On linguistic inequality and means to fight it

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(Danish version)

(Spanish version)

On March 1st, Donald Trump signed an executive order “Designating English as the Official Language of The United States.”[1] This is a symbolic gesture, for sure, to fuel the nationalist discourse that helped Trump reach the White House again. A confirmation, also, of the hostile history of the country toward multilingualism. A recent post on Lingoblog explained that American settlers’ annexation of native peoples’ land resulted in the loss of 90% of the languages once spoken in the territory.[2] The fate of immigrant languages has not been much better. Assimilation to English by the third generation has been the norm in the country. It is not by chance that the … ↪

Is the Greenlandic language extinct?

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No, not yet, but the Greenlandic language will soon disappear from the face of the earth after the USA takes over Greenland. Trump has announced that he will obtain Greenland by reasonable means or by force.

Greenland, don’t let the USA take over your country. Not much good will come from that. The USA are described as being our friends, but it is better to describe the country as the world’s school bullies. Those who steal other people’s lunch money and clothes, threaten other students, destroy their things and beat people up if they don’t obey the bully and his/her henchmen.

If you are a school student and you have a bike, and it is stolen by an unknown guy, … ↪

Expedition into the savannah and jungle to look for a lost language

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(Spanish version, translated by Jonathan Mastai Husum, can be found here)

Our islands bear twisting names in fading tongues

Whose meanings now escaped our young

                  Basil Rodrigues, Spanish Arawak from Guyana, in his poem Santa Rosa

Around a year ago, I published this article on Lingoblog on whether linguists can prevent a war. I had written it after the Venezuelan supreme leader and his government had claimed two thirds of their neighboring country Guyana. The dictator’s parliament also supported the land claim, and now that area is listed as “contested” in several places. Sad, because the Spanish and the Venezuelans never really had shown any presence in that part of the world.

The land claim, and the … ↪

World Endangered Writing Day II, January 23rd, 2025

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A day of talks, discussions, activities, and awards in support of the world’s minority and indigenous scripts and their communities

The world has 300 writing systems, but 90 % of them are threatened—not used for official purposes, not taught in schools, ignored or actively suppressed.

This crisis is almost universally ignored. There are no degree programs in writing systems or script loss, no government agencies dedicated to addressing the issue, no funding available for script research or revival.

First launched on January 23rd 2024, World Endangered Writing Day is hoping to change all that.

The inaugural event introduced community members from all over the world working to save their cultures by saving their scripts, scholars studying rare writing systems … ↪

NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL LINGUISTIC CHRISTMAS – Vol. 2

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I think we can all agree that if there’s one thing that’s better than a compilation album, it’s the second volume of a compilation album! Back in 2020, I brought you this collection of Christmas songs in languages and dialects you might not be used to hearing them in, and now I’m back with a whole new batch! No matter if you are a Christmas song fanatic, or if you roll your eyes and turn down the volume when “All I Want for Christmas is You” starts playing, this list is sure to bring you something new and fresh to spice up your Christmas playlist! This is: NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL LINGUISTIC CHRISTMAS – Vol. 2!

Jólakötturinn (Icelandic)

On … ↪

Basque as an (imperfect) window into the past

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Today is International Day of the Basque Language, which we celebrate at Lingoblog with an article by Iván Igartua.

Being a language isolate in Europe is a strenuous condition, often fraught with vicissitudes. There are over 150 genetically isolated languages in the world (for which no relatives have been found thus far), but I would venture that none of them has inspired so many hypotheses of all sorts about its remote origin and possible genetic connections as the Basque language. Albeit thoroughly unconvincingly, Basque has been alternately related to Etruscan, Burushaski, Pictish, Chinese, the Celtic group of Indo-European languages, the Berber and Caucasian languages, the Na-Dene linguistic phylum, or the Uralic and Paleo-Siberian languages, among many others. Some otherwise serious … ↪

Conlangs & Computer Games, part 4: What Does the Fox Say?

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Most introductory courses in linguistics involve a type of exercise meant to imitate what’s known as fieldwork: A range of methods for collecting and analysing information about languages you don’t speak yourself. This isn’t because fieldwork is the automatic fate of every linguist, but because these exercises are an effective way to learn about the nature of language. When learning to collect linguistic information this way, you get a sense of what kind of information can be conveyed grammatically, and how.

But as mentioned, not everyone who studies linguistics ends up doing fieldwork. I personally haven’t yet needed to use those methods in a professional context, and since it was a large part of my introduction to the field, I … ↪