Posts Tagged ‘speaking a second language’
New Language Began With Baby-Talk
Here is a fascinating article in The New York Times about a new language, Light Warlpiri, which is spoken by a relatively small group of Australian Aboriginal people. Everyone who speaks it is younger than 35 years old. And it began with baby-talk.
From the Times:
There are many dying languages in the world. But at least one has recently been born, created by children living in a remote village in northern Australia.
Carmel O’Shannessy, a linguist at the University of Michigan, has been studying the young people’s speech for more than a decade and has concluded that they speak neither a dialect nor the mixture of languages called a creole, but a new language with unique grammatical rules.
Here is a video, “Monster Story in Light Warlpiri Child39”, from Dr. Carmel O’Shannessy’s YouTube account.
So what’s this about baby-talk? Again, from the Times: Read more »
Why Are We Still Debating The Benefits of Bilingualism?
I’m not going to bother reading this New York Times essay titled The Benefits of Bilingualism.
Why not? First of all, I’m busy. Second, I’d rather write this post and I really am kinda busy right now. Third, and most important, I truly cannot believe that there are people in the world who don’t understand that it is a good idea to know how to speak more than one language. (And Klingon doesn’t count. Sorry.) Read more »
