News stories tagged with "language"

(04/26/12) Grant Barrett, co-host of A Way With Words, heard Mondays at 1 pm on NCPR, was in town for the arts festival at SUNY Potsdam. He joined us on-air for an hour to take listener calls on word questions, linguistic oddities, and good talk about how we talk. Ellen Rocco hosts.

(03/08/12) A Mohawk veterans group wants the federal government to recognize the contributions of "code talkers" during the D-Day invasion of Europe during World War Two. The Navajo "code talkers" were the largest group of Native Americans during the 1940's to use their language skills in the south Pacific against the Japanese.

Jeffrey Whelan, a member of the St. Regis Mohawk Veterans Affairs Committee, says many other tribes participated as "code talkers" during the war. He says the St. Regis Mohawk Tribal Council has sent a letter of request to the U.S. Mint to develop a Congressional Medal for nine veterans at Akwesasne who used their native language to confuse the Germans.

(01/12/12) Chipmunk, cluckmunk? Chipmunks and many animals have a variety of sounds used to express different things. Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager sample the vocabulary used by this common denizen of North Country woods and villages.

(11/16/11) SUNY Plattsburgh is celebrating International Education Week with a series of workshops, lectures, debates and the "Night of Nations" cultural showcase on Saturday. Todd Moe talks with Student Association president, PJ Shah, an international student from Nepal, about the lure of attending college in Plattsburgh.

(05/15/08) Literacy of Northern New York is seeking volunteers to teach English as a second language classes. The not-for-profit is trying to keep up with a growing number of military and academic spouses and farmworkers who want to learn English in Jefferson, Lewis, and St. Lawrence counties. Deborah Tate runs the organization's ESL program. She told David Sommerstein the students come from all over the world.

You can volunteer to be a tutor by calling 782-4270 in Jefferson and Lewis counties, and 265-0194 in St. Lawrence county.

(05/31/06) Our ongoing exploration of North Country dialect continues. Lynn Klein lives in the Lewis County Town of Leyden.

(05/11/06) Southern-born Steve Diehl says there are 3 words he hears in Antwerp that he's never heard anywhere else. He called up in response to our series about the Language of the North Country. He spoke with Gregory Warner.

(10/10/05) As we're told, English is a wonderfully elastic language. It's colorful, inclusive, and in a state of constant change. But some changes are less welcome than others. Commentator Paul Willcott has an issue with the expanding use of a particular bit of profanity.

(05/24/02) Martha Foley talks with John Collins and Ross Glover, two St. Lawrence University professors, who are editors of a new book that examines the meanings of post September 11th language. Highly charged terms that saturate news broadcasts and everyday conversation.

(01/18/02) Our literacy series continues as poet Michael Coffey reads his poem "Marie" and talks about language. Brian Mann reports.