Languages in the News: January 2017

As it's the end of the month, it's time to look back at some of the best language stories from around the web.

Our first two articles are from the Oxford Dictionaries blog. There was a fascinating article on how current languages affect dead languages, which you can read here.

The second article from Oxford was on mistakes made by those learning English as a foreign language. If you're looking for ways to improve your English and avoid some of these mistakes, read the article here.

Our next stories are from The Guardian. The first is a fascinating podcast on universal grammar which you can listen to here.

There was also an interesting piece on some English words that you either really hate or use all the time. For Justin Myers' list of words that he thinks should be banned, click here.

Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Did you really think we'd get to the end of the month without a story about the new US president? Vox reported on a linguistic analysis of how President Trump speaks during press conferences. If you want a better understanding of his speeches, read the article here.

Atlas Obscura had a fantastic article on Canadians and the word "eh". If you'd like to find out what "eh" does, why Canadians use it, and where it comes from, you should read the article here.

The BBC also brought us an article on how babies can remember their birth language. If you'd like to find out more, you can read the story here.

The last two articles we loved were from Fluent in 3 Months. You should definitely check out some excellent reasons to get involved with the German language here. Finally, there was a great article about spies and languages! If you ever wondered how spies get so good at an accent so that nobody knows they're foreign, read the article here.

Was their any other language content this month that we missed? Tell us about them in the comments below!

The Languages Behind US Place Names: Part 2

On Wednesday, I started a little linguistic journey looking at the languages that helped name places around the United States. Today I'll be looking at a few more languages that were used to name settlements, towns, and cities across the 50 states.

Latin

The Olentangy River Bridge, Columbus, Ohio

The European "discoverer" of the New World has lent his name to many things in the US. However, as an Italian working for the Spanish monarchy, Christopher Columbus probably never referred to himself using said name. His actual name was Cristoforo Colombo in Italian and Cristóbal Colón in Spanish. However, the Latinised version of his name came into popular use for naming states and cities in the US.

Take the D.C. in Washington D.C., for example. The D.C. stands for "District of Columbia", and "Columbia" is a New Latin term derived from Columbus' name. Of course, Columbus, Ohio, is also named directly after the man.

Greek

A number of settlers used Greek suffixes to name cities. Indianapolis, for example, uses the Greek suffix -polis (meaning "city") at the end of the state name of Indiana. However, Indiana takes the word India and adds the Latin suffix -ana, which designates a place name. This would confusingly make Indianapolis the "city of the place of Indians". Minneapolis is another populous example of this suffix in use.

German

The Angel Stadium, home to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

While Germanic settlers were common across the US, particularly the Midwest, Germany has had a more lasting effect on food in the States than place names. However, there are a few interesting place names that have taken the language as inspiration. As I mentioned on Wednesday, Charlotte, North Carolina, was named after the German-born British Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. I suppose that can count as both English and German.

In terms of other cities with German names, Anaheim, California takes its name from the Spanish word "Ana", from the Santa Ana river, combined with the German word "heim", an older German term often used in place names to mean "home".

There's also the city of Schaumburg, Illinois, which was originally called Sarah's Grove, until a meeting in 1850 when somebody slammed their fist on a table and screamed "Schaumburg schall et heiten!" (English: "It will be called Schaumburg!") and seemingly the name stuck!

That's all for now. Are there any languages that you think we missed? Tell us the city and the language that helped name it in the comments below.

Remembering September 11: How One Day Changed the Way We Speak

As anyone with a calendar will know, yesterday was September 11. Thirteen years have passed since the terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington D.C., and for many, the memories are still fresh in their minds.

Like most catastrophic events, September 11th led to a huge number of cultural changes in the United States and across the world. There were obvious changes, like how air travel security measures changed drastically seemingly overnight. It wasn't just air travel that changed however, as governments kept busy introducing new legislation to reduce the chances of a similar attack happening in the future. One cultural change that isn't as obvious has been the changes to the English language since 2001, which have been quite astounding.

Many new terms were added to the language just after the attacks, though their origins aren't as obvious now due to the passage of time. Over the years, the American Dialect Society has monitored the use of the English language in North America. It is a useful resource to learn more about how the vast majority of Americans use their mother tongue. We've put together a few of the important and lasting terms we feel were rarely uttered before those tragic events.

One World Trade Center, a new skyscraper
located near where the Twin Towers fell.

9/11

It was noted that just a year after the event, "9/11" (said as "nine-eleven") was considered the expression most likely to last. It's fairly safe to say that over a decade later, 9/11 is one of the most enduring expressions since the event. In fact, while the constituent elements of the term preexisted, these two numbers refer to a specific set of events that occurred on September 11, 2001 in most contexts and almost never signify anything else.

Pre- and Post-9/11

The events of 9/11 were considered so important in English-speaking circles that the date now acts as a divider between two eras, at least in the minds of many people.

Al-Qaeda

While not a neologism, al-Qaeda, the name of the organisation who was eventually revealed to be responsible for the attacks, was a popular topic of conversation at the time and is now known to most people. 

Sadly, a number of people took the Arabic origins of the word "القاعدة" as an indication that Arabic speakers and Muslims were either terrorists or hated the United States, despite the fact that there are plenty of terrorists who aren't Arabic-speaking Muslims, as well as people who hate the United States and are neither terrorists, Muslim, nor speakers of Arabic.

DHS

The United States Department for Homeland Security (DHS) was formed in 2002 following the events of 9/11 as a response to them.

Ground Zero

Although the term "ground zero" existed "pre-9/11" (See what we did there?), when the term is capitalised and rendered as "Ground Zero", it almost always is in reference to the World Trade Center site where the Twin Towers were attacked.

IED

While not necessarily a term from 9/11, IED, short for Improvised Explosive Device, is a term used by the US Army in Afghanistan and Iraq to refer to a type of bomb.

TSA

The Transportation Safety Administration, known by the acronym TSA, was a federal agency formed post-9/11 that was one of the key changes to airport security. Their visibility to anyone travelling by plane in the United States means the term has quickly entered the lexicon of American English.

The Linguistic Legacy

While some of the terms that were used after 9/11 have fallen out of favour and have even been forgotten, we should never forget those who needlessly lost their lives on that day, in subsequent conflicts, and in conflicts every day throughout the world.

Canada Day: Celebrating Canadian English

Yesterday was Canada Day, when Canadians the world over celebrate their motherland. Canada Day officially marks the date when the British North America Act of 1867 united three colonies into the Dominion of Canada.

Nowadays, the British North America Act of 1867 is known as the Constitution Act in Canada, though it retains its original name in the UK. It's known as the Constitution Act is due to the fact that a decent portion of Canada's constitution was formed by the act.

While the celebrations certainly looked like a lot of fun, the thing we're really interested in is the main language spoken in Canada. Last year we looked at the languages of Canada, while this year we will examine only one, the English language.

The variety of English spoken in Canada, Canadian English, is often overlooked and ignored. For years this variation of the English language was considered to be nothing more than either a variety or dialect of American English.

Much like American English, Canadian English has been shaped by immigration patterns. Canadian English was initially shaped by immigration from the United States following the War of Independence. Those who had supported the British Empire fled to the areas in the north that were still under British control.

A huge number of people moved to Canada from the British Isles after the Napoleonic Wars right up until the Constitution Act of 1867. While over a million people made their way to Canada from England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, scholars still believe those who entered Canada from the US left a more lasting impression on Canadian English, at least in terms of accents, explaining why Canadians sound more like those from the US than those from the UK, Australia, or New Zealand.

Canadian English is particularly interesting in the way it spells words. While American English was quick to remove the letter "u" from any word that barely pronounced it, Canadian English stayed true to the same rules as British English and still technically spells "colour" and "favour" the same way as the Brits. That said, the influence of American media has muddied the waters of Canadian English and some Canadians almost seem uncertain of whether or not they should use the letter "u" in the same way as the Brits.

Even though the Canadians share the British opinion concerning the letter "u", Canadian English, just like American English, prefers the -ize suffix over the -ise suffix which is popular in British spelling. Though -ize is the popular choice in Canada, they technically don't spell it the same, at least not if you ask them, as Canadians refer to the last letter of the alphabet as zed, and not as zee, like Americans do.

All that said, our favourite thing about Canadian English has to be the audible question mark, which is pronounced by some as "eh". Even if you didn't celebrate Canada Day, you can still celebrate Canadian English, which is definitely different to all the other varieties of English.

The Best Multilingual Cities In The USA

Since we finished yesterday's post on the best multilingual cities in Canada in Montréal, we thought we'd start today's post by heading a few hours south into the state of New York, where we find ourselves in the Big Apple ready to experience best multiculturalism and multilingualism that the US has to offer.

The Statue of Liberty welcoming
immigrants to the United States.

New York City, New York - America's most famous city has a rich heritage of immigration and is the epitome of the US as a cultural melting pot. Aside from the obvious presence of English and America's second language, Spanish, New York City (NYC) boasts a huge Chinatown area complete with a large number of Mandarin speakers and, of course, amazing food!

There are up to 150 languages spoken in NYC, so we won't list them all. There are large numbers of Italian, Russian, Yiddish and Arabic speakers to name a few. What we can say is that if there's a language you would like to hear, then you should be able to find it here.

Miami, Florida - If Will Smith's song Miami hasn't given it away, Miami boasts a huge Hispanic community. The Spanish language is so prominent in Miami that it is accepted as an official language of the government. You can also find a good number of speakers of French Creole.

San Diego, California - If you know any Spanish, you can guess where we'll be going with San Diego. The city was historically Spanish, and aside from taking a Spanish name it also took a huge number of Spanish settlers and colonists. San Diego is also very close to the Mexican border and the popular city of Tijuana.

The entrance to the Chinese Theatre in LA.
Sadly, it has nothing to do with the language.

Los Angeles, California - Los Angeles (LA) has a huge proportion of Spanish-speaking residents. Nearly 40% are estimated to speak Spanish, and the city boasts several ethnic neighbourhoods where other languages are spoken such as Mandarin Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Thai, and Arabic.

Seattle, Washington - This city isn't just the home of Starbucks and the band Nirvana. Seattle boasts a multinational community and ranks as one of the most livable cities in the US. You can find English, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, Tagalog, Korean, Vietnamese, Russian and Japanese within its sometimes rainy streets. It's only a stone's throw away from Vancouver as well, so we're almost back where we started yesterday with Canada's best multilingual cities.

Are there any other multilingual cities in the US we may have missed? Tell us about them in the comments below!