Author: Stephanie Kiang

Hello everyone!

 

In today’s post, I’ll be sharing my experience with you regarding the CoLang 2024 conference that took place in Arizona.

 

For almost the whole month of June, I tried to not melt, made some great connections, sweated a lot, took a lot of great workshop classes, and enjoyed this year’s practicum session more than the last one.

 

CoLang 2024 was an equal collaboration between the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community (SRPMIC) and Arizona State University, making it the first CoLang of its kind in terms of how it was organized and planned.

 

There were many workshop classes offered, though I took and enjoyed the following:

Tell Your Story: Bringing Papua New Guinean Indigenous Knowledge into Mainstream Classes

Documenting Language, Culture & Cognition

Writing Systems

Documenting Meaning in Language

Mobilizing Community Language Revitalization

Nankak Gwanzhih: Building Reclamation Programs Across Languages

Survey Methods

Revitalizing Indigenous traditions

 

This year, three options were offered for the practicum session. I chose to enroll in the Piipaash option, which I found very enriching and rewarding.

 

The next CoLang will be hosted at the University of Nevada Reno, and I can’t wait!

Today has been a joyous day for one reason: my friend, Mia, brought me a painting of a wug. Not just any wug, but a Super-Wug. I’m riding on its back while it lasers Noam Chomsky, who has been thought for quite a few years now to be Bad Phonetics Man, according to my theory.

 

The response from one person I sent this to is even better.

Today, I had the great joy of being able to virtually attend the University of Buffalo’s Digital Scholarship Studio and Network conference, titled Digital Engagement with Endangered Languages and Their Communities. Shout-out to Professor M for telling me about the event!

Four presenters gave excellent presentations about language documentation and preservation, and what is entailed throughout the process of such work. I found each talk to be very enriching and engaging.

Erin Debenport was the first to present, with her presentation being titled Language Circulation and Control: Strategic Uses for Digital Technologies in Pueblo Reclamation Projects. Debenport brought up some very important points and things to remember when working in language preservation, reclamation, and revitalization. The first being that it is essential to tailor language policies to their most appropriate contexts. This means that when one is working alongside a community conducting language preservation, reclamation, and revitalization work, it is the job of the linguist or language worker to understand what the community needs and how they could best be assisted. It is also the job of the linguist or language worker to understand that there is no one ultimately correct way to correct, document, and preserve languages. Instead, language preservation is a joint effort between members of a community and outside members that often requires years of dedication and perseverance.

Next up in the presenter line was Eladio Mateo Toledo, whose presentation is titled TZ’IB’MA: Phonemic digital keyboard in cell phones for Mayan languages. At the beginning of his presentation, Toledo gave some statistics about endangered languages, stating that around 19% of the world’s languages are in a vital state, or coming close to being endangered, a statistic from Simon and Lewis (2013). Methods for Mayan language preservation need to be tailored to each language based on its population of users, not universal cut-and-paste approaches from the language documentation field as a whole. This is because language revitalization is multidimensional, as it includes cultural, historical, and political factors. Toledo listed some projects which take this multidimensional approach: workshops of the study of Q’anjob’al, Project LEA: Literacy in Awakateko, and TZ’IB’MA, the name given to the keyboard systems which have been developed to write eight Mayan languages on cell phones so far. The keyboards are available for download on Android as well as iPhones and are phonemic, meaning that the letters provided represent sounds of respective Mayan languages. You could search for the keyboards on Google Play or on lenguasmayas.com. Developing these keyboards has taken an enormous amount of commitment and effort, with the vocabulary lists and texts often being edited and revised at least three or four times. Towards the end of the presentation, Toledo made some remarks which amused the audience: “Linguistics has kidnapped language revitalization. Language revitalization has to go outside of linguistics.” While linguists play important roles in preserving languages, other types of workers are crucial to this process and need to be included and recognized too, such as anthropologists, community members, government workers, and other advocates.

Jesse Stewart gave his presentation about a language called Media Lengua, called Media Lengua in the Digital Age: A Journey of Preservation and Reclamation. At the beginning of his talk, Jesse misspoke, saying “endangerous” when he meant to say “endangered”, much to the amusement of the audience. Actually, his slight misspeak was not too much of a mistake, given that the entire conference had a central theme of advocating for smaller, minority languages. Due to linguicide, the negative effects that lead to language extinction through either natural or political forces, many languages around the world are endangered. Jesse has worked extensively to document Media Lengua, a mixed language that contains elements of Kichwa/Quechua and Spanish. Part of his work has been to help produce Stories and Traditions of the Pijal, which documents the lives of the people he has worked with and is available for free online. He has published part of the dictionary work that has been completed for Media Lengua on the journal Dictionaria, which could be viewed online. The process thus far for recording and preserving Media Lengua has been quite time-consuming: not only has this work needed a revised and consistently-updated vocabulary list, it has also required that all words which became entered in the dictionary to also be written in the IPA, the International Phonetic Alphabet.

Replanting the Forests in Language Ecosystems, presented by X’unei Lance Twitchell, was the final presentation given, and it was quite moving. What I particularly enjoyed about this one was that the audience had a direct chance to hear the perspective of an indigenous person who is involved in language preservation work, which is always important and refreshing. It reminded me of the plenary talk at CoLang 2022 given by Wesley Leonard, who got a shout-out in X’unei’s talk also. X’unei emphasized that being heard and listened to is the first part of acknowledgement that language users all want for themselves, especially in indigenous communities. He mentioned the phrase “go fluent yourself”, a phrase that is meant to encourage others to think about language and its importance, and to heavily consider using it responsibly. There must be a re-establishment of pride and prestige for indigenous and minority languages, Twitchell noted. Language preservation is about “protecting the speakers you have while making new ones,” a particular line I will carry with me going forward. X’unei shared two quotes that served as a perfect wrap-up for the day’s event: “there is a spirit in everything” and “nothing measures up to our language.”

Howdy folks!

Since the last time I posted here, some pretty cool things have happened. I ended up getting my hands on a copy of Jean Berko-Gleason’s “The Wug Test”, one of my friends painted me a wug shirt, and I’ve acquired a Don Quixote-themed bangle bracelet.

My friend who painted the wug shirt has a shop on Depop. This is the link, she sells upcycled and custom-made clothing, plus the occasional plushy toy: https://www.depop.com/flawed/selling/ 

I’ll also be sure to leave a full review of Don Quixote here once I’m done reading it, which I’m hoping will be at the end of this month!

Stay cool and stay whimsical!

This morning was very fun.

My mom and I went to a flea market, and there was a vendor selling stamped bracelets, and she also offered custom-made ones.

Naturally, the only thing to do was buy a custom one which says “wug princess”.

It now sits above my wug watch.

The vendor enjoyed hearing about wugs so much that she took a picture of the bracelet and sent it to her friend, who’s a linguist pursuing a PhD in Connecticut.

I’ll leave pictures of her business card below. Who knows, maybe we can all get matching ones and have a wug royalty party some day. Wouldn’t that be fun?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good morning, afternoon, and evening, my whimsical readers.

Earlier this week, I was hanging out with my best friend, Corina. She enjoys collecting vintage and antique items, mostly clothes, and sells them on her Etsy store, which I’ll link below.

I go over every now and then to model new stuff for her, and after, she kindly allows me to take home a free piece in exchange for my stellar model skills. If you look closely enough on her store, you can spot my wug watch in some of the pictures!

This week, I took home a really cool t-shirt with a calming palm tree and ocean pattern, with a funny twist.

What’s the funny twist?

There are failed translations printed all over the shirt. They’re quite bizarre and obviously, Google Translate is most likely at fault here, even though I have no way of knowing where the translations were done or where they came from. They mention purple sateen pillows, diamonds, and branding mothers – oh my!

Some time ago, I considered becoming either an interpreter or a translator, and one of the first things I quickly came to realize is that Google Translate, more often than not, is not your best bet or your best friend. Reverso, dict.cc, Cambridge, DeepL, and PONS are all much more accurate translators, I promise.

I’ve included pictures of some of the translations below. If you want to ensure your English doesn’t sound like these sentences do, be sure to book a lesson using my “Learn English With Me” page, or go to the contact form to get in touch with me! I currently teach English on two platforms called Hallo and italki.

 

Until next time, stay whimsical, and don’t forget to check out Corina’s Etsy store!

https://www.etsy.com/shop/antiqueism?ref=condensed_trust_header_title_sold 

 

Cheers,

Steph

Good morning, afternoon, and evening, dear readers. In today’s post, I will be sharing my experience from the CoLang 2022 conference.

CoLang is short for The Institute on Collaborative Language Research. Founded in 2008 by linguist Carol Genetti, Colang has been hosted at several respected universities, with its first hosting being at University of California, Santa Barbara. Since then, it has been hosted every two years at a different university, with the exception being to COVID, of course.

According to CoLang’s official website, colanginstitute.org, “At that time, it was called the Institute on Field Linguistics and Language Documentation, or InField. The name was changed to CoLang before the 2012 institute to emphasize the collaborative aspect of work with and by language communities.” 

This year, CoLang took place at the University of Montana in Missoula, and lasted from June 13th to July 8th. Workshops ran for the first two weeks, and a practicum for either the Northern Cheyenne or Bolivian Quechua languages for the last two.

The goal of CoLang is to foster “hands-on experiences in best practices for language documentation, descriptive linguistics, and language revitalization for linguists, researchers, students of all levels, community members, tribal leadership, language advocates and allies, and other individuals interested in community-based language work.”

Essentially, the goal of CoLang is to bring together people from all different kinds of backgrounds to work together to preserve and advocate for languages with small amounts of speakers.

I stayed for the full month and immensely enjoyed the whole experience. The workshops were enriching, informative, and engaging, while the practica was a memorable learning experience.

I especially enjoyed going to the afternoon presentations after lunch. Of the 8 which were available, my personal favorite was by Wesley Leonard, a professor at University of California at Riverside. His talk focused on the importance of relational accountability in language work, and how showing up for yourself and others and being committed to learning makes a big difference in communities as well as yourself. Wesley was the first to present in the afternoon series, and hearing his talk was truly life-changing.

I chose to attend the FLEx, Praat, ELAN, Intro to Linguistics 1 and 2, Language Activism, TPR, Total Physical Response, which is a teaching method that has found recent popularity recently, and Language, Culture, and Climate Change in the Arctic workshops.

FLEx, Praat, and ELAN are all softwares that linguists use for various projects, each of them serving a different purpose. Out of the eight workshops I attended, I think these were my top three favorites, though each workshop was really fun and informative.

For the practica, I selected the Northern Cheyenne option. Northern Cheyenne is a Native American and Indigenous language spoken in Montana. There is also another dialect, which is called Southern Cheyenne, and spoken in Oklahoma.

During the practica, participants were able to collaborate on projects which put the skills from the workshops into use. During my practica, I worked with a peer to create language learning materials for Cheyenne youth. While this was fun to work on, it wasn’t what i was expecting: I was hoping the practica would be more language documentation-based, and that we would get to focus on speaking with elders, collaborating with them to document their language, update and maintain language databases, and learn more about how to be better language advocates.

On the last day, everyone was given a chance to present what they had been working on for the past 2 weeks. My peer and I were embarrassed by two of the facilitators for using a sample video of Southern Cheyenne speakers to show pronunciation. Given that we didn’t have time with the native Northern Cheyenne speakers after week 1 ended, this was our only option. There were also other instances where clear preference and bias was shown towards projects that included certain elements over others, which was not fair, though this was the nature of the practicum.

I was also surprised in an unpleasant way by some of the attitudes at this conference. Most of the attendees were linguists or linguistics students, while some were community members of indigenous backgrounds, or people who were otherwise interested in the topics of the conference. Among the non-linguists, there was a very-present anti-linguist and anti-linguistics attitude. Not everyone shared this sentiment, but more people than expected did. After all, CoLang is a conference that has been heavily-populated by linguists since its inception.

In the past, some linguists have worked with minority communities in unfair and unethical ways. The linguists did this by showing up to these communities, mostly uninvited, collected their data for research, left, and provided no compensation for their contributors. If this doesn’t raise red flags, it most definitely should.

This is the very instance which CoLang seeks to work against and move forward from. While it is important to remember and learn from the past, we as a collective group of linguists, advocates, activists, language reclamationists, community members, and language workers cannot move forward if time is spent complaining about obviatives or how linguistics could very easily become complicated..

Linguistics, especially in its higher levels, is challenging. But while this is so, it also has immense value as a subject. Linguistics teaches and helps others learn about how language works, why it works, and how all the parts of a language matter. This framework and mindset is essential, especially in a field such as language reclamation, documentation, and advocacy.

I am very much looking forward to the next CoLang, which will be hosted in 2024 at Arizona State University. I will include the link to the upcoming conference, as well as the general CoLang site below.

 

https://www.colang2024.org/

 

https://www.colanginstitute.org/ 

Over the past few months, Wordle, a popular game in which players attempt to fill in squares with the correct letters to form a word, has taken off in popularity.

Fun fact: Wordle’s creator is named Josh Wardle.

Clearly if a game has this much buzz surrounding it, it has to be good.

So, why is Wordle so fun? 

Computational linguist Jason Riggle offers us two answers: “But what makes Wordle so charming and addictive… is the sense of validation it offers—affirming our intuitions about language when we land on the correct answer. It’s a process akin to what happens when we converse with people we know well: They intuit what we mean quickly—even with minimal context—which makes us feel understood.”

Riggle further explains that, “In effect, it turns everyone into a linguist, forcing us to wrestle with sound fragments and stitch them together according to probability distributions.”

In this case, a probability distribution refers to how likely it is that certain letters will appear next to each other in a specific word, and also in general.

Wordle has essentially helped many more people think like linguists, which I full-heartedly support!

Recently, my sister mentioned that I would like Semantle, a spin-off of Wordle. In Semantle, word meaning is more important than word spelling, though spelling a word correctly in Semantle will probably help you out. I’ll include the directions below, as well as the attempt that I just made. I ended up guessing the right word, which has made my inner word geek brighten up for today.

There’s also another spin-off of Wordle that I found today called Absurdle. I found this one from reading the article that Professor Jason Riggle was interviewed for, which I’ll link at the very end of this post. When I typed “Absurdle” for this post, I got those little, squiggly, red lines underneath, but not for Semantle. I think Google Docs was being a bit absurd, don’t you?

Professor Riggle explains Absurdle very well: “the target word changes as you play, but new information that you learn remains true and consistent. So if the word initially was “poise” and you guess “mince,” Absurdle might then change the target word to “spice” without you knowing, but tell you that the “e” was in the correct place and the “i” remains in the word.”

This is a spin-off that has truly earned its name. I tried to play and decided that my day has had enough Absurdle in it. The game wants you to hit the button that says “give up”, but I didn’t press it, even though I did technically give up, out of a very small amount of spite for the game. Once again, I’ll drop a picture of my attempt here.

Let me know if you’ve tried either of these spin-offs, or if you prefer Wordle still. So far, Absurdle has me the most intrigued, and also the most frustrated. Semantle is very fun, though, and I’ll be giving both of these another try soon. If you run into any other Wordle spin-offs, be sure to let me know by leaving a comment!

 

Quotes have been taken from Max Witynski’s UChicago News article, “Why you can’t stop playing Wordle, according to a computational linguist”.

 

Link to Semantle: https://semantle.com/

 

Link to Absurdle: https://qntm.org/files/absurdle/absurdle.html 

For the past several years, my room has been a wug shrine.

A couple of days ago during a lesson, two of my students asked to get wugs named after them, so here they are.

I also decided to name a wug Ambrosio, after the Don Quixote character. He’s pretty cool.

I’m very grateful to have you as my students, Jennie and Promiss!

 

 

 

This morning, I went on a walk to the boutique that’s just several minutes away from me.

At the front counter, there were several bags that said, “I speak fluent Italian.”

Naturally, I was very intrigued. Of course I want a bag that announces my Italian fluency to the world!

Disappointingly, the only Italian that is on these bags are the words for the luxury companies “Gucci”, “Prada”, “Fendi”, and “Versace”.

I haven’t even heard of Fendi and Versace before, which means that my Italian isn’t too great according to this bag, or just in general.

Maybe if Gucci and Prada come out with a wug collection, I can review their products.

That’s a very gigantic hint to you, Gucci and Prada and the rest of the luxury companies out in the world. Create a wug product line, and then maybe one day if I am a very rich woman, I will buy a wug-something from you.