On Language, Political Power and the Regulation of Russian Orthography

This interdisciplinary article excavates the history of the most important Russian language reform, which was approved by the Bolshevik Government Decrees more than a century ago, after the October Revolution of 1917. The orthographic reform was a linguistic and educational original effort （1） to promote a new simpler way of spelling of written informational materials, （2） to eliminate ＂double＂ letters and to present more constructive rules for spelling of certain grammar structures, and （3） to increase the population literacy in the Russian-speaking community. Indeed, the effective policy of language regulation was grounded in recommendations developed by special committees and commissions which represented the spelling reform movement in the imperial period of the 19th century and in the early 1900s. According to Russian linguists, language educationists, activists, and politicians, the proposed new rules could be implemented in a realistic way for the benefit of all learners, the language system, and the printing industry as well. The reform of Russian orthography was not an exercise in revolutionary violence or the Bolshevik＇ evil intentions, as some frustrated scholars condemned this reform. This article provides relevant legislative documents issued in 1917-1918, that reflected revolutionary transformations including orthography that became an issue of politics. The use of new orthographic rules had special implications for language learning practices in schools and changed costs of typing and printing.

Applications of Indigenous Presence:The Osage Orthography Amplifying Traditional Language Resurgence

It is generally accepted that languages underpin communal and national identities the world over.This importance holds particularly true for subjugated peoples,and few have been so systematically dispossessed as the Indigenous peoples of the Americas.This essay argues that the revitalization and re-vision of Indigenous languages deploys a potent assertion of Indigenous sovereignty by these diverse communities.Following an outline of the suffocation of Native voices with relation to the DinéCode Talkers of World War II,I explore the capacity of Indigenous languages to generate,emerge from,and nourish different worldviews to those that inhere in the English language.I suggest that a modified Bakhtinian“dialogical”appraisal,in co-generation with the Vizenorean concept of“cosmototemics,”can be adopted in order to approach an understanding of the importance of language to Indigenous peoples—specifically here the Osage people of Oklahoma—and to heterogeneous Indigenous sovereignties.Osage is part of an oral tradition of storytelling that is resistant to semiotic closure and not neatly replicable in written(con)text.This tradition is always re-creative,and often hobbled when penned.The new Osage orthography,developed by Herman“Mogri”Lookout and his team in 2004,is a political rejection of cognitive conquest;a dialogic sphere of cosmototemics serving to re-create the Osage language in a form that promises to thrive anew.In 2016,the Osage orthography was accepted into Unicode,allowing the re-created language to be rendered on computers and handheld devices.This move invites a new generation of Osage and non-Osage people to engage with the re-creation of the dialect,a revivification of the language that thrusts it into global conversation.In conjunction with the recently-released■(Wahzhazhe)Osage language-learning app,the Osage orthography amplifies a sovereign rejection of assimilation in favor of vibrant Indigenous presence.

Codicology,Paleography,and Orthography of Early Tibetan Documents(Brandon Dotson and Agnieszka Helman-Wazny,Wien:Arbeitskreisfür Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien,2016)

該書是德國慕尼黑大學(Ludwig-Maximilians-Universit?t München)'吐蕃的王權與宗教'(Kingship and Religion)研究團隊(2010-2015)産出的成果之一,由Brandon Dotson與Agnieszka Helman-Wazny合作完成,被收入'維也納藏學及佛教研究叢書'(WSTB,Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde①)中。

Igbo Language and Identity

This paper sought to identify the position of Igbo language in relation to its identity both in Nigeria and world wide Specifically, it expounded the problems hindering the study of Igbo language. A study of Igbo language and identity is pertinent because language and culture are attached to man＇s identity and human interaction Unfortunately, most of the Igbos do not want to be identified with this language called Igbo. The paper reviewed available literature on Igbo language and highlighted some strategies for increasing the interest of people in learning Igbo language. It was discovered from the study that pedagogical problems, tone problems, orthography and diacritic problems, are some of the issues that inhibit the repositioning of Igbo language as lgbo man＇s identity In view of this, it was recommended among others that Igbo linguist should try and document all the slight phonological and word differences existing in the dialects and absorb them in central Igbo