My literacy pupil and I have started working on numbers. You know:
One
Two
Three
Four
...up to and including the hundreds, thousands, and millions.
This lesson has really forced me to stop and take a look at the English language and see for myself how incredibly weird-looking it is sometimes. Take, for example, the number "2" - or, if you're reading the word, "two".
This one has two (2) homonyms (words that sound the same) ..."to" and "too". But the number has this wacked-out spelling, with a "w", of all letters, thrown in ( why a "W"? WHy not a "Q", or a "z"?). It looks as though it should be pronounced "Twoh" - sort of like how Tweety might call out "Twoh me da ball, Puddy Cat!" But it's not pronounced that way, and I can't even explain the spelling. All I can say to my student is, "Well, that's the way it is!"
Eight.
Now there's another weird, weird, weird-looking number-word.
I made my student a set of flashcards with the words on one side and the numerals on the other. As I was working on this homework project, I honestly had no idea how I had simply absorbed this "reading" knowledge over the years. I never sat down and really looked at my own language before this adventure in teaching.
Take a real look at the words you're reading sometime, people - that language can sure get weird-lookin' sometimes.
Explain this: Bomb / Comb / Womb
Go ahead, see if you can explain it. I sure can't.
Byrd in LA
P.S. My student's health is much improved. Diet and exercise can do wonders!
How timely! I just received a catalog called The Great Courses from The Teaching Company. There are 2 linguistic courses offered.
One is The Story of Human Language, a 36-lecture series, by Professor John McWhorter. I've read many of Dr. McWhorter's books. Besides linguistics, he also writes on the subject of race.
Here's a snippet of the course description: "How did different languages come to be? Why isn't there just one language? How does a language change, and when it does, is that change indicative of decay or growth? How does a language become extinct?"
Another course offering is The History of the English Language, another 36-lecture series, by Professor Seth Lerer.
Questions answered in the course include: "Where do the silent 'k' and 'g' in 'knight' come from? Why did Chaucer and Shakespeare use multiple negatives without anyone missing their meaning? How did a British colonial official first realize that languages spoken from Britain to India were related?"
I'm also interested in Great World Religions, 60 lectures (12 on each) on Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism and Argumentation: The Study of Effective Reasoning.
Re: bomb/comb/womb, I looked them each up in the dictionary.
Bomb - from Latin bombus from Greek bombos.
Comb - from Middle English and Old English comb, camb, from Old High German kamb, Icelandic kambr, Greek gomphas.
Womb - from Middle English and Old English womb, Danish wam, German Wamme, Goth wamba.
Yep, English is strange.
Posted by: Michele at February 8, 2008 08:45 AMThanks, Michele! You know, I LOVE those Teaching Company catalogues! I wish I would get rich so I could just sit around and watch those things. I love them.
We got turned on to them by my uncle up north in Gilroy, and now my aunt is addicted to them. I got her the series on the New Testament for Christmas. She has such a good time watching them with her friends. Everytime I go over to visit, we end up learning something together.
Thanks for the linguistics lesson, anyway!
Byrd
Posted by: Byrd in LA at February 8, 2008 10:36 AM