Linguistics, a whirlwind tour!

A Friday afternoon talk at 99designs on a few areas of linguistics, leading into the inspiration for the Great Language Game.

Transcript

1. Linguistics,
 a whirlwind tour! A 99designs Friday afternoon ramble ! @larsyencken
2. Language preservation
3. ~7000 languages half are no longer taught to children
4. Most languages are endangered!
6. Guugu Yimithirr Use compass directions rather than relative directions
7. Phonetics
8. “The cat ate it.”
9. /ðəә kæt eɪdɪ/
10. THE INTERNATIONAL PHONETIC ALPHABET (revised to 2005) CONSONANTS (PULMONIC) i y È Ë ¨ u P e e š Ø o I Y U Front Central Back Close Close-mid Bilabial Labiodental Dental Alveolar Post alveolar Retroflex Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyngeal Glottal Plosive p b t d Ê ˜ c Ô k g q G / Nasal m µ n =  N – Trill ı r R Tap or Flap v | « Fricative F B f v T D s ¬¬z S Z ß Ÿ ç J x V X  © ? h H Lateral fricative Ò L Approximant ¥ ® ’ j ˜ Lateral approximant l Ò ¥ K Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a voiced consonant. Shaded areas denote articulations judged impossible. CONSONANTS (NON-PULMONIC) VOWELS Clicks Voiced implosives Ejectives > Bilabial œ Bilabial ’ Examples: ˘ Dental Î Dental/alveolar p’ Bilabial ! (Post)alveolar ˙ Palatal t’ Dental/alveolar © 2005 IPA
11. ´ A Å i y È Ë ¨ u P e e š Ø o E { ‰ ø O a ” å I Y U Front Central Back Close Close-mid Open-mid Open Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a rounded vowel. œ ò ts a voiced consonant. Shaded areas denote articulations judged impossible. SUPRASEGMENTALS VOWELS eolar ricative tives al flap d x
12. And more!!!
13. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31zzMb3U0iY
14. Teaching and learning languages
15. Category I: “Closely related to English” 575-600 class hours Afrikaans, Danish, Dutch, French, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Swedish Category II: “Significant linguistic and/or cultural differences” 1100 class hours Albanian, Amharic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Bengali, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Burmese, Croatian, Czech, Estonian, Finish, Georgian, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Khmer, Lao, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Mongolian, Nepali, Pashto, Persian (Dari, Farsi, Tajik), Polish, Russian, Serbian, Sinhalese, Slovak, Slovenian, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Ukranian, Urdu, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Xhosa, Zulu Category III: “Exceptionally difficult for native English speakers” 2200 class hours Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean DIFFICULTY OF LEARNING LANGUAGES FOREIGN SERVICE INSTITUTE, US DEPARTMENT OF STATE
22. Demo time!
24. Open data
25. http://www.replicatedtypo.com/the-great-language-game-confusing-languages/7926.html
26. Crowdfunding?
27. Thanks!