LINGUIST List 4.757

Sun 26 Sep 1993

Qs: Shoecabbages, Arabic, Acquisition and anxiety

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. "Reinhard, Sound-alikes
2. Laila Lalami, Arabic list
3. , Foreign Language acquisition and Anxiety

 WANTED:
 "SHOECABBAGES"
 in Languages Dead or Alive

What's a "shoecabbage"?
 A shoecabbage is a word in another language (any language) with the
same sound as a word in English, or with a very similar sound, but with a
different meaning. For example, in English a _shoe_ is a covering for a
foot, while in French "shoe" (spelled _chou_) means `cabbage.'

Why collect shoecabbages?
 They are for a children's book. This book is not intended to give
young readers the idea that knowing a handful of words in another language
(that just happen to more or less sound like words in Standard American
English) is the same as knowing all that deserves to be known about a
particular language or about the people to whom words in that language
have meaning. Rather, this book is intended to provide an enjoyable and
entertaining way of introducing children to languages other than English.

What has been done so far?
 Already, with the help of various lexicographers, linguists and
anthropologists, homophones or near homophones in over 100 languages have
been compiled.

Who can help?
 Native or knowledgeable speakers of any language. Especially needed
are words in lesser known and/or unwritten languages.

How can you help?
 You can help by contributing sound-alikes directly or by offering to
confirm the pronunciation, spelling and meaning of words already compiled.
Word lists in several languages currently await confirmers: Afar, Akan (Fante,
Twi), Aleut, Arabic, Armenian, Arosi, Atayal, Atsugewi, Awa, Baluchi,
Blackfoot, Cambodian (Khmer), Cherokee, Cheyenne, Chinook, Choctaw,
Comish, Crow, Grebo, Kannada, Kawaiisu, Kikuyu, Kisii (Gusii), Kpelle,
Kurdish, Lenape' (Delaware), Limbu, Lithuanian, Luisen~o, Maasi, Malagasy,
Malayalam, Maltese, Manobo, Manx, Maori, Maranao, Mende, Mixtec, Mohawk,
Mokilese, Nahuatl, Ndonda, Ojibwa, Papago/Pima, Quechua, Seneca, Sindhi,
Squamish, Tamazight, Tikopia, Yapese, and Yuki.
 For further information please contact T. E. Dowlatshahi c/o
"rhahnu.washington.edu".

Hi all,

Does anyone know of a (standard or colloquial) Arabic list? If yes, how
would I subscribe to it?
Thanks very much.

Laila Lalami

As part of a paper I'm doing, I am looking for articles written on Foreign
Language Acquisition and Anxiety....basically, connecting the problem of
somebody learning another language and how much anxiety this person has before
feeling "good" that she/he can say something in another language. I'm sure
that there are tomes written on it by neither an ERIC search or a RLIN/EUREKA
search yielded something. Tomorrow, I'll be doing a CD-ROM dissertation search
at NYU, but other avenues will be welcome. Finally, please post this as soon
as possible, as I am running out of time. Thank you.
Victor Acker <ackervacfcluster.nyu.edu>