New website launched: LINGNEWS.NET

Hello everyone -- I'm back!

No, I will not be resuming bloggery at ilani ilani, but I have something much more exciting to announce! Ever since I got hooked on digg.com for my tech news, I've been thinking about how handy it would be to have a similar community-based repository for linguistics-related news & links. Now that the semester is over (and I graduated, yay!) I finally have the time to devote to getting such a project off the ground. So, I am very happy to announce...

http://www.lingnews.net - LingNews! Now live and ready to rock!

For those of you who have not used this type of site before, the basic premise is that contributors (that's YOU!) submit stories and vote for the stories they think are interesting. The front page of the site contains a constantly-updated list of the top 10 stories as decided by reader votes. To view & vote for recently submitted stories that have not yet made it to the front page, head to the 'Pligg for stories' page, accessible from the sidebar. You can also comment on any story and rate others' comments. Additionally, for those of you who like RSS feeds, there are tons of them.

Here are some basic directions for how to add stories:

• First, if you want to contribute, go to the site and create a user account (you'll need one to submit stories, but not to read them).
• When you come across a cool linguistic story, go to lingnews.net and submit the link along with a brief description using the 'Submit a story' button on the sidebar. Alternatively, you can bookmark this link, which will allow you to submit a link directly from the page. Be sure you aren't creating a duplicate story, though - search LingNews first!
  
• Each story can only go into one basic category. Right now there are categories for animal [communication] & [language] evolution, general linguistics, historical, morphology, phonology, semantics, sociolinguistics, and syntax. (Not all of them are showing up yet because they're empty, but you can submit to them.) If you think the site could use another category, by all means let me know. Although only one primary category can be used, you may tag the story with as many descriptive tags as you like.

I hope LingNews.net becomes a useful resource for the linguistics community! In the near future (i.e., as soon as the app is actually released), I would also like to add BlogBridge Library functionality, which will create a directory for linguistic blogs.

Well, we'll see how it goes! Please check out the site and start submitting stories! Also, if you have a blog (or even just a mouth), a little publicity couldn't hurt! ;-)

Thanks, everybody, and see you on LingNews!
-Bridget

The End.

I started ilani ilani on January 1, 2005, joining what was at the time a small community of linguistic bloggers. I was in California over winter break and a bit bored, if truth be told.

Tomorrow is the last day of classes I'll ever take as an undergraduate, and it seems a fitting time for a change. These days there are tons of linguistic blogs, so many that I can't even get through them all, and I'm sure it's only a matter of time before there's a dedicated linguistic podcast. I had always hoped that I would find my niche in the blogosphere, but to tell you the truth, I've been too afraid of stirring up controversy to write about anything I'd really like to talk about, and as a consequence, this has become kind of a link blog. That's never how I wanted it to be, nor do I have much desire to continue it as such. So... this is it. I'll leave the archives up, but I won't be posting any more here.

Well, everyone, it's been a lot of fun. Thank you to all my readers of both the active and lurking varieties! I'm sure we'll be seeing each other on other sites.

Memery

I've been tagged by Angelo! Here I go...

ME, TOO

I AM: two hours of classroom time shy of finishing my assorted degrees
I WANT: lunch
I WISH: it wasn't such a rainy, dreary day
I HATE: having two papers and two presentations hanging over my head
I MISS: other people cleaning up for me
I FEAR: I don't have much interesting to say about Irish relative clauses from a diachronic standpoint
I HEAR: the Colbert Report in the background
I WONDER: if I can safely venture to campus without an umbrella
I REGRET: leaving a cushion on the chair outside... it's now very wet
I AM NOT: obligated to do anything today until 6!
I DANCE: like a penguin with Parkinson's
I SING: not as well as I used to! My range is now a full third lower than it was in high school.
I CRY: never at movies.
I AM NOT ALWAYS: a team player.
I MADE: brownies last night.
I WRITE: very cryptic and terse class notes, the meaning of which I can seldom recover
I CONFUSE: my cat by repeating his meows back to him
I NEED: to go to the market
I SHOULD: be a lot more productive these days.
I START: the dishwasher before I go to bed
I FINISH: books impatiently, often skimming the last chapter, and then (unsurprisingly) find them anticlimactic
I TAG: anyone who has too much free time on their hands

FOUR THINGS

A. Four Jobs I’ve Had:

1. Tutor, Spanish
   
2. Tutor, Geometry
3. Tutor, Linguistics
4. Webmaster
   

B. Four Movies I’ll Watch Over and Over:

1. Pirates of the Caribbean
   
2. Zoolander
3. Sgt. Bilko
4. Meet the Fockers
   

C. Four Places I Called Home:

1. La Canada, CA
2. Los Angeles, CA (to people who are not from LA)
3. Wigglesworth D-31
4. Cambridge, MA
   

D. Four TV Shows I Love:

1. House
2. 24
3. Boston Legal
4. Trading Spouses
   

E. Four Places I’ve Been on Vacation:

1. Hawaii
2. Ireland
   
3. Cancun
   
4. Hilton Head, SC
   

F. Four Websites I Visit Daily:

1. CNN
2. Facebook
3. LA Times
   
4. Digg (didn't take long to get me addiggted)
   

G. My Four Favorite Foods:

1. Sushi (especially hamachi and seared albacore)
2. Pad thai from Spice (looking forward to going there tonight)
3. Tarte tatin
   
4. Real lox (as opposed to smoked salmon, a highly inferior product)
   

H. Four Places I Would Rather Be Right Now:

1. A tropical island -- any one would do
2. In a house exactly like this one, but with more efficient climate control
3. Prudential Center, to find a b-day present for my soon-to-be-16-year-old sister
4. Two weeks into the future, with all my classwork done
   

I. Four People I’m Tagging:

1. Anyone
   

J. Four CD’s [addendum: or albums, presumably completely, in whatever medium, e.g. MP3] to Which I Have Most Recently Listened

1. Li Xiangting, Sleeping Lotus
2. Jimi Hendrix, complete Woodstock performance
   
3. Queen, Live Killers
4. Century Classics: 1100-1200: Music of the Monasteries
   

Amhrán na Bealtaine

It's May 1! Aside from being May Day, my penultimate day of classes in my undergraduate career, and the birthday of one of my friends from elementary school, today is also Beltane. I thought I would post my favorite traditional Beltane song for you here:

Bábóg na Bealtaine maighdean a'tsamhraidh
Suas gach cnoc is síos gach gleann
Cailíní maiseacha bángheala gléigeal
Thugamar féin an samhradh linn.

Curfá:
Samhradh buí ó luí na gréine
Thugamar féin an samhradh linn
Ó bhaile go baile 's 'na bhaile 'na dhiadh sin
Thugamar féin an samhradh linn.

Tá nead ag an ghiorria ar imeall na haille
Is nead ag an chorr éisc i ngéagaibh an chrainn
Tá 'n chuach 's na héanlaith a'seinm le pléisiúr
Thugamar féin an samhradh linn.

(Curfá)

Tá an fhuiseog a'seinm 's a' luascadh sna spéartha
Beacha is cuileoga is bláth ar na crainn
Tá mil ar na cuiseoga 's coilm a béiceadh
Thugamar féin an samhradh linn.

(Curfá)

We used to sing with an alternate chorus:

Samhradh buí na nóiníní gléigeal
Thugamar féin an samhradh linn
Ó bhaile go baile 's ár mbaile 'na dhiadh sin
Thugamar féin an samhradh linn.

There are a few particularly interesting things about this song. It shows some dialectal features--most notably the synthetic 1pl past tense, thugamar ('we brought'),--and I like how the "ó bhaile go baile 's ár mbaile 'na dhiadh sin" ('from town to town and our home after that') part shows all the mutations in a row, plus two different meanings of baile. This word shows up in the Irish name for Dublin, which is Baile Átha Cliath 'Town by the Hurdle Ford,' and is behind all the Irish town names with 'bally.'

There are at least two melodies for this text. One is happy and one is more melancholy (I think the latter is much prettier). Were I not such a crappy singer, I would post MP3s. But if anyone is really interested, I have the sheet music of the happy version and could probably work out the other one.

Move over, Alex

There's a new parrot in town, and his name is N'kisi. Here's an article from BBC News about N'kisi's vocabulary, which is 950 words. It's a nice article, but, uh, what's this about telepathy? You can hear N'kisi talk and read a transcript of the interaction here.