Once a month, I share some of what I’ve been reading.
Why diversity matters in anthropology.
First, someone looked at spelling difficulties on Reddit (as marked by “(sp?)”). Then they turned it into a game.
Gender-neutral language alert: We don’t need to describe spacecraft as manned and unmanned.
Strong Language brings us tits and ass. And also swearing on TV.
Gender-neutral pronouns: On Jordan Peterson and the “freedom” to treat other people badly.
How to study an emerging sign language.
The kids are all right: Gen Z is more likely than any previous generation to support institutional recognition of multiple genders.
Ghana is adding a second official language: French.
Through Twitter, I just recently found this (5-year-old) post about mock Spanish in children’s books: “Spanish is not used as a language to communicate given its incoherence. Instead, Schachner uses Spanish to laugh at Skippito and by extension, Mexicans and Latinos in the U.S.; its runaway success is indicative of how ‘funny’ Spanish and Mexicans continue to be to White and/or monolingual English speakers.”
Related: how the concept of raciolinguistic ideologies works for teachers.
Everyday linguistic anthropology 