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| Surf's Up! Aside from the official languages of any country, many languages and dialects are spoken. Explore this website to see all of the languages that are spoken around the world: http://www.ethnologue.com/country_index.asp. Be sure to look at how many languages are spoken in the United States. Surf's Up! Languages often adopt words from other languages. France, in fact, has a special division of the cultural ministry designed to monitor the French language for the pollution of English words. Look at the list of "Foreign Words and Phrases" (infoplease.lycos.com/ipa/A0001619.html). Perhaps the most amazing thing is how short it is. Now look at the etymologies of words in your dictionary; notice how many words have roots in another language. Surf's Up! The history of the English language is very complex, and there are many different kinds of English. Explore some varieties of English on the following website: http://ebbs.english.vt.edu/hel/hel.html. Should we consider these forms of English as the same language? Surf's Up! How much of assimilation is linguistic, and how much has to do with other cultural norms, such as issues of hygiene? Read Raimonda Mikatavage's discussion of fitting in (www.dcpages.com/Commentary/rmikatavage/rmikatavage0298a.html). To what extent do economics determine the meanings of words like soap? Surf's Up! There are many artificial languages in the world. Check out the website about the Elfish language from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy (www.elvish.org/resources.html). Also look at the information about Klingon from Star Trek (www.kli.org/). Why might someone be attracted to these languages—enough to write books on them? Surf's Up! The practice of subtitling films is not easy. This website highlights some important practices to follow in doing a good job: http://www.titelbild.de/en/TITELBILD/About_Us/Info_for_Subtitlers/Good_Subtitling_Practice/body_good_subtitling_practice.html. How might this information benefit those of us who rely on subtitles to see films in another language? Surf's Up! There are many different ways of speaking English. Some of them may invoke stereotypes or images to you. Check out this website to listen to many different ways of speaking English: http://www.ku.edu/~idea/. Surf's Up! Experiment with www.Freetranslation.com. When the idiomatic expression "Eat your heart out" was translated into Spanish, out came "Coma el corazón fuera," which does not quite get the intended meaning and doesn't quite make sense. When it was then translated back into English, it turned into "Eat the heart went," which doesn't make sense on any level. And a translation back into Spanish gives "Coma el corazón fue." |