by Eileen | Nov 19, 2008 | Uncategorized
In Chile people always talk about having to cambiar el chip, or change the chip in their brains to switch from one language to another. As though by making a slight key-turning motion by the side of their head, it is actually possible to activate, for example, the...
by Eileen | Nov 17, 2008 | Uncategorized
So I’m on Long Island.Fall here is like a plate of cut/up crisp green apples and peeled cucumbers and maybe celery with a small fan directing the smell into your nose, and into your brain. At the risk of waxing excessisve, it’s like an unwarm shower on a...
by Eileen | Nov 14, 2008 | Uncategorized
In what is perhaps one of the most memorable articles I ever read as an undergraduate and aspiring linguist, Berlin and Kay (1969) set up a system of categorizing languages by how many color terms there are. Here’s a wikipedia description. But the main point...
by Eileen | Nov 12, 2008 | Uncategorized
Chilean Spanish is rife with slang nearly unintelligible outside of its narrow confines. It’s been called the most difficult Spanish, the slangiest Spanish. Even Chileans speak with pride of their children with beautiful diction and vocabulary because the nana...
by Eileen | Nov 11, 2008 | Uncategorized
Spanish has at its disposal an expression “vergüenza ajena” which indicates that you were embarrassed on behalf of another person. It has an element of pity, in that you feel sorry for the other person, and also of disdain, as if the person for whom you...
