John Gordon Ross

Almost everyone uses language, so inevitably almost everyone thinks they are an expert in it. I don’t consider myself an expert, though most of my work requires at least language competence and sometimes actual skill, but I do follow the blogs featured on this feeds page.

(If you are wondering where the translation-related feeds have all gone, I have put them on their own page.)

Most of the blogs represented here are in English, most of the time, but don’t be surprised to find other languages used. Go with the flow – I occasionally find myself pleasantly surprised at how much I can grasp in languages I have never seen before.

Language On the Net

Language Log » Sound rules

Tuesday 8 September 23:57:51 UTC 2015

Stephen Halsey, who is spending the year in Taiwan doing research, observed an interesting linguistic phenomenon that shows the predominance of sound over symbol, even in the writing of Chinese, where the symbols are complex and semantically "heavy" in comparison to phonetic scripts like the Roman alphabet or bopomofo / zhuyin fuhao (Mandarin phonetic symbols), where the symbols are simple … [Link]

languagehat.com » Odessa as Local Color.

Tuesday 8 September 22:50:45 UTC 2015

I’m now on Victor Terras’s chapter, “The Twentieth Century: 1925-53,” in The Cambridge History of Russian Literature (see this post), and thought I’d quote this passage on a couple of poets of the 1920s and ’30s (neither of them known to me): Among the constructivists, there were at least two major poets: Eduard Bagritsky (pen-name of Eduard Dzyubin, 1897-1934) and … [Link]

Omniglot blog » The Importance of Patterns

Tuesday 8 September 10:02:28 UTC 2015

Last week I went to a concert that featuring a jazz pianist and an artist. While the pianist played, the artist painted on her iPad, which was connected to a projector and projected on a big screen. The artist created pictures based on the music, and I think the pianist also created some tunes based on the art. It was … [Link]

Language Log » Teresa Buchanan

Tuesday 8 September 7:13:59 UTC 2015

If you haven't read about the bizarre and disturbing case of Teresa Buchanan at LSU, here are some links: Colleen Flaherty, "Fired for Being Profane", Inside Higher Ed 9/2/2015; Steve Sanoski, "LSU defends firing of associate professor as faculty senate takes up resolution asking officials to reverse decision", Business Report 9/2/2015; Julia O'Donoghue, "LSU Faculty Senate to decide on censure … [Link]

languagehat.com » A Guide to Endangered Languages.

Tuesday 8 September 0:36:20 UTC 2015

Not exactly a new topic around these parts, but I thought Ben Macaulay’s take on it was more thoughtful and detailed than others I’ve seen, and even has audio files of the languages he highlights. He begins: “Why don’t we just let all the languages die out?”, or some variant thereof, is the second question anyone asks me when I … [Link]

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