361: Helping My Language Live – Language Activism (with Margaret Florey)

Imagine watching your language erode away.

How would you help it to stay alive? What can one person do in the face of language loss? There’s good news: lots of people are taking up the challenge and becoming language activists.

Margaret Florey has worked in language activism for decades, and she gives Daniel Midgley some concrete ideas for language documentation and revitalisation that anyone can do. It’s on this episode of Talk the Talk.

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Promo

Here is a corpus. Now there are two of them. There are two _________.

Not an easy question! But Daniel poses it to Teri as they chat ahead of the show.

Check out the relevant Facebook thread.
https://www.facebook.com/talkthetalkpodcast/photos/a.1020661894627269/2745130278847080/?type=3&theater 

Tweetsource: https://twitter.com/ajguydish/status/1122021422400806912?s=21 

Also at https://www.patreon.com/posts/26463560

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Full interview

Imagine watching your language erode away. How would you help it to stay alive? What can one person do in the face of language loss?

There’s good news: lots of people are taking up the challenge and becoming language activists. Margaret Florey has worked in language activism for decades, and she gives Daniel Midgley some concrete ideas for language documentation and revitalisation that anyone can do.

Thanks to Dr Florey for this interview.

Also at https://www.patreon.com/posts/26371992

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Cutting Room Floor

A revealing CRF post. First, we take a look at our social dynamic, and then Hedvig tells about how she approaches her work as a non-native linguist studying Sāmoan.

Also at https://www.patreon.com/posts/26609947

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Show notes

Sweden to get its first dialect dictionary in 150 years – The Local
https://www.thelocal.se/20190318/sweden-to-get-its-first-dialect-dictionary-in-150-years

Synthetic Speech Generated from Brain Recordings | UC San Francisco
https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2019/04/414296/synthetic-speech-generated-brain-recordings

Speech synthesis from neural decoding of spoken sentences

Study Reveals Brain Activity Patterns Underlying Fluent Speech | UC San Francisco
https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2018/05/410606/study-reveals-brain-activity-patterns-underlying-fluent-speech

Synthetic speech generated from brain recordings | EurekAlert! Science News
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-04/uoc–ssg042219.php

Engineers translate brain signals directly into speech: Advance marks critical step toward brain-computer interfaces that hold immense promise for those with limited or no ability to speak — ScienceDaily
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/01/190129081919.htm

Margaret Florey’s Publications | RNLD
http://www.rnld.org/MFloreyPublications

(PDF) Towards a theory of language activism
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/29740069_Towards_a_theory_of_language_activism

(PDF) Towards a theory of language activism | Benjamin V. Tucker – Academia.edu
https://www.academia.edu/24686231/Towards_a_theory_of_language_activism

Language Activism | CoLang 2016
https://www.alaska.edu/colang2016/courses/workshop14/

Become a language activist
https://katelynnlindsey.weebly.com/become-a-language-activist.html

Reviving Indigenous languages – not as easy as it seems
https://theconversation.com/reviving-indigenous-languages-not-as-easy-as-it-seems-68977

The Gloucester branch (first written instance of ‘handsy’) – John Leggett – Google Books
Google Books link

Joe Biden’s handsy behavior creates a problem for Democrats: Is he really the “safe” choice? | Salon.com
https://www.salon.com/2019/04/01/joe-bidens-handsy-behavior-creates-a-problem-for-democrats-is-he-really-the-safe-choice/

Lucy Flores isn’t the only woman Joe Biden has touched inappropriately – Vox
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/3/29/18241598/joe-biden-lucy-flores-touching-women-media-history-explained

Old Norse | so long as it’s words
https://solongasitswords.wordpress.com/tag/old-norse/

The Scandinavian period
https://www.uni-due.de/SHE/SHE_Vocabulary_Scandinavian.htm

shabby | Origin and meaning of shabby by Online Etymology Dictionary
https://www.etymonline.com/word/shabby

Flying is now more energy-efficient than driving | Business Insider
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/flying-is-more-energy-efficient-than-driving-2015-4

Debate Settled: Flying Is Way More Efficient Than Driving
https://www.wired.com/2015/04/debate-settled-flying-way-efficient-driving/

This Graphic Maps the Energy Efficiency of Modes of Transportation, From Planes to Cars
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/features/carbon-footprint-transportation-efficiency-graphic/

BE HAVING A MOMENT | meaning in the Cambridge English Dictionary
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/be-having-a-moment

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UPDATE: Sangeet has made a web page for his language, which has a name!!! and the name is Gahaḷā. Looks pretty great! We’re pleased to have done what we could to offer advice, although Sangeet has been handling the work of documentation most capably already.

Here’s the link, if you want to check it out: https://sangeetpaul.wordpress.com/2019/05/03/gahala/

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Transcript

We’re working our way back through the archives. If you think we should prioritise a transcript of this episode, let us know!