Note of the Living Deb

English is wacky.

I already knew we love to use loads of nouns (summer league frisbee, Barton Creek Square Mall, rubber baby buggy bumpers), but I just recently realized we even use them as prepositional phrases.

* plate - Can mean "with beans and rice" (such as "enchilada plate"); or it can imply two vegetable sides (such as "meatloaf plate").

* platter - Can mean "with additional sides" (such as "pancake platter").

(Note: This doesn't work with fruit. A fruit platter is bigger than a fruit plate, which is bigger than a fruit cup, but they are all just fruit, cut into bite-sized pieces. Whereas I think of a fruit bowl as being full of whole, uncut fruit.)

* basket - Can mean "with fries" (as in "corndog basket").

* meal deal (two nouns!) - Can mean "with fries and a soft drink."

* boat - Can mean both "still in the peel" and "with melted chocolate and marshmallows," but probably only in the phrase "banana boat."

(Tries to think of something else that would be good as a boat. Mango boat? Sweet potato boat?)

One way to practice my Spanish is to look that things that are in both English and Spanish. But sometimes one version is not a direct translation of the other version. I recently found the most disparate versions I've ever seen! (Skip to the last three paragraphs if you are not also learning Spanish.)

Clases de Manejar DEFENSIVO
(DEFENSIVE Driving Classes)

vs.

Save on your insurance!
DEFENSIVE DRIVING

**

golden corral BUFFET

vs.

golden corral All YOU can eat BUFFET

**

Buffet Y Refrescas Incluido!
Divertidas Classes de Movimiento Rapido!
Le garantizamos que pasará!
[Yes, missing upside-down exclamation points and some, but not all, accent marks.]

Buffet and Soft Drinks Included!
Fun, fast-moving classes!
We guarantee you'll pass!

vs.

Our Promise
Get your ticket DISMISSED, keep it off your record!
We Guarantee You'll Pass!
Optional overnight & Rush Service

**

Estamos Aprovados Por El Estado
Para Borrar Infracciones
Y Proveer Descuentos Para El Seguro de Autos
También se puede tomar en línea! Llame para más información.

We Are Approved By The State
To Clear Infractions
And Provide Discounts For Auto Insurance
Can also be taken online! Call for more information.

vs.

Classroom or Internet Classes Available

**

24 horas info- [website]
Llamenos al [phone number]

24 hours info- [website]
Call us at [phone number]

vs.

For Class Information & Reservations:
[website] or
Call Now: [phone number]

So apparently only the Spanish speakers need to know that the classes are fun and fast-moving, that soft drinks are included, and that the internet is available 24 hours a day; only English speakers need to know that the buffet food is unlimited, that they can wait until the last minute for ticket dismissal, and that one can make reservations.

**

I originally picked this up because this is the first time I've ever heard of getting all you can eat during a defensive driving course. The first one I went to that included lunch limited you to two pieces of pizza, and all the ones since have also been a limited (though larger) amount. I looked it up, and it costs $35, just like all the "free lunch" classes near me. (This company offers classes only in the Dallas area.)

Also this was a reminder that although in my brain, when something is "guaranteed" it means there is a 100% chance that it will happen, in real life it only means that if it doesn't happen you get your money back or something.

In my continuing quest to experience media from every country, I picked up Michael Burgan's Kenya, another installment of the fabulous Enchantment of the World series (2015). FYI, I'm barely discussing any of the depressing stuff.

Kenya is about the size of Texas, and, like Texas, it has a coast in the east (the Indian Ocean), and some mountains and deserts. But it also has rain forests, waterfalls, and volcanos, and it borders the "world's largest permanent lake located in a desert," Lake Turkana, at the northern end of the Great Rift Valley, created by two tectonic plates moving away from each other. It also borders Lake Victoria as do Uganda and Tanzania.South Suday, Ethiopia, and Somalia are in the north. It's on the equator and so is warm (though cooler at the higher elevations--Mount Kenya sits right on the equator and has ice year-round).

The first humans lived in this part of Africa where Kenya is. Four thousand years ago, migrants speaking Cushitic languages raised goats and farmed. Later, people speaking Bantu and Nilotic languages arrived.

In the 400s, traders from all around the Indian Ocean and as far away as the Middle East and China came to trade and influenced the foods, language, and religion of Kenyans, leading to the Swahili language and culture in the 1000s. Swahilis joined in the trade and Swahili is still an official language and the coastal city Mombasa is still the second-largest city.

In 1498, Vasco Da Gama arrived from Portugal (Malindi still has a stone pillar he erected in friendship). In 1505, Portuguese invaders began looting and killing. By 1729, the Swahilis, with their Arabic allies, had pushed out the Portuguese.

In 1844, the first European missionary arrived and European explorers began mapping the interior. In 1884, the Europeans began dividing up Africa amongst themselves, and decided that the British got most of Kenya and Uganda. Theirs was no benign rule, making people work, kicking them off their land, killing resisters, and making men carry kipande or identity and employment documents with them at all times. They built a railway to help them transport things from Uganda to the coast. This is when the capital and largest city, Nairobi, was created, and English is still an official language.

Kenya gained independence in 1963, but there were conflicts between different ethnic groups. Corruption still runs rampant, and people don't trust the elections.

In 2010, a new constitution and bill of rights were introduced. Unlike the US's bill of rights, Kenya's "also guarantees such things as access to food, housing, and water."

About 3/4 of Kenyans work in agriculture, usually on small plots of land, but there are also large coffee and tea plantations for export. Fishing is also important, mining is growing, and petroleum was discovered in northern Kenya in 2012. They also make "cars, plastic goods, clothing, chemicals and medicines, paper and paper products, and electrical equipment" mostly for domestic use. Sandals made from old tires "last about ten times longer than traditional shoes." And the "largest part of Kenya's economy is the service sector ... [including] banking, education, health care," and sales.

Kenya has the strongest economy in East Africa. Tourism is now a big part of the economy and large parts of the country are preserved as national parks. That includes Mount Kenya and a stretch of coral reefs along the coast. Kenya has all of 'Africa's "Big Five"--the five land mammals said to be the hardest to kill"--the elephant, cape buffalo, rhinoceros, leopard, and lion. In 1977, Kenya banned hunting of all creatures except some birds. So now safaris are just for pictures. In the desert, they have camels, used mostly for milk rather than carrying things.

Internet usage is growing (39% in 2013). "Safaricom, the nation's leading cell service provider, is one of the nation's most successful businesses." And "M-Pesa, the world's leading mobile money system, is used by two-thirds of the adults in Kenya" to deposit paychecks, withdraw cash, pay rent, buy groceries, and transfer money to anyone with an M-Pesa account.

"All together, Kenyans speak about sixty different languages, and most people speak at least three." There are still many different ethnic groups such as the Kikuyu (1/4 of the population) from around Mt. Kenya, the Luhya (near Lake Victoria and Mt. Elgon), the Luo (also near Lake Victoria), the Kalenjin (western Rift Valley), Maasai (grasslands of southern Kenya), the related Samburu (plains north of Mt. Kenya), and the El Molo (the smallest group with less than 1000 members). Only 1% are of non-African descent. "After 1963, most of the whites gradually left the country." Refugees from Somalia and Sudan are settling in refugee camps and Nairobi.

From Swahili:
* hakuna matata = no problem
* simba = lion
* uhuru = freedom
* Kwanzaa is 'from the phrase matunda ya kwanza, which means "first fruits."'

Most Kenyans are Christian (47% Prostestant, 23% Roman Catholic), some (11%) are Muslim. Most Christians were converted by other Africans. "This gave Africans a lot of power in shaping how Christianity was adopted locally. It also led to the creation of many local churches that mixed traditional African beliefs with mainstream Christian faiths."

The literacy rate is 87%! Like every country but the US, they like soccer. They are also famous for having fast runners.

We had a section in our text about Spanish names, but it's described very well and somewhat amusingly in a few paragraphs in James Michener's Iberia so I'll give you that quote below. (I'm adding more paragraph breaks to make it easier to read.)

A word about Spanish names. To explain the tradition fully would require many pages, for it is unbelievably complicated, but ideally every Spaniard, male or female, has two surnames [last names], the first and more important being the father's and the second the mother's. Thus Pedro Pérez Montilla can properly be referred to as Señor Pérez Montilla or simply as Señor Pérez, but to refer to him as Señor Montilla would be a real gaffe.

Spanish also has the handy little words Don and Doña, which have no equivalent in English and cannot be translated; they are used only preceding a given name [first name], allowing one to refer to a man or woman by the given name with no presumption of intimacy. Thus our friend can be called Don Pedro or Señor Don Pedro Pérez Montilla.

When he [our friend] married, let us say to Leocadia Blanco Alvarez, his wife did not surrender her surnames but merely added his, preceded by the preposition de (of), so that her name became Señora Leocadia Blanco Alvarez de Pérez Montilla, and she may properly be addressed as Doña Leocadia, or as Señora Blanco, or as Señora Blanco Alvarez, or as Señora Blanco Alvarez de Pérez Montilla, or as Señora de Pérez Montilla.

Frequently the paternal and maternal surnames are joined by either a hyphen or an y (and), which means that Don Pedro’s son could be named Antonio Pérez Blanco, or Antonio Pérez-Blanco, or Antonio Pérez y Blanco, although in recent years the last has become less frequent.

Many Spaniards today, in common usage, simply omit the maternal surname entirely or abbreviate it to a single letter. On the other hand, if Don Pedro and Doña Leocadia belong to the nobility or the aristocracy (or if they want to put on airs) the son will adopt the name Señor Don Antonio Pérez Montilla y Blanco Alvarez.

The problem is further complicated when a man has a family name which is unusually common and a maternal name which is less so, for then he becomes known by the more distinctive of his two names, which is only sensible. The five most common Spanish surnames, in order of frequency, are García, Fernández, López, González and Rodríguez, and just as the Englishman named Smith or Jones is accustomed to adding a hyphenated second name, such as Smith-Robertson, so the Spaniard becomes García Montilla, sometimes with the hyphen.

It is in conformity with this custom that the great Spanish poet Federico García Lorca is so often referred to simply by his maternal name. Anglo-Saxon readers encounter difficulties with the names of such historical figures as Spain’s two cardinals who exercised political leadership, Mendoza and Cisneros; in history books you will find many pages about them, and they were at least as famous as Richelieu in France and Wolsey in England, yet if you try to look them up in a Spanish encyclopedia you will find nothing unless you happen to know that the former was born Pedro González de Mendoza and the latter Gonzalo Jiménez de Cisneros. In each of these instances, however, the distinctive name is not maternal but merely a place name added in hopes of making a common name distinctive.

So far I have discussed only the simple cases; the complicated ones I had better skip.

In a small Spanish city to which a friend had sent me a postal money order I had a rueful introduction to this problem of names. My friend had assured me by phone that the money had been sent, and the post office had advised me that it had arrived and that upon presentation of my passport it would be paid. Accordingly, I went to the post office, but before telling the clerk my name, handed him my passport. He studied it, consulted his file of incoming money orders and said, ’Nothing here.’ I explained that I knew it was in hand, so with much politeness he searched his papers again and said, ’Nothing here.’ This time I noticed that he was looking at the A file, so I suggested, ’Perhaps if you look in the ...’

'Please, Señor Albert,’ he said. ’I know my business.’

In my passport he had seen that my name was James Albert Michener and he was smart enough to know from that who I was, and he had no cash for any Señor Albert. When I tried to explain what my name really was he became angry, and I was not able to get my money until Spanish friends came from the hotel to the post office and explained who I was. When the money was paid, the clerk took my passport again, studied my name and shook his head. When he handed back my papers he said, ’I am sorry for your inconvenience, Señor Albert.’

--Michener, James A. Iberia: Spanish Travels and Reflections. (1968) Random House: New York, pp. 41-42.

Our text describes many countries rather than just Spain and was published in 2012. It says the the double-surname tradition is practiced in many, but not all, Latin-American countries. The way this is described does not perfectly match what Michener wrote.

For example, "When a woman marries in a country where two last names are used, legally she retains her two maiden surnames. However, socially she may take her husband's paternal surname in place of her inherited maternal surname. For example, Mercedes Barcha Pardo, wife of Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez, might use the names Mercedes Barcha García or Mercedes Barcha de García in social situations. ... Adopting a husband's last name for social purposes, though widespread, is only legally recognized in Ecuador and Peru." - Blanco, José A. and Philip Redwine Donley, Late. Vistas: Introducción a la Lengua Española (4th ed.) (2012) Vistas higher Learning: p. 86.

Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_naming_customs, 6/4/16) says that in Spain, "gender equality law has allowed surname transposition since 1999, subject to the condition that every sibling must bear the same surname order recorded in the Registro Civil (civil registry), but there have been legal exceptions." And then "In an English-speaking environment, Spanish-named people sometimes hyphenate their surnames to avoid Anglophone confusion or to fill in forms with only one space provided for last name."

The article also says they might have a first and middle name like we do (and go by either informally), though that would be called having a composite (vs. simple) forename rather than two names. "Legislation in Spain under Franco legally limited cultural naming customs to only Christian (Jesus, Mary, saints) and typical Spanish names (Álvaro, Jimena, et al.)." But now "the only naming limitation is the dignity of the child, who cannot be given an insulting name. Similar limitations applied against diminutive, familiar, and colloquial variants not recognized as names proper, and 'those that lead to confusion regarding sex." Wow. But "[a]lthough the first part of a composite forename generally reflects the gender of the child, the second personal name need not (e.g. José María Aznar)" and they can go by either name, so maybe their second name can be gender neutral.

Another interesting thing in the article is that -ez endings can mean "son of" (Hernández = son of Hernando, Sánchez = son of Sancho), implying things were done differently in the past.

Robin recommended some novels based in Thailand by Timothy Hallinan. He'd just bought his own copies, so I started reading. But I accidentally started reading "Crashed" first, which is set in Los Angeles and turns out to be a whole different series (the Junior Bender mysteries).

The set-up is interesting--the protagonist is a thief who other bad guys call when they want the kind of justice they can't get from police.

And the writing is read-aloud quality. And he brings up interesting issues. This is from the first page:

"I think for everyone in the world, there's something you could dangle in front of them, something they would run onto a freeway at rush hour to get. When I meet somebody, I like to try to figure out what that is for that person. You for diamonds, darling, or first editions of Dickens? Jimmy Choo shoes or a Joseph Cornell box? And you, mister, a thick stack of green? A troop of Balinese Girl Scouts? A Maserati with your monogram on it?

"For me, it's a wall safe."

Do I have anything like that? If so, am I willing to admit it to myself?

Later, he's discussing a burglary job:

..."Is the door visible from the street?"

"It's so completely visible," she'd said, "that if you were a kid in one of those '40s musicals and you decided to put on a show, the front door of the Huston house is where you'd put it on."

"Makes the back sound good," I'd said.

"Aswarm with Rottweilers." ...

Burglars, of which I am one, don't like Rottweilers.

I recommend it.

So then I read the second one, Little Elvises. Also good, though I didn't enjoy it quite as much. Then I read the third one, The Fame Thief, which I liked better than #2. There are more, but I don't yet have access to them.

So then I started the books set in Thailand. Yowsa! I hated the first chapter, where one guy is scheming to steal from the other guy. The next chapter was great. But this book has torture in it. Well, what did I expect with the title A Nail Through the Heart?

This book covers some of the same themes as Bangkok 8. Torture. Prostitution. Cultural differences, like how Americans want to fix things and people, but what is in people's pasts is a part of what makes them who they are, and you can't make it disappear. It's a good book, but harder to get through.

Blog Post of the day

Miser Mom's Twisted Resolutions - Yes, this is how to craft a resolution. 'I love making really creative, convoluted resolutions that combine multiple goals in a sort of back-door way. One of my most successful resolutions of years past -- successful in the sense that I'm still happily incorporating them in my regular life -- combined my goal of wanting to get back into shape and also spend more time with friends: the resolution was, "Run gregariously".'

Read more for more great examples. I haven't figured out a way to this technique for myself yet, but I'm keeping it in mind.

Definitions of the Day

The wikipedia article for Kludge has my favorite definition of all time:

"An ill-assorted collection of poorly-matching parts, forming a distressing whole." It's redundant, but I love it.

And it has two other fun definitions as well:

"A clever programming trick intended to solve a particular nasty case in an expedient, if not clear, manner. Often used to repair bugs. Often involves ad-hockery and verges on being a crock." Ad-hockery. Verges. Heh.

"Something that works for the wrong reason."

(Thanks to Empirical Question for sharing that article.)

I just read a book (Lawrence Block's Hit and Run) where a stamp collector always carried around a stamp catolog in which he had circled all the stamps he had so that he could make sure not to re-buy those stamps.

One day he lost his collection. He didn't really have the motivation to start a new collection from scratch, but he still had the collecting itch and he still had that catalog. So he decided he would continue buying stamps he hadn't already bought before. He would just circle the new stamps in a different color so he could see which ones he currently owned. He decided that this way his catalog would be like a bird-watcher's birdlist--it showed every stamp he had ever owned.

And so it occurred to me that making Spanish flashcards (and then learning what's on them) is sort of like adding to my life list of Spanish words I have learned. Of course with words, after a while you get to a point where you can communicate with some people who don't know your native tongue, but until that point, it also feels a little like a collection.

I could copy the stamp collector and circle words that I master in a dictionary. Would that be motivating or disheartening?

We have now learned two forms of past tense in Spanish. The imperfect is used for descriptions and ongoing or habitual actions. I like to think of it as setting the stage. It is used for sentences like these:
* Once upon a time, there were three bears.
* It was a dark and stormy night.
* When I was working, I used to take the bus.
* She had green hair.

The preterite is used to describe things with specific starting or ending points. I like to think of it as advancing the plot. It is used for sentences like these:
* Suddenly, all eyes were on her.
* She said it was not her fault.
* The porridge was too hot.

(Most sentences could be said both ways, but with different meanings. For example: "As usual, the porridge was too hot" would be the other kind of past tense.)

We had one small lesson where we were taught four words whose meanings are so different in the preterite that we tend to use different words in English:
* conocer - to know (people)
* saber - to know (facts, ideas)
* poder - to be able to
* querer - to want

In the preterite, the action is not ongoing or habitual:
* conocer - met
* saber - found out
* poder - managed, succeeded (could and did)
* querer - tried (not only wanted, but actually tried)

Interesting.

One of my plans for things to do when I retire is to finally learn Spanish. I would do all the things I used to do when taking classes:
* go to class
* do the readings
* do the homework
* study for the tests
* be well-rested for the tests
* ask the instructor questions/visit during office hours (didn't really learn that until the very end)

Plus I would do what my old roommate Cissy recommended:
* flashcards for vocabulary learning (and I once found a flashcard ap that looked really good)

And what my old friend Mattias did:
* try to do a lot of my self-talking in Spanish

And what my friend James did:
* try to get a study partner

And my old friend Jack:
* figure out who the smartest and best students are and sit near them and try to do any group projects with them

Plus I would do those things I've been hearing about from by academic advisor co-workers:
* start a study group
* talk to an advisor and see what is recommended
* check out any learning center resources

And what I've heard from other sources about language learning:
* study every day, even if it's just a few minutes--cramming doesn't work
* talk to Spanish speakers, even though you don't sound as good as a two-year-old (maybe--scary--or maybe just try conversation meet-ups and/or an informal class on conversational Spanish, plus at restaurants)

And my own additional ideas:
* pick up children's books from the library
* look at the same topics in multiple texts, not just our required textbook
* become a tutor
* watch familiar movies with the sound and/or subtitles in Spanish

I suck at languages. So even though I had three years of Spanish in high school and have tried to learn it a few times since then, I thought I'd take Austin Community College's placement test cold. And make sure not to answer any of the questions unless I was sure of the answer so I wouldn't look more advanced than I really am. I'm afraid I'll get into a class where there will be a lot of prerequisite knowledge I don't have, and I have enough trouble keeping up as it is. I'd rather start in a class where I already know some of the stuff and then I can learn every single other thing that is taught. And then by the end of the classes I will actually know Spanish--be able to talk to people, read my favorite local Spanish weekly newspaper, and maybe even read Spanish books in the original (though there's nothing in particular I'm looking forward to).

But then I saw a review of duolinguo, which teaches you things bit by bit and you keep score like in a video game that's actually fun. And because the lessons are short and repetitive, you actually learn things and don't get overwhelmed and don't forget last week's stuff while you're learning this week's stuff.

So now I'm thinking maybe I'll learn and re-learn as much stuff as I can on my own and then take the placement test, hoping I'll need at least one more class because group learning is better.

Opinions?

Quote of the Day - "Of course I can't go interview people myself because I have a medical condition where I don't want to." - Stephen Colbert

I'm not really learning Japanese, but I did pick up Japanese for Dummies partly to learn a little more about the culture so maybe we can understand some of Robin's co-workers better.

This book is so dumbed down it uses Roman letters. Still, the first chapter alone is fascinating.

They managed to have a section on English words that are from Japanese, like hibachi, karaoke, kimono, origami, sake, samurai, and tsunami.

Then there was a section on Japanese words that are from the English:

basude keki (bahh-soo-dehh kehh-kee)
jusu (jooo-soo)
kamera (kah-meh-rah)
kohi (kohh-heee)
nekutai (neh-koo-tah-ee)
pati (pahh-teee)
rajio (rah-jee-oh)
resutoran (reh-soo-toh-rahn)
suteki (soo-tehh-kee)
sutoraiku (soo-toh-rah-e-koo)

Unless you are used to listening to people with a heavy Japanese accent, you might not recognize these words. So I think they are a fun puzzle. I will put the meanings in a comment.

"Whenever someone says something to you, nod immediately. Otherwise, the speaker will think that you're not paying attention or that you're upset." Interesting. Are we perhaps assuming that someone is telling us that they understand something when really they are just telling us that they are paying attention?

The second chapter has some grammar, again fascinating. The following is just from the first part of that chapter.

In sentences the verb comes last. The subject and object can be in any order because they are attached to marker words (particles). "Ga" is the subject-marking particle, and "o" is the object-marking particle ("o" for "object"--what could be easier to remember?). So for example:

"Mari ga Jon o sasotta" means Mary-(the subject)-John-(the object)-invited or "Mary invited John."

"Jon o Mari ga sasotta" means the same thing.

Additional particles take the place of prepositions and conjunctions. And they don't use articles at all--so it makes sense that many Japanese speakers have trouble figuring out when to say "a/an" or "the" (or neither) in various situations. Frankly, I don't know how anyone learns English as a second language, but it looks especially crazy hard for Japanese speakers.

Japanese sentences often start with topic phrases such as "Speaking of chili, ..." or "As for yesterday's homework, ..." If the topic noun is also the subject or the object, just use the topic particle (wa), not the subject or object particle. So, maybe putting together the puzzle of a sentence's meaning isn't always so straightforward (to beginners). Like in Latin. Latin is one of those languages where sentence order almost completely doesn't matter because they have different forms for all the words in all the different roles. Only there is loads of redundancy--is this the possessive form of this noun or the first-person singular past tense of the verb with the same root? That really drove me nutso.

Questions don't have question marks. You just end them with the question particle (ka).

In English, we mostly ignore status. We add politeness by maybe using titles in front of names, perhaps referring to someone as sir or ma'am, and trying to minimize the slang. Japanese has different forms of verbs for different levels of formality. Unlike Spanish, which has two levels (formal and informal), Japanese has three (formal, polite/neutral, and informal), basically corresponding to the status of the other person compared to yours (higher, similar, or lower). Since we Americans are not in the habit of paying close attention to status, or of even admitting that there are status differences or that these differences matter at all, this is where we probably make some of our most laughable mistakes.

In Japan, they are so hyper-aware of status that there are also mind games involved. Robin's boss will sometimes tell him where to sit at a meeting table to make the impression she wants to make with him--basically to communicate how important it is to listen to what he says or something. And many bigwigs will act like they have much lower status than they really have, but their colleagues don't fall for that. Robin has learned to pay attention to how other people are treating a new visitor--not just how the new visitor is treating him.

Of course everything in this entry is third-hand (my interpretation of a Dummies book or from stories I've heard about Robin's day at work), so perhaps none of it is strictly true. But whatever the reality is, there are interesting bits to it.

Quote of the Day - At an interview for a job at Robin's employer, "Wait, is this a Japanese company? I speak Japanese!" Yes, he got the job. (But mostly because he passed the writing and tech tests.)

Thanks to Facebook, I learned that a friend was going to Nerd Nite (spelled "nerdnite" in Boston/Cambridge), a monthly event I'd never before heard of. The bad part is we meet in a bar (drinking, noise) in downtown (bad parking). The good part is that there are three lectures.

This week's first lecture was "Indian Language Politics, or How Gandhi Pissed Off Almost Everyone" by Libby Bowers.

Here's what I used to know about language in India: They speak Hindi.

Then, additional languages became available at the college where I work, and so I did some administrative stuff so that if you took one of these languages, it would count toward your foreign language requirement. And that is how I learned that Urdu, Tamil, and Telugu are also spoken in India.

I learned a lot more at Nerd Nite.

India has no national languages and two official languages: Hindi and English. English was only going to be transitionally official, but they keep extending its official status.

There are 22 "scheduled" languages. These are the languages that are very commonly spoken. But there are hundreds of languages.

And the languages are not all closely related, either. Many languages are descended from Sanskrit, especially in the North. (Sanskrit itself is rarely used, mostly for religious purposes, perhaps like Latin.) Many other languages are from a completely different family, Dravidian, especially in the south.

The languages don't even use the same script. The speaker showed us two major ones: one looked unfamiliar to me, the other looked like Arabic to me.

Our speaker really liked the Hindustani movement. This is where some people wanted to work with Hindi and Urdu, which are very similar but use different scripts, and remove the Sanskrit-based words in Hindi and the Persian-based words in Urdu to make one common language, but this language would be written in both scripts.

Compromise was not easy and apparently Gandhi did not help matters at one of these language conferences when he called the new language "Hindi Hindistani" and made it perfectly clear that he had no clue about the issues at hand and probably didn't care either. Continuing conflict lead to separation, which made the remaining Urdu speakers feel (according to our speaker), "Oh crap! Not only are we a smaller minority now, our language is associated with the enemy of our country [Pakistan]."

Our speaker said that Hindi and Urdu used to be very similar, but in Pakistan, more Arabic vocabulary has been introduced. (Note: where I work, Hindi and Urdu are considered so similar that they often meet together and you cannot get credit for taking both. I won't claim, however, that there is nothing backward about Indian language teaching in Texas.)

The state boundaries in India coincide with natural language boundaries. So each state is associated with a local language. And you can also learn the official languages, which are handy for many types of jobs. Now although Urdu is the sixth-most-spoken language in India, the speakers are not concentrated enough to have a state or even schools.

At the end, I told my friend, "Now that I have a clue, I'm wondering what languages your family speaks." Punjabi and English, plus she learned Hindi in school, as a foreign language. Her family lives in Punjab.

And then I did a tiny amount of research on Punjabi and Punjab. Punjabi is Indo-Aryan, like Sanskrit. It is the 13th most widely spoken language in the world. I can't tell which script is used--maybe both (or more than two). Punjab is in northwestern India, and part of it is in what is now Pakistan.

Since I hang with geeks, I did a tiny amount of research about Banagalore, the Silicon Valley of India. This is in southern India in the state of Karnataka where Kannada, a Dravidian language, is the official language.

Quotes of the Day - I recently attended a required class on customer service where I heard a few fun quotes.

"You may have seen me in the hallway and thought, 'I'd like to buy that guy lunch. Or a frosty or something.' And you can."

"We are not authorities on the subject. No, no. We are just guides."

"Empathize! As long as you're not a sociopath, you can do this!"