Grammaticalization

Life of Brian - Latin Lesson - Romans Go Home!

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1979's "Life of Brian" comedically depicts the titular main character, played by Graham Chapman, defacing, in Latin, a Roman monument. A Roman centurion, played by John Cleese, stops him and punishes him for his "bad" grammar. The scene is largely a parody of the relationship between English schoolchildren and their teachers. Linguistically, it's interesting as a demonstration of prescriptive norms as well as the representation of different dialects. Cleese's dialect is meant to sound more elevated while Graham Chapman's, who is from Melton Mowbray, north of London, is meant to sound less elevated, which is supposed to add to the comedy. Funnily enough, I think some of Brian's usages correlate with changes that would end up occurring in Latin before it changed into the various Romance languages.

Boers of Patagonia

cutting from The Times about Afrikaans in Patagonia [Published on 01-12-2019]

Posted by Poppy Frean on February 14, 2019

Tags:
Grammaticalization;
Language Shift;
Chain shift

John McWhorter: Txtng is killing language. JK!!!

This is a TED talk by John McWhorter in which he is explaining that writing is just a representation in the way we talk. He explains that there is an emergent complexity in fingered speech (texting). There is a new kind of "language" that is being created now that speech is in continuous change and therefore a new structure is created. [Published on 02-01-2013]

Posted by Eira Nylander Torallas on May 6, 2017

Tags:
Ideology;
Slang;
Stigma;
Grammaticalization

Phineas and Ferb: Ferb Latin

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In this episode of Phineas and Ferb, Ferb comes up with a new language to "accommodate new customs". He takes the first letter of the word, places it at the end, and then adds -erb. The characters even go on to replace normal dialects, such as saying "Bless you", by replacing them with an action. The action for "Bless you" being you play a flugelhorn and give them your left shoe. They describe it as a 'phoenetic caboose'.

Posted by Maria Ortiz Santiago on March 7, 2017

Tags:
Acquisition;
Grammaticalization;
Constructed Language

What is Language?

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This video gives an extensive definition of what is language and how it affects each of us individually.

Posted by Katherine Helms on March 8, 2016

Tags:
Grammaticalization;
Education

Internet Language

This article goes over the beginning unique language on the Internet. It also goes over grammar that is unique the Internet. [Published on 01-22-2015]

Posted by Brian Pener on March 5, 2016

Tags:
Grammaticalization;
Language Shift;
Internet Language;
Slang

The Linguistics of AAVE

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This video discusses the history of AAVE, "African American Vernacular English. It address the origin, the pronunciations, and how it is used. The video gives great examples of AAVE and the translation of what it means in "proper" English.

Posted by Meaghan Kuhlmann on February 21, 2016

Tags:
African American Language;
Code-switching;
Grammaticalization;
Race,Ethnicity

How Dothraki was made

This video discusses what's needed to "create a language" [Published on 04-13-2015]

Posted by Terra on April 13, 2015

Tags:
Constructed Language;
Grammaticalization