(Moscow Times)
December 14-20, 2007

The Russian language has nothing to fear from the
flood of slang and foreign words it is currently struggling with

By Victor Sonkin

Commentators often proclaim that the Russian
language is in a sorry state and launch various
campaigns and initiatives intended to slow down
its demise. At the recent Non/Fiction book fair,
Maxim Krongauz, a professor of linguistics at the
Russian State University for the Humanities, and
a columnist at Vedomosti presented a book with
the telling title, "Russian Language on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown."

Krongauz warns readers in a footnote that he
wrote the book from the point of view of a
concerned member of the public, not in his
capacity as an academic. The position of an
enlightened linguist, he says, would be that the
Russian language has nothing to fear from the
flood of slang and foreign words it is currently
struggling with -- in the long run, it will
"digest" everything and regain its balance.
Having said that, Krongauz sets aside his
moderate attitude and joins the indignant chorus of complainers.

The general consensus seems to be that there are
several things wrong with Russian at the moment.
One of these is the stampede of new, mostly
foreign words needed to describe concepts that
didn't exist in Soviet times. Unfortunately this
process sometimes goes too far and regular
Russian words are replaced by foreign terms.

Prestigious companies in fashionable business
centers consider it uncouth to have janitors --
so they hire staff who are given the job title of klining menedzher.

Another phenomenon is the creeping of Internet
slang into newspapers and everyday speech. One
such word, preved, a corruption of the usua
privet, or hi, is now used even by people who
have little to do with the Internet subculture.

Krongauz provides insightful comments on the
differences between Russian and Western patterns
of communication and the recent changes in
Russia. Although I remember grim Soviet stores, I
had forgotten that saying "Hello" to a
salesperson used to be absolutely out of the question.

Krongauz describes the experience of his friend
who returned to the Soviet Union after living in
the West and tried to use her new "polite"
habits. The best she could hope for in reply was
a brusque: "Girl, don't hold up the line!"
Conversational etiquette has certainly changed in
Russia -- and it's not hard to see that it has changed for the better.

Many other changes to the language are also for
the better; many others will be short-lived. Some
changes, such as the gradual dissolution of
Russian case system, repugnant as it is for us,
are part of a general linguistic trend that we cannot really fight.

It's a relief that Krongauz, despite his
well-founded concerns, is after all an
enlightened linguist who acknowledges that our
language is not in any real danger.

Jokes and famous quotations about Stalin

An extensive collection
of jokes and famous quotations about Stalin, compiled by
a folklorist in Estonia, Arvo Krikmann:

http://www.folklore.ee/~kriku/HUUMOR/STALIN_FIN.pdf


As he explains in his preface, he has
gathered his material from sources in five languages:
Russian, English, German, Finnish, and Estonian.
Even those who do not know Estonian should
however look at the Estonian versions given, since many
of them contain punch lines in Russian (note: the Estonian
letter o with tilde renders the Russian vowel bl).

Talking the talk: Putin expounds on foreign languages

MOSCOW (AFP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday jokingly compared his learning of German to training a circus bear, and said he studied English regularly to have "normal" conversations with other leaders.

"Before I went to Germany and lived surrounded by the language, I did not possess it," said Putin, who lived in Germany as a KGB officer before returning to Russia and becoming involved in politics in the early 1990s.

"But I lived there for nearly five years, in direct contact with our German colleagues and friends," Putin said, responding to questions from Russians during a live television appearance.

"In five years, even someone with average language ability can master a foreign language -- like the bear that goes to the circus and learns to ride a bicycle," Putin said.

The Russian president said he studied English "fairly regularly" in order to carry on conversations with foreign counterparts without the help of translators.

"Why do I do this?... It is necessary to have a normal working regimen with colleagues, so that there is no language barrier. You can't always talk about everything in the presence of translators," he said.

Putin said he had also made an effort to utter a few words in French during his speech before the International Olympic Committee in Guatemala last July.

"This was a request from several members of the IOC, as a sign of respect for French-speaking countries, including Francophone African countries," Putin said.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5i52KvT6MmTabQMeeGBwFZGgg8JDg

MOVIE TALK

The Students from Russia, Brazil and Argentina working together

1.
Getting to know the Brazilian cinematography.
Making the Presentation about the Russian Cinematography.
Discussing on our Blog
http://ruslatproject.blogspot.com

Working together with Lueli Ceruti, lueli.ceruti@gmail.com

2.
Writing an essay:
FILMS: Path to War or Path to Peace?

Working with Prof. Nelba Quintana, Argentina
Blog:
http://jovenes4ma.motime.com

3.
Composition and discussion. My Favourite TV program, film or cartoon

Commenting the other students’ essays , sharing opinions, expressing your own one.

Working with Ronaldo Lima Júnior ronaldoj@thomas.org.br
Blog http://my3b.blogspot.com

Also the Blog
http://ruslatproject.blogspot.com

DIA DE LAS CULTURAS

October 12 is Dia de las Culturas in many of Latin American countries - Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico, Costa Rica, Chile and some others. And in Spain.

Here we also have Day of Russia - June 12.

It is interesting how these day is celebtrated in these countires, what the people's attitude to it is, if it is the same day as we have in Russia.

Here is what I read about This Day in Costa Rica in www.amcostarica.com (Oct 12 '07):

"In Costa Rica, the holiday has been renamed the day of the cultures to honor all the groups that make up the Tico population."

THE INTERNATIONAL DAY

OF PEACE

September 21

1) The students' essays "Films: Path to War or Path to Peace"

see at http://jovenes4ma.motime.com/post/678422
and here in the "Comments"

2) The students' essays on the films about the war "Lost City" (Cuba) and "El Salvador"
see on our Project Website at
http://www.acr.scilib.debryansk.ru/ruslat1/index.html

How the others celebrate Peace Day see
http://culturainglesaudi.blogspot.com
(wonderful Slide shows)

European Day of Languages
September 26

The European Day of Languages aims to draw the public's attention to the importance of language learning, raise awareness of all the languages spoken in Europe and encourage lifelong language learning. 

Here
http://www.cilt.org.uk/ed/

http://ec.europa.eu/education/policies/lang/awareness/day_en.html

you can read about what it is and how it is celebrated.

Have you ever celebrated it?
What would you like to do for that?

Teacher’s Day in Russia
October 05

In Russia since 1965 The Teacher’s Day was celebrated on the first Sunday in October.

But since 1994 by a special order of the President of Russian Federation this red letter day has been October 5.

Some links where you can read about the holiday:


http://www.solnet.ee/holidays/teacher.html
calend.ru/holidays/0/0/160
http://www.ronik.org.pl/holiday.htm
http://www.ei-ie.org/en/index.php
Posters: http://www.davno.ru/posters/collections/propaganda/poster-05.html

Was there any special reason to make it on this day?

What do you know and think about this holiday?

How is this Holiday celebrated in other countries?

Today I was all ears to hear congratulations on the radio, on TV - congratulations of our government or other VIPs upon this holiday - The Teacher's Day.
On the Radio-Russia they only mentioned in passing what holiday we had today.
On www.vesti.ru - where I usually read about the recent events - nothing at all caught my eye that could be related with today's holiday...

And they SAY being a teacher is the most important profession!?
And they SAY it is the greatest problem of our society!?
No comments...

We celebrated the occasion watching the film "Emperor's Club".

Below and  in the Comment are the students' opinions about the problems raised in the film.

My impression of the film “The Emperor’s club”

Sveta Shashkina

I think that if you’re sick and tired of Hollywood blockbusters and B-movies with violence, a lot of special effects and action you should watch “The Emperor’s club”, a sincere movie that deals up with the relationship between a teacher and a pupil.
The central figure of the film is William Hundert, a professor of ancient history at St Benedict's. He is a principled professor, who is passionate about his subject and believes the history of the Greeks and Roman is more than just a lesson about the past. He also believes that the role of a teacher is not only to educate a pupil, bur to mold the pupil’s character.
But his world up-ends with the arrival of a new freshman – Sedgewick Bell, an arrogant, selfish son of senator. Mr. Hundert’s firm moral standards and unshakeable integrity are challenged by Sedgewick's behaviour, but the teacher believes he could change this young man while maintaining his integrity. In order to inspire him Hundert fudges the results of the exams, involving Sedgewick in the school's annual Julius Caesar contest, which is staged as an intellectual tournament. However Sedgewick doesn’t win the competition and the teacher realizes the pupil he believed in was cheating. For William Hundert the fact that he couldn’t help the boy to change for the better was a grievance that is not really resolved, even 30 years later.
Thus we see that Sedgewick’s motto is “The end justifies the means”, which contradicts his teacher’s principles as well as the notion of integrity. The film arouses the problem of choice: every person decides what means to use to achieve different aims. For some people like Sedgewick Bell it’s quite normal to break the principles, to lie and to do everything to win, but they should realize that sometimes they would regret and it would be too late.
Watching this film we can’t help thinking about the rewards and challenges of teaching. We also begin to think of a role of a teacher in our life: thus Mr. Hundert is not only obsessed with teaching his pupils Greek and Roman history, but he also strives to inspire his students to live rightly, he tries bring out the strong and true character that he believes to be at the core of every student At the beginning of the film we found ourselves wondering: what should pupils learn ancient history for? But then we understand that Mr. Hundert wanted to show to them that eternal values, passing through a centuries, don’t lose their meaning.
I liked the film very much, because it makes you think. I think Cavin Kline did the most of the role as he gave a superb portrayal of William Hundert. Also in this film there are a lot of movie scarlets who created true-to-life images. “The Emperor's Club" is a very good, thought-provoking and philosophical film.

My evaluation of the film «The Emperor’s Club»

Maxim Jackubowski

Having watched this film I realized over again that the profession of a teacher is of enormous social importance. In this movie William Hundert is not only a scholar of Antiquity but also a person of utter integrity and high moral standards. He does not simply impart knowledge to his students because he is supposed to, he feels dutiful to “mold” their characters, to inculcate in them love for antique culture and traditions, which, to my mind, is an indispensable part of moral upbringing. At lessons of Classics Mr. Hundert acquaints his pupils with proceedings of Socrates, Marcus Aurelius, Julius Caesar, Heraclites thus enriching their morality, extending their knowledge of moral principles, making them wise and veritable patriots of their fatherland.
I believe the key idea of the film is to focus the viewers’ attention on the importance of moral upbringing as a component of education. Michael Hoffman, the director, means to inspire that schools must make children strong educationally as well as morally, which he manages excellently. Michael Hoffman provides a dignified portrait of a principled but very humanу teacher, William Hundert, who condemns the ideology to believe that success is more important than honesty, and that greed and lack of principles became an accepted norm. It seems evident that Hundert’s concern for his boys took up a great deal of his energy during his time. He tried to redirect their lives, hoping they would somehow see the lessons of history and discover their own potential for ethical living, avoiding the negative influence of Sedgewick Bell. And in the end he does not change the boy, which truly amazed me. Most of the time in films like these, we see the free-spirited kid become proper and respectful. But 25 years later Hundert realizes that in those years when Sedgewick attended his class, he ignored the other students who were trying - and actually cared - about what they were doing. Only then does the teacher realize how deeply he is mistaken.
On the whole, the film is well managed and all the actors are cast to advantage. I hope their careers will continue after this film. At the end of the movie, I like the subtle differences in years. In the 1970s, a group of boys travel across a lake to flirt with girls from the school nearby but the nuns chase them away. 25 years later, as Kline's character walks towards his schoolroom, we see boys and girls walking around and studying together. In 28 years society has changed, and it is amusing to wonder if that group of boys from the 1970s ever thought that in 28 years, what they were paddling across a lake for would be right next to them.

NEWS MEDIA LANGUAGE

http://newslink.org/news.html
Links to newspapers from all over the world

http://newslink.org/mag.html
Links to magazines from all over the world

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2174737,00.asp
Top 100 Undiscovered Sites 2007
News, Politics and Government

The Virtual Library Slavistics “Slavistics-Portal”

is the central point of access for the subject information for Slavistics via the internet. The Portal is directed to scientists and students, teachers, translators, journalists, cultural managers and all those, who are interested in Slavistics in general or Slavic languages, Slavic literatures and Slavic folklore in particular.

The Slavistics-Portal offers the following modules:

- The Subject Gateway Slavistics covers the relevant online resources.

- The Alerting Service Slavistics keeps users up to date with the new acquisitions of the Berlin State Library.

- The Metasearch functionality enables the users to search simultaneously in the essential bibliographic databases for Slavistics and library catalogues.

- The Online-Tutorial gives a didactic introduction into the subject information for researchers interested in Slavistics.

Supported by “Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft” (German Research Foundation) and the German Scientific Portal “vascoda”.

Websites: http://www.slavistik-portal.de/en.html

Russia promotes language as symbol of resurgence
Sun Jul 1, 2007 5:46PM EDT
http://www.reuters.com/article/inDepthNews/idUSL2821441620070701
By Conor Sweeney

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia has launched a campaign to promote the national language after almost two decades of retreat -- to match the country's increasing economic and political confidence.

The Kremlin believes it can start rebuilding the credibility of Russian as a means of communication outside its own borders, with business and not communist ideology driving the revival.

One recruitment expert has advised expats that if they want a top management job they should learn Russian.

In Moscow this week, ministers announced a series of plans, such as expansion of an international cultural foundation comparable with Germany's Goethe Institute or the Alliance Francaise.

"Russian was the first language spoken in space," said Education Minister Andrei Fursenko referring to the first cosmonauts and their Cold War-era space race against English-speaking U.S. astronauts.

Once the common language across most of the communist world, Russian has been sidelined, especially in Eastern Europe where English has replaced it as the favored second language.

Russian also suffers from an image problem there, with Czechs, Poles and other former Warsaw Pact member states resentful at being forced to study a language linked with an occupying foreign power.

Across former states of the Soviet Union, only Belarus still recognizes Russian as a state language. In many others, notably Turkmenistan, the post-Soviet leadership has sought to erase all traces of Russian.

The number of mother-tongue Russian speakers also continues to decline. Russia's population is falling by 700,000 every year and now stands at 142 million.
CRUCIAL

Spearheading the campaign, President Vladimir Putin linked the country's linguistic fate to its morals and values.

"Looking after the Russian language and expanding the influence of Russian culture are crucial social and political issues," he told Russian parliamentarians in his annual address.

Putin said he backed proposals to develop "the Russian language at home, support Russian language study programs abroad and generally promote Russian language and literature around the world".

The Russian government has launched a Web site in both Russian and English to promote Russian, www.russian2007.ru. It provides details on more than 100 international festivals and events, as well as publications and plans to build libraries.

Russian is one of six official languages at the United Nations and is still used widely in many former Soviet states.

"In the mid-90s we could put up with people not speaking Russian, because they had other experience and expertise. Now, Russians are catching up," said Anton Derlyatka, a partner with executive search consultants Ward Howell International.

"The complexities of the Russian market have increased so much that you can't work without understanding the mentality of the people and the Russian context. In order to do that, you have to speak Russian."

The image of Russian can benefit from Russia's current economic and political resurgence, said Culture Minister Alexei Sokolov.

"The evolution of the Chinese society was the reason behind the changes in attitudes to language," he said.

"Russia is also currently on the brink of a significant breakthrough in the areas of nanotechnology, science and culture, and that is why it should be expected that the language will benefit."

LEARN RUSSIAN

Foreign ballet dancers, U.S. astronauts and Moscow-based ambassadors who speak Russian were photographed for a new public exhibition in central Moscow to promote the campaign.

Japanese dancer Morihiro Iwata said he was proud to promote Russian but didn't speak it when he first arrived in the country 17 years ago.

"I think more foreigners should learn Russian," he said as he stood in front of a large photo of him performing in a ballet. At home, Iwata only speaks Russian with his wife and fellow Bolshoi Theatre dancer, Olga.

He had to learn the language quickly when he first arrived in the country, he recalls, because rehearsals for performances in the Bolshoi Theatre are conducted in Russian.

Convincing foreigners to learn Russian is not an easy task due to the complexity of Russian grammar and to the spread of English.

Russian's main competitor abroad has also cast its corrosive spell inside Russia, with Russians using numerous English words, such as "biznesmen" and "kompyuter", every day.

The Kremlin has banned the use of the word "dollar" in official communiques. Instead, it has instructed officials to break the habit of expressing figures in the U.S. currency and to speak only of Russian roubles.

But Sokolov downplays the historical and modern-day importance of English.

"In Russia there were periods when there were special attitudes towards Western languages, in the 19th century it was French, and you know that many people then hired German governesses. By the way, English was less widespread."

"Now it is an international language -- but it's a more simple version of English that has become a means of communication, like a kind of esperanto."

SOMETHING ABOUT TEXT ANALYSIS

You can read here

http://ruthenia.ru/annalystxt/

Inside the Mind of a Mainstream Linguist

You can read more at
http://language.home.sprynet.com/lingdex/lingview.htm

Final Linguistic Research Papers

See the BLOG

http://students-linguistic-research.blogspot.com/

Could you live without the Internet


An interesting interview on The Internet with British actor and writer, Stephen Fry.
http://tinyurl.com/2cgf23

Can you be the same creative???????

Washington Irving. "The Legend of the Sleepy Hollow" and "Little Britain"

Washington Irving

Now we tried our hands at reading "The Legend of the Sleepy Hollow" and "Little Britain".
What are your impressions?
Would you now like to go on reading any other books by him?

Elena

Evelyn Waugh "Decline and Fall"

Evelyn Waugh "Decline and Fall"
Waugh - "the only first-rate comic genius
that has appeared in English since
Bernard Shaw.”

Literary critic Edmund Wilson

_____________________________

Reading the book with Group 301 and 303 (2012 - 2013)

Some of the most interesting comments by you, the students, will be posted here. The original text is preserved.

by Nastya Mironova

“ I couldn’t understand why God had made the world at all”. (E.W.)

To my mind this phrase is the most interesting and complicated at the same time. When Mr. Prendergast was a clergyman of the Church of England and was preparing for a pious and full life he began to have Doubts. He couldn’t answer this question as well as his bishop and his mother couldn’t.
I think, it’s a really good question. There is unjustice, violence, treachery and many other bad things in this world. Of course, there are some good things too, but as a rule, people who are guided by goodness live at the lower walks of life. Even Mr. Prendergast had to resign his living and become a poor teacher, when he realized that he was unable to answer such an - this important question, though his refusal was unwise from the practical point of view. Very often some unfair things happen and why God created the world as it is? It’s hard to understand. Only the strongest and fittest people survive. Maybe, without such a selection there won’t be any evolution and progress at all, but in this case there is another question: we all know that the fittest and strongest sometimes make very bad things and give up their principles to be on the top… So, shall we do everything to be there too or shall we save our souls and hands clean and clear.

by Karina Kuzovova

Dr Fagan: “We schoolmasters must temper discretion with deceit.

'No, sir, and very sorry I am to hear about it. I expect you'll be becoming a schoolmaster, sir. That's what most of the gentlemen does, sir, that gets sent down for indecent behavior.’

The author wants to show us that all teachers were not ideal, all of them had their offences and vices. But our society thought that teachers were deities and idols. Of course, nobody wanted to be disclosed. So, the only way out of the situation was not to tell the truth. But it’s strange, because a teacher arouses a lot of new feelings and ideas in a pupil, this is a man who is imitated. And I can’t understand, why they are so disgusting in this book. In conclusion I can say that the author wants to prove that full responsibility for the consequences rests with teachers. Because they are a connecting link between pupils and modern society. 

  

by Lena Kastruba

Mr Levy: “It’s wonderful what one can teach when one tries.”

Being full of sincere admiration and self-satisfaction this phrase not just shows us the degradation of values and morals of people who are to teach the growing future and hope of the society and to sow wisdom, the good, the eternal in their hearts and minds, but I think this phrase describes the society on the whole. The devastation and the ruin that prevailed in the minds, the wish to become richer and more prosperous prevails over the reason and desire for help but not for harm. By this little phrase the author shows us how far had man gone in its lust after pleasing himself.

And here are some your general impressions of the book "Decline abd Fall" after reading Prelude and Chapters 1-4-. It'll be interesting to compare your impressions when we finish reading the book:):)

by Karina

To tell the truth, I am at a loss that our World  is so vicious. And teachers are not ideal. 

by Ksenia

 I have to admit I was quite astonished because of how the story began.

 by Julia

To sum up I like this story but the beginning (prelude) was rather difficult and I didn’t want to read further to tell the truth, but the farther the better. 

 by Lera

In this story everything struck me...I was amused by the stories of Captain Grimes and Mr. Prendergast, especially the latter one. I cannot picture to myself how people can speak about such Doubts seriously. So I like the manner of writing of the author and I would like to know what will happen to Paul surrounded by all these strange people.

 by Lena

I have mixed feelings about this part of the novel. On the one hand, I`m completely impressed by the language and style of the author. As I’ve read one of his books before I think I can call his way of presentation of his sarcastic and ironical attitude to the society and the situation, the characters and the uncovering of their nature through the simple and common at the first glance actions or cues his special feature. But on the other hand the honesty and truthfulness of this presentation amuses. From this aspect the society is represented as an ugly, disgraceful and vicious group of not people but wolves who worry only about their profits and purses. A complete absurdity of its laws and rules drives the reader to despair and rage at the same time. At first you want to laugh but then you realize that it really can be the truth and it makes you feel not at ease.

 by Ann

What struck me most was the situation in the scholastic agency. The advertisement Mr Levy gave to Paul read that one thing was wanted, but even though Paul didn't possess many of the qualities needed he was accepted. 

 by Ira Afonina

I was much amused by that part: it seemed to me witty and ironical, every character has his own peculiarities, which is very funny and gives a vivid impression of that society. 

by Mary Blashenkova

I liked the beginning of the novel..Besides the auther’s humour attracts my attention... So to tell the truth I started to read the next chapter and waited for funny, unexpected moments.

by Alina

To be honest, now this book didn’t  impress me much. Paul, poor creature, unfortunate, one day was in a wrong tie...it's actually sad. ...Now, it is difficult to judge the novel. I will wait for the development of the situation in the following chapters.

by Sasha

I liked this part, it’s rather an interesting beginning of the novel and I’d like to know what is going to happen to the main character. In this part there are some amusing moments, but what struck me most of all in this part is injustice to Paul.

 __________

Reading the book with Group 301 and 303 (2006 - 2007)

Now that we have finished reading this book I would like to know you opinions: what you felt when reading the first pages, what you felt reading the end, what you think about his style of writing.
And also perhaps your comments on how to make the discussions more interesting. 

And here is a nice surprise!!!! A little poem which the students of Group 301 (2006 - 2007) composed last year!

Everyone who has read and discussed with us the book "Decline and Fall"  will recognise the phrases from it (that the students learnt btw!!:) ). I am leaving the text of the Poem as it is to preserve your, the Students', originality:

We used to lead too sheltered life
Like a millionaire’s wife

But on the third course without more ado
We were made a lot to do.

Under the influence of that book
We were pinned down like fish on the hook.

During that term on different pretexts
We tried to avoid reading this text.

But as it was “an infraction of law”
Our teacher got us into a row.

We were made to go whole hog
Like a strider in the fog.

This book has given us the hell
But we’re old hand at it, as well

We’re looking at life in the raw
And we’re all keen on Evelyn Waugh!!!!

And also look - this is what I found on a Website about translation blunders:
Evelyn Waugh was a man. -  Эвел Мо была мужиком.
(то, что имя переврано - это ладно, но заметьте: былА, но МУЖИКОМ)
Elena

English spelling

English spelling is so bizarre that, as George Bernard Shaw once pointed out,
"ghoti" could conceivably be pronounced "fish", if the "gh" sound in "enough",
the "o" sound in "women",
and the "ti" sound in "action" were used.
http://www.sentex.net/~ajy/facts/languages.html

About languages

...everyone is learning Chinese, they are the future of industry. English? The language of innovation. French? The language of taste. Italian? The language of tenderness. German? The language of depth of understanding. Japanese? The language of exquisite intimacy. Russian? The language of song. Hebrew? The language of insight. Arabic? The language of learning. etc...

http://forums.about.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?nl=1&msg=12755.1&nav=messages&webtag=ab-spanish&lgnF=y&redirCnt=1

Scientists equate loss of languages with loss of knowledge
By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services

There are nearly 7,000 languages on Earth, but experts say about half of them are endangered, meaning only a small and declining number of often elderly people speak the language. Major world and national languages crowd out smaller ones, and it's estimated that more languages became extinct in the 20th century than at any other time in history.

For scientists, the loss of a language represents a very real loss of knowledge. And that knowledge could save lives at a time when drug companies search tropical forests for biologically-based medical breakthroughs, and many, if not most, plant and animal species remain unknown to western science.

David Harrison of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania said saving endangered languages could help scientists harness knowledge that might otherwise be lost. He spoke at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

"Vast domains of knowledge about meteorology, mathematics, weather cycles, plant and animal behavior, how to domesticate plants and animals, how to control genetic stocks exists," Harrison stressed. "It is out there, it is fragile, it is very rapidly eroding."

When a language goes, so does culture. The Miami are a native people that once thrived in the American Midwest. Three centuries ago, their Myaamia language was widely spoken. But the language began to die out as the tribe was forced from its ancestral homeland and its members became more assimilated in mainstream America. It was essentially extinct by the 1960s. However, the language had been well documented, and Daryl Baldwin and his Myaamia Project have been working to revitalize both the language and the culture it represents.

"For communities that have been socially disrupted, the language provides an avenue by which they can mend and heal," said Baldwin, "because embodied in that language is a great deal of information about how we relate to each other and how we relate to our landscape. And so language revitalization has been incredibly enriching. It's been daunting. Language loss is about social change. Language reclamation is also about social change.


First two lines of The Lord's Prayer in the Miami language
Na-wah-nassah-ti-lassah-yweh-liam
Al-kilson-twaf-sah Natishi-Kial wilah


Revitalizing an endangered language is never easy. In Hawaii, the U.S. state that was an independent monarchy until 1893, the culture is strong, but the language has faced severe challenges, such as a law that prohibited teaching it in schools until two decades ago. William Wilson of the University of Hawaii says it is important to expose young Hawaiians to the language, and the subject now is taught to school children.

"So that's increasing the numbers of speakers," Wilson said. "In 1986, when we started, there were less than 50 children in all of Hawaii that could speak Hawaiian fluently. Now we have about 2,000 in our school system. More importantly, there are actually
families that speak Hawaiian at home. And so we've started infant-toddler programs, where those children can come together before they go to preschool."

On the mainland, California has a tremendous heritage of language diversity with as many as 100 native languages having been spoken there. Many are now endangered or gone entirely. Leanne Hinton of the University of California says one-on-one intensive programs are helping sustain threatened languages.

"One of them is the master-apprentice language learning program, which pairs the last speakers of native languages with younger members of the tribe who want to learn it. And we teach them the fundamentals of language immersion, and they are supposed to spend 10 or 20 hours a week just living their lives together in the language and without recourse to English," Ms. Hinton explained.

Despite efforts like these, indigenous and other minority languages will continue to be threatened, and many likely will die off. But aggressive programs can help ensure the survival of other languages.

http://www.amcostarica.com/morenews3.htm
March 1 2007

Moscow Times
October 25, 2006
Language of Lenin Losing Ground
By Nabi Abdullaev
Staff Writer

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan -- Zulya Kalimbetova, a 22-year-old waitress at an outdoor cafe, boasts
that she is the only one of 10 siblings in her family who speaks Russian.
"I learned it here by myself, in town, because I am smart," Kalimbetova said, speaking slowly with a heavy accent, confusing her verb endings and pronouns.

But she concedes she's at a disadvantage compared to earlier generations. "My mother speaks Russian better because she studied in school," she said.

Kalimbetova never had a chance to study Russian in school because, coming from Osh, the country's most depressed region, she never went to school.

She is not alone. Like Kalimbetova, millions of young men and women in the former Soviet Union and its former satellite states are either unable or opting not to study the language of Pushkin, Tolstoy and Lenin.

While the numbers have been slipping since the Soviet collapse, the decline of Russian speakers

is now beginning to be felt more acutely around the world. Indeed, by 2025, according to a recent study by the Center for Demography and Human Ecology at the Russian Academy of Sciences, the number of people speaking Russian will be roughly equal to that at the beginning of the last century.

For now, Russian is the fourth-most-spoken language on earth, behind English, Chinese and Spanish, according to the center's figures. In Russia, 130 million people speak the language,

not counting newborns. Another 26.4 million citizens of former Soviet republics are native
Russian speakers, and there are an additional 7.5 million Russian speakers sprinkled around the
globe. About 114 million people speak Russian as a foreign language.
But the center projects that in a decade, Russian will be eclipsed by French, Hindu and Arab and, within the next 15 years, it will be pushed to 10th place by Portuguese and Bengali.
One obvious reason for the decline is that Russia itself is shrinking, as the population sheds 700,000 people every year.
Another factor is that, beyond Russia's borders, the prestige associated with the language has been ebbing since the country lost its status as a global communist empire.
"As the geopolitical importance of Russia degenerated to being little more than a big supplier of raw materials for other countries' growing high-tech economies, so did the demand for knowing Russian," said Kirill Razlogov, an analyst at the Institute for Cultural Research.
In many former Soviet republics, particularly in Central Asia, Russian was once the language of the elite. "Now, with advancing globalization," Razlogov said, "more people opt for English rather than Russian, deciding they'd rather read Shakespeare in his native tongue rather than the Russian translation."
Turkmen leader Saparmurat Niyazov has made the anti-Russian movement state policy, banning in 1995 the teaching of Russian at almost all universities and schools as well as books, street signs, posters and advertisements that are printed in Russian.
Elsewhere in the former communist world, the anti-Russian trend is not quite so draconian, but widespread.
From the Romanian capital of Bucharest to Budapest to Warsaw to Prague, English, not Russian, is the language of commerce and, in many cases, mass communication.
The Center for Demography and Human Ecology estimates that the number of students studying Russian in Eastern and Central Europe plunged to 935,000 in 2004 from 10 million in 1990.

In the Baltics, where opposition to the communist regime was strongest and the first Soviet republics declared independence, there has been an unmistakable move away from Russian.

In Estonia, a 1995 law relegated Russian to the status of a foreign language.
And in Latvia, a 1999 law mandated that officials communicate with citizens only in Latvian, even in those areas with a majority of Russian speakers.
"We want to make Latvians out of Russians," Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga was reported as saying in 2004. While there are no  restrictions on learning or speaking Russian in Lithuania, the language suffers from a serious image problem, as is the case elsewhere.
"Young people here don't associate their career aspirations with Russia," said Aurelijus Gutauskas, a professor at the Law Institute of Lithuania. "They all look to the West and choose instead to learn English, French and German."
Likewise, Western students have lost interest in studying Russian.
While a generation of young Americans were urged to study all things Russian in the wake of the
1957 Sputnik launch, in 2004 a paltry 27,000 chose to learn it, according to the center's figures. With Latin America to the south and the war on terrorism raging in the Middle East, central Asia and elsewhere, Spanish and Arabic are widely considered more useful.

Back in Bishkek, they seem to feel the same way. Within the walls of the private American University in Central Asia, ethnic Kyrgyz students from middle-class families are more likely to converse in English than Russian.

But for those who hail from the country's rural precincts, where abject poverty, backwardness and a feudal Oriental civilization predominates, Russian may remain for some time a symbol of progress and culture.
Shirin Narynbayeva, an American University student with a round face, explained: "I chose to
learn Russian so that no one would ever think that I came from a village."