Space Marine and Dragonwrangler Bar & Grill

Kricket · Oct 10, 2012

jallenecs said:
I don't know about you, dude, but I'm sitting here under a fuzzy blanket, trying to ward off the cold; I hate this time of year! AND I'm procrastinating; I have my writing files open, but I don't want to get started, because I iz lazy.

Where's Kricket with that whip?

Is that all I am to you people?! Just the girl with the whip?! Well here, have some whips!

*grows 7 more arms, all with whips attached and becomes The Terrible Kricket of Nine Whips*

:whip:

slcboston said:
You talking about hookah, by any chance?

ETA: Nevermind. This is what I get for tending to work stuff before Cantina stuff.

For shame, The Cantina is your life nothing else should matter.

slcboston said:
Not even zombies would make accounting exciting.

I don't know about that. I'll have to ask Mr. K.

Psychomacologist said:
IN THE RED sounds too much like my bank statement

Sadly, no.

Okay, so we're 1 for 3 on DEAD IN THE RED. What about:

STANDOFF AT RED MOON CRATER (yes, I know it sounds like a spaghetti Western...)
or THE FAR SIDE OF RED

I like THE FAR SIDE OF RED.

Little Anonymous Me · Oct 10, 2012

So I have just discovered to my delight that, because I've read the Inferno multiple times and Dante shamelessly ripped off of Virgil, I can skim the Aeneid and not miss out! Yes! Take that, ancient Greeks!

maxmordon · Oct 10, 2012

Love the new avatar, Kricket.

jallenecs · Oct 10, 2012

Raventongue said:
I wouldn't be able to find Welsh in Nova Scotia either. Historically this is Scottish territory to the core.

If I could, I'd become fluent in every endangered language in the world and run around teaching them to whoever wanted to know. But AFAIK it takes a genius to get fluent in more than a couple languages in a lifetime, and I'm likely of no more than average intelligence.

According to what I've read, a lot of the Appalachian English grammar owes its structure to Scots Gaelic. There's a case to be made, especially in the verb structure.

And if only geniuses can become fluent in more than one language, then how do you explain all those three and four year olds from bilingual households? No, I'm not buying it. What it takes is an honest desire to learn, the wherewithal to actually do the work, and somebody to practice speaking with.

ETA: in other news, my sister's cats have invaded my house and I can't bend over well enough to pick them up and punt them into the next county. So now one is trying to get on my lap and make her nest on my keyboard. Grrrr!

Raventongue · Oct 10, 2012

jallenecs said:
And if only geniuses can become fluent in more than one language, then how do you explain all those three and four year olds from bilingual households? No, I'm not buying it. What it takes is an honest desire to learn, the wherewithal to actually do the work, and somebody to practice speaking with.

No, not bilingual, I'm talking about like... quadrilingual and beyond. There are s***load of endangered languages. Realistically it would be more like kilolingual, which is just beyond the scope of human capability.

Psychomacologist · Oct 10, 2012

Raventongue said:
No, not bilingual, I'm talking about like... quadrilingual and beyond. There are s***load of endangered languages.

MrMac speaks three languages fluently, and I'm pretty sure he's not a genius. He's smart, mind, but not a genius

Raventongue · Oct 10, 2012

Little Anonymous Me said:
So I have just discovered to my delight that, because I've read the Inferno multiple times and Dante shamelessly ripped off of Virgil, I can skim the Aeneid and not miss out! Yes! Take that, ancient Greeks!

LOL!

What subject are you doing this all for again?

Kricket · Oct 10, 2012

maxmordon said:
Love the new avatar, Kricket.

Thanks!

Liosse de Velishaf · Oct 10, 2012

jallenecs said:
According to what I've read, a lot of the Appalachian English grammar owes its structure to Scots Gaelic. There's a case to be made, especially in the verb structure.

And if only geniuses can become fluent in more than one language, then how do you explain all those three and four year olds from bilingual households? No, I'm not buying it. What it takes is an honest desire to learn, the wherewithal to actually do the work, and somebody to practice speaking with.

ETA: in other news, my sister's cats have invaded my house and I can't bend over well enough to pick them up and punt them into the next county. So now one is trying to get on my lap and make her nest on my keyboard. Grrrr!

All it takes is a good motivation. There are tons of groups that are multi-lingual because of cultural or social factors.

Shit, all my friends in India speak damn near native English in addition to Hindi or whatever their native language is.

Liosse de Velishaf · Oct 10, 2012

Kricket said:
Is that all I am to you people?! Just the girl with the whip?!

Quotebooked.

jallenecs · Oct 10, 2012

Raventongue said:
No, not bilingual, I'm talking about like... quadrilingual and beyond. There are s***load of endangered languages. Realistically it would be more like kilolingual, which is just beyond the scope of human capability.

My aunt speaks five languages. My sister speaks seven, including Russian and Farsi. My son speaks seven, including ancient and modern Greek. You just set your mind to it.

And learning a language as a second language will not prevent its extinction. Manx, which was recently declared extinct, has whole dictionaries of its words, books written in it. That doesn't make it any less dead. There are hundreds of thousands of people in the world who speak Latin, maybe even better than Julius Caesar spoke it. Still a dead language.

What classifies a language as "endangered" or "extinct" is how many people speak it as a native tongue. Not one they picked up, even at the age of five or six. It has to have been their primary language, the one they learned on their mama's knee. When the last native speaker dies, no matter how many other people know the language, the language is considered extinct.

Little Anonymous Me · Oct 10, 2012

Raventongue said:
LOL!

What subject are you doing this all for again?

Classical Mythology. It's not for my major, but FSU has something called Gordon Rule classes, which everyone must take. Normally I really like that class, but I've been reading ancient Greek texts almost every day for three weeks straight and I'm a bit sick of them.

Kricket · Oct 10, 2012

Liosse de Velishaf said:
Quotebooked.

Raventongue · Oct 10, 2012

jallenecs said:
What classifies a language as "endangered" or "extinct" is how many people speak it as a native tongue. Not one they picked up, even at the age of five or six. It has to have been their primary language, the one they learned on their mama's knee. When the last native speaker dies, no matter how many other people know the language, the language is considered extinct.

That definitely clashes with what I was taught in school about langauge extinction, but since we've already established that I didn't exactly go to the best school I'm not surprised.

Frankly, they educated us for compliance over competence. There were a lot of kids in my graduating year who could hardly read.

I do find it very surprising about speaking half a dozen or more languages, though. I'll take your word for it because that's something you're interested in and know stuff about.

Little Anonymous Me · Oct 10, 2012

Raventongue said:
Frankly, they educated us for compliance over competence. There were a lot of kids in my graduating year who could hardly read.

Sounds like my high school. -_-

jallenecs · Oct 10, 2012

Raventongue said:
That definitely clashes with what I was taught in school about langauge extinction, but since we've already established that I didn't exactly go to the best school I'm not surprised.

This is what makes what the Welsh did so brilliant, and so exciting to me. They revived their language. I've never heard of this ever being done, not before or since.

They went to their native speakers and said, help us teach this to the children. Thanks to this, children were being taught Welsh as their FIRST language, not one they may or may not pick up on the way. Television was available in Welsh, books, newspapers, street signs. More importantly, there were schools, so kids could go all the way up through age fifteen or so and have all their education and interactions done ONLY in Welsh.

It's still hard going -- only one person in five in Wales speaks Welsh -- but still... BRILLIANT! I wish we could do that over here with the Native American languages. I know Shawnee Indians who have no idea what their own native language sounds like.

Liosse de Velishaf · Oct 10, 2012

Raventongue said:
That definitely clashes with what I was taught in school about langauge extinction, but since we've already established that I didn't exactly go to the best school I'm not surprised.

Frankly, they educated us for compliance over competence. There were a lot of kids in my graduating year who could hardly read.

Jal is correct. A language is considered extinct when the last native speaker dies.

Kricket · Oct 10, 2012

Oh my, you put me in your sig.

Liosse de Velishaf · Oct 10, 2012

jallenecs said:
This is what makes what the Welsh did so brilliant, and so exciting to me. They revived their language. I've never heard of this ever being done, not before or since.

They went to their native speakers and said, help us teach this to the children. Thanks to this, children were being taught Welsh as their FIRST language, not one they may or may not pick up on the way. Television was available in Welsh, books, newspapers, street signs. More importantly, there were schools, so kids could go all the way up through age fifteen or so and have all their education and interactions done ONLY in Welsh.

It's still hard going -- only one person in five in Wales speaks Welsh -- but still... BRILLIANT! I wish we could do that over here with the Native American languages. I know Shawnee Indians who have no idea what their own native language sounds like.

Some Polynesian languages have done this. I believe Hawaiian is one of them. They went to the grandparents and set up schools and classes. It worked fairly well.

Raventongue · Oct 10, 2012

Little Anonymous Me said:
Sounds like my high school. -_-

It's beginning to sound like every school ever to me.

The whole system is so heartless and corrupt that maybe no one would ever comply if they weren't manipulated to from early on.

Oh dear. Sudden Sadness Squid attack is very sudden.

Liosse de Velishaf · Oct 10, 2012

Kricket said:
Oh my, you put me in your sig.

Well, it's a pretty good OOC quote.

Raventongue · Oct 10, 2012

jallenecs said:
They went to their native speakers and said, help us teach this to the children. Thanks to this, children were being taught Welsh as their FIRST language, not one they may or may not pick up on the way. Television was available in Welsh, books, newspapers, street signs. More importantly, there were schools, so kids could go all the way up through age fifteen or so and have all their education and interactions done ONLY in Welsh.

That is really awesome. I applaud their dedication.

slcboston · Oct 10, 2012

Liosse de Velishaf said:
All it takes is a good motivation. There are tons of groups that are multi-lingual because of cultural or social factors.

Agreed.

It's a lot of work, but if you're willing to put that in, there isn't much else in the way.

Which is why I don't speak more than a smattering of Chinese. I was lazy.

slcboston · Oct 10, 2012

Raventongue said:
The whole system is so heartless and corrupt that maybe no one would ever comply if they weren't manipulated to from early on.

Seeing as some of us are teachers/educators, this is a really, really broad, sweeping generalization to make.

As in borderline offensive broad and general.

jallenecs · Oct 10, 2012

Raventongue said:
It's beginning to sound like every school ever to me.

The whole system is so heartless and corrupt that maybe no one would ever comply if they weren't manipulated to from early on.

Oh dear. Sudden Sadness Squid attack is very sudden.

The system is not "heartless and corrupt." Not saying it's not flawed. But to say it's heartless is to say that all those teachers are doing it because they enjoy being cruel to children. You know that's not so. To say it's corrupt is to imply that they're only doing it for the bucks, and, trust me, the money ain't that good.

It's flawed. It's perfect for 70% of children, who need that sort of structure and compliance. For the rest, it's torture, but the needs of the many..... Well, you get the idea. With so many children to be educated, it's going to be impossible to fit it to every need.

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