May 14, 2007

Trilingual


In the tradition of Ali G in the land of colorless green ideas -- Sacha Baron Cohen deliberately misinterpreting bilingual as 'bisexual' in an "interview" with Noam Chomsky -- here's the South African comic strip Madame and Eve, going on to trilingual:


Language Log reader Vardibidian, who sent me this link, adds:

... perhaps it's worth mentioning that Helen Zille's acceptance speech [as leader of the Democratic Alliance party] was in English, Afrikaans and Xhosa.

I want to encourage each and every person in this room to take up a new language, one of our eleven official languages that you do not yet speak. I am working on my Xhosa. Perhaps some of us wish to learn Afrikaans, or Sotho, Tswana, Venda or Zulu. It does not matter whether you have a knack for languages. Simply learning a new tongue opens up a new world and builds bridges. We must do that for each other.

zwicky at-sign csli period stanford period edu

Posted by Arnold Zwicky at May 14, 2007 11:21 AM