#language rights

[useless-catalanfacts]

Clip from the German stand up comedian Shahak Shapira who did a gig in Barcelona (Catalonia's capital city). He saw it so clearly.

[nkeigbo]

First Nations Vow To Fight Bill 96

First Nations vowed on Tuesday to fight Quebec’s newly passed language legislation Bill 96 in the courts, saying its enforcement would result in weakening of their languages, the exile of their youth and a “cultural genocide” for their communities.

…

Robin Delaronde, the director of education for the Kahnawake Education Center, told the Montreal Gazette earlier the new requirements will put up barriers to success for Indigenous youth.

“What this bill is doing is that it’s trying to assimilate First Nations people, assimilate us into Quebec culture, society and language,” she said.

[finisheachday]

I Lost My Talk

 I lost my talk

The talk you took away.

When I was a little girl

At Shubenacadie school.

You snatched it away:

I speak like you

I think like you

I create like you

The scrambled ballad, about my word.

Two ways I talk

Both ways I say,

Your way is more powerful.

So gently I offer my hand and ask,

Let me find my talk

So I can teach you about me.

Rita Joe

[stingrayextraordinaire]

Another year, another group of my delightful ninth graders trying to spell the word "tragedy" for their Romeo and Juliet assignment.

Last year's collection

[rikaklassen]

CW: medical neglect

Went in for a medical appointment two years ago because I was worried I might have something going on and wanted an informed opinion on what to do and what we can do. Then was told: "Oh no, don't worry about it. Just come in for regular check-ups every few months."

Only to receive a confirmation during today's appointment I do have the condition I was concerned about. And they're just kind of like "oh, we will just have to remove it eventually in the future. It's fine for now."

This annoys me because did research what surgical measures could be done before making that first appointment several years ago to prevent the progression of the condition from getting worse, in which resulted in several sessions and follow-up appointments. I informed myself because I'm deaf and there's no interpreters here. Video relay is atrocious. And I needed to know what we were talking about via pen-and-paper and lipreading.

Gosh, and professionals wonder why disabled people don't trust doctors.

Doesn't really help with my anger at the moment because I did repost a video about healthcare access for deaf, hard-of-hearing and deafblind individuals a few weeks ago.

I am also angry because right before the COVID lockdowns, I did have a friend who offered to interpret for me at the doctor if I travelled to visit them and stay at their place. Even moreso infuriating because I did once have another friend who wanted to go through the process of legal cohabitation, common-law or marriage to make sure I have access to universal healthcare.

[fixing-bad-posts]

sylveon for trans rights and miso soup also

Submitted by @legateamelia

[sysig]

Permission to headbutt: Granted (Patreon)

[i-just-like-commenting]

Text: decoupling pregnancy from femininity means accurate and more inclusive language and treatment, but it also allows cis women to refuse motherhood without refusing womanhood, which is great for feminism and terrifying for misogyny.

--THIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS. As a sterile cis woman who doesn’t want to have children anyway I feel this is every ounce of my being. “Define woman” types tend to do so in a way that excludes me too, so I got to stand with my trans sisters.

[keferon]

Ah mmmm well

You know how in mermaid stories, the mermaid is typically the dumber one? I present to you the "and they were both scientists" plot.

Basically the concept is that mermechs and regular mechs can't talk to each other. But luckily even if they speak different languages they still use the same math~

I discovered a bunch of simpatico mer-fics. So. I wanted to do something with this concept too haha. If some physicist happens to read this - feel free to laugh at me. I know nothing about science👍

I don’t know if I’ll continue this thing. Should I. Idk. It’s midnight I might be going crazy lol. I made that cover anyway bc I love making covers hehe

[Next]->

[useless-catalanfacts]

A football referee expels a coach for speaking in Catalan

Sadly this doesn't make it to most news because it's not uncommon, but I will translate this to give an idea to foreigners of the situations we have to deal with.

Yet again, another Catalan speaker has been kicked out of somewhere just because they spoke in Catalan in a Catalan-speaking country. This time, it happened in a local football camp in Petra (town in Mallorca, Balearic Islands).

While reading this story, remember that Catalan is the native language of Mallorca, and is legally recognised as a co-official language.

During a local-level football match, the football coach of the team UE Petra protested to the referee that a decision wasn't right. The referee told him "we are in Spain, Mallorca is part of Spain, not Spain part of Mallorca, and you must speak to me in Spanish". The coach continued speaking Catalan, since it's the language of the place where this is happening, and the referee proceeded to expel him. This is what the referee wrote in the match's minutes:

In the half-time, the coach [...] after perceiving my communication in Spanish and being reprimanded for addressing me with the words "this is shameful", starts speaking to me in Catalan. When I ask him to talk to me in Spanish, he continues perpetuating his dialect, where I understood some lacks of respect. Since I could not make him stop, I decide to expel him.

At the end of the minutes card, the referee wrote the reason for expelling him as "for disobeying my orders".

The other witnesses in the football match explain that the referee was very rude to the coach and never asked him politely to change to Spanish, only rudely saying "in Spanish!". Later, the referee also wrote that the coach was "perpetuating his dialect", as we have seen. Using the word "dialect" for a language that has suffered persecution, illegalization and discrimination is an extremely loaded term based on bigotry, only used by the hardcore Catalanophobes who defend that Catalan (and other discriminated languages like Basque and Galician) aren't languages because they're not important or respect-worthy enough to be a language, only a "dialect" (understood as a derogatory word).

The football club UE Petra has complained that this referee is partial and "has taken decisions, as can be seen by the wording used in the minutes, influenced on a coach using his mother tongue in the place where it has been official for centuries".

Now, a few days after the game and the UE Petra publishing a statement explaining it on their social media (you can read it here), the referee has pressed charges, claiming that she has been "threatened" when it was posted on social media. 🤦

Can you imagine if this happened to a Spanish person for speaking Spanish in Madrid? Or French in Paris, or English in London? Can you imagine if doctors threw them out for speaking Spanish in Madrid, French in Paris or English in London? Or hotels, banks, petrol stations did? If policemen identified them because speaking it was seen as lack of respect? Then why do we have to accept that it's normal when it happens to us?

You can find the statement published by this coach's football team UE Petra here (in Catalan). Some sources from newspapers who reported on it: Esport3, Ara Balears, Vilaweb.

[nkeigbo]

Thoughts on Technology and Language Revitalisation

Obviously, technology on its own will not revitalise or protect a language. But to dismiss it is rather foolish as the future of a language lies in the youth, not in the elderly or the middle-aged. If no young people decide to use the language or pass it on, then the language die. I think we all understand this.

We also probably understand that a significant part of young people’s lives is spent online or digitally. A language without a strong digital presence is one without much daily relevance for the youth.

Most social media networks and apps do not offer even some of the most commonly spoken languages in the world, let alone endangered ones. This harms these languages because even if a young person does know how to speak it or learnt at school to a tolerable level, if they cannot text their friends in it, use it to browse the web or use social media in it, they might be forgiven for viewing the language as belonging solely in an archaic or academic sphere and not well-suited for modern life. Furthermore, the likelihood of their continuing the use the language may be reduced.

When I talk about social media, I am not talking about Facebook and Twitter necessarily. I am talking about the social media that young people today use most such as TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram and even Tumblr. These platforms only support a few global languages and some major national or regional ones, effectively shutting out other languages from the lives of young people.

Even the traditional social media is not so conducive for endangered languages. Facebook recently discontinued its crowdsourced translation platform and Twitter discontinued its own long ago. WhatsApp is actually available in Irish, though. Localisation does cost money but is it really too much to include even Swahili or another major African language on an app? If they do not want to pay, many language activists would be happy to contribute anyway.

Signal has a crowdsourced translations platform.

Telegram also allows you to contribute to translations.

Reddit also has crowdsourced translations.

Mozilla also uses crowdsourced translations.

You can also type in your language on your phone using SwiftKey (and with predictive text too). A handy tip for those on iOS is to go to Language Settings -> preferred languages and drag your language to the top. This means that whenever your language is an option on a website or on an app, it will be displayed. It will also display date and time information in your language and should also force Google and Bing to be displayed in your language (if these browsers have been translated into your language by the companies). Windows is also available in many languages so visit the Settings section to see if yours is available.

Here is a guide to improving your language’s digital presence:

[biglisbonnews]

Watch this delightful short film about a Chinese immigrant in Ireland Yu Ming Is Ainm Dom is a 2003 short film written and directed by Daniel O'Hara, that's best for the fact that it's filmed mostly in the Irish language. But don't worry, it's quite accessible, even without the subtitles (though they'll certainly help). — Read the rest https://boingboing.net/2023/03/17/watch-this-delightful-short-film-about-a-chinese-immigrant-in-ireland.html

[roz-ani]

Another Alastor I think we haven't given enough attention to

[monstermoviedean]

if you took a language class in school (any level, any language) did your instructor assign you a name from that language? like, when i took french in high school i was assigned a "french name" that i had to use in that class. did anyone else experience this?

[hedgehog-moss]

In French we don’t say “I’ll die on this hill” we say “Je n’en démordrai pas” which means “I won’t unbite this” and I think it’s beautiful