anyway only with the scale of the problem in clear view can we start developing effective and relevant strategies. until then every intervention is partial, temporary, or even counterproductive
to get rid of standardization we would kind of need to remake society entirely! we'd need totally new norms for interaction, and we'd need to put our whole weight behind doing proper accessibility!
our projects have failed because we have not imagined the radically different world that would be a world without language oppression. "just let them talk, stop being mean!" do we even *begin to understand* how much this world's veins and bones are built out of language standardization and stigma
it would be a joyful and kind and neighborly new world, but it would be a radically different world. it is a world we need to imagine if we want to actually win. otherwise we are taking steps without having a destination in mind!
to undo language oppression, to undo language standardization, would bring the walls crumbling down. we would be walking in a totally new social and cultural landscape. to borrow from Fanon it would be an agenda of total disorder.
this approach utterly fails to grapple with the reality of language oppression / standardization / hierarchy. it isn't just the occasional hobby of a few racists. it is absolutely foundational to the contemporary world order, to the state and to capital
the main technique of opposing language oppression, it seems, has been framed implicitly in negative rights, i.e. you should be free to *not* experience it. it's a kind of discrimination, and it should be stopped. hey, just let people talk how they want! etc
why? and specifically, linguists have been toiling at this problem for generations, with only token successes. why?
some people are fighting language oppression and some are even winning. but in most cases it seems like language oppression, stigma, standardization are barely even challenged
nigel farage tweet: The Bank of England is replacing Winston Churchill with a picture of a beaver on our bank notes. This is the definition of woke.
i, for one, am delighted that we finally have a definition of “woke”
Chinese Move to Outlaw Multilingual Education
Law formally establishes #Mandarin #Chinese as the primary medium for education and official communication
languagemagazine.com/2026/03/12/c...
via @langmag.bsky.social
#langsky
Millipede and centipede, terrifyingly, imply the existence of larger units such as the pede and kilopede
Grammarly's presentation of something they call Expert Review, including my name (plus Stephen King's, plus Mary Norris's), though to be sure I've never been contacted by Grammarly, much less compensated.
What in the absolute fuck is this.
she has this in the notes
I’m going to resurrect Marx and put a gun to his head and force him to write a treatise on the abolition of T-V distinction
The world could be such a nice place if we allowed it. It's all so goddamn unnecessary. There's no need for any of it. It's so beautiful here. It should be so cool to be alive
Callers to Washington state’s driver’s license agency who select automated service in Spanish are instead hearing an AI voice speaking English with a strong Spanish accent.
Everyone appreciates the effort to speak in another language. I discovered this as a white parent coordinator in an 80% Asian NYC school. Got big smiles when I introduced myself in Mandarin to our Dual Language families. It shows you care enough for them to feel welcomed n comfortable.
Learning a second language can be hard. Signing up for Pre-K and 3-K is easy.
Go to myschools.nyc to apply today. Deadline is tomorrow at midnight!
fucking genocidal
People who believe this are basically aliens to me. You cannot divorce reasoning from humanity, even when it’s weakly simulated in a chatbot. If you can’t compare two different texts, you should not be a scholar. If you have no personal approach to your work, then you shouldn’t take credit for it.
whoever made up the word “blizzard” was fucking ON IT
A detailed chart of the Cherokee Syllabary including the consonants and vowels.
On this day in 1928, the first edition of the Cherokee Phoenix is printed.
anticolonialhistory.com/event/358/
maybe @soclinganth.bsky.social knows. or some of their ppl
here at langywangy we think of standardization in terms of "imposition of uniformity" which doesn't necessarily come from the state. like we think of james milroy 2001, or michael silverstein 1998(?) "monoglot standard"
slavic language scholars seem to be using it 20+ years ago but for them, language standardization is clearly a question of state supported institutional shit, so "destandardization" can include regional *standards*
what's up with "destandardization" is this being theorized with a coherent definition or um... is it vibes?
oh so very much this
Rev. Jesse Jackson's "I *am* somebody..." remains one of the all-time great pieces of 20th century rhetoric / agitprop
And he could deliver it at a Black separatist meeting, the Democratic National Convention, or on god-blessed Sesame Street (see below 🥹)
RIP to the Voice of the Voiceless
I don’t know how to express how extremely gross it was to see the machine make my friend speak English against his will using his own voice.
