"Flakes of info and fun!"

That's how I'd try, in my corny way, to promote Pageflakes. It's a start page similar to iGoogle or Netvibes. The idea is that you can put a whole bunch of things (ie, widgets/flakes) that you like all together on a page, or a tab. You could have a very basic "home" start page, with your email, a game that you always play, the weather, a calendar, and some RSS feeds. You can also have more specialized tabs--ones devoted to music, sports, science, etc. Then if you really want to, you can also publish this particular tab into a "pagecast" and other people can see it and use it too. It's a great way to share information, and so--I've made one!

Make your way on over, or just read my little summary of it here:

I've tried to keep it organized. On the right are RSS feeds to blogs I like to keep up with. Many are included in my blogroll. I'll need to update my blogroll. One of them is this blog you are now currently reading. (On a side note, a cool thing aboutPageflakes is that you can click a button and view a pagecast as if it were an RSS reader.)

To the left, under the introduction are two search engines (already loaded with search words) to keep us updated on current, related pieces of news and blog entries. And remember Maigemu? I've bookmarked his "mission" tags. I've also shamelessly bookmarked my own Diigo bookmarks.

And here's something juicy--the annotated bibliography I've been giving sneak peeks to! It's done really techno-savvily with Zotero, a source-bookmarking add-on to Firefox, and Citeline, an online tool that automatically types up bibliographies for you, made by those geniuses at MIT. It's okay if this isn't your favorite part of the pagecast, though. I understand if it's a bit dry.

Next, some websites for getting involved... All three of these websites are sites of organizations founded by a man named Cameron Townsend. The first is Wycliffe Bible Translators, an organization I've mentioned before. They are a mission organization aiming to send people out to translate Bibles. Besides actual Bible translators, included in the work force (partially through the closely related Wycliffe Associates) are language surveyors, literacy specialists, teachers for the kids of missionaries, even librarians, and many many more.

They work very closely with JAARS, of whose site I've included as third in the pagecast. JAARS is an organization aiming to aid missionaries in other, more specialized and technical ways (eg, radio transmission, aviation, information technology, contsuction).

The second website included (yes, I understand I'm explaining out of order) is OneStory. OneStory aims to make voice recordings of Bible stories for oral-based cultures. It's a great step toward actual Bible translation.

And the last little bit of this pagecast, tacked onto the right column under the RSS feeds are two websites full of great linguistic information--SIL International and its publication, the Ethnologue, a collection of the world's languages.

And.. that concludes my pagecast! I hope you have fun using the pagecast and looking at all the things I like to look at!

--kowai-kawaii

edit: I've updated and changed the pageflake a little bit, so it currently is a bit different than what I've written about here... And I'm sure it will continue to change, too, so just go there and check it out! :)

The Lousy Linguist is a baritone.

That is my guess. But as far his literary voice goes, I think he's incredibly funny while still being so academic and informative. He really knows how to use his words. Not surprising, as he's a linguist (a "lousy" one) who specializes in syntax and semantics. His posts range from discussing the meanings of specific words ("think" vs "believe", "call"), to discussing things he's come across (little xkcd comics, Stephen Colbert...) of relevance to the world of linguistics. Thus, his voice may range from more academic, to more casual and critical. And he's not at all afraid to state his opinions and to pick sides (or let us know what side he's already on, I suppose). My favorites of his posts have to be the ones critical of Andrew Sullivan, blogger of The Daily Dish. Why do I like these posts the most? For that matter, why am I even blogging about this site, seeing as how its main topics are syntax and semantics, and not Bible translation?

Bible translation from the original languages to another, whether English or, let's say, Nyungwe, is all about understanding the meaning of the original words in order to find, hopefully, equivalents in another language. That task itself requires an understanding of the language being translated into, and so understanding the syntax and semantics of that language is key because if there's confusion and/or disagreement regarding what some words actually mean, or how they should best be used, well... we'd be in trouble. Or shall I say that we are in trouble? But actually, we seem to be doing okay, as translations get updated and revised to change along with language.

And see, language is forever changing. It has to. There's a certain amount that we should try to regulate, I suppose, so that we can continue to understand each other cross generationally or something, but those that maintain that rules are rules are rules... That is not language. We've got to be flexible because people, society, change. Prescriptivism is about prescribing the rules for language. Descriptivism is about describing the way language is spoken. The Lousy Linguist is a descriptivist while Sullivan is a prescriptivist.

So part of why I like this Lousy Linguist's posts regarding Sullivan is his ability to critique so humorously without lacking substance: reason and credibility. His character is one that loves the English language the way it is used by the masses (he often Googles specific word phrases to check the popularity and usage of it). He loves his area of study and he is offended when others disregard it. Someone who loves linguistics so much really lets himself shine when he comes to defend the subject of study itself and his point of view (check out: Dissin' Linguists and Deer Meat & Semantic Narrowing--and now I know: rhetorical questions are very useful. I'll have to look into that).

Back to what I glossed over in my opening paragraph about The Lousy Linguist's posts: what I like most about his voice is that he writes with honesty, not afraid to to invite opposition, and certainly not stating that his opinions and thoughts are fact (all while still being fairly academic). He doesn't impose his thoughts on others who differ (though he may directly address them: "Andrew Sullivan! PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE! Take a frikkin linguistics course! Ugh!") The fact that he blogs all of this down communicates to me that he just needs to collect his thoughts and perhaps share them along the way. He lets himself freely think this way in "Words and Meaning":

I could be wrong about this, but my hunch is that the human language system takes all written representations of language and converts them into an internal mental representation it’s happy with...but I don’t see any reason to believe that the internal semantic representation of kanji is somehow different than the representation of words. (emphasis added)

and in discussing MIT linguist Pinker:

I have mixed feelings about Pinker. I admire his contribution to psycholinguistics, even while disagreeing with some of his major conclusions. ...But of late, he seems to have jumped off the deep end of rationality and come to the conclusion that his opinions and intuition are more than that; they are now fact. I think we would all be better off if Pinker got off the lecture circuit and back into the lab and started studying verbs again.

Oh, if we could all be truly free to blog as we wish like The Lousy Linguist. To feel fine and unburdened as we talk about what we want to talk about, and to feel fine and unburdened to not talk about what we don't want to talk about. I mean, we could--I could--I guess I'm not personally quite at that step yet. Yeah, I don't think I'm as verbally opinionated to any old person (especially out there in the interwebs) as some people.

--kowai-kawaii

Some more...

Maaan there're so many blogs out there! I thought I'd have some trouble finding blogs related to this area, but umm... I guess not. It's actually kind of late as I type this. My eyelids are getting all droopy. Anyway, look:

lingamish.com: that translator that blogs about the progress of the Nyungwe Bible--David Ker--he blogs about a ton of things...things he finds interesting. Get this:

I never blog about cats.

And this one's funny. Actually, he just is funny. He's got a great blogging voice. But there's just a lot of stuff there. It'll take a while for me to get through it all.

The Arthurs' blog is cool cuz in its "tags" section, "BIBLE TRANSLATION" shows up as the BIGGEST.

The Talking Bible reminds us about the cultures out there, that are oral and not script based cultures. Audio Bibles will probably be the most meaningful to them, huh.

The "Translation Issues" category in the Northwest Baptist Seminary archives talk more about translation itself, regardless of resultant language.

Ok, going to bed. It feels so late. How will I ever have the time to revisit these blogs and pour through them? On a side note, my roommate will now have trouble making sure I'm actually doing homework when from now she'll see me on the computer a lot. :)

--kowai-kawaii

Check this out!

Go check out "Nyungwe Bible Translation"! As you can guess...it's a blog completely devoted to the translation of the Bible into the Nyungwe language in Tete, Mozambique. Nyungwe is

a language spoken by more than 250,000 people living in the region of the Zambezi River.

It's a concise little blog that shows anybody who's interested, from financial and/or prayer supporters to any old person like me who has an interest in the subject, a little bit about what goes on in the world of translation. It's not necessarily all that academic, because it's not here to instruct us about how to translate or anything, but it is very professionally written. I believe an American missionary working on the project writes this blog. Based on his post in the May of 2008, linking us to his other blogs, he is David Ker,

a media access specialist and member of Wycliffe Bible Translators based in Mozambique, Africa.

Wycliffe Bible Translators, by the way, is probably the biggest organization out there devoted to translating the Bible into all the languages spoken by all the people on Earth. (But more info on them later!)

One post I like is one from April 2006, where more light is shed into the process of Bible translation. In my mind when I was younger, I imagined Bible translation to be a dangerous, adventurous journey where a family would go alone into an unknown area and live with the "natives", as the natives do, slowly learning their language and developing a script for it. But now that areas of the world are more developed, I suppose it's more common for things to be done more efficiently as a group effort. With training, nationals are actually doing more of the actual translating now, not foreign missionaries. Computers are available, too.

This post in November 2007 reveals to you the dedication these people have for translation. It's boiling hot in Mozambique, even in November, so the most comfortable place to work is in the shade outdoors!--on little wooden chairs? With our worldviews and living standards, I'm sure I'd be thinking about how my butt's so sore and my feet are all dusty, but really--this is home for others! And reading the previous post, this Pastor Semo (the joyful, smiling man in the picture, I presume)--his wife had passed away about two months prior. That he still has this passion, drive, and joy is completely inspirational to me; it really is a testament to how God heals.

This blog averages about 4 posts a year: this is probably due to busy schedules and perhaps limited internet access. Posts are kept short, probably due once more to limited internet access. As for popularity, I suppose it is not that popular--the post with the highest number of comments contain 2 comments. Most posts are commentless and a technorati search yields no results.

Besides all that technical stuff, I'll be coming back to this site as a reference about ways in which Bible translation occurs. There's not a whole lot, but it's just so cool to be reading about something that's happening right now. In real time. Otherwise, the only contact I'll have with a particular translation process is probably just the finished product. w00t!

--kowai-kawaii