http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/dementia-existing-in-isolation/article1843400/
Dementia is already an isolating disorder. But it becomes even more complicated because patients, with their memories collapsing back to childhood, often lose their ability to speak English if they learned the language later in life. In a nation where the incidence of dementia is expected to double in the next 30 years to one million people – and in which 20 per cent of an aging population has a mother tongue other than English or French – that means a huge strain on families looking for good care, and will require a radical shift in the country’s health-care.
D - my oma died about a year or two back.
My sis wanted to introduce oma to the most recent addition to the family - my sis's second daughter. Oma had been in a retirement home for many years, and was suffering from severe dementia.
She didn't know who we were. She forgot that at 98 she had spoken English since the end of WWII - half her life. She didn't understand the baby she was holding was her own great grandchild - though I think she was happy about that nonetheless.
She died shortly thereafter. I was glad to have seen her one last time.
D - learning a second childhood language has yet another benefit.
Should dementia set it, it increases the chance that caretakers will be able to communicate effectively. This is a strong argument for immersion into one's new nation if one is an immigrant.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Saturday, December 18, 2010
canada and rate of full bilingualism
http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/mark_bonokoski/2010/12/14/16552231.html
The true number, said Jean-Pierre Corbeil, is 5.4 million — or 17% of the population — and not the scant 125,000 cited in the editorial I had penned on the national front to castigate a piece of legislation before the Senate that would require all future judges on the Supreme Court of Canada to be bilingual.
-------
D: if we're just restricting judge candidates to the 5mil- about 1 in 6 of us - that is noo elitist.
I am all about giving Quebec all the symbolic BS they want.
It's cheaper than money.
Canada is of 2 minds. Quebec sees us as 2 nations in the bosom of 1 state.
The rest of Canada sees us as a collection of egalitarian provinces.
Everybody tends to ignore the native issue.
Anyway, this stat shows how difficult true dual-first-languages is to obtain.
I imagine it almost requires 2 minds in one brain.
What a nice analogy for Canada.
The true number, said Jean-Pierre Corbeil, is 5.4 million — or 17% of the population — and not the scant 125,000 cited in the editorial I had penned on the national front to castigate a piece of legislation before the Senate that would require all future judges on the Supreme Court of Canada to be bilingual.
-------
D: if we're just restricting judge candidates to the 5mil- about 1 in 6 of us - that is noo elitist.
I am all about giving Quebec all the symbolic BS they want.
It's cheaper than money.
Canada is of 2 minds. Quebec sees us as 2 nations in the bosom of 1 state.
The rest of Canada sees us as a collection of egalitarian provinces.
Everybody tends to ignore the native issue.
Anyway, this stat shows how difficult true dual-first-languages is to obtain.
I imagine it almost requires 2 minds in one brain.
What a nice analogy for Canada.
motherese. baby attuned to mom's voice
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101215195234.htm
The brain signals also revealed that while the infants did react to other women's voices, these sounds only activated the voice recognition parts of the brains. "This is exciting research that proves for the first time that the newborn's brain responds strongly to the mother's voice and shows, scientifically speaking, that the mother's voice is special to babies,"
D: I explored a language idea cally Babyese.
Basically, the phonemes and syllable forms grow to express nuance.
For example, at the start, all men are daddee.
It was inspired by lifeform naming conventions and a taxonomic language approach.
Clearly, my appreciation for this was felt in Lang53/LangX.
Though, again, I think their linear mechanistic approach to reintroducing phonemes is simplistic. Plus skipping over tonemes makes no sense at later stages.
Sorry guys.
I'm having some trouble finding the particular wayback machine site.
Anyway, geocities, at dinosnider666,
childese_4_kids.html.
The brain signals also revealed that while the infants did react to other women's voices, these sounds only activated the voice recognition parts of the brains. "This is exciting research that proves for the first time that the newborn's brain responds strongly to the mother's voice and shows, scientifically speaking, that the mother's voice is special to babies,"
D: I explored a language idea cally Babyese.
Basically, the phonemes and syllable forms grow to express nuance.
For example, at the start, all men are daddee.
It was inspired by lifeform naming conventions and a taxonomic language approach.
Clearly, my appreciation for this was felt in Lang53/LangX.
Though, again, I think their linear mechanistic approach to reintroducing phonemes is simplistic. Plus skipping over tonemes makes no sense at later stages.
Sorry guys.
I'm having some trouble finding the particular wayback machine site.
Anyway, geocities, at dinosnider666,
childese_4_kids.html.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
the many faces of sign language. tower of babel.
babble Look up babble at Dictionary.com
early 13c., babeln "to prattle," akin to other Western European words for stammering and prattling (cf. Swedish babbla, O.Fr. babillier) attested from the same era, some of which probably were borrowed from others, but etymologists cannot now determine which were original. Probably imitative of baby-talk, in any case (cf. L. babulus "babbler," Gk. barbaros "non-Greek-speaking"). "No direct connexion with Babel can be traced; though association with that may have affected the senses" [OED]. Meaning "to repeat oneself incoherently, speak foolishly" is attested from early 15c. Related: Babbled; babbling.
D - by all rights, sign language should be somewhat transparent and universal. When spoken in context and a certain setting, Rand's referent-objects as well as physical actions should be iconic - mimcry, like a game of Charades.
(Aside - having learned some ASL, I cannot believe just how terrible most people are at making clear iconic signs.)
D - am reading "The Joy of Signing" to round out some gaps in my training. Chopping up a sign language dictionary for cue cards is not an ideal way to learn.
I should have just looked at the basics much more.
The foreword mentions that there are Canadian sign differences compared to ASL.
The Europeans only use one hand. ASL tends to wander between 1 and 2 hands for signs.
Some signs are already out of date - for example, showing toast over an open flame.
Others are considered politically incorrect - the deaf&dumb sign, for example.
Gestuno is a half-hearted attempt at a universal sign language. In practice, it only shares certain basic iconic signs, and otherwise each signer uses their own proprietary national signs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Sign
It can be seen as a kind of pidgin sign language, which is not as conventionalised or complex as natural sign languages and has a limited lexicon.
D: ASL often generates novel concepts, or limited subset ideas, from initializing a 'natural sign' with a letter. The Roman Alphabet and the spoken national language immediately limites how universal a sign can be.
For example, the derivations of group.
I hope my deafese may yet serve as a more ideal stand-in for a universal sign language.
Maybe a sign language based conceptually on AUI would be more ideal.
I still think AUI is fascinating.
Each sound is linked to a concept.
aUI has 42 phonemes (including nasalized variations on the vowels for numbers), each with an associated meaning:
* a (pronounced like a in about): 'space'
* e (pronounced like e in bend): 'movement'
* i (pronounced like i in win): 'light'
* u (pronounced like u in bush): 'human'
* o (pronounced like o in port): 'life'
So AUI means "space human light" - space language.
My attempt to analyze the 1000 most common English words for recurring concepts is of use here. Stuff like money, system, hierarchy. Gender/kinship.
early 13c., babeln "to prattle," akin to other Western European words for stammering and prattling (cf. Swedish babbla, O.Fr. babillier) attested from the same era, some of which probably were borrowed from others, but etymologists cannot now determine which were original. Probably imitative of baby-talk, in any case (cf. L. babulus "babbler," Gk. barbaros "non-Greek-speaking"). "No direct connexion with Babel can be traced; though association with that may have affected the senses" [OED]. Meaning "to repeat oneself incoherently, speak foolishly" is attested from early 15c. Related: Babbled; babbling.
D - by all rights, sign language should be somewhat transparent and universal. When spoken in context and a certain setting, Rand's referent-objects as well as physical actions should be iconic - mimcry, like a game of Charades.
(Aside - having learned some ASL, I cannot believe just how terrible most people are at making clear iconic signs.)
D - am reading "The Joy of Signing" to round out some gaps in my training. Chopping up a sign language dictionary for cue cards is not an ideal way to learn.
I should have just looked at the basics much more.
The foreword mentions that there are Canadian sign differences compared to ASL.
The Europeans only use one hand. ASL tends to wander between 1 and 2 hands for signs.
Some signs are already out of date - for example, showing toast over an open flame.
Others are considered politically incorrect - the deaf&dumb sign, for example.
Gestuno is a half-hearted attempt at a universal sign language. In practice, it only shares certain basic iconic signs, and otherwise each signer uses their own proprietary national signs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Sign
It can be seen as a kind of pidgin sign language, which is not as conventionalised or complex as natural sign languages and has a limited lexicon.
D: ASL often generates novel concepts, or limited subset ideas, from initializing a 'natural sign' with a letter. The Roman Alphabet and the spoken national language immediately limites how universal a sign can be.
For example, the derivations of group.
I hope my deafese may yet serve as a more ideal stand-in for a universal sign language.
Maybe a sign language based conceptually on AUI would be more ideal.
I still think AUI is fascinating.
Each sound is linked to a concept.
aUI has 42 phonemes (including nasalized variations on the vowels for numbers), each with an associated meaning:
* a (pronounced like a in about): 'space'
* e (pronounced like e in bend): 'movement'
* i (pronounced like i in win): 'light'
* u (pronounced like u in bush): 'human'
* o (pronounced like o in port): 'life'
So AUI means "space human light" - space language.
My attempt to analyze the 1000 most common English words for recurring concepts is of use here. Stuff like money, system, hierarchy. Gender/kinship.
accents and stigma. stutter in bilingual kids.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100712115058.htm
The study found that Israeli Arabs' positive associations with their own people are weaker when they are tested in Hebrew than when they are tested in Arabic.
The study used a computer test known as the Implicit Association Test, which is often used to study bias. Words flash on the computer screen, and subjects have to categorize them by pressing two keys on the keyboard as quickly as possible. It's a nearly automatic task, with no time to think about the answers. The trick is, the subjects are classifying two different kinds of words: words describing positive and negative traits and, in this case, names
The Arab Israeli volunteers found it easier to associate Arab names with "good" trait words and Jewish names with "bad" trait words than Arab names with "bad" trait words and Jewish names with "good" trait words. But this effect was much stronger when the test was given in Arabic; in the Hebrew session, they showed less of a positive bias toward Arab names over Jewish names.
D - implications for bilingualism. And regional accents. And foreign accents.
----
Stuttering.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080908215938.htm
Children who are bilingual before the age of 5 are significantly more likely to stutter and to find it harder to lose their impediment, than children who speak only one language before this age, suggests new research.
There was no difference in school performance between children who stuttered, but the authors suggest that children whose native language is not English may benefit from deferring the time when they learn it. "...this reduces the chance of starting to stutter and aids the chances of recovery later in childhood," they say.
D - here in Canuck-land, this implies that learning our second official language in primary school may be ideal.
Though I never figured out why we learn Parisian French.
That is like teacher Franophones British English.
It makes no sense.
I wonder if the exception to this would be sign language.
Since it uses manual parallels to verbal signs, maybe it would not cause stuttering.
I am curious if it would result in manual accompaniment to speaking?
The study found that Israeli Arabs' positive associations with their own people are weaker when they are tested in Hebrew than when they are tested in Arabic.
The study used a computer test known as the Implicit Association Test, which is often used to study bias. Words flash on the computer screen, and subjects have to categorize them by pressing two keys on the keyboard as quickly as possible. It's a nearly automatic task, with no time to think about the answers. The trick is, the subjects are classifying two different kinds of words: words describing positive and negative traits and, in this case, names
The Arab Israeli volunteers found it easier to associate Arab names with "good" trait words and Jewish names with "bad" trait words than Arab names with "bad" trait words and Jewish names with "good" trait words. But this effect was much stronger when the test was given in Arabic; in the Hebrew session, they showed less of a positive bias toward Arab names over Jewish names.
D - implications for bilingualism. And regional accents. And foreign accents.
----
Stuttering.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080908215938.htm
Children who are bilingual before the age of 5 are significantly more likely to stutter and to find it harder to lose their impediment, than children who speak only one language before this age, suggests new research.
There was no difference in school performance between children who stuttered, but the authors suggest that children whose native language is not English may benefit from deferring the time when they learn it. "...this reduces the chance of starting to stutter and aids the chances of recovery later in childhood," they say.
D - here in Canuck-land, this implies that learning our second official language in primary school may be ideal.
Though I never figured out why we learn Parisian French.
That is like teacher Franophones British English.
It makes no sense.
I wonder if the exception to this would be sign language.
Since it uses manual parallels to verbal signs, maybe it would not cause stuttering.
I am curious if it would result in manual accompaniment to speaking?
Sunday, November 14, 2010
on latex notation, text editors and keyboard design
http://porthos.ist.utl.pt/docs/revtex/manend/node3.html#SECTION00011100000000000000
D: I was impressed by how Latex allows IPA characters.
Those are some sensible keyboard shortcuts for IPA.
D: Look at a typical text editor interface.
The options available are not reflected on a standard qwerty keyboard.
The keyboard has many obscure and largely unused symbols hogging space.
(I'll look at keybaord layouts another day.)
Anyway, my Google blog has bold - italic.
My Google e-mail has bold-italic-underline- size -font- colour - highlight colour.
Hmm, it seems to get confused if I change text size after picking colours.
Which is a neat artistic result.
My point? We should have the reverse of mouse gestures.
Do with a button on the keyboard what we now need a mouse to do.
A keyboard should have those text options readily available.
It would be brilliant for math and science notation.
It would be compatible with a standard online text editor, as well as word processors.
A similar process with diacrtics would help with a generic universal Romance-language modified ROman alphabet system.
French accents:
Hmm turns out French has 5 accents.
I never did figure out what they meant.
That might explain why I nearly failed French after taking it 8 years.
I still cannot speak it.
I did memorize alt-0233 for the word resumé. I was tired of typing the verb ree-zoom.
Anyway, capital letters leave space for accents. Nor do small letters that have some upright element.
All in all, pretty poor design.
A qwerty keyboard cannot easily be reduced to half the characters.
Sure, voiced/voiceless pairs such as BP are natural candidates.
But this relationship is pretty opaque with Roman letters to most laypeople.
'
Sunday, October 31, 2010
70% of web users don't speak English
http://globalthoughtz.com/2010/10/70-of-world-internet-users-dont-speak-english-greig/
D - one of the potential benefits of an IAL (international auxiliary language) is cost.
Advertisers can use a one-size-fits-all approach.
Government bodies,particularly international ones, can save a bundle on translations.
Then there are subtle costs.
New immigrants to Canada are offered language lessons. But often they wish to start working right away so they don't 'waste time'.
Which ultimately constrains their ability to work effectively.
Unless one has a job that involves sitting in an isolated cubicle, and even then does not involve reading, this is a mistake.
A few years ago, I participated in a YWCA-sponsored 'Coming to Canada' improv skit theatre project. I learned facts that made me sympathetic to newcomers. For example, sometimes Canada invites them here due to their educational qualifications- and then won't recognize this when the get here.
Conversely, I found they collectively engaged in a mental trap about discrimination.
They adamantly refused to admit that speaking English in a clear and concise manner is a job skill. Ergo, every time they fail to get a job it must be... DISCRIMINATION!
Yes, they actually believed that.
First of all, the ability to communicate (both ways) in a spoken and written form IS a job skill. The inability to do so is a valid and legitimate reason to not employ somebody.
Second, it may be that our language lessons are failing them.
I am of the opinion that addressing accent/dialect is MORE important than the usual 'nuts and bolts' approach of teaching grammar and syntax.
I for one have a mild auditory processing problem. Misplacing the stress and changing cadence on words I know is often enough to render them unintelligible to me.
NEWS: after only a YEAR, I have finally finished reading Chomsky's SPE. For most people, I suggest you just read a summary of his language rule results.
Even where these rules are summarized with page reference in SPE, those pages still are almost indecipherable as examples.
I am completely unable to think in 'notation'.
Meaning all the efficient short-hand expressions in the book might as well be greek to me. The section on phonology was worth its weight in gold, though.
Teaching simple example by large groups samples might be useful.
I.e.
1) nail down English phonemes in one syllable words. Work up to diphthongs n' consonant clusters.
2) at 2 syllables, show the rules for noun and verb and adjective.
3) use lots and lots of examples.
4) gradually introduce examples of how derivatives change the stress.
5) gradually show how co-articulation changes the actually spoken word.
Notice that grammar and syntax are not even mentioned.
Knowing 1000 words in English with perfect grammar and syntax remains totally useless if one cannot say those 1000 words in a manner that is understood.
Yet ethnic accent is the very last thing to persist after learning English.
It should be the very FIRST thing to go.
I know this is very hard for an adult brain. But it is rewarding.
Aside: I am intrigued by the idea of a 3rd tier of pronunciation- the unspoken secret underlying representation.
I wonder if colour-coded stacking of hiox figures could capture narrow (IPA), wide (standard) and this underlying mode, all in one fell swoop?
An alternative aux-lang to English, or course, sacrifices the richness and quirkiness of a natural language for the stilted but accessible aux-lang.
I did find Q and X particularly to detract from C's claim of English 'optimal orthography'. Ending a syllable in X has a KS sound. This consonant cluster can often make a syllable strong, even with a weak vocalic nucleus.
X deprives the reader of the consonant-cluster cue necessary.
Such aux-langs as Ceqli sensibly recycle X and Q for other sounds.
The staggering difficulty of mastering English remains a point in favour of a world (or nation, or even province/group) aux-lang.
Saying 'learn English or go home', though terribly tempting when dealing with ethnic truck drivers (as I do at work), remains a superficial response to a complex issue.
Whether learning a simple aux-lang would amount to more work than teaching passable English to untalented adults on a large scale is open to debate.
I suspect it would be viewed as a sensible investment, paying huge and long-term dividends. At least after the fact.
An ideal aux-lang for this purpose faces the 2 constraints, opposed to each other of,
1) too complicated to learn for many backgrounds, and
2) LCD- lowest common denominator- leaving very few elements to communicate with.
Lacking nuance or brevity as a result.
These are issues each IAL designer must struggle with.
Espo has chosen problem 1).
I have chosen problem 2), but hope ot mitigate it through very careful early planning.
Cheers.
D - one of the potential benefits of an IAL (international auxiliary language) is cost.
Advertisers can use a one-size-fits-all approach.
Government bodies,particularly international ones, can save a bundle on translations.
Then there are subtle costs.
New immigrants to Canada are offered language lessons. But often they wish to start working right away so they don't 'waste time'.
Which ultimately constrains their ability to work effectively.
Unless one has a job that involves sitting in an isolated cubicle, and even then does not involve reading, this is a mistake.
A few years ago, I participated in a YWCA-sponsored 'Coming to Canada' improv skit theatre project. I learned facts that made me sympathetic to newcomers. For example, sometimes Canada invites them here due to their educational qualifications- and then won't recognize this when the get here.
Conversely, I found they collectively engaged in a mental trap about discrimination.
They adamantly refused to admit that speaking English in a clear and concise manner is a job skill. Ergo, every time they fail to get a job it must be... DISCRIMINATION!
Yes, they actually believed that.
First of all, the ability to communicate (both ways) in a spoken and written form IS a job skill. The inability to do so is a valid and legitimate reason to not employ somebody.
Second, it may be that our language lessons are failing them.
I am of the opinion that addressing accent/dialect is MORE important than the usual 'nuts and bolts' approach of teaching grammar and syntax.
I for one have a mild auditory processing problem. Misplacing the stress and changing cadence on words I know is often enough to render them unintelligible to me.
NEWS: after only a YEAR, I have finally finished reading Chomsky's SPE. For most people, I suggest you just read a summary of his language rule results.
Even where these rules are summarized with page reference in SPE, those pages still are almost indecipherable as examples.
I am completely unable to think in 'notation'.
Meaning all the efficient short-hand expressions in the book might as well be greek to me. The section on phonology was worth its weight in gold, though.
Teaching simple example by large groups samples might be useful.
I.e.
1) nail down English phonemes in one syllable words. Work up to diphthongs n' consonant clusters.
2) at 2 syllables, show the rules for noun and verb and adjective.
3) use lots and lots of examples.
4) gradually introduce examples of how derivatives change the stress.
5) gradually show how co-articulation changes the actually spoken word.
Notice that grammar and syntax are not even mentioned.
Knowing 1000 words in English with perfect grammar and syntax remains totally useless if one cannot say those 1000 words in a manner that is understood.
Yet ethnic accent is the very last thing to persist after learning English.
It should be the very FIRST thing to go.
I know this is very hard for an adult brain. But it is rewarding.
Aside: I am intrigued by the idea of a 3rd tier of pronunciation- the unspoken secret underlying representation.
I wonder if colour-coded stacking of hiox figures could capture narrow (IPA), wide (standard) and this underlying mode, all in one fell swoop?
An alternative aux-lang to English, or course, sacrifices the richness and quirkiness of a natural language for the stilted but accessible aux-lang.
I did find Q and X particularly to detract from C's claim of English 'optimal orthography'. Ending a syllable in X has a KS sound. This consonant cluster can often make a syllable strong, even with a weak vocalic nucleus.
X deprives the reader of the consonant-cluster cue necessary.
Such aux-langs as Ceqli sensibly recycle X and Q for other sounds.
The staggering difficulty of mastering English remains a point in favour of a world (or nation, or even province/group) aux-lang.
Saying 'learn English or go home', though terribly tempting when dealing with ethnic truck drivers (as I do at work), remains a superficial response to a complex issue.
Whether learning a simple aux-lang would amount to more work than teaching passable English to untalented adults on a large scale is open to debate.
I suspect it would be viewed as a sensible investment, paying huge and long-term dividends. At least after the fact.
An ideal aux-lang for this purpose faces the 2 constraints, opposed to each other of,
1) too complicated to learn for many backgrounds, and
2) LCD- lowest common denominator- leaving very few elements to communicate with.
Lacking nuance or brevity as a result.
These are issues each IAL designer must struggle with.
Espo has chosen problem 1).
I have chosen problem 2), but hope ot mitigate it through very careful early planning.
Cheers.
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