The Linguist’s Calendar: October 31

Teilifís na Gaeilge (now TG4) logo

October 31

This day each year, the Conseil de la langue française must submit a report of its activities during the past year to the French government.
 
1996: Creation of Teilifís na Gaeilge, a TV channel broadcasting entirely in Irish.

The Linguist’s Calendar: October 30

US Congress

October 30

1990: The congress in Washington adopts the Native American Languages Act, which aims at a better protection of native American languages.

The Linguist’s Calendar: October 29

Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz

October 29  

1675: Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz makes the first use of the symbol ∫ for integral. This symbol was later adopted as the IPA symbol for a voiceless postalveolar fricative.

The Linguist’s Calendar: October 28

Ferdinand de Saussure

October 28
 
1910: Saussure begins his third course in general linguistics at the University of Geneva. The notes from this course made by one of his students, Émile Constantin, are later edited and published by Roy Harris and Eisuke Komatsu.
 
1999: The domain name pneu­mo­no­ultra­micro­sco­pic­sili­co­vol­ca­no­co­nio­sis.com, including what is the longest word in many English dictionaries, is registered by a commercial company selling . . . domain names.

The Linguist’s Calendar: October 27

Rob Shumaker

October 27

1995: In Washington, the American National Zoo unveils its Orangutan Language Project, led by biologist Rob Shumaker.

The Linguist’s Calendar: October 26

Rebecca Greenleaf

October 26
 
Countries in which French-lexicon creoles are spoken celebrate the Jounen Kweyol Entenaysonnal (International Creole Day).
 
1492: The word “canoe” is attested for the first time in a European language (under the form canoa) in the writings of none other than Christopher Columbus.
 
1789: Lexicographer Noah Webster marries Miss Rebecca Greenleaf.
 
1925: David Premack is born. Among other things, he is known for having done language research with the chimpanzee Sarah.
 
1967: The Gardners deliver their first report on the chimpanzee Washoe’s language acquisition progress to the Psychonomic Society.
 
1973: Ken Pike of the Summer Institute of Linguistics is awarded an honorary doctorate degree by the University of Chicago.

The Linguist’s Calendar: October 25

Louis Hjelmslev

October 25

1937: Louis Hjelmslev makes his first and only guest appearance at the Prague Linguistics Circle, presenting the paper “Forme et substance dans la langue.”
 
1953: Danish linguist Holger Pedersen passes away.

The Linguist’s Calendar: October 24

October 24

2004: In collaboration with the Goetheinstitut, the Deutscher Sprachrat (German language council) decides that Habseligkeiten "belongings" is the most beautiful German word among the thousands submitted.

The Linguist’s Calendar: October 23

Zellig Harris

October 23

1867: German linguist and Sanskritist Franz Bopp dies.

1909: Zellig Harris is born in Balta, Ukraine.

1930: Czech authorities accept and acknowledge the articles of the Prague Linguistics Circle.

1980: Birth of Kanzi, the most talking ape there is.

The Linguist’s Calendar: October 22

October 22

International Stuttering Awareness Day (ISAD) is celebrated this day since 1998. Among the organizations behind the event are the seemingly incompatible International Fluency Association and the International Stuttering Association.

1793: The city of Strasbourg orders the burning of all literature in Hebrew.

1978: In the Unites States, the Court Interpreters Act is passed. Hereby, even long-time citizens of the country are allowed a certified interpreter if necessary.

 

The Linguist’s Calendar: October 21

Uzbekistan Pariliament Building

October 21
 
1989: An amendment to the constitution of Uzbekistan makes Uzbek the only official language.

The Linguist’s Calendar: October 20

Howard Lasnik

October 20

1997: For his 25 years of linguistic service, the University of Connecticut honours Howard Lasnik. A symposium is organized, and a Festschrift is presented to the veteran generativist.

The Linguist’s Calendar: October 19

The Turkish Parliament Building

October 19

1983: A milestone in linguistic oppression: Turkey adopts law no. 2932 on “publishing in other languages than Turkish”. Not surprisingly, such publishing is declared strictly forbidden. More amazingly, its third article states that “The native tongue of Turkish citizens is Turkish” and that speaking any other language natively is illegal!

The Linguist’s Calendar: October 18

Geoff Pullum

October 18

1994: Geoff Pullum joins the Editorial Board for Oxford Textbooks in Linguistics.

1994: The film Secret of the Wild Child, a documentary on “Genie” and Victor, two of the best documented cases of first language deprivation is aired in the USA on the PBS network.

The Linguist’s Calendar: October 17

October 17

1920: The Indian feral children Amala and Kamala are discovered by a Reverend Singh.

1979: American creolist David DeCamp dies, at a mere 52 years of age.

The Linguist’s Calendar: October 16

October 16

1913: George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, with a phonetician as one of the leading characters, is premiered in Vienna. Only the year later does it hit a London stage.

1936: A 14-year old Michael Ventris gets to hear about Linear B for the first time.

1997: Release of Steven Pinker’s How the Mind Works.

2000: The band Jega (actually a pseudonym for Dylan Nathan), which plays instrumental electronic music, releases the album Geometry, which is remarkable for containing a song called "Syntax Tree."

_____________

Jega's "Syntax Tree":

The Linguist’s Calendar: October 15

"The Swallow's Nest," Crimea

The Linguist’s Calendar: October 15

1997: The Crimean parliament votes to make Russian the peninsula’s official language in place of Ukrainian. 56 of the parliament’s 96 deputies approved the motion and four voted against it.

The Linguist’s Calendar: October 14

British Columbia Scenery

The Linguist’s Calendar: October 14

In British Columbia, Canada, this is “Aboriginal Language Day.”


______________

View the First Peoples' Language Map of B.C.

The Linguist’s Calendar: October 13

Eliezer Ben-Yehuda

October 13
 
1807: German linguist Hans Conon von der Gabelentz is born.
 
1881: The Hebrew language is officially revived as Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and his friends agree to only use Hebrew in their conversations.
 
1971: Susan Curtiss notes that “Genie” for the first time really reacts to the stories that are being read to her.

The Linguist’s Calendar: October 12

Noam Chomsky

October 12 
1967: Noam Chomsky publishes a “call to resist illegitimate authority” in the New York Review of Books. It is signed by thousands. The demonstrations following eventually lead to Chomsky’s arrest.

The Linguist’s Calendar: October 11

Roman Jakobson

October 11
 
1896: Russian-American linguist Roman Jakobson is born in Moscow.
 
2002: Two members of the Center party propose that the Swedish government include Swedish Sign among the country’s officially recognized minority languages.

The Linguist’s Calendar: October 10

League of Nations Assembly

October 10

1922: The British authorities in Palestine define the three official languages of the League of Nations mandate as Arabic, Hebrew and English.

The Linguist’s Calendar: October 9

Han'gŭl alphabet

October 9 
  
The launching of the Han'gŭl alphabet in 1446 is commemorated in Korea as the “Korean Alphabet Day”—until recently a national public holiday.
 
1940: Nazi representative Rudolf Schlichting writes home to Germany from occupied France, suggesting that the allegedly positive Breton attitude vis-à-vis Germans could be exploited in the eradication of their language. “In one generation, Brittany will be a predominately German country”, Schlichting notes not without satisfaction.
 
1947: Publication of the first volume of the monumental Joseon Language Big Dictionary, the first large dictionary of Korean.

The Linguist’s Calendar: October 8

Ken Hale

October 8

1868: Preaching in Salt Lake City, Mormon leader Brigham Young proposes a new phonetic alphabet to be used among his followers. The alphabet is devised, but little used, and later abandoned.

1992: Peter Bakker of Amsterdam defends his thesis on Michif, the unique French-Cree mixed language of USA and Canada.

1994: Swedish phonetician and Romanist Bertil Malmberg dies at the age of 81.

2001: Death of Ken Hale.

The Linguist’s Calendar: October 7

Tevfik Esenç

October 7

1992: Tevfik Esenç, the last speaker of Ubykh, dies in Istanbul. Ubykh is known mainly for its awe-inspiring phoneme system, consisting of two vowels and about 80 consonants. As it happens, Esenç died on the very same day that linguistic fieldworker Ole Stig Andersen arrived in order to interview him.

2002: The N|u language dies with the passing away of Elsie Vaalbooi, born some time around 1900.

The Linguist’s Calendar: October 6

Ad for Turkish Tourism

October 6 

1926: “Der europäische Sprachgeist” by Henrik Becker becomes the first ever lecture to be delivered at the Prague Linguistics Circle.

1999: The governor of Mardin state, Turkey, issues an official memo insisting that teaching of the Syriac language in the local monasteries’ boarding facilities be put to an end, since they violate Turkish law.

The Linguist’s Calendar: October 5

Swedish Parliament Building

October 5

2000: The Swedish government appoints a commission intended to investigate the possibilities of protecting the Swedish language against the onslaught of English.

The Linguist’s Calendar: October 4

Sputnik 1

October 4
 
1914: Nikolai Sergeyevich Trubetzkoy gets married in Moscow.
 
1957: The first man-made satellite is launched. For two reasons, this event is often mentioned in linguistics textbooks. First, overnight, it introduced the word Sputnik in scores of languages. This word is therefore mentioned as one of the rare examples where the appearance of a certain word can be dated. On October 3, few people had heard it, the next day it was part of the vocabulary of most westerners. Secondly, the shock experienced by Americans when realizing that other nations were as technologically advanced as theirs is often said to have provided the real impetus for the start of computational linguistics and machine translation—few American scientists knew any Russian, and could thus not keep themselves updated on the developments in Soviet research.
 
2001: Turkey announces constitutional changes, which, among other things, are to lead to an end to the ban on Kurdish language usage in media.

The Linguist’s Calendar: October 3

Anthony Monaco

October 3
 
2001: Media all over the world report the finding of the “language gene.” The truth behind the claim is that a group of British scientists under the leadership of Anthony Monaco had found that a gene called FOXP2 causes certain verbal dysfunctions when mutated.

The Linguist’s Calendar: October 2

A bilingual sign in Bautzen

October 2

1962: The East German government’s post-war flirt with its Sorbian minority comes to an end, as German is imposed as the language of teaching in several subjects.

The Linguist’s Calendar: October 1

Andhra Pradesh

October 1

1928: All Turkish authorities are required to conduct their business using Latin, rather than Arabic, script.
 
1953: Andhra Pradesh becomes the second Indian state to be formed on the basis of linguistic frontiers.