Matha's Vineyard from Martha's Vineyard

The local newspaper from Martha's Vineyard reflect on Labov's seminal study there:


http://www.mvtimes.com/2011/08/16/50-years-language-study-began-marthas-vineyard-6918/


Labov's a sound writer, and you can read the original study here:


http://web.stanford.edu/~eckert/PDF/LabovVineyard.pdf

The Spread of London accents

Dialect change happening now in the UK. Funny how we all live on the south coast but speak a lot like people around the London region...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/05/26/revealed-how-london-accents-have-killed-off-local-dialects-acros/

Dicitonary.com blog

Via A2 student Emily, here's a reminder of the excellent http://blog.dictionary.com/ which contains regular tidbits about language history and change. Great reading for A2 students doing Language Change and Variation.

Words that were invented by mistake

A little video in those words that were 'back-formed' -- produced by misunderstanding of their morphology.

http://sploid.gizmodo.com/words-that-were-invented-because-we-actually-just-got-t-1771890009

Timeline & A Street through Time

From the Making-Revision-Fun department, two suggestions for ways to ground your sense of historical context.


The first we played in class: the Timeline series of card games, which test your grasp of the relative order in which key historical events happened. you can get themed packs and even mix them up; in class we used the green and red packs ('Diversity' and 'Historical events'). Play solitaire or with a study buddy.


The second is from A2 student Emily, who suggested this beautifully illustrated book tracking the appearance of a street through time. Others in the series look at cities, farms, and so on too. You can get hold of these very cheaply!

The history of English can be explained in five words - Quartz

Not a bad selection -- compresses some key points of the story nicely.

http://qz.com/627204/a-history-of-english-in-five-words/

Letter forms and abbreviations - The University of Nottingham

This site collects some useful info about early letterforms and abbreviations, with examples and terminology.

https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/manuscriptsandspecialcollections/researchguidance/medievaldocuments/letterformsandabbreviations.aspx

Aitchison: The Language Web

Superb revision material for A2s. Jean Aitchison covers language change as well as child language development in this series of radio shows which you can get at the BBC on iPlayer. They also have transcripts to read if you prefer:


http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00gmvwx/episodes/player

A Neat Summary of Linguistics

Useful summary, at undergraduate level, of issues and descriptions addressed in the study of language. Pretty good revision reading, perhaps especially for A2s…

https://www.uni-due.de/ELE/NeatSummaryOfLinguistics.pdf

Maps of English Diversity and Change

Nicely timed for A2s beginning study of English language diversity, here are a range of revealing maps that illustrate how English has formed, grown, travelled, varied, borrowed, divided, infiltrated and adapted through its history. 

http://www.vox.com/2015/3/3/8053521/25-maps-that-explain-english

History of English in Ten Minutes

For 'flipped learning' for A2s over the weekend.


Watch and take notes, ready to re-tell the story to each other on the first lesson next week.


There will be a test!


http://www.open.edu/openlearn/languages/english-language/the-history-english-ten-minutes

Internet language

Not a bad article, here, though it's not watertight -- no mention of creative emoticons of the type used in the headline, for instance -- and could do with a clearer model of language functions: it tantalisingly refers to 'interpersonal' communication, but this is just an empty premodifier, I think -- rather than, accurately, noting that most of the forms mentioned really do focus on managing the tenor of Internet discourse, showing feelings and managing human speech roles in the absence of tone, expression and gesture. 

http://gizmodo.com/is-the-innanet-ruining-teh-english-language-_o-1680686542

The definite article in decline...

Interesting, if somewhat dubious, research. The example given from the political speeches is inconclusive -- Obama is taking quite a different sort of opening tack from Washington. Perhaps it is broad rhetorical approaches that are changing; there's nothing inherently 'formal' about 'the', though it'd be informal to use a lot of ellipsis, which might include eliding the definite article. (For instance, if I'd started sentence two of his post 'Example give from political speeches...')

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/15/definite-article-radical-decline-last-century-research?CMP=fb_gu

Medieval Tube Map

Fascinating to see the development of place names over the centuries -- and especially interesting identifying those places which couldn't have their modern names, because they are now named for things or people that didn't exist then...

http://londonist.com/2014/12/the-medieval-tube-map.php

Coffee and Chocolate -- 17th-century style.

This is a beautifully typeset advertisement for a coffee-house in London, extolling the benefits of coffee and chocolate for health 30 years after they were introduced to England. 

http://houghtonlib.tumblr.com/post/98737463496/click-here-for-a-zoomable-high-res-image-and-read

Trees of English and Architecture

The aim here is to illustrate the branching history of architecture and its roots; but the comparison to the history and development of English is interesting too, and I like their diagram. :)

http://www.period-homes.com/Previous-Issues-08/JulyForum08.html


A more English-focused version of the same thing can be found here: http://www.richardgilbert.ca/achart/public_html/articles/publications/words.htm

11 words that are much older than you think

Cheating a bit, but less than you'd expect.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/01/words-much-older-than-you-think-language

Trolling, historically

Did you know that the etymology of 'trolling' was 'fishing'? This 17th century guide explains how to do it.

http://www.dailydot.com/lol/guide-to-trolling-1682/

'Grammar nazis' and Language Change

Great little article on prescriptivism, language change and variation today. As so often, a headline with a question that can clearly be answered 'no', but a good read nonetheless.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/10692897/Are-grammar-Nazis-ruining-the-English-language.html

Texting has changed the meaning of the full stop.

This does seem to be true...

http://mashable.com/2013/11/25/texting-transformed-period/