABC News reports the federal government is searching for an Ebonics translator.

Such experts, he said, would likely be used -- as with many federal linguists -- to assist with wiretaps and linguistic profiling, when a person's accent or dialect can help lead investigators to the criminal.

"They probably want reliable expertise to make sure they've got an accurate interpretation for what is said," he said."Because there's the perception in many minds that you don't need a translator, people believe they've understood something when they haven't."