Author Archives: Elizabeth Pyatt

Illegal “Meads” and Other Linguistic Lessons from “Almighty Johnson’s”

A show I’ve been enjoying in recent month’s is the New Zealand import Almighty Johnson’s, the saga of family whose members acquire the powers and behaviors of a Nordic god when he or she reaches 21. Hey…it could happen.

FYI – My fellow Americans who missed Seasons 1-2 on SyFy may be able to catch up on all 3 seasons on Netflix or the DVD Box set. You should be warned that these modern Nordic gods frolic and act just as they did in the sagas.

Linguistic Lessons

Here in central PA, I’m not overly exposed to New Zealand English as it is spoken in New Zealand, so this show has been an education on some facets of New Zealand English I thought I would share.

“Shoot Through”

If you decide to pick your things, take off for the hills and abandon family responsibilities, you are going to “shoot through”. This happens when the Johnson’s mother shoots through to become a tree after her eldest son turns 21. This almost happens again when surfer grandpa Johnson (with immortality) impregnates his 20-something girlfriend.

“Ta”

I normally associate the longer ta ta “good bye” with upper crust English, but in New Zealand, it’s been shortened to Ta! and is used by everyone.

Everyone says “Fuck!”

In this U.S. expect to hear lots of bleeps and dead silences as EVERYONE uses the F-bomb multiple times per episode. Wow. This is all the more remarkable to me because the show started at 8:30 PM in New Zealand. WT*?

This show actually flips U.S. censorship conventions on its head – there is lots of cursing and tons of description and PG-13 depictions of sex, but very little actual blood. I have to say I enjoy this more than seeing blood at 8:30 PM.

The Most Important Lesson: The Vowel Shifts

U.S. linguists discuss the Northern Cities Vowel Shift, but the front vowels are shifting drastically in New Zealand English (similar to what is happening in Australia).

I first noticed it when I heard family /fæməli/ as fame-ily [feməli], but most front vowels are shifting up one position in many speakers (sometimes more if there’s a nasal following). A great shifter is actress Rachel Nash (Ingrid). When she proclaimed that she once sold illegal illeagal meds /mɛdz/, I first thought she meant illegal meads [midz]. She and most others also pronounces the character name Axl /æksəl/. as Exl [ɛksəl]. There’s also very ubiquitous /ɛ/ to /e/ shift so that dress /drɛs/ can sound like drace [dres].

Other vowels and diphthongs are affected. Axl pronounces grown [groʊn] as the more split [grɐʉn]. This article from the New Zealand Encyclopedia provides some details.

While this information isn’t new to New Zealanders, I would have to say it’s new to Americans, even American linguists. Like the Northern Cities shift, the New Zealand shift presents neophyte American ears some interesting phonological challenges.

“Next Year” or “January”?

December is the season for celebrating and also for hearty greeting of See you next year!, especially around 11:50 PM on Dec 31. But recently, the next year phrase came up in a conversation at the end of November that made me give a double take. It was one of those language glitches that helped me understand how semantics works.

Context: Testing a New Online Grading Tool

In my job in Teaching and Learning with Technology, we have been testing a new tool (anonymously called “GradeStuff”) and I wanted to know if it would be available in the new LMS (anonymously called “LMS X”)

Our conversation went something like this:

Scene: Office Cubicle in November 2014
Me: It looks like GradeStuff is working. Did we want to integrate it into LMS X?
Boss: Not yet, but we want to investigate it soon. Let’s talk next year
Me Thought Bubble: How is November 2015 “soon”?
Me: So you mean….
Boss: Let’s talk when we get back in January.

In a moment of clarity, I realized that for me and probably most people next year means “12 months from now (± 6 months)”. In other words, a long way off. But in the New Year’s Day tradition, my boss actually meant next calendar year which happened to be mere weeks away.

Which is why all those Dec 31 greetings are just so cute!

Native American Language Info

7 Things to Know About Native American Languages

In honor of Native American Heritage month, Colleen Fitzgerald, a linguist from the The University of Texas at Arlington Native American Languages Lab, has compiled some interesting Native American language resources.

ILAT

For anyone really interested in monitoring the progress or lack of progress among indigenous languages, I recommend joining the ILAT Listserv. Posts literally cover the world and provides a great view in how different language preservation movements are progressing.

There are still many endangered languages, but it is heartening to see that places like Canada, Australia and even parts of the U.S. are beginning to recognize and officially support more indigenous languages. But as Colleen Fitzgerald notes, the U.S. Native American Languages Act of 1990 is up for reauthorization.

A Language Wanting to Die?

Speaking of native languages, there was an interesting story on the BBC about the Maidu community in California called The people who want their language to disappear

One quote indicates:

“Those that know the language don’t want to speak it. They associate it with difficult times. They don’t want to stir up… anything.”

The difficult times here refer to different efforts by the U.S. government to displace indigenous peoples and their languages. For the Maidu, there were “bounties” for scalps, relocation of people, and efforts to force children into English-only boarding schools.

This also echoes sentiments I have heard about the Irish language – namely that many people in Ireland associate the Irish language with a rural impoverished lifestyle that they feel is irrelevant in the modern world. This group in Ireland assumes that it is better to join the modern English speaking world. Of course, any Irish language specialist will tell you that Irish and Old Irish has lots to contribute to the modern world. But finding a bilingual accommodation is easier said than done.

Interestingly, the Maidu community has intermarried extensively with Welsh immigrants. Many people speaking the language actually have Welsh surnames. From an ethnic point of view, this community could more easily assimilate into an Anglo community more than other Native Americans.

A more interesting quote to me was:

“We believe the way you reach richness in life is through knowledge. It gives you power and it is your responsibility to use that wisely. If you pass that knowledge on, you are responsible for the outcome. If someone misuses the knowledge you give them, if they use it to hurt someone, you as the person who gave it to them, are responsible for that hurt.”

This speaks to a distrust of Anglo culture, including well-meaning Anglo linguists and anthropologists. Although many linguists genuinely want to help, they are part of a legacy of Anglo outsiders damaging communities they are trying to “help”. The wounds are deeper than I ever realized when I was studying linguistics. I now know that it takes years and patience for a researcher to build genuine trust within a community enough to provide genuine help.

In some ways though the last quote gives me hope. I don’t think the Maidu want their language to die. In fact some of the younger members of the community are trying to preserve it. But they definitely want to do it on their own terms.

Word Crimes & Hip Hop Battles

I confess that my personal challenge to post a linguistically interesting video every week has failed, but I thought I would end on a high note.

Despite the fact that I am not in the “grammar correction” biz, I do think that Weird Al’s recent song “Word Crimes” (based on “Blurred Lines”) makes some legitimate points on clear communication. My personal challenge is to find a way to introduce into the classroom.

Update: Read Language Log

As I suspected, I am not the only linguist who has noticed the song, and there is a thoughtful post by Ben Zimmer on Linguist List about how it could perpetuate linguistic prejudice.

FWIW – I don’t necessarily know if Weird Al means for this song to be a serious tutorial on grammar like Grammar Girl. While I’m sure he is expressing some actual language usage peeves, it’s worth noting that the same album features “Foil” (based on “Royals”) in which he advocates foil as protection from both bacteria and covert government control. In fact, he has one line about “And maybe now you find that people mock you online” that acknowledges the annoyance towards commenters who proof, but do not read or provide other constructive advice.

I do agree with Zimmer that this should NOT be used to teach “grammar” (as does Weird Al probably), but I do think it introduces some of the issues that come up in the sociolinguistics of prescriptive grammar. Zimmer has a list of questions a linguist could ask students.

Bad Grammar vs. Bad Writing

One that linguists can ask themselves though is how they could distinguish “bad grammar” from “bad writing”. While some of the diagrams in Weird Al’s songs are ridiculous, I can’t argue with the fact that some expressions like “I could care less” are overused and no longer make literal sense. This is bad writing, regardless of grammar. In fact, many books on writing do warn writers not to become trapped in jargon (good prescriptive grammar, bad writing).

What I think is missing is the idea that a colloquial language speaker CAN be a good writer (or at least use effective rhetorical techniques). For instance, many people worry about the AAVE “verbal skills deficit”, when it is partly a problem of mastering a second dialect. However AAVE speakers can clearly demonstrate verbal proficiency in hip hop lyrics and hip hop battles (spontaneous hip-hop lyric creation) as recreated in the movie 8 Mile.

I would like to see a day when dialect proficiency is really appreciated for what it is (good writing) and that Standard English is another option instead of the ONLY option.

Bilingual Celebrities (Video of the Week)

One of the challenges of dealing with the concept of multilingualism is that people living in monolingual culture such as the U.S. can’t fathom that a person can be fluent in multiple languages. That’s where videos such as “Bilingual Celebrities” comes in handy.

Not all celebrities are native in both languages, but you will be surprised at the different languages some celebrities do speak.

The Swedish interview with Malin Äckerman (3:03) is also a bonus intersentential code switching video because she actually mixes in English at one point. The social context is interesting because she assumes (probably correctly) that the Swedish audience will understand the English. English language instruction has long been part of the Swedish curriculum and many science courses at Umeå University are taught in English. Äckerman also grew up in Canada with a Swedish mother which is a classic code switching environment.

Chinese Pidgin English (Video of the Week)

This is the second “Video of the Week”, but this makes up for missing last week. This video recreates a 19th century Chinese Pidgin English dialogue from time when Hong Kong was a British colony. At this time a pidgin developed to allow the Cantonese speaking residents of Hong Kong to communicate with the English speaking British. This video is helpful because it shows the dialogue as a caption (and I admit I need it). There are some amusing phrases such as “numba wun (#1) ledda” for “your best leather”.

This video is from the University of Hong Kong, so the dialogue should be accurate. But if it weren’t, this would now be considered extremely offensive. As it turns out though, Chinese Pidgin English has given English useful phrases such as having a “look-see”, “long time no see” and “chop chop.” I didn’t realize the origin of these phrases until pretty recently.

What also amazes me is that this language has virtually disappeared from the modern U.S. landscape. For the most part Chinese Americans are depicted as being fluent English speakers with native U.S. accents (even on shows like Hawwaii Five-O. That’s a positive development in most ways, but I think Anglos have somewhat forgotten how different things were…which is why Rosie O’Donell got into serious trouble for invoking this pidgin stereotype.

Feminist Code Switching Latina (Video of the Week)

A challenge for teaching code switching (switching languages mid stream) is to find some good examples to demonstrate to students. Code switching in terms of Spanish and English (i.e. “Spanglish”) is often seen as a sign of being sloppy…so not everyone is comfortable using it in public.

But this video shows the artistic expression of code switching for cultural commentary. Here a Latina woman uses both Spanish and English to explain that well…not all Latina women are built along the same anatomical plan as J-Lo.

This video helpfully shows the English and Spanish in the sub titles, so I appreciate the student who found this and added it to my collection.

FYI – If you need a wider variety of samples, I do recommend looking for articles on intrasentential code switching. This field of study has been become more popular is and very important for understanding how multilingual speakers process multiple grammars.

Bensonhurst Spelling Bee (Video of the Week)

One of the joys of YouTube is the wealth of linguistic data a linguist has at her fingertips. A smart linguistic instructor can even ask students to bring data to her, and the following video is a perfect example of that.

The Bensonhurst Spelling Bee comes courtesy of a student research project into Italian in America and is a parody spelling bee held in Bensonhurst (a Brooklyn neighborhood and traditional Italian-American stronghold). This spelling bee asks children to spell authentic Italian-American words like mutzadel and brahjzhoot. Check out how judge Lorraine Bracco helps with etymology and usage!

In addition to being funny, this video highlights the difference between “Italian-American” as spoken by Italian immigrants from southern Italy and educated Standard Italian based on the northern Tuscan dialect. When Mark Consuelos starts to argue that mutzadel is in fact mozzarella, you can see how much wife Kelly Ripa, a native New Jerseyan, fears for his life.

By the way, a less hostile version of this can be seen on the Food Network. Watch some episodes of different shows and compaire how Giada DeLaurentis and Mario Batali says provolone (/pro.vo.lo.ne/ with final /e/) pronounced) vs. the more home grown Rachael Ray who always drops the final vowel (i.e. /pro.vo.lon/). My Italian-American student informant told me that Giada’s authentic standard Italian is considered a great source of amusement in his family.

Mistaking an /r/ for a [d]

Speaking of mutzadel, I was interested to see that the /r/ was spelled as a “d”. That may be because Italian [r] is being mistaken for the English flap ([ɾ] also transcribed as [D]), which is the articulation of English /d/ between vowels. It’s hard for English native speakers to accept that the “d” in a word like Yoda is actual a form of “r”, but sometimes these perception mistakes happen in foreign languages.

And before I hit the Publish button, I did a quick check on Southern Italian to see if there was a change of /r/ to [l]. Neither Sicilian or Calabrese seem to preserve Italian [r].

In Memoriam: Constance Sutton, Ilaria Corp, Helix (Video of the Week)

It’s been a particularly violent TV season this year and no show more deadly than the SyFy Channel bizarre medical thriller Helix, the show where the CDC tries to stop another Zombie epic in a corporate research outpost in the Arctic.

As a linguist though, I have to say that the most tragic death was the loss of Ilaria COO Constance Sutton (Jeri Ryan) who ostensibly comes to facilitate the work of the CDC, but is really there to ensure that the CDC is liquidated once their work for Ilaria is complete.

As it turns out Sutton was a master of today’s modern corporate speak as exemplified in this clip below. Many of you may recognize the hallmarks of approachability combined with a masterful mix of corporate metaphors and friendly explanations as to why your requests are unable to be honored. We all know she’s up to no good, but really can’t say why.
Note: For those of you who want to skip the hook-up subplot, skip to 1:40.

In case this video is lost, let me post the highlights of Constance’s discourse:


Am I to understand that the communications satellite went down? Well unfortunately, I don’t have a magic telephone. I’m under the same constraints as everyone else.


It’s time to create a new paradigm between our corporation and the CDC. So what do you need from Ilaria?


[On the challenges of retrieving Dr. Walker out of isolation in a secret sub-basement level

Let’s square the circle here…Ilaria is about value added, If Dr. Walker is what you need, Dr Walker is what you will get.


In a later scene, Constance explains to base personnel the corporate strategy of using the disease to gain control over the world. In her words:

We just want to thin the herd a bit.

“Ancient U.S. Weapon”? How old can that be?

The meaning of words can vary from context, and this article about an “Ancient U.S. Weapon” in Syria brought home this point to me.

If you consider that ancient often means “the earliest recorded memory” or sometimes “before our civilization as we know it began”, then definitions can vary across disciplines. In historical linguistics, “ancient” is usually no later than the Roman Empire (at least in my estimation), yet the Academy of Ancient Music is playing pieces by Handel from 1685, which is about the time period when known compositions can be firmly reconstructed. Another semi-amusing case is the PBS program In Search of Ancient Ireland – which apparently ends with the Norman invasion in the 1100s (well into the Middle Ages again). I suspect that any era when Wales, Ireland or Scotland was still under the control of a Celtic language government will be “ancient”.

Still the words “Ancient U.S.” really gave me pause. I know that pre-European history is “Ancient”, although it generally ends between 1492 to 1900 depending on location. But the U.S. itself as “ancient”? That is a new concept for me. Especially since the artifacts were weapons from the 1970s used in the Vietnam War. I actually remember when the troops left Saigon, so definitely in my lifetime.