The Betawi language is one of the endangered languages that must be saved uniquely and comprehensively. The Betawi language speakers occupy a regional position in the heart of the Indonesian state capital, Jakarta and its surroundings. The challenge of pressure, intimidation, interference, influence, and the shadow of other regional languages or…

Here I present the background to, and a description of, a newly developed database of historical and contemporary lexical data for Australian languages (Chirila), concentrating on the Pama-Nyungan family (the largest family in the country). While the database was initially developed in order to facilitate research on cognate words and…

The Chinese state sees language as an essential determinant in ethnic minority schooling. The use of minority language as a medium of instruction is viewed as a way to increase attendance rates and strengthen socialization into a national ideology. However, the policies differ for those ethnic minorities with or without a commonly used written…

In Norway there are two written Norwegian languages, Bokmâl and Nynorsk. Of these two written languages Bokmâl is being used by the majority of the people, and Bokmâl has the highest prestige in the society. This article is about the shift of written language from Nynorsk to Bokmâl among young people in a traditional Nynorsk district in the…

Acquisition of orthographic knowledge and phonemic sensitivity are processes that are central to early reading development in several languages. The language-specific characteristics of the alphasyllabaries ( Bright, 1996), however, challenge the constructs of orthographic knowledge and phonemic sensitivity as discussed in the context of…

Two experiments investigated whether the phonological properties of visually presented words influence the process of word identification. Masked phonological priming effects were examined when naming was the response measure. Results suggest that the effect was generated in serial fashion. A companion lexical decision version showed no onset…

Seven experiments conducted in Portuguese examined the role of orthography in blending phonologically defined CVC syllables written either with a final mute "e" (orthographic disyllables) or with a final consonant (orthographic monosyllables). (Author/VWL)

St. Clair's Comanche texts, collected in 1902, appear to exhibit a very uncharacteristic form of objective case marking along with "same subject" dependent clause types unknown elsewhere in the language. Proper interpretation of the materials and the circumstances in which they were transcribed leads to an analysis in which…

There was a time in the Americas when many different languages were spoken by the diverse native peoples. This situation changed rapidly as waves of Europeans arrived, containing and controlling the native peoples, often forcing them to forfeit language and culture. Today remnants of some Native American tribes are striving to find ways to…

The study reported here focused on the uses of the word Esperanto in selected English, French, and German newspapers over an 18-month period. Most uses were metaphorical: generally positive in articles on arts or technology, generally negative in political contexts. (Author/VWL)

Offers a survey of recent codification efforts of the Romani language, a stateless, non-territorial language with no written tradition. In a pragmatic corpus analysis, three action-oriented functions of Romani codification are identified: a communicative function, on emblematic function, and a mobilizing-rallying function. (Author/VWL)

This paper, based on the analysis of forty oral and forty written personal experience narratives elicited from the same subjects for two different audiences, explores the shaping of participant reference with respect to considerations of audience and the effect of modality. The discussion first focuses on the impact of cognitive constraints on the…

Examines Korea's experience with abandoning Chinese characters for an all-phonetic script. Despite efforts to replace characters with "all-hangul" in South Korea, reform opponents reinstated Chinese characters. In North Korea, a similar reform was also rescinded. Certain "linguistic" problems need to be solved for the reform to…

Investigated whether: (1) the role of phonological and orthographic activation differs during semantic processing of Korean Hangul and Hanja and (2) proficiency in Korean Hanja would affect the way phonology is used in comprehension of Hanja characters. Overall, results indicate both language proficiency and script difference can affect the…

This booklet describes the Urdu writing system, and is part of a series of teaching materials for teaching Urdu. A general introduction outlining the main characteristics of the system is followed by a presentation of the alphabet. Letters symbolizing the same sound are then discussed, followed by the vowels. Non-connectors, or letters not having…