The first few minutes were spent on phonetics and the phonetic representation of the "ng" sound. It is impossible to show on the computer, but kind of looks like a lower case "n" with an tail pointing to the left. If you missed class, it is probably best to look at someone's notes. For the "ts" sound, there is no special symbol; it is simply [ts]. For our use in this class we are learning very broad phonetics, and don't need to worry about all of the different ways that sounds can be pronounced.
We talked a bit about Received Pronunciation, which is the dialect used on the BBC, or the British National news. The BBC dialect is very socially prestigious, and often after young people in England go to University, they do sound like this. It does carry more prestige than our newscasters in the United States.
The Kenyan stories, on p.18, were discussed. The question was whether we thought the police officer and the older men were unsympathetic. Most of the class agreed that the officer and the men seemed fairly ridiculous, and if people want to speak English at a party then they should be able to do so. As far as the French story in Ch. 1, it seemed that both the man and the woman were being stubborn to make a political point. The class did agree that if two Chinese people are speaking in their language on a public bus, then that is their business and we should not care. Most agreed that the people who do care about that are probably afraid that the speakers of the language are talking about them.
Statistics in the United States
213 languages have been spoken in the country's history (note: click here for more information--smh.)
176 living languages - 2 have no mother-tongue and are spoken as second languages
100,000-500,000 ASL signers - the mainstreaming of deaf students is causing the number of signers to decrease
210 million people whose first language is English
600,000 Hawaiian Creole English speakers
22.4 million Spanish speakers
261 million people total in the United States
Of the 176 languages spoken today, many are Native American languages spoken by older generations that are dying out. Therefore, linguists are in a rush to get the languages written down.
Chapter 2
The Chapter is about English manuscripts and change in the look of English.
The first people in the area now called Great Britain:
Paleolithic These people did cave paintings, so they were artistic. They were hunters and gatherers. We have no idea what language they used.
Neolithic These people lived around 5000 B.C. They had pottery and domestic animals.
The Next group of people were the Celts, who lived in what we now think of as England.
After the Celts, were the Romans. Julius Caesar invaded in 55-54 B.C without enough troops to stay. Then, in 43 B.C, Claudius invaded with 40,000 troops and the Romans took over.
The Romans established Latin literacy, and built roads. However, Latin never erased Celtic which was still spoken in the fields.
In 410 the Roman occupation ends and the last soldiers withdraw to attend other military needs.
Celts are on their own with no idea what to do. King Vortigern invites the Jutes to help the Celts keep out the Picts and the Scots, telling the Jutes that they can have the Isle of Thanet in eastern England. Jutes take advantage of the situation and start conquering England, and the Angles and Saxons also join in the invasion.
Now, there is an Anglo-Saxon culture. The Celts were forced into what is now Cornwall and Wales, and that is where the languages, Cornish and Welsh come from.
The earliest GOOD historical records begin with the Anglo-Saxon(Germanic Tribes) invasion.
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