Tag: language arts

On By alderknightLeave a comment

It is a well-documented fact that by the age of 5 monolingual White children will have heard 30 million fewer words in languages other than English than bilingual children of color. In addition, they will have had a complete lack of exposure to the richness of non-standardized varieties of English that characterize the homes of many children of color. This language gap increases the longer these children are in school. The question is what causes this language gap and what can be done to address it?

The major cause of this language gap is the failure of monolingual White communities to successfully assimilate into the multilingual and multidialectal mainstream. The continued existence of White ethnic enclaves persists despite concerted efforts to integrate White communities into the multiracial mainstream since the 1960s. In these linguistically isolated enclaves it is possible to go for days without interacting with anybody who does not speak Standardized American English providing little incentive for their inhabitants to adapt to the multilingual and multidialectal nature of  US society.

This linguistic isolation has a detrimental effect on the cognitive development of monolingual White children. This is because linguistically isolated households lack the rich translanguaging practices that are found in bilingual households and the elaborate style-shifting that occurs in bidialectal households. This leaves monolingual White children without a strong metalinguistic basis for language learning. As a result, many of these monolingual White children lack the school-readiness skills needed for foreign language learning and graduate from school having mastered nothing but Standardized American English leaving them ill-equipped to engage in intercultural communication.

What if we talked about monolingual White children the way we talk about low-income children of color?

Excerpt from a satirical blog post from The Educational Linguist that makes a good point about which language skills we value as a society and the problems with talking about a “language gap”. 

(via lingrix)

Source: allthingslinguistic
On By alderknightLeave a comment

rainbowbarnacle:

savwafaire:

slide-effect:

science-fiction-is-real:

STAR TREK IS HERE

I looked it up out of excitement; it’s called “ili”, and it was created by a Japanese company called Logbar.

It costs $249. It supports English, Spanish, Japanese, and Mandarin (for now). It comes with one language, but new languages can be added with updates.

General sales will begin this November, but you can join their waitlist/ learn more information here on their website: https://iamili.com/

Here’s their FAQ page: https://support.iamili.com/hc/en-us

And here are more videos from their website:

The reasoning behind ili’s one-way functionality:

An extended version of the video above posted by OP: 

And User Reviews: 

And you can go here for more updates!: https://updates.iamili.com/

Thank you for actually LINKING TO THE ACTUAL PRODUCT INSTEAD OF USING SOMEONE ELSE’S IDEAS TO PROMOTE YOUR UNRELATED SITE 😡

:O

I LOVE THE FUTURE

On By alderknightLeave a comment

nanyangosaurus:

chubey:

hey guys friendly reminder from your fave Canadian that esk*mo is a slur so please don’t use it!

I see it usually in the context of “esk*mo kisses” which may pop up when people talk about their ships and their headcanon, but it means “snow eaters” in cree and is a slur against Inuit people so please just don’t use it!

and I would appreciate if u reblogged this because people outside Canada don’t seem to know this for the most part

Also if you want to refer to ‘‘eskimo kisses’‘ and not use that term the Inuit term for it is ‘‘kunik’‘. It’s a traditional greeting usually between relatives or a child and an adult, although it’s a little different from nose kisses so most Canadians call it ‘‘Inuit kiss’‘ and I’ve heard other people call it ‘‘bunny kisses’’. Either way there’s no excuse to use ‘‘eskimo’‘ in this context or another.

On By alderknightLeave a comment

literally every time someone says “from the get-go” my brain replaces it with “from the gecko” and it’s getting to be a real distraction in everyday conversation to be imagining amphibians handing out all this important information

how do the geckos know

On By alderknightLeave a comment

umruik:

alder-knight:

is “femme refers exclusively to lesbians” a white thing or no?

what tf am I missing

trying to write this quickly, if i can… my sense, fwiw, is that “fem” (i use joan nestle’s spelling, not the frenchified one) as a term is in a state of almost total incoherence right now, because there are at least three or four versions of it in circulation, all with quite different histories behind their different meanings and breaking down to some extent along racial lines. (1) starting in the early 1900s, ‘fem’ as a specifically working-class dyke gender position, common across racial lines, which is very distinct from the normative/passable femininity of middle-class lesbian circles. after being actively suppressed in the late 1960s-early 1980s heyday of an androgenous (read: soft butch) lesbian ideal, it reemerged in the 1980s-90s, and was adopted by a whole cohort of (largely but not entirely) white middle-class queer women (mostly either dyke/lesbian-identified or so actively not that they count anyway through denial) (many of them college students, who proceeded to theorize it), as well as coming back into visibility among working-class dykes who’d never actually abandoned it. (2) since the mid-1900s, but with roots back to the mid-1800s, ‘fem’/ ‘fem queen’ as a specific gender position and performance genre in the Ball House world, held by folks who in other connects might be called trans women, drag queens, or effeminate gay men, almost all of them black or latinx. there’s some big shifts in the visibility (and appropiation) of Ball culture going on this decade, which has brought this version into wider circulation. (3) since 2000ish, the desperate attempt by many ‘right-on’ cis folks to avoid calling trans women “women”, which has led to the widespread use of archaic/patronizing “ladies”, has also led them to grasp for other terms that more or less mean “women” but don’t actually say the word, including ‘fem’. (4) also since 2000ish, (mostly white) trans men looking for a way to signal various combinations of gender-nonconformity-as-men / “softer” masculinity / “not all men”-ness have used ‘fem’ as an identity term (rather than the more rooted “nelly”, because former queer women know less about gay male culture than they think). (5) and finally, over the last 5 or so years, more and more nonbinary folks moving away from the category of man have begun to use ‘fem’ to mark a simultaneous proximity to and separateness from the category of woman, or as an umbrella category for all non-men. i think this is more common among black & latinx folks, because of the Ball/House use of the word, but I’m not sure.

holy shit thank you 💕

I only knew like half of these things and not in so much depth, I really appreciate you taking the time to lay them out!

On By alderknightLeave a comment

tbh every time I hear the expression “alt-left” I have half a second where I think they mean lefties with cool hair and tattoos and piercings instead of tie-dye and bierkenstocks and it makes me really sad that’s not actually what it means

On By alderknightLeave a comment

the-right-hand-of-light:

youarewhatyougeek:

pon-raul:

plantanarchy:

ulfoghrafn:

oparnoshoshoi:

lisjonok:

calleo:

lentertament:

bannableoffense:

suggestiblesleep:

bannableoffense:

cantanopeshitthatwastaken:

fenrir-kin:

taveyb:

feijoalife:

amphitritie:

amphitritie:

miraculoushufflepufftrash:

amphitritie:

someone told me americans don’t have roundabouts and i’ve been thinking about it all week

how

Wtf is a roundabout?

i’m shook

it has come to my attention some people are not acquainted with roundabouts (latin roundus boutus). here is a handy guide for spotting different types in the wild:

this is a common/garden roundabout in its natural habitat. it prefers rain and dying grass as food sources.

this is its child. it may appear small and unassuming, but just watch it take down even the mighty range rover as it tries to make the tight bend.

sometimes they have twins instead. they resemble a pair of glasses, or tits. i once watched an old lady drive straight through both unharmed. would not recommend. deceptively dangerous.

this is a fancy ass roundabout, the average roundabout’s cousin. it has just returned from its gap year in thailand. its hobbies include condescendingly explaining simple concepts using complicated words and smiling with an air of superiority.

lastly, the most feared kind. only the bravest may take on this wild beast and survive. this is the magic roundabout. its young grow around it in grotesque sacs, bewildering the unlucky driver just trying to pop to the shops to get some milk. it is too late to save him now. tell his family he loved them. this is the end. the magic roundabout is the only true god. fear him.

where da fuck is that last one located so i can never go there in my life because what the actual hell

Swindon.

I had to tackle the magic roundabout once and I basically just picked a gap in the traffic and went for it, screaming the whole time because honestly I’m pretty sure that’s what everyone else was doing

europe is so small how do they fit these giant sigils of traffic and destruction

what in the almighty fuck are these monstrosities

Wait, yall don’t have roundabouts?!?

How the hell do your roads even work

the sane way

This is why the rest of the world thinks American Roads are boring.

?

We have roundabouts all over the damn place (Northwestern WI,for reference) since the city figured out it’s way cheaper to tear up a busy intersection and put a roundabout in than it was to maintain traffic lights.

Accidents at said intersections went way down as well.

I’ve personally only ever seen them up north in the US (like near the New England area somewhere). I think I saw ONE somewhere out in who-knows-where in Florida.

Otherwise, I’ve only encountered them in Scotland on a trip there a few years ago.

We have them in Washington, but only in places where they’re unnecessary

I’ve been all over the USA and we got roundabouts in Washington, in Colorado, in California, in South Carolina. though I can’t recall seeing roundabouts in North Dakota/South Dakota/ Minnesota. 

They’re putting one in right down the road from me lol I’ve encountered one in south carolina and in florida, also many in New England. Usually the ones with the grass/flowers in the center though

theyre usually on highways near me but we call they cloverleafs 

I have to go through 2 on my way to work every morning here in Maine and they’re really not bad. We actually have them all over New England, but nothing like that magic roundabout which is good because I don’t think I’d survive an encounter with one.

They have the mini ones in the Bay Area in California! However they do not help safety at all because no one knows how to drive through them at all so it just becomes this weird faceoff between the cars and if you’re a pedestrian trying to cross you may die.

we have them all over the Northeast US but they’re often called rotaries or traffic circles

On By alderknightLeave a comment

juelzsantanabandana:

arrowsandveins:

ruinedchildhood:

vrvmis:

xqzs:

diaryofakanemem:

 Mi Gente by J Balvin & Willy William featuring Beyoncé

this the whole shits

From Beyonces Website:

We’re heartbroken by the hurricanes and earthquakes that have devastated families around the world. There are many ways to help. We’ve listed a few organizations that are on the ground from Mexico to the Caribbean, lending a hand to those who need it most.

To help those in Mexico affected by the recent earthquakes:

To help the various Caribbean communities affected by Hurricane Maria and Hurricane Irma:

To help those in Puerto Rico affected by Hurricane Maria:

To help those in Florida affected by Hurricane Irma:

To help those in Houston affected by Hurricane Harvey:

When celebrities are doing more to help those affected than your own “president”…

THIS SHIT AN ABSOLUTE BANGER

“azul are you with me” I am scrEAMING