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languagelog_feed May. 24th, 2026 12:41 am)
languagelog_feed May. 24th, 2026 12:41 am)‘It’s broken English’: MP’s attempt to speak Jamaican in parliament sparks language row
Parliamentary rule that only English is allowed has reignited debate about language, legitimacy and postcolonial identity
Natricia Duncan and Anthony Lugg in Kingston, The Guardian (5/21/26)
In this explosive exchange, you can hear the dramatic shift from "Patwa" (patois) to standard English in a 1:17 video included in The Guardian article.
When the Jamaican MP Nekeisha Burchell stood up to give her maiden speech, she was keenly aware of how much her country’s parliament mirrored the Westminster version thousands of miles away in London.
As in the UK, the session on 12 May had started with the arrival of the ceremonial mace – a 1.7-metre ornamented silver staff representing the British monarch’s authority over parliament – which now rested on a table between the government and the opposition. Despite the heat outside, debate was presided over by the speaker dressed in a ceremonial robe.
I witnessed a similar ceremony at the opening of an international congress of orientalists in Toronto about a quarter of a century ago.
Burchell, the opposition spokesperson for culture, creative industries and information, approached the microphone and began to speak. “Madam speaka, mi git up dis afta noon fi mek mi fuss sectoral speech, pan me portfolio …” (VHM: emphasis added)
The speaker, Juliet Holness, immediately cut her off. “Hold on, hold on, hold on! Standing orders, and I think you are fully aware,” said Holness, who is the wife of Jamaica’s prime minister.
The regulation to which Holness referred was the rule that only English – and certainly not Jamaican – is allowed in parliament. “If I have to stop you again during your presentation, you will not get any additional time,” Holness told Burchell as parliament erupted into protest, with someone chiding “broken English”.
There are vast implications to Burchell's use of Jamaican in the National parliament. It is similar to using Taiwanese in the ROC national parliament. Try it and see what happens.
Burchell had ignited an explosive debate across the country and beyond about the enduring legacy of British colonialism and whether robes, prayers for the British monarch and the “king’s English” are still right for Jamaica, more than 60 years after it gained independence.
Burchell continued her speech in standard English. “Madam speaker, perhaps I should abandon that attempt to use our local language because I have been reminded of the linguistic conventions of this honourable house,” she said.
There are many more nuances and complications to what happened in the Jamaican parliament on May 12 when Nekeisha Burchell spoke in Jamaican rather than in standard English. Burchell said her intention was not to disrespect parliament or cause disorder.
“We have gotten comfortable with keeping things like the prayer we say before parliament starts every single week … We’re saying these words that we don’t understand. We’re still wearing these wigs and these robes in a hot climate like Jamaica, because we are still keeping these models.”
Burchell said her intervention was not meant to be “anti-British” or “anti-English” but was more about Jamaica’s cultural confidence.
“Jamaica’s language has become one of the most globally recognisable cultural expressions to come out of the Caribbean. Through reggae, dancehall, athletics, popular culture, people across the world recognise the rhythm, energy, boldness, humour [and] the emotional texture of our language. And I think that’s part of why this conversation resonated internationally,” she said.
It's a question of pride in one's culture and mother tongue.
Selected readings
- "David Starkey on rioting and Jamaican language" (8/14/11)
- "Starkey ravings" (8/16/11)
- "Botty man" (9/14/09)
- "No creoles?" (9/4/17)
[From an old friend]
(maru_feed May. 23rd, 2026 11:00 pm)
maru_feed May. 23rd, 2026 11:00 pm)まるさん、お誕生日おめでとう！ 生まれてきてくれてありがとう！ Happy Birthday, Maru! Thank you for being born!
(languagelog_feed May. 23rd, 2026 08:11 pm)
languagelog_feed May. 23rd, 2026 08:11 pm)5 Mysterious Writing Systems That No One Has Deciphered: These ancient scripts offer tantalizing clues about civilizations we still don’t fully understand.
Crystal Ponti, History (5/15/26)
The five undeciphered writing systems covered in this post are: Linear A, Indus Script, Rongorongo, Proto-Elamite, and The Phaistos Disk. We have discussed each of these scripts on Language Log, some of them at consierable length and on multiple occasions.
What conditions unite them?
Early civilizations recorded trade, ritual and governance in various written forms, leaving behind systems of communication that shaped human history. Egyptian hieroglyphs and Maya glyphs have been deciphered, but others remain stubbornly encoded, even after centuries of study.
As Marc Zender, associate professor of anthropology and director of the linguistics program at Tulane University, explains, decipherment depends on a specific set of conditions:
-
Script typology: Determining what kind of writing system it is and whether symbols represent sounds, syllables, whole words or a combination of these.
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Sufficient corpus: Having enough examples of the script for researchers to study and compare.
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Known or reconstructible language: Identifying the underlying language or being able to reasonably reconstruct it. Without this, decipherment is nearly impossible.
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Cultural context: Understanding the civilization that produced the script, including known names, places and historical references.
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Constraint: Having a crucial clue, such as a bilingual inscription, that allows researchers to match meanings across languages.
“Those scripts without any of these pillars will remain undeciphered,” he notes, while even partially supported systems “will never be as well-understood as scholars would like.”
Increasingly sophisticated AI systems may make it possible to compensate for the lack of one or more of these 5 pillars.
Selected readings
- "Are all writing systems equally easy / hard?" (4/17/25)
- "Language trees and script trees" (12/27/21) — guest post by Jim Unger (J. Marshall Unger), who wrote it in response to my invitation to him to draw up a Stammbaum to show the relationships of the world's scripts.
(otw_news_feed May. 23rd, 2026 03:59 pm)
otw_news_feed May. 23rd, 2026 03:59 pm)Manacles Press, publisher of various fanzines including Nudge Nudge Wink Wink (Professionals), McPikus Interruptus (Wiseguy), and Consupiscence (multifandom), is importing the zines’ fanworks to the Archive of Our Own (AO3).
In this post:
- A bit of background explanation
- What this means for creators who had work(s) in Manacles Press’s fanzines
- And what to do if you still have questions
Background explanation
Manacles Press was run by Megan Kent and Charlotte C. Hill in the 1990’s, publishing both anthology and novel zines. Megan and Charlotte are happy to archive these works in an effort to preserve fannish history and to keep the fanworks available and free.
The fanzines to be imported are:
- Arabian Nights: Fanlore page and AO3 collection
- Chains of Being: Fanlore page and AO3 collection
- Concupiscence: Fanlore page and AO3 collection
- McPikus Interruptus: Fanlore page and AO3 collection
- Never Let Me Down: Fanlore page and AO3 collection
- Nudge Nudge Wink Wink: Fanlore page and AO3 collection
- Outrider: Fanlore page and AO3 collection
- Professional Dreamer: Fanlore page and AO3 collection
- Walking Distance: Fanlore page and AO3 collection
- What If…: Fanlore page and AO3 collection
- Whisper of a Kill: Fanlore page and AO3 collection
The purpose of the Open Doors Committee’s AO3 Fanzine Scan Hosting Project (FSHP) is to assist publishers of fanzines to incorporate the fanworks from those fanzines into the Archive of Our Own. It is extremely important to Open Doors that we work in collaboration with publishers who want to import their fanzines and that we fully credit creators, giving them as much control as possible over their fanworks. Open Doors will be working with Manacles Press to import the fanzines listed above into separate, searchable collections on the Archive of Our Own. As part of preserving the fanzines in their entirety, all art in the fanzines will be hosted on the OTW’s servers and embedded in their own AO3 work pages.
We will begin importing works from Manacles Press’s fanzines to the AO3 after June 2026. However, the import may not take place for several months or even years, depending on the size and complexity of the task. Creators are always welcome to import their own works and add them to the collections in the meantime.
What does this mean for creators who had work(s) in Manacles Press’s fanzines?
We will send an import notification to the email address we have for each creator. We’ll do our best to check for an existing copy of any works before importing. If we find a copy already on the AO3, we will add it to the collection instead of importing it. All works archived on behalf of a creator will include their name in the byline or the summary of the work.
All imported works will be set to be viewable only by logged-in AO3 users. Once you claim your works, you can make them publicly-viewable if you choose. After 30 days, all unclaimed imported works will be made visible to all visitors.
Please contact Open Doors with your creator pseud(s) and email address(es), if:
- You’d like us to import your works, but you need the notification sent to a different email address than the publisher has a record of.
- You already have an AO3 account and have imported your works already yourself.
- You’d like to import your works yourself (including if you don’t have an AO3 account yet).
- You would NOT like your works moved to the AO3, or would NOT like your works added to the fanzine collections.
- You are happy for us to preserve your works on the AO3, but would like us to remove your name.
- You have any other questions we can help you with.
Please include the name of the publisher or fanzine in the subject heading of your email. If you no longer have access to the email account the publisher has a record of, please contact Open Doors and we’ll help you out. (If you’ve posted the works elsewhere, or have an easy way to verify that they’re yours, that’s great; if not, we will work with Manacles Press to confirm your claims.)
Please see the Open Doors website for instructions on:
- importing your works to the AO3
- adding your works to the new collections listed above
If you still have questions…
If you have further questions, visit the Open Doors FAQ, or contact the Open Doors committee.
We’d also love it if fans could help us preserve the story of Manacles Press and its fanzines on Fanlore. If you’re new to wiki editing, no worries! Check out the new visitor portal, or ask the Fanlore Gardeners for tips.
We’re excited to be able to help preserve Manacles Press’s fanzines!
– The Open Doors team, Megan and Charlotte
Commenting on this post will be disabled in 14 days. If you have any questions, concerns, or comments regarding this import after that date, please contact Open Doors.
(opera_ramblings_feed May. 23rd, 2026 02:59 pm)
opera_ramblings_feed May. 23rd, 2026 02:59 pm)The first production by Benevolence Opera Project took place on Friday evening at the Redwood Theatre. It was a benefit for the Redwood Shelter for women and children fleeing abuse. One could argue that the choice of Mozart’s Don Giovanni was a bit odd in the circumstances but it certainly got conversation going around the issues!
It was quite an unusual presentation. It was much abridged. I wasn’t keeping close track but I think there was about two hours of music and narration versus the usual three hours. To compress it this much it was staged as a series of scenes with a chess themed linking narration written and performed by Ryan Hofman. There was no chorus and it was piano score with Brahm Goldhamer at the keyboard. Mostly sung in Italian (with English surtitles) there were some interpolated bits of English dialogue.
It worked pretty well. I suspect people who didn’t know the opera would have been easily able to follow the action and the more knowledgeable could play “guess the cut”. I didn’t enumerate the cuts in detail but they included a much shorter party scene (no chorus so of course), no “Batti, batti” again, of course. There was a much shortened graveyard scene, and the ending was quite abrupt; just from Donna Elvira’s entrance to Don Giovanni’s demise. Still, pretty satisfying and coherent.
There were some excellent performances and quite clever use of the limited staging resources of the Redwood. Alexander Hajek was a suitably swaggering Don and sang with power and style backed up by a fairly restrained Leporello in Luke Noftall. To be fair to him, catalogue aria aside many of his best bits were cut! The Donnas were an interesting pair. Holly Chaplin was a powerful presence as Donna Anna and the surprise (to me at least) was Mary Ferrari as Elvira. Subsequent research shows a coloratura soprano with quite a lot of experience around the world but I’d not seen her before. She’s really good; stage presence, power and style and, on the one occasion she got to show it off, impressive coloratura. Cameron Mazzei completed the masked trio as Don Ottavio. He sang sweetly and stylishly.
Kathryn Rose Johnston, as Zerlina, and James Coole-Stevenson made an attractive and well matched couple even though both roles were missing key bits. Aside from “Batti, batti”, the whole rigmarole where Masetto explains to the disguised Don Giovanni how they are going to catch and kill him was replaced by the Don socking him over the head with a Scrabble set! (à la Operamania). Andrew Tees made the most of the very attenuated Commendatore role singing with great presence and power.
All in all it felt like an effective use of limited resources coupled with better singing than one might perhaps expect. And it was all in a good cause. And should you be minded to donate, here’s the link.
Photo credit: Noah Waters
The weekly chat posts are intended for just that, chatting among each other. What are you currently watching? Reading? What actor/idol are you currently following? What are you looking forward to? Are you busy writing, creating art? Or did you have no time at all for anything, and are bemoaning that fact?
Whatever it is, talk to us about it here. Tell us what you liked or didn't like, and if you want to talk about spoilery things, please hide them under either of these codes:
or
Whatever it is, talk to us about it here. Tell us what you liked or didn't like, and if you want to talk about spoilery things, please hide them under either of these codes:
or
Tags:
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This week's prompt is: Jinlintai.
You have until midnight your time on Friday, May 29, to answer this prompt. Please post your fills of the prompt as separate entries to the community (i.e. not replies to this entry), tagged with the prompt tag. You may post multiple standalone drabbles per entry in addition to drabble sequences and series.
As a reminder, this community has no official presence elsewhere. You are encouraged to share the prompt on social media, if you so desire. It may take me a bit to create the AO3 collection, so please be patient.
Also, I'm going to go ahead and drop a link to the prompt suggestions post here. New suggestions are always, always welcome.
You have until midnight your time on Friday, May 29, to answer this prompt. Please post your fills of the prompt as separate entries to the community (i.e. not replies to this entry), tagged with the prompt tag. You may post multiple standalone drabbles per entry in addition to drabble sequences and series.
As a reminder, this community has no official presence elsewhere. You are encouraged to share the prompt on social media, if you so desire. It may take me a bit to create the AO3 collection, so please be patient.
Also, I'm going to go ahead and drop a link to the prompt suggestions post here. New suggestions are always, always welcome.
Tags:
(opera_ramblings_feed May. 22nd, 2026 04:44 pm)
opera_ramblings_feed May. 22nd, 2026 04:44 pm)How many singers can you fit in a clown car one hour lunchtime recital in the RBA? Opera 5 managed eighteen ranging from Krisztina Szabó and Greg Dahl to a whole posse of interns plus Trevor Chartrand at the piano. Besides material obviously related to the upcoming (June 3rd to 14th) festival at Theatre Passe Muraille there was Mozart, Strauss (R), musical theatre and Die Fledermaus. It was all really well done but I’m just going to talk about the material that’s most relevant to the festival.
Rachel Krehm started us off with Cecilia Livingston’s luna premit. It’s not from the new opera Parélios, which will premiere in the festival’s second week, but it’s the same composer and librettist and a pretty good intro to the kind of luminous sound world Cecilia creates. It has a rather beautiful vocal line with quite sparse accompaniment at just the right places. Rachel sang beautifully and her Latin diction is pretty good too.
The first week of the festival features a double bill of Puccini; Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi. One starts with a death and ends with damnation, the other ends with a death and, apparently, salvation, so an obvious pairing. We got excerpts from both. Michal Aloni sang the thre rather grim “Nel silenzio” from Suor Angelica dramatically and with some really interesting dark colours. Kate Fogg and Jeremy Scinocca produced a very pleasing “Lauretta mia” with plenty of power and some style before the other Lauretta, Paige Robinson, sang a very smooth and well controlled (and inevitable) “O mio babbino caro”. Both arias from Gianni Schicchi of course.
But the festival is not all about student interns, good as they are. There are some heavy hitters. Rachel will sing the title role in Suor Angelica with Kristina Szabó as La Zia Principessa as well as Zita in Gianni Schicchi with Greg Dahl in the title role in that one. They both made significant contributions to Wednesday’s concert with a powerful version of Strauss’ “Zueignung” from Krisztina and a very smooth “I’ll Walk Beside You” from Greg before joining forces for a very funny account of “Wunderbar” from Kiss Me Kate.
Both Puccini operas will be fully staged in productions by Jessica derventzis and a chamber ensemble directed by Evan Mitchell. Parélios features four singers, three dancers, the Tor Q percussion quartet and quite possibly the end of the world all directed and choreographed by Jenn Nicholls.
Tickets for both shows are available from the TPM box office.
Photo credit: Dan Truong
(languagelog_feed May. 22nd, 2026 04:12 pm)
languagelog_feed May. 22nd, 2026 04:12 pm)It's a word I've barely heard of, though I did write a post about it two years ago ("A fancy way to say 'fancy'" [9/22/24] — with lengthy, learned discussion in the comments). Yet this morning it turns up at the top of "America's most misspelled words in 2026" (5/22/26)!
No wonder, given its etymology:
From bourgeoisie.
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- (slang, usually derogatory) Behaving like or pertaining to people of a higher social status, middle-class / bourgeois people (sometimes carrying connotations of fakeness, elitism, or snobbery).
- (UK, Canada, slang) Fancy or good-looking, without the same connotations of snobbery or pretentiousness as in sense 1.
alternative forms: bourgie, boojie, boujee, boujée
Mark's question still stands: what happened to the 'r' on the way from bourgeois to bougie?
Selected readings
- "Minimal pair" (6/14/11) — bijou
- "A trilingual, biscriptal note (with emoji)" (2/5/17) — in the middle of the comments
- "Not precise the vomit but with aspect similar" (9/23/10) — midway through the comments
Here's an older post where I was having fun with Snapchat filters on Guardian, The Untamed and Till the end of the moon in my journal.
Check out the video clips and pictures here.
Mods, please help with the correct type of tag.
I sure hope to do more of these purely for unhinged fun. /o\
(languagelog_feed May. 22nd, 2026 02:52 pm)
languagelog_feed May. 22nd, 2026 02:52 pm)"Words as Data: How Data Journalists Tell Stories about Documents and Text." Bradshaw, Paul. Online Journalism Blog, May 14, 2026.
"Discovering Regularity and Mechanisms of Word Sense Acquisition in Childhood." Li, Jiangtian et al. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 123, no. 20 (May 11, 2026): e2525788123.
"Visual Processing Is a Language-Agnostic Window into Heterogeneity in Early Reading Development." Ramamurthy, Mahalakshmi et al. Current Biology (May 20, 2026).
"Rethinking Foreign Language Anxiety: Psychological Insights into Gender and Skill-Specific Patterns." Wang, Yan et al. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications (May 15, 2026).
Edward M "Ted" McClure, Librarian
(languagelog_feed May. 22nd, 2026 01:26 pm)
languagelog_feed May. 22nd, 2026 01:26 pm)Below is a guest post by Randoh Sallihall:
Analysis of Google search data for 2026 reveals the most misspelled words for each U.S. state and America.
National Spelling Bee will be held from May 26 to May 28. The research is well timed.
America's most misspelled words:
- Bougie – 134 400 searches.
- Favorite – 128 400 searches.
- Through – 127 200 searches.
- Business – 123 600 searches.
- Tomorrow – 121 200 searches.
- Because – 106 800 searches.
- Definitely – 104 400 searches.
- Beautiful – 102 000 searches.
- Niece – 100 800 searches.
- Separate – 98 400 searches.
America's most misspelled words by state:
- Alabama – Business
- Alaska – Beautiful
- Arizona – Through
- Arkansas – Beautiful
- California – Different
- Colorado – Color
- Connecticut – Recommend
- Delaware – Beautiful
- Florida – School
- Georgia – Chihuahua
- Hawaii – Appreciate
- Idaho – Necessary
- Illinois – Color
- Indiana – Because
- Iowa – Character
- Kansas – Schedule
- Kentucky – Definitely
- Louisiana – Restaurant
- Maine – Definitely
- Maryland – Business
- Massachusetts – Schedule
- Michigan – Which
- Minnesota – Ukulele
- Mississippi – Business
- Missouri – Because
- Montana – Appreciate
- Nebraska – Congratulations
- Nevada – Teacher
- New Hampshire – Bougie
- New Jersey – Because
- New Mexico – Sincerely
- New York – Judgement
- North Carolina – Spaghetti
- North Dakota – Adios
- Ohio – Because
- Oklahoma – Chihuahua
- Oregon – Diamond
- Pennsylvania – Maintenance
- Rhode Island – Bougie
- South Carolina – Quite
- South Dakota – Congratulations
- Tennessee – Through
- Texas – Recycle
- Utah – Basically
- Vermont – Beautiful
- Virginia – Spaghetti
- Washington – Fiance
- West Virginia – Beautiful
- Wisconsin – Business
- Wyoming – Chihuahua
A spokesperson for Unscramblerer.com commented on the findings:
"Analyzing Americas list of most misspelled words for 2026 we found silent letters, irregular vowel sounds, tricky suffixes, difficult consonant blends, schwa sounds, weird double letters, French and Spanish loanwords that break every phonics rule. English spelling and pronunciation is often irregular. Words that contain silent letters: business (silent i), through (silent gh), schedule (silent c), character (silent h), beautiful (silent eau). Words with irregular vowel sounds: through (ou), beautiful (eau), because (au), restaurant (au), bougie (ou). Words that use tricky suffixes like -ly, -ate, -ent, -ious: definitely (-itely), beautiful (-iful), necessary (-ary), maintenance (-ance), appreciate (-ciate), congratulations (-ulations). Words that contain difficult consonant blends: school (sch), quite (qu), spaghetti (sp), chihuahua (ch), through (thr), which (wh). Words with double consonants: business (ss), tomorrow (rr, mm), recommend (mm), different (ff), necessary (ss). Studies show that reliance on autocorrect and AI deteriorates the authors spelling ability over time. To combat this digital amnesia we encourage everybody to search for the correct spelling of the word when a feeling of doubt arises. This becomes an educational moment. As the saying goes, use it or lose it."
Research was conducted by word unscrambling experts at Unscramblerer.com.
We analyzed Jan 1, 2026 – May 18, 2026 search data from Google Trends for "How do you spell" and "How to spell".
Methodology: We used Google Trends to discover the most misspelled words and Ahrefs to find the number of searches. Americas most misspelled words can be discovered in Google Trends by searching for "How do you spell" and "How to spell". Ahrefs shows many variations of misspelling searches like "spell favorite" or "how do I spell tomorrow". We added up 120 search variations of top spelling searches.
Above is a guest post by Randoh Sallihall.
Maybe someone can tell me what happened to the 'r' on the way from bourgeois to bougie?
.