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Language and communication are part of our everyday and working lives. We use language – among many other purposes – to exchange information, to establish and maintain relationships, to structure and coordinate social action and to shape and communicate our individual and social identity. For many people in Europe, mastering the challenges of their everyday and working lives does not only involve the use of one language, but two or more. Europe is characterised by its cultural and linguistic diversity, which has a long history. Its early manifestations were visible in archaeological and epigraphic evidence dating back to the formation of the civilisations of antiquity. The public perception of this long-standing existence of cultural and linguistic diversity is, perhaps, obscured by the tradition of telling history in terms of states and national languages – giving the impression that nations, as well as the languages associated with them, developed largely independently of each other.

Read the article here.

The Syrian protests have not only shaped a new way of thinking. They have also created a newvocabulary. At first it seemed that this language was only used by activists who wanted to codify their speech in order to dodge scrutiny and censorship, but the new terms are now commonplace. Everyone from reporters to politicians has changed and expanded the way he speaks and this is shaping public debate around the uprising.

New definitions
Many words that existed outside public discourse before protests began in March are now ubiquitous in the news. Terms such as moondesseen, shabbiha, Aara’eer and bouk are a few examples. Moondesseen and shabbiha are the two most common words, now used in international news broadcasts, written in government press releases as well as spoken on the streets.

Shabbiha is a slang word for thugs or gangsters. The term first appeared during the 1990s when Mercedes Benz launched its S-class model of cars. Syrians called this type of car shabah (ghost), and therefore its riders were called shabbiha. This group of people, wealthy and well-connected, dominated social life in Syria and operated largely in the shadows of society. They also had impunity in the country. Analysts say that with the blessing of the leadership, the shabbiha carried out illegal activities such as smuggling.

Although Syrians whispered stories about them, the shabbiha were rarely mentioned in the media until the dissent broke out. Then, the group helped crack down on protests and it became a word to describe unofficial security forces.

“The first wave of [people who come to stop] the protests is the shabbiha who try to penetrate the demonstrators’ lines to weaken their defence and unity,” said Ruba, 27, a communications specialist who watches protests occurring in Kafar Sousseh near al-Rifaii mosque. “Then the official forces continue by detaining or dispersing the demonstrators.”

Read the rest of the article here.

“The shabbiha are always in casual clothes or tracksuit trousers,” she said. “One minute they are participating in the march and suddenly they start chasing it.”

DENIZENS of the Twitter-verse, please be advised: Whether you are a Libyan celebrating the demise of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, a New Zealand office worker sleepily starting your day or a California teenager trying out the latest slang, your words are being analyzed.

Twitter is many things to many people, but lately it has been a gold mine for scholars in fields like linguistics, sociology and psychology who are looking for real-time language data to analyze.

Twitter’s appeal to researchers is its immediacy — and its immensity. Instead of relying on questionnaires and other laborious and time-consuming methods of data collection, social scientists can simply take advantage of Twitter’s stream to eavesdrop on a virtually limitless array of language in action.

Read the article in the NY Times.

Punctuation arouses strong feelings. You have probably come across the pen-wielding vigilantes who skulk around defacing movie posters and amending handwritten signs that advertise “Rest Room’s” or “Puppy’s For Sale.”

People fuss about punctuation not only because it clarifies meaning but also because its neglect appears to reflect wider social decline. And while the big social battles seem intractable, smaller battles over the use of the apostrophe feel like they can be won.

Yet the status of this and other cherished marks has long been precarious. The story of punctuation is one of comings and goings.

Read here the article by Henry Hitchings

Wie kent hem niet? Het groene wezen Yoda uit de Star Wars-films en zijn typerende manier van spreken. Vandaag de dag klinkt dit taalgebruik ons vreemd in de oren, maar 50.000 jaar geleden spraken mensen op een manier die veel wegheeft van de wijze waarop Yoda zijn zinnen formuleert. Dat suggereren twee taalkundigen in het tijdschrift Proceedings van The National Academy of Sciences.

Lees het artikel hier.