Archives For November 30, 1999

A pair of French teachers followed for two years the actors of the resurgence of French in Louisiana: teachers, activists, politicians, students and parents of students. Their documentary, The Choice of Theo , will premiere in Lafayette, Louisiana on January 26.

Theodore Brode is one of the few French teachers from Louisiana. He is part of this generation of Louisians who discovered French in Canada. His ancestors were Francophones, of Acadian and Creole descent, but the 28-year-old grew up speaking English, a consequence of the law that banned French in Louisiana for nearly forty years.

Un duo d’enseignants français a suivi pendant deux ans les acteurs de la résurgence du français en Louisiane : professeurs, militants, politiciens, étudiants et parents d’élèves. Leur documentaire, Le Choix de Théo, sera diffusé en avant-première à Lafayette (Louisiane) le 26 janvier prochain.

Théodore Brode est l’un des rares professeur de français originaire de Louisiane. Il fait partie de cette génération de Louisianais qui a découvert le français au Canada. Ses ancêtres étaient francophones, d’origine acadienne et créole, mais le jeune homme de vingt-huit ans a grandi en parlant anglais, conséquence de la loi qui a interdit le français en Louisiane pendant près de quarante ans.

https://france-amerique.com/fr/a-documentary-depicts-the-rebirth-of-french-in-louisiana/

Astonishingly, despite being copied four centuries after the last reference to his Gospel commentary, this manuscript seemed to preserve the original form of Fortunatianus’ groundbreaking work.

Such a discovery is of considerable significance to our understanding of the development of Latin biblical interpretation, which went on to play such an important part in the development of Western thought and literature. In this substantial commentary, Fortunatianus is reliant on even earlier writings which formed the link between Greek and Latin Christianity.

https://theconversation.com/lost-latin-commentary-on-the-gospels-rediscovered-after-1-500-years-thanks-to-digital-technology-82874

However, like most countries in Europe (or around the globe for that matter), Italy has a large number of local or regional languages that are actively spoken.

Often erroneously referred to as dialects, most of these regional languages take root in Vulgar Latin (the nonstandard form of Latin spoken after the classical Roman Empire) and are thus considered Romance Languages.

These languages are not simply dialects of Standard Italian. Most of them are quite distinct. Instead, they developed long before the spread of the standard Italian language in the 20th century.

http://unitedlanguagegroup.com/stories/editorials/speaking-around-the-boot-the-regional-languages-of-italy/

Pretty cool website that displays with audio recording and transcripts over a hundred different regional dialects of french.

https://atlas.limsi.fr/index-en.html

https://whywhathow.xyz/how-to-a-language-learning-guide/

I would say this is accurate. While I certainly enjoy learning various languages I often do so for my own pleasure rather than for intelligence points. It is rather flustering to be in situations where language learning isn’t adequate to the task. But of course this only serves as more motivation to hit the books with more gusto.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2015/05/johnson-polyglots?fsrc=scn/fb/te/bl/ed/polyglotsthehumblelinguist

Why French?

April 27, 2017 — Leave a comment

In a globalized, interconnected world, foreign language skills are more important than ever before, and yet Americans do not tend to study foreign languages, with only 18.5% of K–12 public school students studying a foreign language and a mere 8.1% of college and university students enrolled in a foreign language course.

Sad. The poor educational techniques and inability to practice foreign languages through immersion play a big part in the poor language language learning statistics. Unfortunately many can go their entire lives without the need to learn another language.

https://languagemagazine.com/2017/02/why-french/

Interesting research on the language acquisition of bilingual children. It appears that the quantity of exposure is not as important to future language success as the quality. Would be curious to further find out why increase in English growth caused a decrease in Spanish growth but not vice versa. I personally would love my future kids to be competent in multiple languages but not at the expense of English.

https://languagemagazine.com/2017/04/languages-develop-simultaneously-independently-young-bilinguals/#.WP_stvdhjVg.reddit