notes on linguistic curiosities and oddities.

So here we are; I've finished my first semester as a linguistics major (ok I only took one course), but I still couldn't come up with a succinct answer when Michael Bell asked me: what's the deal with vowels? Is y a vowel or not? You know, when you're a kid, they tell you "a, e, i, o, u and sometimes y."  Why?

So I read up on it. He's right. English is one of the languages that isn't really clear about vowels.  Big surprise, right?

Phonetically speaking, vowels are sounds that are made with no constriction in the vocal tract. Basically, by pushing air from your lungs out your mouth and only shaping the sound by the way you move your tongue and lips without ever interrupting the air flow.
Phonologically speaking, vowels are the peak of a syllable.
Now here's the issue with English. We have words like little and castle, where that sound is the peak.

The issue with y and w in English, is that they meet the criteria of non-constricted sound, but they happen at the non-peak of words, too, like in yet and wet.

So we can have non-constricted sounds at the non-peak of the word.  Not vowels. 
Similarly, we have sounds at the peak of a word that are constricted sounds--also not vowels.
 
Technically speaking, a sound must match both criteria to be officially designated a vowel sound.
---




This picture shows where each sound is produced.

  Here is a link to a chart with audio clips of each vowel sound.  It's in the International Phonetic Alphabet, so these sounds could go for any language in the world, not just English.  The x-axis shows front, central and back--referring to where the sound is produced.  The y-axis shows close, mid and open--referring to how close to the roof of the mouth the tongue is when the sound is made.

Let's play the game of "Doctor or Not!?" yayyy

Psychiatrist.  Psychologist.  I can never remember which is which.  One's a medical doctor, the other is a therapist. 
Hmm.  I try to remember by thinking, podiatrist, dermatologist--those are both doctors.  That didn't help.  Gynecologist.  Geriatrist.  Neurologist.  Still no help.
The truth is, there are a lot more -ologist words in the world than -iatrists, but what's the difference??

Dictionary says...
-ology refers to the science or study of something
-iatry indicates healing or medical treatment

Ok.  So etymologically, they could both be doctors, but in this case the psychiatrist is the doctor and the psychologist is not.

What about optometrist and opthalmologist and optician?  Opto- obviously means sight from Ancient Greek.

Optometrist - someone licensed to practice optometry (which is the practice of examining the eyes). -metrist is obviously someone who measures, so optometrist literally= someone who measures sight

Opthalmologist - a doctor who practices opthalmology (which is the branch of medical science dealing with the anatomy, functions, and diseases of the eye), so opthalmologist literally= scientist who studies sight

Optician - a maker or seller of optical glass, so optician literally= someone who specializes in sight

So in this case the opthalmologist is the doctor and the optometrist and the optician are not.

Thanks for playing.

Remember this post about bad malamanteaus??

Michael Bell found an example of another pretty bad one just the other day, this time in a Snickers wrapper.

The other day Magee and I were talking via text message and he said something along the lines of "but they are closed on V", and I did not understand what he meant. I, personally use the standard university abbreviations for days of the week: MTWRF and I guess I used Sa and Su in my notes for weekend days.

He explained he uses MTWθFVS. θ makes sense for Thursday, S for Sunday.  I had no guesses about the V.  He explained he looked for a syllabary that had a simple solution, and found the Cypriot syllabary, in which a symbol that looks like a V represents the syllable "sa."

Fair enough.

I came across this wonderfully comprehensive wobsite about writing systems, and started reading.  This stuff is endless.*

A syllabary is like an alphabet, except instead of each symbol representing a sound, each symbol represents a syllable.

In terms of syllabaries, Maggs said his decision had come down to using the Cherokee "sa" which is a U with a horizontal line through the middle, or the Cree, which looks like a little chair.  I´m assuming he went with the Cypriot V because of it´s accessibility on a standard keyboard.  I think he made a good choice, considering the alternatives.  (Look here for a compilation of syllabaries.)

They say the Cypriot syllabary descended from Linear A and Linear B and was actually used for the Cypriot dialect of Greek between 800 and 200 BC.  In Linear A, "sa" was Y and in Linear B, "sa" was like Y but with two little tear drops on each side.  I was surprised he hadn´t chosen the Y from Linear A--seeing as how it´s equally easy to use as the Cypriot V, but it seems the origins of Linear A are too ambiguous for his note-taking standards.  Ok.

What he means is that even scholars today are unsure about Linear A and whether its decipherment is correct.  I mean, he´s right.  Linear A was used between 1800 and 1450 BC, and really, all they can do is start with what they know and go backward.  They think Linear B probably evolved from Linear A, but they don´t know how they´re related.  Furthermore, these linguists just assigned the same pronunciation that Linear B uses to characters that look similar in Linear A--but that was just guessing, too.  There´s no real consensus on Linear A.

Phaistos Disc

Speaking of undecipherables, Linear A isn´t alone.  I mean, there are other really old things that are yet undeciphered (like Crete´s Phaistos Disc from 17th century BC seen on the left, and Proto- and Old Elamite used around 3000BC in Persia/modern Iran), but I feel like that makes sense, and is excusable.  They´re really old texts.

What is really weird to me is that there are a handful of relatively modern texts that are also undecipherable, namely:

• Voynich Manuscript (1404-1438AD, Europe?) - at least carbon dating confirms the dates on this one.  The vague general consensus seems to be that it´s a medical or pharmacopeal document.  Some think the manuscript is gibberish, and was probably a joke played on Rudolph II, probably made by Roger Bacon.  There are lots and lots of theories on this one.***
• Rohonc Codex (1530?AD, Hungary) - people have tried and tried to decipher this sucker, and have failed.  Most Hungarian scholars seem to have given up, and assume it´s a hoax created by Sámuel Literáti Nemes, who was infamous for his historical forgeries from around that same time period.  Some cryptographers think it´s a religious text.  The writing might be some variant of paleo- or old- Hungarian.
• Rongo Rongo (until 1860sAD, Easter Island) - the language is Rapa Nui, the Polynesian language spoken on Easter Island.  There´s debate over whether or not this is actual writing, or if it´s just some notes jotted down for the sake of decorating, or maybe remembering things.

Rohonc Codex

Rongo Rongo

--

It´s funny to me how vocabulary and grammar can change in a language so quickly, relatively speaking, and how it seems writing systems change so much more slowly.  If you think about the Latin alphabet for instance, the letter W was added to accommodate some German sounds in the Middle Ages, but that´s about it.  We don´t really see a lot of changes.  I guess since the printing press, and now keyboards worldwide, it would be much more difficult to create or destroy a letter than it is to create or destroy a word.

But it does happen sometimes!  I remember when I first started learning German, the teacher made some rules very clear about when to use ß and when to use ss.  --although we learned that ß = ss, the rule is:

• ß is used after diphthongs (beißen [baɪ̯sən] ‘to bite’))
• ß is used after long vowels (grüßen [ɡʁyːsən] ‘to greet’)
• ss is used after short vowels (küssen [kʏsən] ‘to kiss’)

Thus it helps to distinguish words like Buße (long vowel) 'penance, fine' and Busse (short vowel) 'buses'.  However, the teacher reluctantly informed us that ß is pretty much going out of style, not because of computer keyboards, but because of text messaging.  While computers made for Germany do have the ß key, cell phones do not, and kids are basically forgetting all about ß.

Huh.

I also recently heard an article on PRI´s The World that Spanish has decided to get rid of two of their official letters.**  WHAT.  To the best of my knowledge, in addition to the 26 letters we see in English, Spanish claims/claimed 3 more: ch, ll, and ñ.  Now I´m hearing that the Royal Spanish Academy is getting rid of ch and ll as single letters, and my name will now be spelled C-H-E-L-A as opposed to the CH-E-L-A that I loved.

This is crazy.  My first initial is no longer Ch and now I must rethink my whole sense of self identity!  No, I´m just kidding, but Venezuela´s Hugo Chavez actually seems pretty upset about it.  I mean, he´s losing the first initial of his last name--I totally get it.  CNN reports:

If the academy no longer considers “ch” a separate letter, Mr. Chávez chortled to his cabinet, then he would henceforth be known simply as “Ávez.”

smh.

--

Now, of course people have suggested and created countless alternate writing systems throughout the years.  For instance, Benjamin Franklin took great interest in the promotion of spelling reform. See here and here. He proposed a more phonetic way of writing English, which actually makes a lot of sense, but no one seemed to listen.  The only person who really cared for this idea was Noah Webster.  Lol.

There are lots of other pretty writing systems, but my two favorites are:

• Baduk - based on the Korean board game by the same name, which is based on Go--the Japanese name for an ancient Chinese board game.  The alphabet has only 2 characters and one marker to indicate the start of words.  Like in Baduk the game, the meaning of one letter is determined by its relative rather than its absolute position.

• Colorbet - developed by Vitaly Vetash, a Russian painter and linguist.  Basically, he took the idea that the whole variety of colors is based on fusion of 3 main rays (red, yellow and blue), and translated it into sounds, saying the variety of vowel comes from the combination of the triangle of the main sounds (A, I, U). Colors of vowels are: A is red, I - blue, U - green.  He then expanded this to consonants, too, saying: vowels, being the most resonant between phonemes, represent clear colors, and consonants have more complicated formant structure, representing complex tints of colors.  (This also makes me think of synesthesia?  I didn´t even know what that was until... see here.)

(For a good list of constructed scripts, see here.)  My cousin actually came up with a writing system, too, years ago.  It´s called something like AlienCode 2 Specific or something like that.  It´s by no means more efficient than the Latin Alphabet, and only a handful of people know about it.  I wonder if thousands of years from now someone will find a sample of it and wonder.  But then again, it´s probably very easy for cryptologists to decipher, seeing as how (with a few exceptions) there is one character per Latin letter.  It was fun when we were kids anyway, and is still convenient to know... hahaha.


*(Click here to check out the Yi syllabary.  It´s the largest standardized syllabary on record, and geez... things like this give me a lot of hope for humanity, to be honest, and man´s mental capacity.  If common, normal, run of the mill people can grow up using this writing system and mastering it, surely we are capable of great things.)

**Here´s the article with all the changes announced (but it´s in Spanish): El Pais

***

You know, English is a pretty hard language to read and pronounce.

Ok, when I was growing up, I learned that in Spanish
duende = dwarf and enano* = elf = midget.

I guess I never wondered why Santa's elves and Snow White's dwarves were both enanos*.
Just the other day I happened across this article claiming DUENDE is the single most difficult word to translate from Spanish to English.  Read here.

It says,

In 1933 Spanish poet and theater director Federico Garcia Lorca gave a lecture in Buenos Aires titled “Play and Theory of the Duende” in which he addressed the fiery spirit behind what makes great performance stir the emotions:

 “The duende, then, is a power, not a work. It is a struggle, not a thought. I have heard an old maestro of the guitar say, ”The duende is not in the throat; the duende climbs up inside you, from the soles of the feet.’ Meaning this: it is not a question of ability, but of true, living style, of blood, of the most ancient culture, of spontaneous creation … everything that has black sounds in it, has duende.” 

Of course a lot of people who commented on the article said the same as me, that they understood duende to be a dwarf or elf, etc. but there were a few interesting responses as well:

César on February 22, 2011 at 6:13 am
In fact, this use of the word “duende” is more typical of the region of Andalusia, mostly used for “flamenco” dance and music, and is not very extended to other parts of Spain. From what I gather, it means something similar to being posessed by the spirit of the artwork, so that the artist expresses its fiery feelings, like a flame revealing the hotness and lawlessness of the fire.

Mikhail on February 22, 2011 at 5:05 am
In Trinidad and Tobago. A douen (which I presume comes from the same word duende due to our past Spanish Influence) is actually a small childlike creature that wears straw hats and runs around in the bushes on back-to-front feet. They were thought to be the souls of unbaptized children.

Blueberry on February 22, 2011 at 2:49 pm
In Buenos Aires generally people say that someone has “angel”, not duende, when talking about talent.

Which brings me to this phrase I´ve been wanting to mention, just because I like it a lot.  In Mexico, tener angel means to be really charismatic.  Someone who has a lot of angel is someone who is really likeable.  Now I always attributed this phrase to Mexico being super-Catholic, but maybe it´s related to this dwarf-elf spirit.

This is another example someone gave on wordreference.com:

In Andalucia you say someone "tiene AGE" that really refers to "tiene ANGEL" when someone is very artistic.  For example when a dancer dances very well you say "tiene age (angel)."  Hope this helps.

which sounds like what the aforementioned article said about DUENDE.  Maybe angels and dwarves are all descended from the same creature, which just evolved into having various names, depending on what part of the Spanish speaking world they finds themselves in.


*Or in this case, enanitos, the diminuitive form.

My linguistics teacher seems to have studied Yucatec Maya extensively, and he shared this tidbit:

I see this at work all the time and it also makes me chuckle.  It´s our copier.

Ok, so you know I'm studying linguistics officially, right, and I'm in this Languages of the World (really like an intro to linguistics) course.  There are really interesting tidbits all the time--like on day 1, Nitzkin told us how humans are different from other animals in our ability to speak, and communicate about not only the concrete, but the abstract as well.

While other animals communicate to each other, this is generally done through instinctual sounds being made in response to some threat or stimulus.  Then perhaps other animals respond to that sound, instinctually.  There´s obviously no chatting involved.

But I was thinking about that awesome movie from my childhood, Project X (starring a very young Helen Hunt and an even younger Matthew Broderick), and about all those chimps that supposedly learned sign language.  What about them??

Well, I read this article on NPR about how humans are linguistically different from monkeys, and it says, first of all, monkeys´ vocal chords are shaped differently from those of humans, so they´ll never really be able to make the sounds we do--obviously--which is why scientists went on and gave sign language a go.  To summarize about the sign language obsession researchers had in the 60s and 70s, monkeys are smart enough to make certain shapes with their hands in response to certain stimuli (like twisting a fist by the corner of the mouth when shown an apple), but still, the number of words they learn seems to peak at about 300.

But by the end of high school, we have about 60,000 words, the average human. And every chimpanzee, bonobo, gorilla, they all sort of hit the wall at two to 300 words, which is also where a dog hits the wall, or a parrot. So there's something really different about us. And it's not to say they don't communicate - of course they communicate. And of course they have communication that can say very specific, surprising things, but it's not language. [...]  And what became clear to the researchers doing this was that the human infant had a language, a vocabulary explosion at a very young age that never occurs with chimps.

So Nitzkin was right in saying no monkey has ever spoken better than a 2 year old child.

WHAT I DIDN´T KNOW is that although monkeys´ DNA matches like 97% of ours, cognitively, dolphins might be more similar to humans.  Studies show that dolphins are the only animals that can communicate about things not in their immediate surrounding, such as past and future events.*

I read on dolphin-world.com (that´s right) that dolphins have a greater brain-to-body-weight ratio than any other mammal besides homo sapiens and that because dolphins tend to stay within their own pods, they have trouble understanding “foreign” dolphins.  This might be an indicator that they have different dolphin "languages" in different parts of the world, even though they are the same species--if in fact they use language at all.



Well, anyway, it´s probably for the best animals don´t seem to really use language the way we do.  LEST THIS HAPPEN:



lolol




*Ok, I found this wobsite, and I can´t decide if it´s for real or not. It´s called SpeakDolphin.com, and well... they have a running list for if they ever do get to talk to dolphins, what are the questions they would ask.  Look.  You can submit yours here.

So a few months back I blogged about this new word I heard, "prosumer."  In that post I learned, in the context that I heard the word, prosumer = professional + consumer.

So what about "promercial"?  A commercial for prosumers? The New York Times claims it's actually promotion + commercial.  Now, maybe I'm mistaken here but aren't commericals ALL promotions?  Come on, now.
What they actually mean is that not only will there continue to be product placement in tv shows we watch, but now there will be a commercial before said tv episode, promoting both the product that will be placed and the episode itself.

Obviously, this is happening because of the prevalence of TiVo-type devices that very easily allow viewers to fast foward through commercials.  ABC did it first.  A triple punch.  1) The upcoming episode of Cougar Town was going to have Diet Dr. Pepper all up in it.  2) Throughout the day, leading up to that episode, they aired promercials--previews for that night's episode--particularly the part of the episode that includes the product pitch.  3) On their wobsite, they featured extended footage from said episode--but of course before you can watch the clip you have to watch a Diet Dr. Pepper commercial.

You can watch this historic event here.

Lol I agree with Time's Graeme McMillan, "If this kind of thing continues, how long before we get a prepromercial to let us know that there might be an advertisement to tell us about the advertisement hidden in real content somewhere in our future?"

So I´m taking some classes for fun this semester!  Woooooooooo
Remember this post?

They each meet once a week, so the sessions are long--perfect for discussion.  I definitely plan to update my blag much more regularly now, seeing as how I´ll want to jot down here interesting tidbits I pick up along the way--for my own sake.  You know.

These are the classes I´m taking.

When my cousin Joaquin was in town a couple of weeks ago, he told me about this curious, hilarious, embarrasing linguistic trend happening in Mexico among some [lesser educated] people...

So HD TVs are more and more commonplace everywhere, and therefore the demand for high def channels has increased as well.  He says there are a few of the big channels that are offered in high def for free--accessible to the whole nation.

In the corner of the TV channel, just like here, it says "HD".

People know this means "alta definicion" (literally "high definition") but they do not know how to spell ALTA.  Since all Hs are silent in Spanish, they assume HD stands for "halta definicion"--which is hilarious, and sad. 

I found this ad (with prices listed in Euros, so this linguistic phenomenon must be happening in Spain, too).

So there´s this brand of diet frozen meals called Michelina´s Lean Gourmet.  Remember when we blogged about malamanteaus?  Here´s the link.
I think Michelina´s is trying to make some malamanteaus on the insides of their cardboard boxes, but... I don´t think they get it.  I don´t think they get how these are supposed to work.

Here are some good malamanteaus:

• spork
• skort
• Brangelina
• blog
• liger
• muppet
• smog
• televangelist
• WiFi

Here are some bad ones:
    

(Answering Jon.)

They´re a New Orleans specialty.  They´re delicious. The people at Central Grocery on Decateur claim to be the originators, since 1906.

Italian immigrant, Signor Lupo Salvatore, owner of the Central Grocery, started making the sandwiches for the men who worked the nearby wharves and produce stalls of the French Market. The sign over the covered sidewalk proudly proclaims, home of “The Original Muffuletta.”


The sandwich consists of the round loaf of crusty Italian bread, split and filled with layers of sliced Provolone cheese, Genoa salami and Cappicola ham, topped with Olive Salad: a chopped mixture of green, unstuffed olives, pimientos, celery, garlic, cocktail onions, capers, oregano, parsley, olive oil, red-wine vinegar, salt and pepper.

Marie Lupo Tusa, daughter of the The Central Grocery's founder, tells the story of the sandwich's origin in her 1980 cookbook, Marie's Melting Pot:

Most of the farmers who sold their produce there were Sicilian. Every day they used to come of my father's grocery for lunch.

They would order some salami, some ham, a piece of cheese, a little olive salad, and either long braided Italian bread or round muffuletta bread. In typical Sicilian fashion they ate everything separately. 

The farmers used to sit on crates or barrels and try to eat while precariously balancing their small trays covered with food on their knees. My father suggested that it would be easier for the farmers if he cut the bread and put everything on it like a sandwich; even if it was not typical Sicilian fashion. 

He experimented and found that the ticker, braided Italian bread was too hard to bite but the softer round muffuletta was ideal for his sandwich. In very little time, the farmers came to merely ask for a "muffuletta" for their lunch. 

Central Grocery is a big tourist attraction now.  What I really want to know is how the Muffuletta got its name.

Who created the first muffuletta is still a matter of dispute, but food critic and historian Gene Bourg uncovered a likely scenario. He interviewed elderly Sicilians who lived in the French Quarter for many years. "They told me vendors used to sell them on the streets, as did Italian groceries," he says. "The name refers to the shape of the bread. 'Muffuletta' means 'little muffin.' Italian bakers made muffuletta loaves and sold them to Italian delis. The delis then wrapped the sandwiches in the same paper the bread came in, so the sandwich took on the name."

I read that in a 2004 issue of Southern Living.  Makes sense.

According to Mirriam Webster:
Etymology: probably from Italian dial., from Italian muffoletta little muff, diminutive of muffola muff, from French moufle, from Middle French

Have I mentioned I like this ALOT?

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html

Shee-luh.
Shay-luh.
Chee-luh.
Chay-luh.
Shellondra (no joke--this actually happened--at the UA SHC)
Kee-luh.
Kay-luh.

Even when I started working at my current place of employment, one of my managers called my Shay-luh for about a month.  At one of my previous jobs in college, my boss´ boss (with whom I admittedly did not work with very often) called me Chee-luh for an entire semester when I was in his class even though I had worked in his office for two years.

It´s ok.  I´m used to it.  I´m usually genuinely surprised when someone guesses correctly.  Cheh-luh.  That´s how you say it.  Yes, like a cello but with an a.  Yes, I get that a lot.
When I go to restaurants or places where I have to give my name, I always use Rachel, my middle name, to avoid confusion.

Enough.
Anyway.

My coworker Marvin started jokingly/affectionately calling me Sheh-lay-lee.  I never dreamed this was a real word.  Indeed, it is.  Thought I´d share.

So... I just found out Avril Lavigne *groan* recorded the chorus of this Girlfriend song *GROAN* in a bunch of different languages.  It´s just about 24 seconds in each language, but GAH she sounds like she´s purposely trying to pronounce the words as terribly as possible.

My only guess is that this did not go over well considering I never heard about it until now--when I was looking up Shakira translations for the Waka Waka post.

There are two videos I want you to watch.  The first is a short clip of her talking and setting the scene for how terrible this whole project is going to sound.  The second--if you can stomach it--is 25 seconds or so in each language, with subtitles, back to back.





As far as pronunciations go, I think the Mandarin and the Portuguese sound especially terrible.  In the initial video she says she´s going to record  French, Portuguese, German, Hindi, Italian, but in actuality they nixed the Hindi and added Japanese and Mandarin Chinese.

Even though I don´t speak all these languages, it´s pretty obvious someone in charge of this project said, "ok, we want literal, exact translations as much as possible" as opposed to coming up with translations that capture the meaning, if not word for word.

HOWEVER, some translations are straight up WRONG.

• In Spanish, instead of saying "I know that you like me" she says "I know that I like you."
• In Italian she says "I don´t love your girlfriend" instead of "I don´t like your girlfriend" (which is a throwback to this post).
• In Chinese she says "You´re not a secret."
• In Japanese she uses "that girl" instead of "girlfriend."

I just wonder who they got to do these translations? and what kind of language coaches?  and why they failed in even translating correctly?  Even MTV was able to assemble a ragtag team of foreign language experts to have a panel discussion about this project.*  If MTV could do it, why couldn´t Avril?

I don´t even know what the purpose of this all really was, aside from a way for Avril to have fun... in which case I guess she didn´t really care too much about the accuracy either.  Whatev.

*Watch the video of the panel discussion here.

I also happened across* the origin of


Yankee
first recorded in 1683, a name applied disparagingly by Dutch settlers in New Amsterdam (New York) to English colonists in neighboring Connecticut.
It may be from Dutch Janke, literally "Little John," diminuitive of common personal name Jan; or it may be from Jan Kes familiar form of "John Cornelius," or perhaps an alt. of Jan Kees, dial. variant of Jan Kaas, lit. "John Cheese," the generic nickname the Flemings used for Dutchmen.
It originally seems to have been applied insultingly to Dutch, especially freebooters, before they turned around and slapped it on the English.


*OED, © 2010 Douglas Harper

This is for Messy Marv.

I know the World Cup's over, and this probably applies to most Ummerkins:

so I have to do this post quickly, before this song is forgotten completely.

I watched most of the World Cup games live on my Droid Incredible because I was at work during most of them.  I used VCast Videos and had the option of watching them in English or Spanish. As we all know, the Spanish speaking commentators are far more poetic and exciting that the stupid American ones, so I watched them all in Spanish. Before and after the games, this Waka Waka Shakira song played incessantly. --in Spanish. I later learned there is an English version, too.



What is this WAKA WAKA? Soungs pretty goofy. I sure freakin hope it means something to the South African people at least, and that it's not just Shakira's attempt at sounding African and making some fake shit up. That'd be dumb, and probably offensive, seeing as how there are countless African languages that sound lovely whose words she could have stolen from her song to be equally nonsensical to the listeners worldwide.

Let's find out.

A quick Wiki search tells me Waka does mean something in a few languages, such as:

• Waka (canoe), canoes of the Maori of New Zealand
• Waka (poetry), a genre of Japanese poetry
• Waka music, a musical genre from Yorubaland of Nigeria
• El Perú (Maya site), also known as Waka', Maya ruins in Guatemala
• Huaca or wak'a, in Quechua, a class of sacred objects
• -waka, a Swahili term meaning "be lighted"

Whatever.  That doesn´t matter.
The refrain in her song (the part that is presumably African) says,


Turns out the lyrics are in a Cameroonian dialect called Fang, sampled from a Cameroonian song first recorded in 1986, called "Zangaléwa," that was hugely popular in Shakira's native Colombia, (not to mention all over Africa).

Roughly translated:


A great rallying cry, if I do say so myself.

Yeah, this song has been sampled a lot.  Here´s one clip.

Gunabee says:

"Zangaléwa" was recorded by a makossa group from Cameroon called Golden Sounds who were beloved throughout the continent for their silly dances and costumes. The song was such a hit for Golden Sounds that they eventually changed their name to Zangaléwa, too. The men in the group often dressed in military uniforms, wearing pith helmets and stuffing their clothes with pillows to appear like they had a swollen butts from riding the train and fat stomachs from eating too much. The song, music historians say, is a criticism of black military officers who were in league with whites to oppress their own people. Or at least, some of it was. Some of it, as far was we can surmise, is gibberish.

Shakira was brilliant for choosing to sample this song because it's both a tribute to African music, with the World Cup being held in South Africa, and a nod to the folks back home who've partied to this song since way back in 1987 when the song rose to prominence thanks to West African DJ's in Cartagena. 

There was, of course, a bit of controversy about this song being the official World Cup song.  (To be honest, the last World Cup song I even remember was really Ricky Martin's The Cup of Life in 1998.)  The New York Times reports many South African people wanted it to be an African musician to do the song--but in my opinion, soccer is the world´s sport*--and it´s heart is really with Latin America.  Who better to represent Latin America--and the world!?--than Shakira?  I have no problem with her being the official chanteuse.  Besides, she did feature the South African musical group Freshlyground so no one can say a word about not including Africans, come on now.**

Some people also took issue with the lyrics themselves--the English ones (particularly the first verse).  Now this I do agree with, but on a bigger scale.  I know she always writes her songs [that end up being recorded in both languages] in Spanish first, and then she tries to come up with a translation into English for them.  I´ve got to say, I love Shakira´s lyrics in Spanish.  They are true and beautiful poetry.  BUT that just doesn´t translate very well, and I will be the first to say she sounds downright silly in A LOT of her English lyrics.  English is just not poetic enough of a langauge to be a supple host for her allusive lyrics.

Let´s take a look.  I´ll put three versions of the first verse here:

Her actual Spanish lyrics in Waka Waka:





Her translation for the English version of Waka Waka:



Yeah, so that may be a tad culturally insensitive.  African nations are always at war and stuff, and referring to these people as being good soldiers and being on the frontline with everyone watching... yeah, I guess it could have been worded better.


*It´s all about unity anyway, right?  The soccer players featured in her video are Argentinan (Lionel Messi), Brazilian (Daniel Alves), Mexican (Rafael Marquez), Spanish (Gerard Piqué) and Cameroonian (Carlos Kameni).  I think that distribution pretty much reflects the world´s interest in soccer´s distribution, too.

**Ricky Martin was--ahem--equally culturally inclusive in his anthem.  He, too, recorded the song in English and Spanish (yeah I like the Spanish lyrics better here, too.  He talks about having passion, heart, fighting for your star with honor, together, tu y yo!  The world is on it´s feet.  Here we go!) and since the World Cup was in France that year, he even had part of the refrain be in French!
Allez!  Allez!  Allez!

As the launch of the beautiful Droid X approaches, we get emails from corporate every day with little tidbits and facts about the device that we ("wireless solutions experts") can use to further promote it. 

Today we got an email "Droid X, Fact 8: Enterprise Ready" that went on to descibe the corporate features that make the device adventageous.  One of the heading was "Productivity for Prosumers."  I had never heard this term before, and assumed Verizon had made it up, as they are oft known to do.

My thought process was: Pro-sumer, as opposed to Con-sumer.  That's funny.  Pro is the opposite of con.  Clever.  A positive spin on our corporate customers.

Then I did a bit of Googling and found this is actually an established term, however my initial assumption of its origins were proved incorrect.
Accoring to World Wide Words, this term actually first appeared in 1980!  There seem to be two acceptable definitions of the term.

1. It was coined in 1980 by the futurist Alvin Toffler — in his book The Third Wave — as a blend of producer and consumer. He used it to describe a possible future type of consumer who would become involved in the design and manufacture of products, so they could be made to individual specification. He argued that we would then no longer be a passive market upon which industry dumped consumer goods but a part of the creative process.
2. In the alternate definition, the word is a blend of professional and consumer. Prosumers of this sort are famed for their enthusiasm for new products and their tolerance of flaws and, from the marketing point of view, have much in common with early adopters. This usage is common among those selling video equipment, digital cameras, and electronics.  Professional consumer.

I guess, then, that VZW was using the second definition, and I guessed that the first definition wasn't so common.  But then I came across the book Wikinomics by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, and they use prosumer extensively, for example, page 125, where it discusses the social video game Second Life as being created by its customers. when customers are also the producers, you have the phenomenon: Prosumer.

Yes, indeed.

I first discovered bubble tea years ago with Freau at this delicious Vietnamese place here in New Orleans, called Frosty's.  She said it was like a fruit smoothie with tapioca balls in the bottom.  I tasted one and was intruiged by the chewy tapioca--and actually really liked it.  Then when I went off to college, Badass Coffee on the Strip turned into Wickles Wicked Bean and then to Strip Teas.  I can't remember which, but one of these claimed to have bubble tea, but they were "out of pearls" almost every time I asked for it.  I assumed the bubbles and the pearls were both actually the tapioca balls.

THEN! I went to Chicago's Chinatown with the AAQT and we stopped into a place whose name we can't remember.  We stopped into a place that sold boba tea.  I wondered if it was the same as the bubble tea I had experienced, and if so, if it was a deliberate misspelling or simply an alternate spelling.

I skimmed over the history of bubble tea.  Looks like it originated in Taiwan in the 1980s and has become immensely popular in Taiwan and Hong Kong since then.  HOWEVER, it was originally just tea with different fruit flavors mixed in and shaken up.  The shaking made the bubbles, and it became known as bubble tea.  Not until the mid-80s were tapioca pearls added to the tea.  The tapioca pearls looked like bubbles, so this reinforced the already popular name.  But really, bubble tea can be bubble tea even if it doesn't have the pearls.

There are lots of different names for this drink all over the world.  Some interesting ones?

• タピオカドリンク (Japanese): transliterated tapiokadorinku translated "tapioca drink"
• Suco de Pobá (Portuguese): transliterated "boba juice" from interpretation of boba
• QQ: means chewy.  Huh?  (I found a great blagpost about this.)  Q (pronounced kiu) is a common Taiwanese morpheme that no one seems to know how to write in Chinese characters.  This Taiwanese "Q" meaning "chewy" can be intensified by doubling, hence "QQ糖" ("chewy-chewy candy" or "really chewy candy").  Thus Q is clearly well established in Taiwanese as meaning "chewy," and it has been picked up on the Mainland with the same meaning (especially in advertisements).  Since I've never been able to determine a cognate for this "Q" in other Sinitic languages than Taiwanese and no one has ever been able to tell me how to write this Q morpheme with a Chinese character, I have sometimes wondered whether it might not have come from English "chewy" itself.

But what about this word BOBA?!

I've read a couple of different things.
1.  As I suspected! BOBA - From the Chinese word 泡沫, which is in turn derived phonetically from the English word bubble.

2. However, I also read this!  Boba, a Cantonese slang, literally means the "dominatrix of breasts", connoting the image of a busty woman. "Bo" (波) is a slang for the breast which refers to the milk.

How true are these?!?!  I used Khya's secret infallible tool, YellowBridge.

1.  This word,  泡沫, is actually pàomò--which doesn't really sound like "bubble" very much.  The first part, 泡 (pào) means to bubble, to foam, to blister, or to get off with [a sexual partner].  !  The second part, 沫 (mò) means foam, suds or froth.
This all sounds like a good name for what we've described as bubble tea, however, I'm still not convinced it's where we get BOBA from.

2.  Bō, 波 means wave, ripple, surge, storm.  Ok, I can see the stretch by which this could mean breasts.

Let's break it down further.  (Chinese is fun!)  Remember mò above? Put mò and bō and side by side.  沫 and 波.  The little front part that looks like a sideways Y with two eyelashes is common to both of them!  That part, 氵 means water!  It's the second part that's different in these two characters.  In mò, 末 means end, insignificant... which sounds right for making suds or foam.  Water + insignificant = froth.  Check.  In bō, the second part of the character, 皮 means skin, hide, fur or feather (basically any exterior of the body).  I'm not sure that water + skin = wave, but water + exterior could= wave or storm.

More importantly, if in the Chinese subconscious 波 denotes wave or surge but connotes skin, I definitely see how it could come to be slang for breasts.

So in this 2nd argument BOBA referring to breasts and milk and bubble tea, what does the BA mean?  This is just my guess but I found two possibilities.

• 把 (bǎ) means to hold or to grasp, particularly with the second half of this character, 巴 meaning to greatly desire (this is a pictographic character, picture of a snake! whatttt)
• 拔 (bá) means to pull up, draw out by suction.  This is probably the right one.

Ding ding ding do we have a winner?!  I think so.
Bō (meaning storm but implying boobs/milk) + bá (drawn up by suction) must= bubble tea!

DELICIOUS.

(Answering Jon)

Why is Macintosh called Macintosh?  Did Steve Jobs come up with that?  Ummmm... I don't know.
What even came first?  The Mac or the Apple?

Apple Computers, Inc. was established in 1976 (not until 2007 did they change the name to Apple Inc.) and the first computer Steves Jobs and Wozniak built was called the Apple I. 
Why Apple, though??  I'm still not sure.  Various answers float about the internet, such as:

• (WikiAnswers) Steve gave his team members one day time to think about a good name of his company otherwise he will put the company name A for Apple.He got so many name at the end of the day but didn't like any one so he kept Apple.
• In referenced to Sir Isaac Newton. 
• In honor of the Beatles and their Apple Records.  I haven't read anything solid about this being true, although we do know that he is a big fan of the Beatles. He was quoted saying:

My model for business is The Beatles: They were four guys that kept each other's negative tendencies in check; they balanced each other. And the total was greater than the sum of the parts. Great things in business are not done by one person, they are done by a team of people.

• (According to Khya, a new manager at an Apple store) "because it was Steve Job's favoirte fruit, yo."  And later, "At least that's what Steve said when I texted him."

The first Macintosh was not introduced until 1984.  Jobs wanted to name it after his favorite apple, the McIntosh, but had to change the spelling to Macintosh because there was an audio equipment company already named McIntosh.

McIntosh apples are actually really common in North America, used for applesauce, cider and pies.  They're the ones that are red and green!  There are internet rumors that Jobs used to work in an apple orchard, but I highly doubt it.

I was at the NAQT HSNCT two weekends ago in Chicago and Andw and I got to talking about linguistics with one of the teams.  They were really excited because they had recently started a Linguistics Olympiad team at their school. 

I had never heard of this, so I looked into it.  Looks like the North American Linguistic Olympiad is part of the International Linguistic Olympiad (ILO), which is in turn part of the International Science Olympiad, which is really neat.  I love languages because they're the perfect blend of math and art.  This makes so much sense.  I love it when things make sense.

Here's some info about how the Olympiad works (according to their Wiki article):

This olympiad furthers the field of mathematical, theoretical and descriptive linguistics. Like all science olympiads, its problems are translated and completed in several languages and as such must be written free of any native language constraints. In practice, this is often difficult and competitors may gain some advantage if they are familiar with one or more of the language groups which are the subject of some of the assignments. However, the most helpful ability is analytic and deductive thinking, as all solutions must include clear reasoning and justification (as in solving mathematical problems).

The individual contest consists of 5 problems which must be solved in 6 hours. The problems cover the main fields of theoretical, mathematical and applied linguistics – phonetics, morphology, semantics, etc.

Since the 2nd ILO, the team contest has consisted of one extremely difficult and time-consuming problem. Teams, which generally consist of 4 students, are given 3–4 hours to solve this problem.

ILO 5 (2007) was held in St. Petersburg, Russia. The five problems at the individual contest were in Braille, Movima, Georgian, Ndom, and correspondences between Turkish and Tatar. The team problem was in Hawaiian and focused on genealogical terms.

ILO 6 (2008) was held in Slantchev Bryag, Bulgaria. The five individual problems were in Micmac, Old Norse poetry (specificially, drottkvætt), Drehu and Cemuhî correspondences, Copainalá Zoque, and Inuktitut. The team problem was about correspondences between Mandarin and Cantonese using the fanqie system.


ILO 7 (2009) was held in Wrocław, Poland, from July 26 to July 30. The subject matter of the five individual problems covered: numerals in the Sulka language, Maninka and Bamana languages in the N'Ko and Latin scripts, traditional Burmese names and their relation with dates of birth, stress position in Old Indic and the relation between grammar and morphology in classical Nahuatl. The team problem was in Vietnamese.

I'm going to look for some sample questions/problems.  I'll post them here and attempt to work them out, with your help!