Newcastle United Football Club

With the influx of foreign players(investments) to the English game(soccer league), the language of football in the country has changed quite a bit, or has it? Many English sides, as well as various sides in Europe have players from many different backgrounds and nationalities. With all these players, the problem for managers and players alike is communication. Which language should be spoken, and when is it appropriate to speak which language to whom? That has been a big problem for a team like Arsenal, who have at least seven different nationalities in their starting eleven for a particular game. And the question becomes, although football is a language of its own, the players when telling their teammates to switch the play, or "man on" have to say it in a common language, otherwise their teammates are lost, and thus confusion is sprung on the field. In my high-school, although we have people from various nationalities, we all spoke English to each other on the field, as the "official language" of the team. It did not mean that English was the language of soccer, but rather everyone could understand English, and not all could speak Spanish, French or Portugese. The Newcastle United manager, Sam Allardyce, has a dilemma. He has many players from various nationalities, and not all these players speak English. Emre for instance, speaks Turkish, yet on the training ground and on the field, the official language is English. And it is the foreign players of the club, like Geremi, the captain, and speaker of French, Spanish and English, and Beye, who have accepted the policy, as the right way to go. Because, as Beye stated, they are in England, and it is only best to learn the language of the country.

Machine Translators = easy life...

Here we go again. Our attempt to bring "language" to machines. And yet again, we have failed. Indeed, it is one of those experiments where practice, work, and more practice is going to be beneficial, but, as of right now, nothing is happening. Sentences are going awry, and meanings are completely eschewed. The truth is without presenting a context for words, it is almost impossible to translate anything. Even for a human being, a statement not heard in its original context could mean a vastly different thing. And once we start to misunderstand each other, then the importance of language dwindles. For language's primary function is to communicate. It is the best communicate we have at our disposal. But, I must admit, if google or some other company, were to come up with a precise translator, of about 6 or more languages, then I am all for it. Now, I can get a passage from Greek class, scan it unto my computer, and simply click translate. You see, it is a win win situation. I do not have to spend long hours, hours which I could be sleeping or more importantly watch soccer games, translating Greek. Is it bad? No. And it is simple, I see this as the new version of the calculator. Why do math by long hand, when the calculator is there??

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Google/?p=778
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/071023-115310

"Caveman speak"

Apparently scientists have found DNA evidence that perhaps Neanderthals might have possessed the ability to speak. That is certainly very interesting and casts a very different light on the individuals we have considered unintelligent for a long time. And it also brings up a very interesting point, that we assign intelligence and perhaps value to things that speak. When someone is mute, or cannot speak a language correctly, it is our first reaction to think of that person as less intelligent - when in reality, that person simply cannot speak the language. An example of this, although not entirely equivalent to the last statement is George Bush. He is deemed unintelligent not for his policies per say, but by his speech mannerisms. In the same way, our perception of cavemen, as unintelligent creatures, takes a dramatic hit for the worse, as new findings state that they could possible talk. It is also very interesting, when one thinks about it, is that the use of the word "barbarian." It is a word used to denounce someone as being primitive and rather insulting. Yet, when one looks at how the word was formed, we see something interesting. It was used to describe someone, whom someone could not understand, eg. "blah blah blah", and thus the term barbaric was coined. It was initially used by Greeks to define non-Greeks. And it is interesting that even over the centuries a tremendous amount of emphasis was placed between speaking and intelligence. A great speaker is usually defined as very intelligent, although, he could be very dumb. So I am very curious, if we find one dog, that could speak intelligently, would that dog attain more rights than a mute?

http://www.firstscience.com/home/perspectives/editorials/could-neanderthals-speak_38144.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/20/nbrute120.xml
http://www.hindu.com/2007/10/22/stories/2007102255892000.htm

The Irish battle...

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/article3064773.ece
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/opinion/article3067784.ece
http://www.oceanfm.ie/onair/donegalnews.php?articleid=000001937

A culture is fighting to keep its language alive. It is one of the most unfortunate events and affairs one can watch. And to make matters worse, it is not as though they are trying to keep the language alive solely for the of keeping their heritage. But, some individuals are looking to keep the language alive solely for political reasons. It is a very unfortunate event unfolding in Northern Ireland. Northern Irish political figure, Minister Edwin Poots, faced a major row as he began to announce his intentions of scrapping the proposed Irish language legislation. The main opponents to the scrapping of the bill are the "SDLP." They insist that Irish children should learn the Irish language. Indeed, those individuals who claim to speak Irish, do not speak it at home, and instead speak English. So the question becomes the usefulness of the language. Many parents who want their children to learn the language, send them to Gaelic schools, but that is just about it. They want them to learn their language, but not be caught up in the politics of it. They want them to remember their heritage, but know that they have to speak English, for that is the current language of academia and science. Most of the Northern Irish people fluently speak English. What the world needs is not to pass legislation to keep a language alive or kill it, but to let history and nature take its course. Some things may die out, and some things may live, it is the survival of the fittest.

Belligerent society, warlike language

The blog writer comes up with a very interesting point. The English language has developed so many synonyms for the word and term "war" and "fight" that it is almost scary. The article reports that the long list of synonoms that popped up when she typed in fight, says a lot about what has made human beings human. And in her last line, the author states, - but there are more words that pop up for love in our language than war. It is interesting that the author does not differentiate between the English language and other languages. For English the language and the experience itself is different to that many languages that a comparison needs to be developed in order to see whether belligerence is a thing naturally associated with us. In the example of the word snow, us - English speakers, only have one word for it, while some tribes who live in the snow possess more than 50 words for snow. It is not that the entire human race is belligerent, but the English culture as being belligerent. For when one thinks about it, it is the English conquered the world - bringing with them their language and customs.

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/10/language-as-hum.html

In this case, the author points to the fact the people who are trying to ban the use of Gaelic, do in fact possess Gaelic surnames. And thus, should stop using their last names. Well, I think this is a ridiculous claim by the author. I do not think that Gaelic should be prohibited from speach, but the reasons the writer gives are a bit ridiculous. There is no way those men could choose their last names. It is not they who picked it, but their parents. And last names will forever stay in a family, unless they do not have sons of their own.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/letters/article3056741.ece

Catalona/Barcelona

Being a huge soccer fan, a Manchester united soccer at that, I have taken to watching many soccer matches in England and abroad. And have come across something I did not know existed, until watching Barcelona play. The internal fighting in Spain between Spanish - Spain and Catalonia. Indeed, Barcelona Football club, which is also referred to as, "The Catalonian Giants," have been representing their people for a long time. A footballer at Barcelona "forced" the President of the Club to put into every player's contract clause that they had to learn Catalonian. The player was an activist, but I did not know how serious he was, until he refused to join the Spanish national team, but instead play for the amateur Catalonia rebel side. But, before he refused to play for the national team, he had initially refused to train at Real Madrid, where the national team traditionally practiced. But besides those incidents I never knew how serious the division was within Spain about the Catalonia issue. Now, the Catalonian's are having a special show at hte Frankfurt Book Fair, and they have barred the Spanish media from entering. The books on display speak about the battle the Catalonian's have faced to save their language, after it was banned twice from Spain in 1714 and 1939. I read this and was shocked and appalled at the Spanish government's attempt to ban the language, in essence an attempt to destroy the culture of the people. In South Africa the same thing was done, but not throughout the country, but in the schools. Forcing children to learn in Afrikaans, resulting in the Soweto uprising, where students demonstrated for their right to learn in their own languages and resulting in some students loosing their lives. It is an unfortunate thing in this world that we do look down upon the smaller languages, and immediately reduce the people who speak them to "nothingness." It is a fault we humans have, and a fault we have to work on.

A little opposition

Earlier in my blog, I had spoken about the globilization of the world and of the English language. I had come with the view point that since the world was quickly "uniting" that it would be wrong for others not to learn the language of science and business and academia, that being English. But, there has being another point, which an article dutifully pointed out, which I knew but still do not quite believe or perhaps understand. In the article it was stated that since the world was quickly becoming a place where everyone and everything where becoming interconnected, that it would only be right and healthy to indeed start learning other languages. The languages he put forth were European languages, such as French, Spanish, German and Italian. In that opinion, children in school should be forced to take a language all the way throughout high school. And in taking the language the text of the language should be in the text of the language they are studying, and not in English. And the reason for this idea, was put forth that as people who speak English, we seem to expect everyone else to learn our language, but not so much us to learn their languages. The article stated that without learning languages, as English speakers continued to keep narrow minds and never really understand those around us. Well, I agree with this statement, but I do not think because one only speaks English that one is narrow minded in the foreign events. But, it certainly was a different perspective to mine, and I wanted you, my readers, to see another view point.

unforgiveable

I feel that it is a great dis-service if adults, holding very passionate and narrow-minded views about their home tongue, move into a different culture and do not teach their children the language of that culture. I feel it is the equivalent of depriving your child of an education. Indeed, when one does not know the language of the land, educational opportunities as well as economic and social opportunities fall by the wayside. And for any parent to allow opportunities slip by for their children is in my mind: ridiculous, unfair and selfish. Yes, I am not saying that your mother tongue is not relevant or important - and no one is saying, solely teach one's child the "foreign" tongue. However, I am saying that one should allow and actually force their children to learn the foreign language, to give them a footing in that society. I just read an article today, where the Poles had schools set up to teach their children to speak English in the United Kingdom. And the Scottish people living in Polish communities went to schools which taught them Polish, so that they could learn the language of the "area" within they were situated in. Indeed, that is how it should be, for if one is solely intent on sticking to their language, they do miss a great deal of opportunity - not just that of learning a new language and opening another path of one's brain - but - social, economic and educational opportunities made available in the foreign language all disappear, and that to me, is just unforgivable.