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"This year marks the centennial of one of the most devestating weather-related disasters ever experienced in the United States. During the week of Mar. 21-26, 1913, a series of late winter storms formed over the Midwest, spawning tornadoes in Iowa and Nebraska. They were followed by 8-11 inches of rain, which led to massive flooding in Ohio, Indiana and Pennsylvania. By the end of the week, hundreds of people had died and billions of dollars worth of property and infrastructure lay in ruins." - Maitani from Bookmarklet

"On Easter Sunday of 1913, an F4 tornado a quarter-mile wide ripped through Omaha at around 6 p.m. In its wake, some 115 people were dead and over 400 injured. More than 2,000 homes were completely leveled. Meanwhile, over 10 inches of rain hit the already saturated Great Miami River watershed in Ohio. The resulting runoff flowed into the Great Miami River, setting the stage for severe... more... - Maitani

"This blog is devoted to exploring and promoting the great diversity that exists in the study of language, in the past and today. Each blog post seeks to introduce a topic, idea or approach in language study — historical, current or completely new — with an invitation to all readers to engage in discussion in the comments. Everyone is welcome to contribute, regardless of academic standing, although there is an expectation that all contributions will be well informed. Controversial or unconventional views are not discriminated against, but polemical attitudes are discouraged. We want to maintain a scholarly atmosphere marked by reasoned argument, evidence and tolerance, and free of simple opinion-trading. If you would like to write a post for the blog, please get in touch with a one-paragraph description. All posts are informally reviewed before they are published, but always with the blog’s goal of promoting diversity of opinion and approach in mind. Our guidelines are very minimal:... more... - Maitani from Bookmarklet

"Das Ziel dieses Blogs ist es, die historische und gegenwärtige Vielfalt der Sprachwissenschaften aufzuzeigen und zu fördern. Jeder Blogbeitrag stellt ein Thema, eine Idee oder einen Ansatz aus der Geschichte oder Gegenwart der Sprachwissenschaften vor und lädt alle Leser ein, durch Kommentare in einen konstruktiven Dialog zu treten. Alle dürfen mitreden, ungeachtet der akademischen... more... - Maitani

Which city is this? - DvD

These people explicitly call themselves national socialists, partly using socialist vocabulary and paroles to turn against "international" corporations, immigrants, democracy, using the increasing poverty and lack of perspective of young people to lure them towards their highly militant group. There were about 400 of them from all over Germany, but the anti-demo had about 10,000... more... - Maitani

"Given a suitable context, if a farmer told you that her hand was under the knife, you would probably understand that this was a sentence about an employee and a surgical operation, despite there being no mention in the sentence of a person. There's also no mention an operating room, a doctor, a hospital, or any of the other props or venues associated with surgery. But you got the meaning in the phrase "under the knife" in the same way that you got employee from hand, a clipped version of hired hand. Your understanding of these phrases is probably not based on inferring the relationship of "hand" to employee or "knife" to surgery; chances are that you know these terms because you've heard them before. Maybe the first time you heard them you had to do that kind of interpretation; or maybe you looked up the terms in a dictionary or maybe someone glossed them for you. In any case, what hand and under the knife have in common is that they're both instances of meronymy, in which a part of something is used as an expression for the whole." - Maitani from Bookmarklet

"English majors may already be raising their hands or racing to the comments section to protest that this isn't meronymy; some will say that we're actually talking about metonymy, and others may chime in with synecdoche. Well, everyone's right in this game, albeit in a slightly different way. The ways in which expressions substitute parts for wholes, or features for whole entities, is a... more... - Maitani

""This view looking northwest from Fukagawa Susaki, a spit of land along Edo Bay, toward Jūmantsubo, a tract of land named after its approximate area of one hundred thousand tsubo (about eighty acres), is one of the most dramatic designs of the series. Its appeal lies in the contrast between the powerful form of the eagle as it prepares to dive for prey and the desolate wintry marshes below. As in other views devoid of people, there is still a pervasive human presence—in the roofs huddled to the left, in the poles of the lumber-yards beyond, and, above all, in the lone wooden bucket floating at the edge of the bay, surrounded by water birds on which the eagle seems to have its eye."" - Maitani from Bookmarklet

"The full-page miniature for May continues the theme of aristocratic courting, which may well be among the most pleasant of the 'labours' depicted in medieval calendars. In this scene, two boatmen are rowing a nobleman and two well-dressed ladies along a river; the three are playing musical instruments and are surrounded by flowering branches. On the bridge above them another aristocratic couple are riding on horseback, carrying branches and followed by their retainers. In the bas-de-page scene a group of men are practicing archery by shooting at a raised target (a popinjay?). On the following folio two couples are riding on horseback through a lush landscape, below the saints' days for May and a roundel with a nude man and woman for the zodiac sign Gemini." - Maitani from Bookmarklet

#yakebikeç - Terra Barselonevî

"Three peregrine falcon chicks have successfully hatched on the ledge of a city centre building belonging to Nottingham Trent University. Experts had been concerned about the effect of the cold weather on the eggs. The parent birds, now feeding their brood, have attracted a global following, as their lives are recorded with a live camera and are the subject of a blog. Sarah Thorp, Environmental projects Officer at Nottingham Trent University, said the chicks seemed to thrive in the location. ''Fingers crossed that all three will survive,'' she said." - Maitani from Bookmarklet

Mark, any pics of them in flight/perched? - Halil

"A striking map depicting endangered languages around the world can be found at the website of the Endangered Languages Project (ELP), the public portal of the Endangered Languages Catalogue (ELCat) helping raise awareness of and gathering data on endangered languages. This data has been compiled by linguistic research teams at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa and Eastern Michigan University in a project supported by a National Science Foundation grant. The catalogue contains comprehensive up-to-date information on all languages considered to be in danger, including the number of speakers, the age of the youngest speakers and the location of each language; the genetic affiliation to a linguistic family for every language; and an account of the documentation and data for all languages in the database. The ELP is an initiative of the newly formed Alliance for Linguistic Diversity, a coalition of international linguistic and cultural organizations, and Google. The Rosetta Project and... more... - Maitani from Bookmarklet

Wow. I had to blink that the loss of language families. That's pretty striking. - Anika

It really is. - ᏓᏰ #team Monique from iPhone

"For years, psychologists thought we instantly label each other by ethnicity. But one intriguing study proposes this is far from inevitable, with obvious implications for tackling racism." - Maitani from Bookmarklet

"For years, psychologists thought we instantly label each other by ethnicity. But one intriguing study proposes this is far from inevitable, with obvious implications for tackling racism. When we meet someone we tend to label them in certain ways. "Tall guy" you might think, or "Ugly kid". Lots of work in social psychology suggests that there are some categorisations that spring faster... more... - Eivind

"Did cities exist in the New World prior to the European conquest? Of course they did! If you have any doubt, take a look at some of my books or my articles as posted on my website (and much other work on Mesoamerica and the Andes). But according to a new reference work, the Oxford Handbook of Cities in World History (Peter Clark, editor, 2013, Oxford University Press), either there were no cities in the ancient New World, or else those cities were not part of "World History." Hmmmmmm. I don't much like either choice." - Maitani from Bookmarklet

"The first section of that work, called "Early Cities," has five survey sections: Mesopotamia Calixtlahuaca, an Aztec-period city Cities of the Ancient Mediterranean Africa South Asia China Where are the cities of the Aztec, Maya, or Inka? What about the Zapotec or the Moche, the Toltec or Tiwanaku, the Mixtec or Chimu? Would it have been that hard to solicit some chapters on these... more... - Maitani

Didn't find this in my feed any more, so I posted it again. - Maitani

"Russian cuisine, as can be expected, is a multifaceted phenomenon, varying with time, space, and social class. Like much of Russia’s material and intellectual culture, Russian cuisine finds itself at the crossroads of West and East, having soaked up influences of neighboring peoples—Ukrainians, Tatars, peoples of the Caucasus and of Siberia—as well as of Western cuisines, chiefly that of France. Traditional Russian cookery, which is the focus of this post, goes back to the customs of the medieval period. Already in the early 19th century, the author of one of the first Russian cookbooks, landowner V. A. Levshin, stated that “information about Russian dishes has almost entirely disappeared … it is impossible to compile a detailed description of Russian cooking and one must be satisfied only by that which can still be collected from memories, as the history of Russian cooking was never written down” (translation mine). A much-needed documentation of Russian culinary sensibilities and... more... - Maitani from Bookmarklet

"Russian culinary sensibilities have roots in the period from the 9th to 16th century. The centerpiece of the Russian table—as well as the symbol of hospitality—is dark, heavy sour rye bread. Important guests are welcomed with a traditional karavaj (‘a loaf of black bread’) and salt. A xlebosol’nyj (‘bread-and-salt-y’) person is one who is hospitable and generous, the best compliment... more... - Maitani

"The image above of Indonesia’s erupting Paluweh Volcano comes from NASA’s ever-awesome Earth Observatory. The editors at EO chose to run a closeup, but I love this long shot, showing the green, crenulated ~ 8-kilometer-wide island surrounded by an ocean of dark ocean of blue — the Flores Sea, to be exact." - Maitani from Bookmarklet

"The volcano, which rises 3,000 meters above the sea floor, but only 875 meters above the sea, has been rumbling and erupting for months. A dome of lava began inflating inside Paluweh’s crater last November, and the volcano began spewing ash. Then, on February 3 of this year, a massive eruption threw ash into the atmosphere to an altitude of 45,000 feet." - Maitani

"Paluweh continues to spew ash and volcanic gases, as the image above attests." - Maitani

How long util you can light up a home grown one? :) - Eivind

It's a tedious business, growing tobacco. It needs constant attention when growing, special storage cottages with rails attached to them for the drying racks (so you can push the racks into safety when it rains, which, I admit, was hell'uva fun for us kids but a nervous rush for our parents since they were afraid it was gonna ruin the leaves, their livelihood), but first you had to... more... - Faruk Ahmet

"The Cassiterides, meaning Tin Islands (from the Greek word for tin: Κασσίτερος/Kassiteros), are an ancient geographical name of islands that were regarded as situated somewhere near the west coasts of Europe.[1] The traditional assumption, ignoring Strabo, is that Cassiterides refer to Great Britain, based on the significant tin deposits in Cornwall.[2]" - Maitani from Bookmarklet

[edit] from http://ff.im/1fbdeX !!! (first I linked back to my own post mistakenly) - Maitani

"Lisa Ross’s luminous photographs are not our usual images of Xinjiang. One of China’s most turbulent areas, the huge autonomous region in the country’s northwest was brought under permanent Chinese control only in the mid-twentieth century. Officially, it is populated mostly by non-ethnic Chinese—Turkic peoples like Uighurs (also spelled Uyghurs), Kazakhs, and Kyrgyz, as well as Mongolians and even Russians—and its population has long had difficult relations with Beijing. In 2008, 2009, and 2012, Xinjiang was the site of bloody protests." - Maitani

"Instead of representing these political conflicts, however, Ross’s photographs are unassuming and quiet; people are never present and the objects she captures—stone on sand, cloth on stone, the skeleton of a dried animal—have an incandescent glow, as if lit by another sun. In fact, these images reveal a little-known religious tradition in Xinjiang—its desert shrines to Sufi saints. Taken in the Xinjiang’s Taklamakan Desert, they are collected in Ross’s addictive new book Living Shrines of Uyghur China." - Maitani

"The aim of the project is to map the Jewish presence in the Byzantine empire using GIS (Geographical Information Systems). All information (published and unpublished) about the Jewish communities will be gathered and collated. The data will be incorporated in a GIS which will be made freely available to the general public on the world-wide-web. Researchers and members of the public will be able to create maps according to their own specifications. Chronologically, the project will begin in 650. This is soon after the Arab conquest of Egypt, Palestine and Syria when these regions, with their substantial Jewish populations, were permanently separated from the Byzantine empire. The end-date is fixed by the arrival in the region of large numbers of Jewish immigrants from Spain in 1492. Geographically, the core areas of Asia Minor, the southern Balkans and the adjacent islands including Crete and Cyprus will be included for the entirety of the period, Byzantine Italy however, will only be... more... - Maitani from Bookmarklet

"Dark matter is the commonest, most elusive stuff in the universe. Can we grasp this great unsolved problem in physics?" - Maitani from Bookmarklet

"Alexander B Fry is a graduate student in astronomy at the University of Washington in Seattle and owner of The Astronomist blog. His research interests focus on cosmology and extragalactic astronomy." - Maitani

"Chile's government told to stop allowing firms to exhaust water sources with little regard for local people" - Maitani from Bookmarklet

"More than 100 environmental, social and indigenous organisations protested in the Chilean capital, Santiago, this week to demand that the state regain control of the management of water, which was privatised by the then dictatorship in 1981. More than 6,000 people took part in the peaceful "great carnival march for the recovery and defence of water" on Monday, according to the... more... - Maitani

"From what we know (or can infer) about the social life of early humans in the Middle Paleolithic period (300-30 thousand years ago), our hunter-gatherer ancestors lived in small nomadic bands, each consisting of a few dozen (20-50) individuals. Several such bands may have maintained regular contacts and converged into loose ethnic units (“tribes”) totalling a few hundred members, which gathered seasonally for collective purposes such as ritual celebrations, marital exchange, etc. In such conditions a single speech community, capable of maintaining a shared linguistic code (unified by cultural transmission), can hardly grow larger than a tribe. In effect, a cluster of allied bands corresponds to a linguistic unit as well as a cultural one (with a shared system of customs and laws). Such a model is supported by studies of modern societies retaining an archaic type of organisation, such as the Indigenous Australians. At the time of first European contact, the population od Australia was... more... - Maitani from Bookmarklet

TL;DR: Babel happens. :-) - Le Slip Anglais from Android

(Tam, please pass on my greetings to Adam since he's not on FF currently!) - Stephen Mack #TeamMomo

Is there another day that has FIVE FriendFeeder birthdays? I think not. - Stephen Mack #TeamMomo from iPhone

"Please note: All posted hyperlinks to articles included in each volume will lead readers to the Language archives available via JSTOR. Users without access to JSTOR may purchase individual articles, or participate in the "Register and Read" program of JSTOR, which provides free access on a time-limited basis to those who complete a registration form." - Maitani from Bookmarklet

http://memiyawanzi.wordpress.com/2013... - Maitani

"Access to digitized manuscripts online (see Irene’s Navigating the Digital World) is changing the way medievalists can and are expected to work. While the benefits of accessing an electronic facsimile for research with respect to preservation and efficiency are obviously enormous, there are numerous reasons why I’m glad my current research requires hands-on interaction with my subjects (in amazing Bruges, no less). The physical element of codicology is partly why I was drawn to studying medieval books as objects, rather than for the texts they contain." - Maitani from Bookmarklet

"Traveling through the Flemish countryside on my way back from Bruges provides a great backdrop to consider my research trip and the manuscripts I’d explored over the past few days (with the gracious cooperation of the Biekorf Library’s leadership and staff). While, of course, I run through my usual checklist of paleographical features which can be done on-screen – pp biting? Ampersand... more... - Maitani

This is a reminder that someday soon I should visit lovely Bruges. :-) - Maitani

"Supervolcanoes are volcanic eruptions thousands of times more powerful than normal volcanic eruptions. These types of eruptions cause significant local ecological disturbances and have profound effects on global climate. On the scale of geological time they occur quite frequently." - Maitani from Bookmarklet

"Volcanologists categorize eruptions by the amount of volcanic ash ejected upon eruption using the Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI). The VEI consists of 8 levels, with VEI-8 eruptions considered “supervolcanic eruptions” ejecting 1000 cubic kilometers of ash or more." - Maitani

"When you think of the acropolis, one immediately thinks of the Parthenon in majestic ruin, or perhaps the famous Caryatids on the porch of the Erechtheion. Perhaps, while you’re busy—perhaps a little too busy—admiring the architectural scenery as you progress up the sacred way, you might not notice some very very important bits of archaeology. Yes, I’m talking about those mysterious holes in the ground. One passes them without thinking, but when you start looking, they’re everywhere. Not interesting, you say? Well, let me tell you more: these are, in fact, carved-out bases for inscriptions, in which they were placed and then fixed in position by pouring molten lead into the gaps. Inscriptions, containing sources for all kinds of exciting aspects of Ancient Greek political and social history!" - Maitani from Bookmarklet

"During the Easter break I had the wonderful opportunity to participate in the Postgraduate Epigraphy Course put on by the British School at Athens March 24th to April 7th, taught by Robert Pitt (BSA Assistant Director) and Graham Oliver (University of Liverpool). As many of you may know, my Ph.D. work focuses on the Ancient Greek dialects, for which the overwhelming amount of evidence... more... - Maitani

"The first week of the course was devoted to seminars in practical epigraphy and field trips around Attica and Delphi. The first stop of the Grand Tour (of epigraphy) was the mighty acropolis with its many aforementioned holes in the ground, but still with much remaining epigraphy to be reckoned with, mainly a lot of dedications. One example (IG I³ 833 + IG II² 4147) gives an excellent... more... - Maitani

"Apr. 15, 2013 — A brain-training task that increases the number of items an individual can remember over a short period of time may boost performance in other problem-solving tasks by enhancing communication between different brain areas. The new study being presented this week in San Francisco is one of a growing number of experiments on how working-memory training can measurably improve a range of skills -- from multiplying in your head to reading a complex paragraph." - Maitani from Bookmarklet

""Working memory is believed to be a core cognitive function on which many types of high-level cognition rely, including language comprehension and production, problem solving, and decision making," says Brad Postle of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who is co-chairing a session on working-memory training at the Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS) annual meeting today in San... more... - Maitani

"The cornerstone brain-training exercise in this field has been the "n-back" task, a challenging working memory task that requires an individual to mentally juggle several items simultaneously. Participants must remember both the recent stimuli and an increasing number of stimuli before it (e.g., the stimulus "1-back," "2-back," etc). These tasks can be adapted to also include an audio... more... - Maitani

"A new study that examined how the brain learns and retains motor skills provides insight into musical skill." - Maitani from Bookmarklet

But … but … but … sleep is unproductive and a waste of time! - Amit Patel

To never know where it is taking me and what it will teach me. :-) - Maitani

I'm really glad you like it! - Bren from iPhone

<3 - Kelli H.

"I hesitate to call Teotihuacan THE earliest city, for several reasons. First, that designation depends on one's definition of city and urbanism; and second, archaeologists continue to locate new cities and provide better dating for known cities. Nevertheless, Teotihuacan ("Teo" for short) was AN early city in central Mexico, certainly the earliest large city in the region. Teo was founded several centuries before Christ, and it reached its height between about 200 and 600 AD." - Maitani from Bookmarklet

^I concur. We arrived very early in the morning and were the first atop the Pyramid of the Sun. It was beautiful. - Kelli H.

"What field of linguistics should I pursue?" - Maitani

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