Tuesday, August 30, 2005
“Be” Or Not “Be” in Sri Lanka
From the current issue of Language Variation and Change:
BE variation in Sri Lankan English
The focus of this article is zero copula use in Sri Lankan English speech. Zero copula use has been at the heart of variationist studies, but has received little attention in New English studies because of its limited use in these varieties. In this article I look at zero copula in Sri Lankan English to determine whether the patterns of use parallel those of AAVE, Caribbean Creoles, or other copula studies on varieties of English including New Englishes.
Com-posts
Old LL posts to re-read on a rainy day:
From Biblical Hebrew to Mandarin Chinese
Two news items on biblical translation:
Westminster Hebrew Institute partners with Asia Bible Society
In 2004, the Westminster Hebrew Institute was approached by the Asia Bible Society (ABS) for technical assistance with a new Bible translation into Mandarin Chinese. Over the summer, Institute personnel visited ABS headquarters in the Far East and met with the Old Testament project managers and key translators. In addition to providing its Hebrew Morphology database to ABS, the Institute has agreed to provide technical assistance to the computational linguists at ABS, who are currently engaged in “mapping” the morphological and syntactic features of Biblical Hebrew to Chinese. The Institute will also offer translation and exegetical guidance to the editorial committee throughout the project.
The Westminster Hebrew Institute, founded in 1986, applies computing and related technology to the study and teaching of the Hebrew Bible and language.