Thursday, May 31, 2012

You are Judged by Your Words: Prescriptive English as the Language of People in Power

At the New Yorker, Ryan Bloom at Language Wars in Inescapably, You're Judged by Your Language, tells us that prescriptive English is the language of people in power:
"Repugnant as it may be, the simple answer is that we need to learn prescriptive English because that’s the way the people in power communicate. As far as daily survival is concerned, it doesn’t matter whether the origins of this linguistic power structure are racist, classist, or élitist, or whether they’re based on the whims of dead white males. This is how the system works right now, today, and in order to best get the attention of those in power, to begin to effect change, we must be able to use their dialect. We must know their rules."
Read the rest of this fascinating article at The New Yorker.

Crossposted at LawPundit.

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Ancient Signs The Alphabet and The Origins of Writing

Ancient Signs: The Alphabet and the Origins of Writing
by Andis Kaulins is now available in 4 versions
(b/w, color, and both of those also as ebooks)
at
http://www.epubli.com/shop/autor/Andis-Kaulins/3682.

In Ancient Signs, the author traces the origins of writing and the alphabet to syllabic writing systems in ancient cultures and shows that these have one common origin.

Ancient Signsprint b/w version black and white inside
B/W inside
200 pages, 90 gram paper
Price: €35.99 (about US $47 on day of posting)
for the B/W print version of Ancient Signs
Ancient Signs traces the origins of the alphabet
to syllabic writing.
Softcover - print b/w, cover in color

Ancient Signs

eBook b/w version black and white version
B/W inside
200 pages
Price: €27.99 (about US $37 on day of posting)
for the B/W eBook version of Ancient Signs
Ancient Signs traces the origins of the alphabet
to syllabic writing. Ancient Signs
  

color print version color inside
COLOR inside
200 pages, 150 gram glossy paper
Price: €149.00 (about US $196 on day of posting)
for the color print version of Ancient Signs
Ancient Signs traces the origins of the alphabet
to syllabic writing.
Hardcover - print and cover in color Ancient Signs
 

color eBook version color inside
COLOR inside
200 pages
Price: €39.99 (about US $52 on day of posting)
for the color inside eBook version of Ancient Signs
Ancient Signs traces the origins of the alphabet
to syllabic writing.


Enjoy Reading.