MARY OF ARABIA

New Blog

2011-12-29T18:03:00.002-06:00

Hello, dear readers.

You may have noticed that this blog has fallen fairly silent.

Please do follow me over to the new one, about traveling around the world and learning a new language each month.

It's called 12 Moons 12 Tongues.

Yeah, Canada

2011-12-06T23:54:00.004-06:00

Two stories:

My Polish tutoring client always goes to the same bank branch and speaks to the same teller. Why? Because this teller, an Anglo-Canadian, always remembers Mariusz. Every time, the teller tries to pronounce Mariusz's name better. "It's not easy," admits Mariusz, "for people... who live here." The teller tries his best, and laughs at his own failings.

Today a friendly man with a thick beard came into my ESL classroom to ask for a cup. He needed it to carry water to the Islamic centre in the building next door. "We're supposed to wash before we pray," he explained. Something was wrong with the taps next door. There was an extra Styrofoam cup next to the kettle, and I motioned to it. The kettle is used every day by the Chinese women in the class, who make tea, and also by the woman who came as a refugee from Kazakhstan. These lovely people appeared in my mind as the man walked for the cup. He offered to wash it and bring it back, but I waved away his concern.

Sometimes I hate on globalization, or, if not hate, wonder how on earth we put up with the shit of it. The living away from our "own" languages and cultures (however you want to define those), the constant need to mentally adjust and adapt to new situations or new people, the struggle. But there are good stories, too, of mutual effort, mutual appreciation, and acceptance.

The "one country, one language" myth

2011-11-20T18:09:00.006-06:00

I dragged my mother to the first annual Vancouver Turkish Film Festival to see this documentary. On the way into the make-shift theatre, a man asked why we had chosen this particular movie.

The synopsis, I said, reminded me of Bahcesaray, a village in Eastern Turkey that I had visited for the sake of its name ("Garden Palace"). In this beautifully named village, I had learned a startling truth: Not all Turks speak Turkish, at least not as a first language.

The documentary reminds us of this truth. The pale-skinned, silver watch-wearing, Turkish-speaking teacher from the West is confronted with it when he arrives for his two-year posting at a primary school in the East. Many of his students only speak Kurdish. At once, his task shifts from teaching mathematics and social studies to teaching Turkish.

"He's a language teacher with no language training!" I whispered to my mother partway through.

The title is Iki Dil Bir Bavul ("Two Languages One Suitcase"), but the English title was given as On the Way to School.

Yes, I don't

2011-11-10T20:13:00.002-06:00

"Joe? Do you understand?"

[Joe--Chinese name unknown to me--looks me in the eye. Rests his hands on his round belly, on the belt that encircles the belly perfectly, like the equator. Joe smiles. He is confident.]

"Yes, I don't."

Nobody captures Level One like Joe.

Have/Don't have

2011-10-12T17:14:00.004-06:00

Eventually the adults in my ESL class form two lines, facing one another. I like to start with conversation, and away from desks. The further people are from paper and pens, the more they tend to focus on each other.

"Does everyone have a partner? ... Heidi, do you have a partner?"

Heidi--this is her English name--smiles, adorably, and kind of pokes into one of the lines.

"Mei you," she jokingly complains.

"Mei you?" I joke back. "Here, here, Senem is your partner."

Half the students in the class speak Mandarin, and they laugh. Even the others--the Turkish women, the Kurdish man, and the women from Iraq and Afghanistan--laugh. Mei you means "don't have." You means "have." The grammar and the pronunciation for these are easy, right? It's strange, I think, that I don't know more Mandarin. Or any Cantonese. So many people speak these languages in Vancouver. It would be nice to be able to make more jokes, to get more laughs.

Native speakers, eh?

2011-10-05T23:48:00.003-06:00

Mariusz came from Poland to Canada five years ago. He ties rebar. At his new job site, there are Mexicans, a Russian, and a Serb. Mariusz is happy, because now he can understand what people are saying in English. At his last job site, he worked only with Anglo Canadians. They spoke so fast and shortened words so much that he was lost. And these people were working; they were too busy to slow down and help. Now, with the other non-native English speakers, he can actually participate in English.

"Basics"

2011-10-04T00:22:00.005-06:00

Hello

Hey

"But which one is the best?" Fahad demands, between plaintive and playful. "When I go into the coffee shop, which one should I say to the man?"

I consider.

"It really depends."

"But here, in Canada."

"I know! It depends. On me--how I feel; on the other person--Do they speak English as a first language? Are they stressed? Relaxed? Is there a connection?"

Fahad isn't impressed.

"Ok. If you say 'Hey,' then you let the person know that you speak English pretty well. Because Level 1 kids only say 'Hello'--they see it in the textbook and their teacher greets them with it, even though no one says 'Hello.'"

Now I have his attention.

"From a native speaker, 'Hello, how are you?' is basically another way to say, 'You obviously don't speak English as a first language.' 'Hi' is better. 'Hey' is probably best, unless you don't like the person."

More attention still.

"Because it's so short. The longer the greeting, the more you like the person. 'Heyyyyyyyyyy' means 'I'm your friend. I'm really, truly happy to see you.' If you hate the person, 'Hi' [clipped, short, a blow dart]."

Fahad and I practice our super-long 'Heyyyyyyyyyyyys.'

Because friends don't let friends say 'Hi.'

Providing a new vocabulary

2011-09-24T01:50:00.001-06:00

dandelion

paradigm

hamstring

morbid

imp

tantrum

appease

coy

Learning German

2011-09-12T23:35:00.004-06:00

hand (hand)

kuss (kiss)

haut (skin)

"volke sieben" (cloud seven i.e. "cloud nine")

Scribbles

2011-09-05T23:06:00.003-06:00

My room is filled with the detritus of a reading and writing life. Books and school notebooks, pocket journals and torn bits of paper, photocopies and newspaper clippings. Burning the lot appeals to me sometimes. But how could I toss the following scrap--one of those daily calendar pages, this one themed "Insights From the Dalai Lama"--with the soothing reminder that, "When even one person indulges in spiritual practice, it gives encouragement to the guardian spirits of the land, and to the celestial deities who have sworn to uphold goodness."

Under which is scribbled, in my brother's wild hand,

can you make jello with T3s in it?? will they work?

(His wisdom teeth had just been yanked, and he communicated in scrawl).

German joke

2011-08-31T22:57:00.004-06:00

What's between vier (pronounced "fear") and sechs (pronounced "sex")?

fünf

Haha. I guess it only works if you speak English and know your German numbers.

Vier=4. Fünf=5. Sechs=6.

It reminds me of the English joke: Why is 6 afraid of 7?

Because 7 ate/8 9.

Silly, but great.

I should be writing

2011-08-12T00:41:00.004-06:00

"Your older blog posts were better."

"You haven't been writing much."

"You should be writing."

Yeah, I know. Writer-artist Mary was traded away at the end of August 2010, when I bought textbooks at the UBC bookstore. "Here's my debit card and my creativity." Classes started. Analysis began. Critique. Literature review. Sure, the professors invited discussion and welcomed "I" in papers and encouraged that touchy-feely collaborative atmosphere. But all along, in the back of my mind, knowledge: I am not making anything I value. Mostly we critiqued what other people wrote.

Fear not, though. Grad school ends tomorrow--tomorrow I have my last class. It's in #10 at the bottom of this list.

Classes I've taken toward the M.Ed in Teaching English as a Second Language:

Theories of Second Language Acquisition

Theory and Research in Teaching English as a Second Language

Research in the Teaching of Literature

Advanced Creative Forms and Techniques of Non-Fiction

Culture and Politics in Second Language Education

Theory and Research in Teaching Second Language Writing

Advanced Workshop in Literary Translation

Multilingualism and Multimodality: Diversity as a Resource

Research Methodology in Education

Applied Linguistics for Teachers

The program has been valuable, absolutely. But I really do look forward to talking to non-school people, to reading literature, to personal projects, to writing, to making things I value.

And to being less serious!

Linguistics and kids

2011-07-27T12:30:00.005-06:00

Believe it or not, I've never taken a linguistics class. Now I am taking one. It's my last class in the M.Ed. program. I'm learning that almost all linguists who write about first language acquisition in kids are talking about their own kids. They record the kids at home and in the car and then analyze.

Stephen: I wonder where you get tiger food.

Brother: Tigers eat meat.

Mother: [teasingly] Give it a little boy.

Stephen: [pause] Is a boy meat?

Stephen is four.

Mother: A creature is anything that's alive.

Stephen: [sounding astonished] Are we creatures?

The linguist reporting these conversations, Clare Painter, is talking about how kids learn to draw inferences from linguistically presented information. In the margins, though, I just have "Hahahahaha" and "AWESOME" and "!". I'm less interested in analysis, and more interested laughing at the hilarity of kids. Yeah, I totally want one.

"Normalicy"

2011-07-12T15:48:00.003-06:00

"Seldomly"

"Manipulatory"

"Normalicy"

Heard during a single session of Research Methodology, a class offered to graduate students in the Department of Education.

*"Manipulatory" is actually a word. The fellow definitely meant "manipulative," though.

A way of traveling

2011-07-06T23:45:00.004-06:00

LA FELICIDAD NO ES UNA ESTACIÓN DE LLEGADA, SINO UN MODO DE VIAJAR.

(Something like, "Happiness is not a destination, but a way of traveling.")

--In lettering in front of the Faith Fellowship Baptist Church, which I pass three times a week as I am bussing to work.

Trolls and trolling

2011-06-27T12:31:00.004-06:00

A troll is someone who posts something ridiculous online to get a reaction.

Trolling is the verb for doing this. (Convergent words).

But when people say, "Don't feed trolls," (as in, don't respond to that idiot on the message board), they say so with an image of a monster under a bridge, while when they say, "Don't troll," (as in, don't be an idiot and put inflammatory prompts on the message board), they say so with an image of fishing using long lines off the back of a boat. (Divergent images).

Which came first? Trolling before trolls, surely. And then "Don't feed trolls" was a funny leap off the back of the ship to under the bridge. It makes me furrow my eyebrows.

The words come from totally different places, too.

The verb troll comes from Old French troller, a hunting term.

The noun troll comes from Old Norse for a mythological monster.

Nadir

2011-06-26T11:58:00.000-06:00

The word is so interesting, and it's come up twice this week.

I asked Afsaneh how to say, "No problem" in Farsi. The answer, though I am surely transcribing it with mistakes, is something like "Moshkeli nadire" (MOSH-KAY-LEE NAD-DEE-RAY). This made easy sense, because both the words are familiar.

"Mafi moshkela" we used to say in Saudi, for "No problem."

"Nadir" is "rare" in Turkish.

Then, yesterday, Robin asked for the opposite of "zenith." He was fishing around for a word that he already knew. "Nadir," I put forward, "but it's an Arabic word, I think." "No, that's it!" And so it is. "Nadir" is English for the direction pointing directly below something. It can also work like "trough" or "bottom." Such words are almost invisible, they are so rarely used. Likewise, the spiderweb connections between languages often go unnoticed.

"Nadir" comes from the Arabic نَظِيرُ السَّمْت, nadhir as-samt, "counterpart to the zenith".

Dear Mary

2011-06-08T16:21:00.001-06:00

Dear Mary

Thank you for your dedicated teaching!

You're THE best teacher EVER and I really appreciate it.

Take care, Yoshi

Beat that, other professions!

Love is a bowel movement

2011-05-30T15:15:00.004-06:00

"Sevgi emekmiş"

Can Yücel writes in his poem, "Anladım."

"Emek" is Turkish for something like "effort." Nesli and I searched synonyms for "effort." A huge list appeared: attempt, endeavour, feat, effort, campaign, exertion... bowel movement.

I explained and we laughed for a long time. Sure, love is a bowel movement.

If we all spoke the same language...

2011-05-27T14:06:00.003-06:00

Is a society more cohesive if everyone speaks the same language (and only that language)?

How do you argue with someone who thinks so?

My mom says that all the kids in her neighbourhood played together outside in a big group. Now she never sees crowds of kids like that. The suggestion was made that language plays a role. Our nearest neighbours speak Greek and Chinese as first languages, and yes, I suppose I never see the kids from those houses playing together. But there are other factors, right?

And what about my own childhood in Saudi Arabia? Navaz's mom didn't always speak English to her. Zabrina's never did. Lorraine and her brother had a Greek tutor. Yet we friends were very close.

And what about last year in Morocco? Oriane spoke French first, Maria Swedish, Julia Portuguese, Abderrahim a Berber language, Fatima Arabic, and so on. Depending on proficiency, who else was around, and sometimes mood, we would speak French or English or Spanish or, if people were feeling patient, Arabic. Yes, there was an English cluster within that--Alaina, Caitlyn, Eric, and I could curse, joke, mutter, obscure-reference, and slang-drop together in a different way--but does that diminish the importance of my friendship with Oriane?

And what about Rwanda and Somalia, Sam pointed out in class (these questions I posed during a presentation on identity in multilingual settings). The common language among people in Rwanda and among people in Somalia failed to prevent disaster and war.

These questions are really important, I think.

Gasp! Rasp!

2011-05-20T10:37:00.002-06:00

Did you know they were spelled raspberries?

I did not.

"Fleas"

2011-05-19T00:02:00.004-06:00

There are two sisters from Iraq in my Level 3 English class, a class provided for new immigrants to Canada. The two women are quiet, so I walk over and sit with them. Tonight I noticed one writing in Arabic under new words.

She was not translating, though. She was transliterating--putting the sounds of English into the writing of Arabic.

"Fleas" = Faa + Laam + Yaa + Miim (those are the letters)

I used to do exactly this in reverse! Figuring out how to represent Arabic in the Roman alphabet was a pet passion in Morocco! Some people use numbers. I used capital letters and accents.

Wednesday, I'll show the young women from Iraq my old lessons, which appear as a tangle of English, French, Arabic, and Arabic-transliterated-into-Roman-alphabet. Hopefully they will get a kick out of it.

On the commute

2011-05-10T13:24:00.006-06:00

I sometimes translate things into Turkish for fun.

Kırmızı bir güneş

Denize düşüyor

Ne yaz sıcaklığı!

A red sun

Falls into the sea

What summer heat!

Ay yüksek

Erik çiçeği gölgeler

Yastığımın üzerine düşüyor

The moon is high

Plum blossom shadows

Fall on my pillow

--Original haiku by Soseki Natsume (1867-1916), translated by someone else from Japanese into English.

Garber: a hilarious Canadian author

2011-04-29T11:58:00.008-06:00

I will never forget the way he describes an albino.

It is simple, young and petted and everyone's favourite. People take it for walks along the Quai, keeping their backs always to the sun. It purrs; it whines; it peers into the air in search of objects. Buy it a beer and it goes to sleep; tell it a joke and it cries; draw it a picture and it eats the paper. It is a fine conversation piece and Nora has had it in her room for some time. It lies, stands or sits on her floor like a piece of fleshy driftwood.

From Tales from the Quarter, published in 1969. I am heartened. Hilarious Canadian authors exist.

The importance of being earnest

2011-04-27T14:11:00.004-06:00

In speaking a foreign language, we tend to lose years, as well as other kinds of time, to become gentler, more innocent, more courteous versions of ourselves. We find ourselves reduced to basic adjectives, like "happy" and "sad," and erring on the side of including our "Monsieur"s; and we are obliged to grow more resourceful and imaginative in conveying our most complex needs and feelings in the few terms we remember (like a child rebuilding Chartres out of Lego blocks).

... Speaking a foreign language, we cannot so easily speak our minds; but we do, willy-nilly, speak our hearts.

... And even when we're not speaking Spanish, but only English that a Spaniard will understand, the effect is just as rejuvenating. Reducing our own language to its basic elements, we find, of a sudden, that it becomes new to us, and wondrous. How vivid the cliché "over the hill" sounds when we're explaining it to an Osaka businessman! How rich the idiom "raining cats and dogs"! Speaking English as a second language, we find ourselves rethinking ourselves, simplifying ourselves, committed, for once, not to making impressive sentences, but just to making sense.

Pico Iyer, from the essay "Excusez-moi! Speakez-vous Franglais?"

Monolingualism starts to sound like a disease

2011-04-09T18:06:00.003-06:00

On native speakers of English:

Not only do the majority not speak languages other than their L1 English, but they also tend to be less competent than many non-native speakers in their acquisition and use of accommodation strategies, and instead expect non-native speakers to make all the adjustments. This may in part be the result of their monolingualism.

in the near future, those who occupy the top of the English language hierarchy will no longer be native speakers of English, but bilingual speakers of English who have the skills to function comfortably in multilingual communication.

--Jennifer Jenkins, in her article, "Exploring attitudes towards English as a lingua france in the East Asian context"

It's his attention to detail

2011-04-03T23:07:00.006-06:00

I was asking if you wanted to zone over :-)

I'm stroll staffing it up

Going to head out finnish

Chime over later?

You've sleazy southern airport might not mean what I say, auto text humor! Auto text!

It really just writes hawks

mejor aquí

2011-04-03T23:01:00.003-06:00

Tengo una amiga que se llama Alaina, que una vez me dijo que para ella, el español es un idioma seguro. Nadie ha gritado a ella en español. Nadia ha hecho daño en español.

Esta noche, corrí diez kilómetros y yo sólo escuchaba música en español. Yo quería un lugar seguro. A veces inglés no puede ofrecer eso.

Storch

2011-03-22T02:34:00.002-06:00

A word gift from the Outer Circle (yeah, I'm talking about you, Jojo).

Toe the line

2011-03-17T23:20:00.005-06:00

Toe the line

Tow the line?

No, toe the line!

I'm seeing ships

Sailors

Definitely nautical

Nautical?

Rope

Like, heavy rope

A.k.a. lines

That you tow

What about the party line

Tow the party line?

Toe the party line?

Toes on the line

Runners

Athletics

Now I'm thinking Capture the Flag

Toes

Lines

Taunting

No, wait, respecting the line?

Staying behind the line?

Or is it pushing it?

Like pushing the envelope?

The party envelope

A bunch of sailors toeing/towing lines and pushing envelopes

While playing Capture the Flag

I have yet to find an expressions that bears such a wondrous constellation of simultaneous divergence and convergence in associations in people's minds.

Language is not a thing

2011-03-10T14:36:00.004-06:00

Canagarajah has a bone to pick with linguistics:

"To begin with, the field treats language as a thing in itself, an objective, identifiable product. The field also gives important to form, treating langauge as a tightly knit structure, neglecting other processes and practices that always accompany communication... Inadequate attention is paid to the way in which various language forms and varieties are embedded in diverse environments, perfectly adequate in their own way for the functions at hand."

--from "Ecology of Global English" (2007)

Cool your horses

2011-02-27T11:50:00.002-06:00

More advice from my awesome brother.

Texts from the new year

2011-02-25T02:42:00.005-06:00

This new you is creepy.

How's the body? I know when I've wiped out on my bike, adrenaline gets me to where I need to be then a few hours starts to ache.

Did u put up porters for tandem lang. learning? if so, awesome and if not then we need to break some knee caps.

Hahahah. Sharmuta.

Um who is this? And i don't get pics

Yo yo homie? What good? I just got out da can and lookin 4 sum shorties. U down?

Amazing news so call home!

I'm glad that was g rated because I sent it to your mom first

Can type although im camless and my mother is sleeping in the next room. :)

Agreed. Meeting. Ugh.

We will drink Turkish coffee and everything..

Ridden? Rode? Oh god. English.

A date?!?! Gasp!

WHAAAAA? Where'd you find snow shoes from?

Hey doo you jabbed held?

Oh mah god so hot a canadian text MASSAGE

Happy * day

You are quite pretty, you know

Word of the day: sublime

2011-02-02T10:26:00.002-06:00

Greatness with which nothing else can be compared, beyond all possibility of calculation, measurement or imitation. From the Latin sublimis 'sloping up to the lintel, uplifted, high, lofty, elevated, exalted.'

Thanks, Wikipedia.

A lot of people have thought about what is sublime.

The decline and fall of the native speaker

2011-01-24T23:54:00.005-06:00

A "native speaker" of English is someone who grew up speaking English (though there are problems with any definition here). Language schools all over the world want "native speaker" teachers, so students can speak like "native speakers" themselves. But Evelyn from Chile, Amine from Morocco, and Oriane from France will probably never sound like me. Why is this comparison so important?

"If, on the the contrary, bilinguals are regarded as multifaceted individuals who possess a different, albeit more complex, mental organization, we are finally questioning native speaker dominance and native speaker idealization. In such a case, monolingual competence will be replaced by multicompetence as the optimal state of mind, and experienced multilingual users will have the upper hand."

--Enric Llurda, "The Decline and Fall of the Native Speaker" (2009)

Don't jump the bullet

2011-01-17T20:34:00.000-06:00

is my brother Andy's advice.

Turkish again!

2011-01-10T00:06:00.006-06:00

ikinci defa (second time)

üniversitede daha fazla Türk var (there are more Turks at university)

zaman geçirmekten hoşlanıyorum (I like hanging out)

para biriktirmek (to save money)

bağımsız filmler (independent films)

altyazı (subtitles)

ne kadar zamandır görüşmüyoruz? (how long has it been since we saw each other?)

Hasan and I met for some "Tandem language learning" this sunny Saturday afternoon. His English is way better than my Turkish, but when it came time to switch languages, he was wonderfully patient. I showed him how to take notes when I struggled, and these are some of the new phrases I learned or re-learned as a result. It feels good to be speaking again!

The Many Faces of Treason

2011-01-07T03:00:00.004-06:00

"We will sacrifice our best hunches in favor of some pedestrian norm in fear of betraying the task we were set out to do."

Gregory Rabassa says this of translation, in The Many Faces of Treason. He says that when we sacrifice our best hunches, we commit the worst betrayal of all, worse even than betraying words, authors, and readers. Beyond the task of translating, I think, we often push down our hunches. I have a hunch that at least one person out there will have use for this reference.

Happy 2011. May we overturn some pedestrian norms.

Indian English

2010-12-24T01:11:00.003-06:00

is spoken by more people than Canadian English, by a long shot.

Some colloquial phrases one might find:

"acting pricey": playing "hard to get," being snobbish

to shift: to move (e.g. from one apartment to another)

"loose motion": diarrhea

Hmm

2010-12-14T00:21:00.005-06:00

"My brother is happy?"

I look at Jamal and think back to the last time I saw his brother. Cold, depressed and lonely. Chain-smoking in his tiny Montreal apartment, sipping tea and staring into space. Telling me how tired he is. Tired of living in such a violent country. "Canada," he told me one day through squinted eyes and smoke rings, "is full of violent cowards. People believe they are gentle, but they attack in quiet ways. They use their intellect, their knowledge, always trying to prove they are smarter, more important. The man with no ego is the gentle man. Canada is a land of civilized barbarians"

--From Honeymoon in Purdah, by Alison Wearing, about traveling in Iran.

Quote of the day

2010-11-26T13:18:00.002-06:00

Learning is more discovering how to align with the world than extracting knowledge from it.

--Tim Ingold, The Perception of the Environment

Reading notes

2010-11-25T14:10:00.003-06:00

interactional linguistics

exogenous theory

ontogenesis

"doing being friends"

professional strangers

discursive psychology

(From "A conversation-analytic approach to second language acquisition," by Kasper and Wagner).

extraneural operations

the whole caboodle

007 Principle

linear salience

grounded cognitivism

literariness

fundamental extendedness of human existence

(From "Extended, embodied cognition and second language acquisition," by Atkinson).

Dr. Seuss Quotation

2010-11-17T16:11:00.001-06:00

"Adults are obsolete children and the Hell with them."

Poem moment

2010-11-16T03:54:00.004-06:00

And aren't we all so soft and whole

When, as dark plums on a damp night

We fold into our fallen bodies?

Believe it or not, I have, ever so occasionally, written poetry. I wrote this back in high school. A visiting friend actually remembered it. Thanks, John.

Xenophilia

2010-11-15T14:50:00.002-06:00

We hear about its conservative, angry twin so often.

Awesomely untranslatable words

2010-11-09T02:47:00.004-06:00

Jayus (Indonesian) -- "A joke told so poorly and so unfunny that one cannot help but laugh"

Mamihlapinatapei (Yagan/Tierra del Fuego) -- "the wordless, yet meaningful look shared by two people who both desire to initiate something but are both reluctant to start"

Wabi-Sabi (Japanese) -- "a way of living that focuses on finding beauty within the imperfections of life and accepting peacefully the natural cycle of growth and decay."

Words which, together, make me laugh

2010-11-07T11:45:00.003-06:00

underwater blow job

urban war child

legends of the dhal

"compulsory visibility"

2010-11-04T13:30:00.002-06:00

The anti-veiling laws and sentiments in Europe interest me. They came to mind when I read this:

"Disciplinary power [...] is exercised through its invisibility; at the same time it imposes on those whom it subjects a principle of compulsory visibility."

-Foucault, from Discipline and Punish

Defining "globalization"

2010-10-31T15:15:00.002-06:00

a "multidimensional set of social processes that create, multiply, stretch and intensify worldwide social interdependencies and exchanges while at the same time fostering in people a growing awareness of deepening connections between the local and the distant."

-Manfred Steger, 2003 (He wrote a book on it, anyway).

Concrete poetry

2010-10-29T20:47:00.004-06:00

By Pedro Xisto.

Also by Xisto, I believe.

By Amir Brito.

Quote of the day

2010-10-28T18:46:00.001-06:00

A language is a dialect with an army and a navy.

Poetry fill-in-the-blank

2010-10-27T18:49:00.004-06:00

If you were exchanged in the cradle and

your real mother died

without ever telling the story

then no one knows your name,

and somewhere in the world

your father is lost and needs you

but you are far away.

He can never find

how true you are, how ready.

When the great wind comes

and the robberies of the rain

you stand on the corner shivering.

The people who go by--

you wonder at their calm.

They miss the whisper that runs

any day in your mind.

'Who are you really, wanderer?'--

and the answer you have to give

no matter how dark and cold

the world around you is:

'Maybe I'm a _____."

What's the next word?

(The poem is "A Story that Could Be True", by William Stafford, but answer before you look it up.)

"Julie and Laura were rated as native speakers"

2010-10-22T11:10:00.004-06:00

...of Egyptian Arabic.

Julie immigrated from Great Britain to Cairo at 21 when she married an Egyptian. She got no formal instruction and never learned to read or write in Arabic.

Laura studied Egyptian Arabic in the last year of her undergrad. She studied it at the graduate level, too, and then she settled in Cairo, married an Egyptian, and became a Standard Arabic teacher at a university there.

13 teachers of Arabic as a foreign language evaluated their speech. Julie and Laura were rated as native speakers by 6 of them. Furthermore, the two women were pros at discriminating between Arabic dialects and judging whether sentences were grammatically correct.

BOOM! You have to understand that in my textbook on second language acquisition, this study stands out like a sore thumb. Almost all researchers subscribe to the Critical Period Hypothesis, which says that after puberty, you'll never properly learn a second language, because of some biological change in the brain. Any yet if you travel, you meet people like Julie and Laura rather frequently. Researchers must not travel.

Even for this study, you see the researchers scrambling to say that Julie and Laura are biologically unique ("Julie herself is left-handed and has skin allergies"). No. They created environments for themselves and went for it.

Motility

2010-10-18T14:53:00.002-06:00

...the ability to move spontaneously and actively, consuming energy in the process.

Learning English

2010-10-17T22:22:00.006-06:00

Metonymy: a figure of speech in which a thing is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated. For instance, "Houston" for NASA Mission Control.

Sociolect: a.k.a. a social dialect, a variety of language associated with a social group such as a socioeconomic class, an ethnic group, or an age group.

Cline: in linguistics, a scale of continual gradation.

"I speak English. I'm learning Language X." These two sentences together carry a fallacy. The fallacy is that we fully know our mother tongues ("tongue", by the way, is an example of metonymy, but I didn't know that an hour ago).

Allophone

2010-10-14T18:56:00.003-06:00

...in Quebec, a resident, usually an immigrant, whose mother tongue is neither English nor French.

The word "allophone" is formed from the Greek roots allos (other) and phone (sound or voice).

In 2001, the big groups of allophones were speaking Italian, Arabic, Spanish, Greek, and Haitian Creole.

Ownlife

2010-10-12T17:34:00.002-06:00

...is the term used in 1984 for individualism and eccentricity--considered highly dangerous. It has a nice ring to it, don't you think?

Wiki Friday: Paulo Freire

2010-10-08T14:22:00.003-06:00

He was an educator. In Brazil at his time (1920s-1960s), literacy was a requirement for voting in presidential elections. So he taught 300 sugarcane workers to read and write in 45 days.

Lability

2010-10-05T22:11:00.002-06:00

...refers to something that is constantly undergoing change or something that is likely to undergo change.

I'm back

2010-10-04T18:56:00.004-06:00

exigency

the Foundation

interstices

the seawall

hegemony

the Biltmore

ontology

the Downtown Eastside

I'm back in school (Department of Language and Literacy Education, University of British Columbia). I'm back in Vancouver. I'm back on the blog.

Packing

2010-07-08T09:46:00.005-06:00

Everything must fit in a small black duffel bag. The duffel, until a moment ago, had four tags. I smiled as I cut them off, because not one was valid.

R.B. Leighton.

c/o Nirvana Gardens Hotel

Katmandu

Marian Leighton

c/o Saudi Aramco

Box 9687

Saudi Arabia

If found please contact the nearest Gulf Air office.

Hakiki Koç

Türkiyenin Her Yerinden

Koltuk No: 6

Talk about baggage.

A perfect day

2010-07-06T09:59:00.002-06:00

For the writing portion of an exam, I asked my students to imagine "a perfect day."

"I wake up and I was so happy – extremely happy – I’ve finally taken all of my exams, by that time my best friend called me and that’s an important for him; he had his first date and he promised to the girl that someone will accompany him – I was this person – so I accepted. While I was talking into the phone, Grandma prepared the breakfast, I took a sit in front of the piscine and took it. Then Brahim arrived, and we went together.

As soon as we arrived Brahim became purple, I know that he has seen the girl. While I was parking my bike he began to ask for million time, What am I supposed to do? During the walk I began to ask myself what I’m going to do alone, but I quickly left my frustration she was with a friend of her – a very beautiful girl. I was charmed and I decided to do something, first, I told her some jokes, after this I had conversation with her, during this conversation I felt like a strange feeling – it was love. Suddenly I asked her if she wanted to be my girlfriend, I didn’t know what I was doing and thank’s god she accepted.

That the best moment of my life. When it was time to leave she gave me her number and we promised to see each other the end of day.

Brahim and I were like dreaming."

Chatting

2010-07-01T07:39:00.003-06:00

Nidalha

hey!!

10:11pm

hey!!

comment vas tu??

10:12pm

Nidalha

whats up?

well thank u

10:12pm

not much

are you in tetouan?

10:12pm

Nidalha

and u?

10:13pm

yeah

we should meet up!

10:13pm

Nidalha

peut etre apre demain je vais voyager a agadir

10:13pm

apres demain!?!

10:13pm

Nidalha

so tomorow if u wante

10:14pm

donc, nous devons rejoindre

oui

je vais manger a la union

a 1.30 ou 2H

ca marche pour toi?

10:15pm

Nidalha

non parce que je serais a inba

4hok?

10:16pm

oui

ou?

10:16pm

Nidalha

cool

10:16pm

donde?

10:16pm

Nidalha

le voyage bien passé?

10:17pm

oui, absolutement

mais 4H demain...fayn?

10:18pm

Nidalha

f cafe paris

10:18pm

bon!

10:18pm

Nidalha

cool

10:18pm

a demain, et je dirai alaina, aussi

10:19pm

Nidalha

ouiiii

c bon

10:19pm

coooool

ciao ciao

10:19pm

Nidalha

bslama

thlay frask

10:20pm

haha

10:20pm

Nidalha

ossalmi 3a alaina

biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiz

Two Important Swedish words

2010-06-30T08:06:00.000-06:00

Lagom

Just right. Like Goldilocks and the bowl of porridge that's not too much or too little, but just right. Jojo says the word came about when some Vikings were sitting in a post-battle party circle, sharing a big bowl of mead, and the bowl got all the way around, ending on the last man. "Mmm...lagom."

Mysigt

Cosy.

Tuesday poetry

2010-06-29T08:58:00.007-06:00

We make ourselves a place apart

Behind light words that tease and flout

But oh, the agitated heart

Till someone find us really out.

'Tis pity if the case require

(Or so they say) that in the end

We speak the literal to inspire

The understanding of a friend.

But so with all, from babes that play

At hide-and-seek to God afar,

So all who hide too well away

Must speak and tell us where they are.

--"Revelation", by Robert Frost

I'm back in Morocco, after a whirlwind trip through Spain, Denmark, and Sweden.

One Word:

2010-06-20T01:35:00.002-06:00

Midsummer.

Hmm

2010-06-13T15:14:00.002-06:00

"The price of self-destiny is never cheap, and in certain situations it is unthinkable. But to achieve the marvelous, it is precisely the unthinkable that must be thought."

--Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume

Soon I won't be a teacher

2010-06-11T05:42:00.001-06:00

No more teaching outfits

No more students

No more arriving early

No more markers

No more lesson plans

No more attendance sheets

No more teacher’s books

No more whiteboards

No more “sh…”

No more student conflict

No more behavior problems

No more spelling things like an American

No more having to say, “I’m a Canadan, actually."

No more first day introductions

No more, “Here are the rules.”

Falsafa

2010-06-08T09:14:00.003-06:00

åndi falsafa f lHayat: ida åishti Tawilan, kulshi li tåalimti ghadi ykun mustaåmal.

I have a philosophy for life: If you live long enough, everything you learn will come in handy.

Hta darija.

Even Darija.

*Did you notice that "philosophy" is "falsafa"? How sweet is that? I've been studying Arabic for eight months, and that is my first holy-crap-look-at-that English-Arabic cognate.

Why I can't imagine a serious relationship in another language

2010-06-07T15:09:00.002-06:00

“I kissed him on the cheek and suddenly understood the distance that separates words from communion. You need very many words and even more pauses, and thousands of tiny motions, so slight that they are barely noticeable even to the trained eye; you need an even larger palette of tones, merely to signal misunderstanding; you have to pass through all of this before you reach a state where you know that your meaning and your words are one, no more and no less, and that they are instantaneously grasped by the person for whom they are meant. Before you achieve this, you need recourse to many lies.”

From Leaves of Narcissus, by Somaya Ramadan (Egyptian), from The Anchor Book of Modern Arabic Fiction.

Everything is fine

2010-06-05T14:49:00.003-06:00

The process of cultural adjustment, which is also known as the U-shaped curve of cultural adjustment, encompasses five distinct stages:

Stage 1: The feeling of excitement and eagerness. This stage occurs before leaving to go to the new culture.
Stage 2: The feeling that everything in the new culture is great. This stage occurs upon arrival to the new culture.
Stage 3: The feeling of everything in the new culture is terrible.
Stage 4: The feeling of adjustment. The stage where the visitor begins to feel comfortable and takes steps to become more familiar with the culture.
Stage 5: The feeling that everything is fine. The stage where the visitor has adapted to the culture and in some ways is embracing it as their own.

(Wikipedia)

"Benevolence"

2010-06-01T10:15:00.002-06:00

“The woman noticed that her daughter had slowed down and her movements were sluggish as if she had to drag her body along.”

[Upon finding her daughter pregnant, the woman leads her out into the desert to a small village, where…]

“A man passed by them and saw the woman crying. He stopped and asked what the matter was. He was big, his bones were well defined, and his neck thick. She told him her story.

The man looked toward the girl who lowered her face. He contemplated the situation while the woman continued complaining that her husband had died without leaving her a boy.

The man said to himself, ‘Be kind for once. Here is a weak woman with no man to help her.’

He was a professional killer, robber and thief, but times change. He said to himself, ‘Old age has begun to creep up on me and I have nothing left. Any action I take, I pay the price even more now.’

He patted the woman’s shoulder and comforted her. He carried her belongings and led the procession to his home. At home he served them food, which they ate, and then prepared a bed for them, telling the woman to sleep peacefully and let him take charge of her worries.

As night descended on the village, the man approached the girl and broke her neck. He put the body into a sack, carried it to the river and dumped it in. He then lighthertedly returned home.

In the morning he prepared breakfast for the woman and placed her and her belongings on a donkey. As he walked beside the donkey back to the village the woman raised her face to heaven and muttered prayers thanking God for the man.”

--“Benevolence,” by Sabri Moussa, from The Anchor Book of Modern Arabic Fiction.

Wiki Friday: Jay-Z's rapping technique

2010-05-28T03:19:00.004-06:00

Royce de 5’9’’ and Fredo Starr of Onyx both describe Jay-Z’s emphasis on flow in the book How to Rap – Fredo says that Jay-Z is “a master of the flow—he can flow fast, he can flow slow”. The book describes how Jay-Z uses ‘rests’ to provide structure to a verse and how he uses ‘partial linking’ to add more rhymes to a verse.

So, what is “flow”?

“The rhythms and rhymes” of a hip-hop song's lyrics and how they interact. 'Flow' is also sometimes used to refer to elements of the delivery (pitch, timbre, volume) as well, though often a distinction is made between the flow and the delivery.

Staying on the beat is central to rap's flow – many MCs note the importance of staying on-beat. MCs stay on-beat by stressing syllables in time to the four beats of the musical backdrop.

Poetry scholar Derek Attridge describes how this works in his book Poetic Rhythm – “rap lyrics are written to be performed to an accompaniment that emphasizes the metrical structure of the verse”. He says rap lyrics are made up of, “lines with four stressed beats, separated by other syllables that may vary in number and may include other stressed syllables. The strong beat of the accompaniment coincides with the stressed beats of the verse, and the rapper organizes the rhythms of the intervening syllables to provide variety and surprise”.

Beginner Four

2010-05-25T10:02:00.004-06:00

"Teacher, are you a vegetable?"

Life in translation

2010-05-15T00:04:00.000-06:00

Sixteen hours of Darija down.

(1)

Where's the bus?

Fayn ilkar?

(2)

This is my brother. His name is Andy.

Hada khayi. Ismu Andy.

(3)

Figs

Karmuz

(4)

See you next week.

Nshufak l usbuwå limaji.

(5)

Maria's baby is really cute.

Beybi d Maria drif bzef.

(6)

I need more vocabulary.

Khasni l kelimat ktar.

(7)

We're going to go south, because there are a lot of flowers there.

Ghadi nimshiyu n l janub, Hit kayn bzef d zuhur tima.

(8)

I'll stay here for 10 months in total. For me, that's a long time in one place.

Ghadi nbqa hinaya åashara shuhur f l majmuwå. Lili, hada waqt tawil f waHid l makan.

(9)

I want to swim, but the pool here is closed.

Bghit nåum, walakin bisin hinaya mishdud.

(10)

I want to continue and learn different dialects in different Arab countries. In Canada, maybe I can help new immigrants who speak Arabic. That's the idea.

Bghit nkimil wa ntålam darijat mukhtalifa f l buldan l årabia. F Kanada, yimkin nqdar nsåid muhajirin jdadin li kaytklmu l årabia. Hadi hia l fikra.

(11)

Melodee is doing a Ph.D here, about illiterate women in government.

Melodee katåmal doktora hinaya åla lmara lumia f l Hukuma.

(12)

This is why I like Turkish: I only learned the things I needed...to live, to shop, to talk to people.

Hakda ålesh katåjbni turkia: tålimt ghir l hajat li kanHataj... besh nåysh, nshri, nhdar må nes.

(13)

I'm tired.

Ana åyana.

(14)

I feel bad, because I lived in Saudi Arabia for years and didn't learn more than 10 words of Arabic. I know, it's a real shame. But everyone worked for the same company, and the language of the company was English.

KanHis qabih, Hit åisht f såudia khilel sanawat wa ma tålmt shi ktar min åashara d l kelimat d l årabia. Kanårif, liasaf shadid. Walakin kulhum khudmu f nefs sharika, wa lugha d sharija kanat l injilizia.

(15)

I go to Turkey every summer.

Kanimshi n turkia kul sayf.

(16)

I feel frustrated, because I'm learning Darija, but I'm not speaking a lot. I feel like if I stop, just for a few days, I'll forget everything.

KanHis bshwiya d inziåj, Hit kantålam darija, walakin ma kanhdar shi bzef. KanHis faHal ida waqaft shwia d l ayam, ghadi ninsa kulshi.

Wiki Friday: Prison

2010-05-14T10:06:00.003-06:00

It's been around forever, right?

For most of history, imprisoning has not been a punishment in itself, but rather a way to confine criminals until corporal or capital was administered. Only in the 19th century, beginning in Britain, did prisons as we know them today become commonplace. The modern prisons system was born in London, as a result of the views of Jeremy Bentham. The notion of prisoners being incarcerated as part of their punishment and not simply as a holding state until trial or hanging, was at the time revolutionary.

It deters people, right?

Meta-analysis shows that prison sentences do not reduce future offenses, when compared to non-residential sanctions. This meta-analysis of one hundred separate studies found that post-release offenses were around 7% higher after imprisonment compared with non-residential sanctions, at statistically significant levels. Longer periods of time in prison make outcomes worse, not better; offending increases by around 3% as prison sentences increase in length.

It's only for pretty bad people, right?

As of 2006, it is estimated that at least 9.25 million people are currently imprisoned worldwide.

The leader in just about everything...

In absolute terms, the United States currently has the largest inmate population in the world, with more than 2½ million or more than one in a hundred adults in prison and jails. Although the United States represents less than 5% of the world's population, over 25% of the people incarcerated around the world are housed in the American prison system.

Approximately half of the U.S. jail population consists of pretrial detainees who have not been convicted or sentenced.

"Les plus beaux prénoms d'aujourd'hui"

2010-05-13T16:27:00.005-06:00

A book of "the most beautiful" French baby names came under my possession today. The authors included all sorts of tidbits, from "origine" to "symbolique." Character descriptions are funny:

Passionné et nerveux, colérique et secret, Pierre n'est pa un homme facile.

I've heard that Mary means bitter, but the book describes Marie as coming from the Hebrew mar-yam, meaning "goutte de mer." Same idea, since the taste of the sea is indeed bitter, but that's much more poetic.

If I have a daughter, she's Margot: une indépendante-née. Elle entend bien faire respecter son besoin de solitude. Prudents dans ses amitiés, elle est exigeante et n'accorde pas facilement sa confiance. Elle a une forte personnalité, mais elle fuit l'aggressivité et les tensions qui la déstabilisent.

Plus, the authors say there is a connection between Margot and November 16th, which happens to be my birthday. Cool.

Belated Wiki Friday: Africa

2010-05-11T06:25:00.004-06:00

How many countries, anyway?

The continent has 54 states, including Madagascar, various island groups, and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic whose statehood is disputed by Morocco.

Was everyone colonized?

In the late nineteenth century, the European imperial powers engaged in a major territorial scramble and occupied most of the continent, creating many colonial territories, and leaving only two fully independent states: Ethiopia and Liberia. Egypt and Sudan were never incorporated into any European colonial empire, however, after the British occupation of 1882, the country was effectively under British administration until 1922.

Is there a union?

The African Union (AU) is a 53 member federation consisting of all of Africa's states except Morocco.

This happened, so then that happened

2010-05-03T06:38:00.000-06:00

"Called the Whorfian Principle of linguistics, after Benjamin L. Whorf, who proposed it, the theory (simplified here) contends that the language each of us speaks is a product of the society we live in. Our language, like our culture, to some extent predetermines what we can perceive.

...Thus, Whorf indicates, all cultures are linguistically--therefore perceptually--limited, because no one culture or language encompasses all the possible attitudes in the universe. English, for instance, predisposes its speakers to think and act in linear ways, to assume causality, logic, connectedness, and ordinal sequences, because there is such a preponderance of words in our language having to do with lines, points, edges, sequences, causes, and consequences: "line of sight," "point of view," "on the verge of," "chain of command," "sequence of events," and so forth. English speakers therefore are limited in their capacity to understand nonlinear ideas, such as those in Oriental philosophies.

...the reverse may also be true: the greater the stock, the greater the possibility of perception; the more words and structures available for reference, the better our chance of understanding and (we hope) the less likely we are to be trapped in a limited or jangled construction of reality. Vocabulary may extend the capacity to understand."

From How Language Works.

"Tenemos una problema con los pajaros"

2010-05-02T06:54:00.005-06:00

Birds in vents, like bugs in dates or ants on the counter, are the little things that make expatriates throw temper tantrums. The housewife calls her husband in tears--"I'm not fucking living in this hellhole anymore!"--not because the new culture denies her opportunity to work, or requires her to cover her head, or takes her away from friends and family, but because there are weevils in the flour, which she discovered when she went to make cookies that morning.

I woke up to birds in the house, again. It's been a week-long saga, women vs. birds. It began when Alaina found two dead under the window; while we slept, they had battered and exhausted themselves in their efforts to escape. "But where did they come from?" we asked. Alaina identified the source--the vent in the kitchen above the water heater, which connects to the great outdoors. They had built a nest up there. Since then, one or two fall down the vent each day and must be guided out through a window or door.

It took a few days for an action plan to emerge. Alaina talked to The Haj, our neighbour. I haven't been keen on The Haj since he told me in Spanish that I didn't speak Spanish ("Pero..."). I've come back around, though, because we both agree on siestas. Anyway, Alaina and The Haj together bought a metal contraption to block the birds from entering from outside. Before we applied it, we had to to get the man who delivers the gas tanks to come up and clean out the nest.

As of this morning, the man who delivers the gas tanks had not come. Two birds had fallen through the vent and it was not even 11AM. I knocked on The Haj's door. "Tenemos una problema con las pajaros." He saw the wildness in my eyes (Plus, having woken to birds, I had not brushed my teeth or brushed my hair). He jumped into action.

And here is where the weevils and bugs and ants and birds are balanced by the humanity of dealing with such problems. In North America, getting someone to come and fix something for you requires a phone call, an appointment, maybe half an hour with customer service, and then a wait. The Haj went downstairs, found the man who delivers the gas tanks, and came back up, bringing his own ladder. Fifteen minutes and two full bags of nest later, the metal contraption was in place and sanity was restored to our home. The Haj suggested I tip the man who delivers gas tanks 10 dirhams ($1.10), which I already had in hand for the occasion. Bueno.

Damn you, Aristotle

2010-05-01T12:29:00.004-06:00

"If our language is full of two-valued terms, like "up"/"down," "black"/"white," "good"/"bad," "either"/"or," "always"/"never," then will we not inevitably begin to think in such terms? Will we not perceive the universe itself, and human beings, and values, as being this or that, yes or no, A or Not-A, with only two choices possible? And--the universe, human beings, and value being rather more slippery and less divisible than that--will we not inevitably come to misunderstand, oversimplify, and reduce what we perceive?"

From How Language Works.

Wiki Friday: Canadian immigration

2010-04-30T05:19:00.004-06:00

Holy crap:

Statistics Canada projects that, by 2031, almost one-half of the population over the age of 15 will be foreign-born. The number of visible minorities will double and make up the majority of the population of cities in Canada.

Where are they from?

In 2006, Canada received 236,756 immigrants. The top ten sending countries, by state of origin, were

1. People’s Rpublic of China (28,896)

2. India (28,520)

3. Philippines (19,718)

4. Pakistan (9,808)

5. United States (8,750)

6. United Kingdom (7,324)

7. Iran (7,195)

8. South Korea (5,909)

9. Colombia (5,328)

10. Sri Lanka (4,068)

The top ten source countries were followed closely by France (4,026), and Morocco (4,025), with Romania, Russia, and Algeria each contributing over 3,500 immigrants.

How do we choose which ones to let in?

In Canada there are three categories of immigrants:

1. Family Class (closely related persons of Canadian residents)

2. Independent Immigrants (admitted on the basis of a point system that account for age, health and labour-market skills required for cost effectively inducting the immigrants into Canada's white-collar or blue-collar labour market), and

3. Refugees seeking protection by applying to remain in Canada.

In 2008, there were 65,567 immigrants in the family class,149,072 economic immigrants, and 21,860 refugees.

How do they become citizens?

Under Canadian nationality law an immigrant can apply for citizenship after living in Canada for 1095 days (3 years) in any 4 year period.

Fun fact:

One of the largest groups to immigrate to Canada were the Scottish. The first Canadian prime minister, John A. Macdonald, was a Scot from Glasgow. His successor, Alexander Mackenzie, was also born in Scotland.

How to be unimpressed in Darija

2010-04-29T11:19:00.005-06:00

Ana åyana.

I'm tired.

Ma bghit shi nahdar.

I don't want to talk.

Safi, mshi.

Go away.

Khalini biwahdi.

Leave me alone.

W qaf.

Stop.

Baraka ma tahdar måya.

Stop talking to me.

Ma kayhimni shi.

I'm not interested.

Ma shi shughli.

I don't care.

"So, what's your story?"

2010-04-26T10:44:00.002-06:00

An American visits our printmaking class. He is the guest lecturer for Tetouan's "poster festival." He speaks no French or Arabic, so he inevitably gravitates toward me, the only English-speaker in the class.

"So, what's your story?"

And you know what? I tell him, with ease. Some things will be very hard in North America, but chatting--this will be easy.

Wiki Friday: Ryanair

2010-04-23T07:23:00.003-06:00

Kind of romantic, actually:

The airline began with a 15-seat aircraft, flying between Waterford and London Gatwick with the aim of breaking the duopoly on London-Republic of Ireland flights at that time, held by British Airways and Aer Lingus.

In 1986, the company added a second route – flying Dublin-Luton International Airport, in direct competition to the BA/Aer Lingus duopoly for the first time. Under partial EU Deregulation, airlines could begin new international intra-EU services, as long as at least one of the two governments gave approval (the so-called "double-disapproval" regime). The Irish government at the time refused its approval, in order to protect Aer Lingus, but Britain, under Thatcher’s pro-free-market Conservative government, approved the service.

With two routes and two planes, the fledgling airline began.

But seriously, how is it so cheap?

1. online booking

The airline launched its website in 2000, with online booking initially said to be a small and unimportant part of the software supporting the site. Increasingly the online booking contributed to the aim of cutting flight prices by selling direct to passengers and excluding the costs imposed by travel agents. Within a year the website was handling three-quarters of all bookings. Today it is only possible to book seats via the website or via the "Ryanair direct" call-centre.

2.. september 11^th

In 2001, the airline ordered 155 new Boeing 737-800 series aircraft at what was believed to be a substantial discount, taking full advantage of the downturn in aeroplane orders after the slump in air travel following the September 2001 aircraft attacks in the United States, to be delivered over eight years from 2002 to 2010.

3. the EU

In 1992, the European Union’s deregulation of the air industry in Europe gave carriers from one EU country the right to operate scheduled services between other EU states and represented a major opportunity for Ryanair.

4. sell other stuff to passengers

Much of Ryanair's revenue is generated from ancillary revenue that is income from other sources than ticket fares. In 2009 ancillary revenue was at €598 million, compared to a total revenue of €2,942 million.

5. simplify the plane

New Ryanair aircraft have been delivered with non-reclining vinyl seats, no seat-back pockets, safety cards stuck on the back of the seats, and life jackets stowed overhead rather than under the seat. This allows the airline to save on aircraft costs and enables faster cleaning and safety checks during the short turnaround times. It was reported in various media that Ryanair wanted to order their aircraft without window shades; however, the new aircraft do have them as it is required by the regulations of the Irish Aviation Authority.

6. make the airports compete

Ryanair negotiates extremely aggressive contracts with its airports, demanding very low landing and handling fees, as well as financial assistance with marketing and promotional campaigns. In subsequent contract renewal negotiations, the airline plays airports off against each other, threatening to withdraw services and deploy the aircraft elsewhere, if the airport does not make further concessions.

7. don’t fly to major hubs

Ryanair prefers to fly to smaller or secondary airports to reduce costs and fees. For example Ryanair does not fly to the main Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport. It instead flies to Beauvais, 85 km from Paris.

Still, it’s incredible.

Wiki Friday: Sweden

2010-04-23T07:19:00.004-06:00

1. landscapes and self-identification

Sweden has 25 provinces or landskap (landscapes), based on culture, geography and history. While these provinces serve no political or administrative purpose, they play an important role for people's self-identification.

2. talent, technology, and tolerance

According to the book, The Flight of the Creative Class, by the U.S. economist Professor Richard Florida, Sweden is ranked as having the best creativity in Europe for business and is predicted to become a talent magnet for the world's most purposeful workers. The book compiled an index to measure the kind of creativity it claims is most useful to business—talent, technology and tolerance.

3. equal and developed

After World War II a succession of governments increased the welfare state and the tax burden, and Sweden's GDP per capita ranking fell from the 4th to 14th place. However during this time Sweden radically changed from a divided and often extremely unequal society into one of the most equal and developed on earth. The consistent growth of the welfare state led to Swedes achieving unprecedented levels of social mobility and quality of life—to this day Sweden consistently ranks at the top of league tables for health, literacy and Human Development—far ahead of some much wealthier countries (for example the United States).

4. happy exceptions: food, transportation, and books

Since the late 1960s, Sweden has had the highest tax quota in the industrialized world. In addition, a national VATof 25% is added to many things bought by private citizens, with the exception of food (12% VAT), transportation, and books (6% VAT).

5. not content with providing its own citizens with free university, it offers it to everyone in the world, too

There are a number of different universities and colleges in Sweden. Only a few countries such as Canada, the US, Japan, and South Korea have higher levels of tertiary education degree holders. Along with several other European countries, the government also subsidises tuition of international students pursuing a degree at Swedish institutions, although there has been talk of this being changed.

6. do what you want, with whomever you want

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s Sweden was seen as an international leader in what is now referred to as the “sexual revolution,” with gender equality having particularly been promoted. The number of single people is one of the highest in the world. Sweden has also become, in recent decades, fairly liberal regarding homosexuality, as is reflected in the popular acceptance of films such as Show Me Love, which is about two young lesbians in the small Swedish town of Åmål. Since 1 May 2009, Sweden repealed its "registered partnership" laws and fully replaced them with gender-neutral marriage.

There's a Christian in my class!

2010-04-21T03:55:00.003-06:00

His name is Christian, that is. He's Argentinean, and his father has a coffee machine company which brings the family to Morocco.

Between Galapagos and here, my classes have been painfully mono-cultural. I miss teaching in Vancouver, with students from Mexico, Turkey, France, and Poland. Even in Saudi, I had students from Colombia and Peru. The conversations that stemmed from, "Well, in my country..." were countless and wonderful.

At last, diversity!

#17 of Things I'll Miss About Morocco

2010-04-16T17:55:00.003-06:00

Tout le plaisir est pour moi de te revoir, amuse toi bien dans ton voyage...Et c avec joie que je t'attendrai pour boir un thé, gros bisous et bon voyage.

#17: Flowery French texts

Wiki Friday: Roses

2010-04-16T07:05:00.005-06:00

In Andalusian choir, we sang a song:

...fi kul alward, alward, wa susani

min afnani, bustani

ughanilak, ughanilak, ughanilak

The last line is, "I sing for you, I sing for you, I sing for you," and before that, "in each rose, each rose," and other flowers in the garden. "Kul" is each. "alward" is "the rose."

Imagine my surprise today, in discovering that these two words, "rose" and "ward," have the same root. Rose comes from French, itself from Latin, rosa, which was borrowed from Greek, rhodion, which in Aeolic was wrodion, which came from Old Persian, wurdi. In Arabic, ward is the singular (one rose), and wurud is the plural (roses). You can see the word morphing along with time. So cool.

Rose trivia:

In Rome, a wild rose was placed on the door of a room where secret of confidential matters were discussed. The phrase sub rosa, or "under the rose," means to keep a secret.

Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses.

--James Oppenheim

Here in Morocco, I buy a lot of bread, and a lot of roses.

"Home"

2010-04-11T18:18:00.003-06:00

Soup and salad at the nameless place around the corner: 10 dirhams

A pirated copy of New Moon: 13 dirhams

Dinner and a movie watched with my roomie, without leaving the comfort of a two-block radius: priceless.

After two weeks on the road, it's good to be "home."

9 Notes from Pompidou

2010-03-26T12:47:00.000-06:00

Back in December, instead of going home for Christmas, I took a trip to Europe, during which I spent a surprising amount of time looking at art. Here are some of the things I paid attention to at Pompidou, the big modern art museum in Paris.

1. This meat dress was made by Jana Sterbak. She went to Kits for high school and then UBC, which was strange to learn, because famous people aren't supposed to be from your home. Following the theme of women's work, I went from this sculpture to some photos.

2. Lisette Model: "As long as I have the feeling of 'that's me,' I will be able to photograph people." (Tant que j'aurai le sentiment que c'est moi, je pourrai photographier les gens.) *Peter, I wrote this down because I thought of you.

3. Diane Arbus: “What is ceremonial and curious and commonplace will be legendary.”

4. Isabelle Waternaux had a series of these super obscured portraits. Awesome.

5. Maria Abramovic: video, “Freeing the Body." She covers her head and dances naked.

More research yields incredible stuff. In one performance, she took a drug for catatonia, leaving her immobilized but lucid. Ten minutes after it wore off, she took a drug prescribed for aggressive and depressed people, which took her mentally out of the room. In another performance, she lay on a table with 72 objects that people in the museum could use on her, as explained by a sign. The objects included scissors, a knife, a whip, and a gun with a single bullet. What she said after:

“The experience I learned was that…if you leave decision to the public, you can be killed.” ... “I felt really violated: they cut my clothes, stuck rose thorns in my stomach, one person aimed the gun at my head, and another took it away. It created an aggressive atmosphere. After exactly 6 hours, as planned, I stood up and started walking toward the public. Everyone ran away, escaping an actual confrontation.”

6. “Heartbeat," a slideshow by Nan Goldin. Forty-four photos of couples in bed, in the bath, getting ready for work, and Bjork singing in the background. I liked it, though it wasn't exactly happy.

7. I discover someone’s already filmed herself doing everything in an abaya. Shit, swimming and sunbathing included. "Ghazel."

8. Massive “Ecriture Rose” by Simon Hantaï.

He spent every day of 1958 copying written texts -- poems, philosophical works, treatises on art -- onto a 11 X 14 foot canvas. Massed together in tiny script, the words took on shape. Nice. As for the artist himself, he was reclusive, in part because people started giving him commissions and asking him to paint public places. "Society seemed to be preparing to paint my work for me. I could have obeyed; many, perhaps most, painters do. The prospect did not coincide with my desire.” Apparently he traveled Italy on foot, too, which makes him doubly interesting.

9. C’est ce que je fais qui m’apprend ce que cherche. It’s what I do that teaches me what I’m looking for. –Pierre Soulauges. Didn't care for his black canvases, but I quite like the quotation.

"Muslim?"

2010-03-26T04:52:00.003-06:00

"Alaina, here it is!"

"What?"

"Remember I told you about that Spanish woman, the one that interrupted my Arabic class, spoke crappy Arabic, then asked Fatima if I was Muslim?"

"Yeah."

"Ok, listen. It's funnier than I thought."

[Garageband playback:]

[1022] Mary: Keifantina? Ana Maryam. [How are you? I'm Mary.]

[1023] Fatima: [pointing at Spanish woman] Selma.

[1024] Mary: Selma? Minsharafin. [Selma? Nice to meet you.]

[1025] Selma: [to Fatima] Muslim?

[1026] Fatima: La.

"Hshuma"

2010-03-21T14:09:00.003-06:00

Roughly, "shame."

1. Said when Alaina subtracted a point from a student's quiz for cheating; it was said not to the cheating student, but to Alaina for subtracting a point. Yes, different ideas about academic integrity.

2. Said to Andy by my fig man, when Andy reached for a proffered fig with his left hand.

3. Said by me, when, as we were hiking toward town, a young man deliberately slipped in front of me, in order to grope me on the way down.

Wiki Friday: Quebec French

2010-03-19T10:22:00.005-06:00

Standardization:

Although Quebec French constitutes a coherent and standard system, it has no objective norm since the very organization mandated to establish it, the Office québécois de la langue française, believes that objectively standardizing Quebec French would lead to reduced interintelligibility with other French communities around the world, linguistically isolating Quebecers and possibly causing the extinction of the French language in the Americas.

Mutual intelligibility with other varieties of French:

Mutual intelligibility of Quebec French with Metropolitan French is a matter of heated debates among linguists. If a comparison can be made, the differences between both dialects are probably larger than those between standard American and standard British English, but far less than those differences between Brazilian Portuguese and that of Portugal or between standard German and Swiss German. Francophone Canadians abroad have to modify their accent somewhat in order to be easily understood, but very few Francophone Canadians are unable to communicate readily with European Francophones. European pronunciation is not really difficult for Canadians to understand; only differences in vocabulary present any problems. Nevertheless, Quebec French accent is mostly closer to that of Poitoi or of Normandy and also some parts of Wallonia.

In general, European French speakers have no problems understanding Quebec newscasts or other moderately formal Québécois speech. However, they may have some difficulty understanding informal speech, such as the dialogue in a sitcom. This is due more to idioms, slang, vocabulary and use of exclusive cultural references than to accent or pronunciation. However, when speaking to a European French speaker, a French speaker from Quebec is capable of shifting to a slightly more formal, "international" type of speech.

Quebec's culture has only recently gained exposure in Europe, especially since the Quiet Revolution (Révolution tranquille), and the difference in dialects and culture is large enough that Quebec French speakers overwhelmingly prefer their own "home grown" television dramas or sitcoms to shows from Europe. The number of such TV shows from France shown on Quebec television is about the same as the number of British TV shows on American television: they are seldom broadcast except on obscure cable channels.

Thanks, Wikipedia.

And thanks to my friend Steve Faguy, because I stole the photo from his cool blog, which happens to be based on and in Montreal, speaking of Quebec.

Wiki Friday: Phallic state mottos

2010-03-19T09:52:00.004-06:00

New Mexico: It grows as it goes (Latin: Crescit eundo)

New York: Ever upward (Latin: Excelsior)

Not phallic, but still funny.

Maryland: Manly deeds, womanly words (Italian: Fatti maschii, parole femine)

Michigan: If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look around you (Latin: Si quaeris peninsulam amoenam circumspice)

And then there are state slogans, made for advertising purposes by people who would have us die by our own laughter.

Idaho: Great Potatoes. Tasty Destinations.

Illinois: Right Here. Right Now.

Louisiana: Come as you are. Leave Different.

Maryland: America in Miniature

Oklahoma: Oklahoma is OK

Oregon: Things Look Different Here (1987 - 2003)

Texas: It's Like a Whole Other Country

Utah: This Is Still The Right Place

Texts from the last month

2010-03-19T05:00:00.001-06:00

King will be out walking at 2 we just heard. Where we do not know. I will head to moham V soon to see.

Avatar en español a las 6.30 en avenida? Bghiti?

Yees!ok. bon jeudi viens me chercher au beaux arts 1 heur que tu veus.avec ton usb pour te donner les fotos.bon8. coucou a american spay.lol

Alyawm adars fi 3

Hi mary. Mr hisham said that we will meet tmrw at 4 bcz he will be busy of Friday..have gd dreams.

Wakha

Maroc Telecom Vous Souhaite Aid Moubarak Said.

They sleep stil, come by here at 11.00

Slt!mais je peu pa anulé les fille ont programé pr ce samedi tu peu faire la féte laprem avk tn ami je compte sur toi a 19h30 ne me laisse pa tombé

Hey can u buy laundry detergent on the way home? Omo kabir.

Shuks bzef!

Ok-Super-On se retrouve a Inba.

Clothes are drying! As for floors, ghadda insha allah…

67cm by 120cm, 5mm thick—Edges rounded. Asap, we need the palette.

Salam.Nous allons au Hamam D hajar vers10Hdemain. Tu viens aussi?

Best thing about showing Avatar in class

2010-03-17T17:23:00.005-06:00

The movie ends. My Beginner 5 students are packing up.

"Teacher?"

[I turn]

"Yes, Ismail?"

[Ismail, now gazing into my eyes:]

"I see you."

Turkish-Arabic cognates

2010-03-12T06:54:00.008-06:00

shi haja...

something...

I wanted to say "basic." "Something...basic." Oh, what is the word? Sahal means "easy," but that's not what I want. Screw it.

shi haja...basit.

Fatima and I said the word in unison. But I said "simple" in Turkish and she said "simple" in Arabic. It was like magic. These cognates really do make my world go round.

Turkish / Arabic

nadiren (rarely) / nadiran (rarely) نادرا

şikayat etmek (to complain) / shakwat (complaint) شكوة

vakit (time) / waqt (time) وقت

maalesef (unfortunately) / maalesef (unfortunately) مع الأسف

mutfak (kitchen) / matbakh (kitchen) مطبخ

kahve (coffee) / qahwa (coffee) القهوة

ziyaret (visit) / ziyarat (visit) زيارة

fikir (idea) / fikra (idea) فكرة

meşgul (busy) / mashghul (busy) مشغول

a whole new world

2010-03-09T15:28:00.006-06:00

The plan was to take a break from Fus-ha, or Standard Arabic, to learn just enough Darija, or Moroccan dialect, to handle travel logistics and shopping. But now, only five hours into this new language--and indeed it is a new language--I feel I am in a whole new world. The characters are the same, but now I know what they are saying, and they understand me, too.

At the hamam: bzef de ness lyoma! (a lot of people today!)

Buying clothes: wash kayn ktar sagheer min hada? (is there one smaller than this?)

Buying coffee: smehli, khamsa mia gram, la khamseen (sorry, 500 grams, not 50)

Passing a friend in the street: aandi dars deba--nashoufak min baad (I have class now--see you later)

With Fatima, my wonderful teacher: kayajibni bzef naqra adarija, ktar min alfus-ha. naqdar nahdar ma ness. kul yowm, kanataalam shi haja jadida. (I like studying Darija a lot, more than Fus-ha. I can talk to people. every day, I learn something new.)

It's like I'm Jasmine and she's Aladdin, showing me the world beyond the balcony.

The importance of models in the artist's life

2010-03-06T18:11:00.007-06:00

"...in my own work I write not only what I want to read--understanding fully and indelibly that if I don't do it no one else is so vitally interested, or capable of doing it to my satisfaction--I write all the things I should have been able to read. Consulting, as belatedly discovered models, those writers--most of whom, not surprisingly, are women--who understood that their experience as ordinary human beings was also valuable, and in danger of being misrepresented, distorted, or lost:

Zora Hurston--novelist, essayist, anthropologist, autobiographer;

Jean Toomer--novelist, poet, philosopher, visionary, a man who cared what women felt;

Colette--whose crinkly hair enhances her French, part-black face; novelist, playwright, dancer, essayist, newspaperwoman, lover of women, men, small dogs; fortunate not to have been born in America;

Anais Nin--recorder of everything, no matter how minute;

Tillie Olson--a writer of such generosity and honesty, she literally saves lives;

Virginia Woolf--who has saved so many of us.

It is, in the end, the saving of lives that we writers are about. Whether we are "minority" writers or "majority" writers. It is simply in our power to do this.

We do it because we care. We care that Vincent Van Gogh mutilated his ear. We care that behind a pile of manure in the yard he destroyed his life. We care that Scott Joplin's music lives! We care because we know this: the life we save is our own."

--from Alice Walker's piece, Saving the Life That Is Your Own: The Importance of Models in the Artist's Life

I'm not just an ESL teacher. There was a time when I studied literature and thought more about genre and perspective than "get" phrasal verbs and past perfect continuous. Alice Walker reminded me. In a class of thirteen-year-olds this morning, I was happy to know that eventually the bell would ring, and I could go home to her book.