The Gävle goat is getting a lot of attention around here, but I would like to make a case for a couple of other Swedish Christmas goats: The Kävlinge “Horny Goats”.
It has been a Christmas tradition in the town of Kävlinge since 2015 to put up a pair of goats in a traffic circle. And for just as long, there has been a somewhat more inofficial tradition that someone will move those two goats into a mating position, giving them the nickname “kåtbockarna” (literally “the horny goats”, a Swedish term similar to the English “horndog”).
One year an unknown person even put up three smaller goats around the two large ones, to indicate that they’ve had children.
This year, however, the goats have been positioned in a somewhat less intimate position, simply kissing eachother:
Swedish television news did a short feature where they interviewed citizens of Kävlinge about this latest change, and most of them expressed disappointment, apparently preferring the “horny” version.
Considering that “bock” usually refers to males of the species, this means that Kävlinge has had a public display of gay sex each Christmas for several years, enthusiastically supported by its citizens. I think that’s a Christmas tradition well worth celebrating.
Spread the Sign is an online multilingual sign language dictionary: you can type in a word, phrase, or fixed expression and get it translated into almost two dozen different national sign languages, including Swedish, British English (BSL), American English (ASL), German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Estonian, Lithuanian, Icelandic, Latvian, Polish, Czech, Japanese, and Turkish.
Not all languages are available for every word, but all the ones I tried had at least a dozen or so languages available. Once you’ve searched for a word or phrase, you click on the flag for the national sign language that you want, and you can see a video clip of the sign as well as a translation into the same country’s spoken/written language.
It’s a project of the European Commission, so there tend to be more European languages — I notice a lack of Auslan (Australia), for example, so here’s a list of around 300 sign languages — but it’s definitely a great rebuttal to the idea that there’s only one sign language, as well as being incredibly interesting to click around!
Note though that it’s just a dictionary, and doesn’t account for grammatical differences between the languages in addition to the vocabulary, although you could probably recover some of the grammar from close attention to the phrases.
There is also a list of fifteen different sign alphabets, with images. Note that despite the fact that most of the fifteen languages are spoken in countries that use the Latin alphabet, their signs for, say, A, do not generally resemble each other. As a particularly obvious example, ASL has a one-handed alphabet while BSL has a two-handed alphabet. And Japanese Sign Language has signs for all the hiragana, which isn’t strictly speaking an alphabet. (Is the distinction between an alphabet and a syllabary still meaningful when you’re signing both of them? I…honestly have no idea. Apparently there is an Arabic Sign Language alphabet though, and none of the charts I found online include the short vowels, so I guess it would still qualify as an abjad? Wow, I don’t even know.)
By now we know that traditional Indigenous languages are losing speakers rapidly and tragically. Of the 250 languages once spoken in Australia, only 40 remain and just 18 of these are still learnt by children. But if children in remote Indigenous communities aren’t still learning traditional languages, then what are they learning? It is generally assumed they are shifting to English, but this is not the case.
In many areas of northern and central Australia, language loss has been accompanied by language genesis. Indigenous youth are creating new languages which combine the sounds, words and grammar from traditional languages and Indigenous English varieties. The younger generations who create these languages claim them as in-group languages which express both their traditional heritage and modern lives.
The most widespread of these new languages is a creole language, also called Kriol (confusingly), now spoken by at least 20,000 Indigenous people across northern Australia, from Cape York to Broome. Astonishingly most non-Indigenous Australians have never even heard of it.
What is “Kriol”?
Kriol is the result of successive generations of Indigenous language speakers learning English as a second language. It combines words from English with the semantics and sounds from Indigenous languages. The grammar of Kriol is a compromise between English and Indigenous languages. Often words from local Indigenous languages are also used to give Kriol a regional flavour.
Misunderstandings between English and Kriol speakers abound. If a Kriol speaker asks you for a “kopi”, you might not know whether they mean a “coffee” or “copy of something” because Kriol doesn’t differentiate “f” and “p”. The consequences of misunderstandings can be severe. For example, the Kriol verb “kilim” is derived from “kill him”, but in Kriol, it means “hit”.
Most recently, linguists have begun to observe the emergence of new languages which have more content from traditional Indigenous languages. These are called “mixed languages”. The best understood are Gurindji Kriol and Light Warlpiri, both spoken in the Northern Territory. These languages contain words and grammar from Gurindji or Warlpiri, and Kriol.
At first glance, mixed languages like Gurindji Kriol seem like a cacaphony of competing elements from Gurindji and Kriol. But Gurindji Kriol is far from being a random mix. If you ask 20 Gurindji 30-year-olds to describe something, they will give you the same combination of Gurindji and Kriol words and grammar.
Gurindji Kriol is the product of splicing and re-fusing the lexicons and grammars of Gurindji and Kriol. The result is a unique linguistic system which bears some resemblance to Gurindji and Kriol but is quite unlike its parent languages.
Languages like Gurindji Kriol and Light Warlpiri are incredibly rare. Elsewhere in the world, this highly complex level of mixing has been been observed only in Canada with Michif, a French-Cree mixed language, and in Russia with Mednyj Aleut, a Russian-Aleut mixed language.
How did these new languages come to exist?
Gurindji Kriol and Light Warlpiri come from the long-held tradition of Indigenous multilingualism and fluid language-switching practices. Hundreds of years before Gurindji Kriol emerged, Gurindji speakers were fluent in Jaminjung, a neighbouring language, and borrowed 30% of its verbs and nouns from this language. In the last 50 years, Kriol has been added to the mutlilingual reportoire and switching practices of Gurindji people, and Gurindji Kriol has emerged as a result.
Older generations are disparaging about new languages like Gurindji Kriol. Of course you would be hard pressed to find an older person who approves of a teenager’s speech anywhere in the world, but the feeling runs deeper in Indigenous communities due to the heavy loss of traditional languages. The new languages are potentially threatening to communities which maintain a strong ideological link between identity and language. Despite the concern of older people, the younger generations who create these new languages assert their identity through them as one grounded in both tradition and modernity.
And now it is these languages that are being learnt as a first language by their children - not traditional languages and not English - and it is these that children enter school with.
For policy-makers, particularly in education, new Indigenous languages have largely gone under the radar. Where these languages are noticed, educators often view them through the lens of English or traditional languages, and label them as substandard. Yet a knowledge of them is important to tailoring educational programs which take into account the first language of a student.
Anyone who has learnt another language knows that we come equipped with the knowledge of our first language. The process of learning involves mapping a path between these languages. To that end, understanding the first language of Indigenous children is essential to producing better education outcomes. And for the new Indigenous languages, more research is required to better understand the unique nature of these languages.
Why the UK can, and should, make space for our indigenous minority languages.
The ten languages indigenous to the British Isles and still spoken today are English, Scots, British Sign Language, Welsh, Gaelic, Irish, Cornish, Manx, Angloromani and Shelta.
Signal boost for this! It’s the same in France. Most of french people don’t even know that their country is originally - and still is - a multilingual country.
Yes, Occitan, Catalan, Breton, Gallo, Flamand, Picard, Basque etc are still spoken. But France refuses to sign the European charter for minority languages. Good job destroying the cultural patrimony that we are so proud of.
elnas-studies
“To say there is no worth in learning a language that isn’t economically
useful is like saying there’s no point in being friends with somebody
unless they’re going to help you get a better job. It’s a spectacular,
cynical miss of the point. It’s also inaccurate.”
As an aspiring polyglot, it’s important that I have a bunch of resources at my disposal for language learning. I use a variety of resources for my learning, such as books, websites, apps, T.V. shows, movies, etc. These are some of my resources!
-Websites-
1. Omniglot
This website is more for finding information about languages and finding languages to learn. It has a very comprehensive list of languages and you can find plenty of secondary resources for learning the language. You can find tutors for that language, and even songs in your target language. I can just about guarantee you that no matter what language you’re looking for, it will be documented here. It is absolutely amazing, and it is a FANTASTIC resource for the dedicated linguist.
This is both a website AND an app, however, I tend to use the website more frequently, mainly because I’m always on my laptop anyway. The learning system that this website uses makes out very easy to stay motivated, and the lessons are organized amazingly. Currently, the website offers about 27 different language courses for English speakers, and various language courses for speakers of languages other than English. You can set goals for yourself, take multiple courses, be involved in discussions, and even do translating activities. Beware though, it gets VERY addicting.
Also a website AND an app, this is my all time favorite resource for learning languages. It has SO many languages to choose from, and it even offers subjects other than languages, although foreign language learning is its primary appeal factor.
Although this sector of BBC has been archived and is no longer updated, it still contains some valuable information. It includes some useful phrases, alphabet guides, and jokes in many languages. You’re bound to learn something new there, so check it out!
This website offers language courses constructed by the U.S. government, and relies heavily on audio-based learning. However, many of the language courses include lessons in the form of pdf. There is a very large selection of languages to choose from, so this resource is very good for getting an excellent introduction to your target language.
Claiming to be the internet’s largest collection of free public domain language learning materials, this website is a MUST for language learners. It contains the FSI courses, Peace Corps language learning materials, and the DLI (military) language courses. It also offers Skype sessions for language learners in several different languages! The main appeal of this website, however, is the Peace Corps language material archive. There are SO many different languages to choose from, and there are many ebooks and audio files to take advantage of here.
This website offers texts that translate English texts into 55 other languages. It is not a translator, it merely provides reading material in foreign languages to learners. It is a very useful website, especially for analyzing how sentences are formed in other languages.
This website is really helpful for explaining grammatical concepts and for learning general stuff about languages, such as verbs, vocabulary, nouns, adjectives, basic phrases, foods, etc. There are quite alot of languages offered on this website, so it’s a great resource!
This website is great for learning languages through a sentence based, contextual experience. It’s a bit like Duolingo in that sense, and it requires you to fill in missing words from sentences. In my opinion, it’s better for people with a background in their target language, and they offer many different options for languages. It’s also good for speakers of a native language other than English!
This is a great website for ancient language learners, and it provides resources for Egyptian, Mayan, Hittite, Latin, Old English, Etruscan, Gaulish, and several others. I have found the majority of resources that I have looked through helpful to my learning efforts. They have dictionaries, grammars, charts, and texts, and it is a very comprehensive resource.
This is a good resource for learners looking for audio files to help them practice their listening. I haven’t used it all too much, but there are many language options, so you’re bound to find a language that you find interesting on here.
This is a great resource for getting feedback on your writing in your target language. You can post things in your target language, and native speakers of that language will correct it, and you can do the same for other people! It’s very helpful, and is a great resource if you have to write in your target language often.
This website offers a few books to read in different languages and is good for comparing different languages of the same book. This makes for good practice for reading in your target language.
There are quite a few languages courses on this website, although several of them cost money. However, there are quite a few courses that are free, and are good for introducing you to your language of choice.
As mentioned above in the websites section, this app is so amazing for on-the-go language learning, as well as for subjects other than languages! It helps users memorize concepts with “meme” which are pictures that will remind you of what the word or concept means, and it’s such a unique and fun learning experience! It has the feel of using flashcards, but I just love using this app so much.
2. Duolingo
Also mentioned in the websites section, this app is great for both learning new words and reviewing words that you have either memorized or have just been exposed to. There are grammar lessons available, translation activities, groups that you can join, and Duolingo makes it fun to learn a language with it’s reward system.
3. HelloTalk
This is my absolute FAVORITE app to talk to native speakers of my target language(s). You can become language partners with people, help others with translations, video/voice call, send voice messages, and have as many partners as you want! It’s an absolutely amazing app, and I highly recommend it to everyone! Warning- If you’re a native English speaker looking for a native Chinese speaker, you will get HUNDREDS of requests. It might overwhelm you for a second.
4. TuneIn Radio
This is really great for finding stations in your target language, and it helps with practicing both comprehension of spoken language as well as introduces you to awesome music in your target language!
5. Tigercards
This app presents words in the form of lists, and gives you vocab so that you can review it. Not the best presentation of words and it doesn’t really offer a memorization technique like Memrise, but it’s still helpful!
6. Busuu
This app is a bit like Duolingo, and it offers German, Spanish, Portuguese, French, English, Italian, Russian, Polish, Turkish, Japanese, and Chinese!
7. uTalk
This app offers so many different languages, it’s pretty incredible. There are games that you can play, phrasebooks, and several other features. The interface is also really awesome and simple, so it makes learning easier than usual. Definitely a must have.
8. Innovative Language
I haven’t used this app much, but I have heard that the lessons on this app are very good, and you can download the lessons so that you can view them offline.
9. FlashSticks
This has been super helpful to me, in addition to the games and flashcards that it offers, it also provides an object scanner, which uses your camera to scan objects and then tells you what it’s called in your target language!
10. Mondly
This has been an awesome resource for me since it’s a bit like Duolingo, only with more unique language options. I’m currently using it to learn Hindi, however, there are tons of other language options. The interface is awesome, and I love using it.
11. MindSnacks
This company makes several different language apps, and currently I’m using the Mandarin, Japanese, and French ones. So far, I’ve really enjoyed these apps!
12. Spotify
Through Spotify’s “Word” category, there are many different playlists dedicated to language learning, such as for Arabic, Mandarin, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, and Swedish!
13. Quizlet
This is more of a diy language learning resource. It is not an inherent language learning resource, however, if you learn best through lists and/or flashcards, then this app allows you to make cards and review vocab that way! I use it all the time for exams!
14. FluentU
This is an awesome app for watching videos in your target language, and is really good for learning new words.
-Books-
1. Teach Yourself
This series offers an astounding number of languages, and I have found them to be pretty effective in helping me learn languages. I have used the Russian, Arabic, Mandarin, and Irish ones.
2. Barron’s Grammar and Verb books
I really like the way Barron’s does language books, so far I have used their Japanese grammar book and their Russian verbs book, and I really like the layout of them, especially the grammar book!
3. Dk Visual Bilingual Dictionaries
These are so helpful for me, I’ve been using the Mandarin and Japanese dictionaries for a long time, and they are so comprehensive and awesome!
4. Ethnologue
These aren’t language “learning” materials, but rather they help me find new languages to learn. These are more for the linguistic lovers, since they catalog almost every living language in the world in every country, and provide language maps and statistics. There’s really fascinating stuff in those books, so I highly recommend purchasing them.
5. The “Dirty” books
So far, I have only used the Japanese version, however, I really like what the book includes, and it’s great for learning slang in your target language, and things that traditional textbooks wouldn’t teach you.
6. Living Language
I LOVE these books so much, I’ve used the Russian, Mandarin, and French ones and I’ve found them very helpful! The layout of these are very nice, and they’re pretty comprehensive.
7. Tuttle books
Tuttle offers several different language books, and they all are very good in my opinion. I have used their books for Arabic, Korean, Mandarin, Japanese, and Hindi.
That’s all that I have right now, but if you all would like more resources than I will definitely make a second one!
on a more casual language-learning note, i learned a lot of catalan by watching the simpsons in catalan with english subtitles. if you have the chance to watch your favourite movies or shows - things that you’ve seen a zillion times and can quote entire episodes by heart - in a foreign language with your native language as the subtitles, i encourage you to do so as often as possible. it is also beneficial to do it the opposite way, with your native language spoken and the foreign language in the subs. this way you learn what the words sound like AND look like in the context of dialogue that is already familiar to you.