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Graca Martins

History of English - 0 views

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    History of English (Source: A History of English by Barbara A. Fennell) The English language is spoken by 750 million people in the world as either the official language of a nation, a second language, or in a mixture with other languages (such as pidgins and creoles.) English is the (or an) official language in England, Canada, Australia and New Zealand; however, the United States has no official language. Indo-European language and people English is classified genetically as a Low West Germanic language of the Indo-European family of languages. The early history of the Germanic languages is based on reconstruction of a Proto-Germanic language that evolved into German, English, Dutch, Afrikaans, Yiddish, and the Scandinavian languages. In 1786, Sir William Jones discovered that Sanskrit contained many cognates to Greek and Latin. He conjectured a Proto-Indo-European language had existed many years before. Although there is no concrete proof to support this one language had existed, it is believed that many languages spoken in Europe and Western Asia are all derived from a common language. A few languages that are not included in the Indo-European branch of languages include Basque, Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian; of which the last three belong to the Finno-Ugric language family. Speakers of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) lived in Southwest Russia around 4,000 to 5,000 BCE. They had words for animals such as bear or wolf (as evidenced in the similarity of the words for these animals in the modern I-E languages.) They also had domesticated animals, and used horse-drawn wheeled carts. They drank alcohol made from grain, and not wine, indicating they did not live in a warm climate. They belonged to a patriarchal society where the lineage was determined through males only (because of a lack of words referring to the female's side of the family.) They also made use of a decimal counting system by 10's, and formed words by compounding. This PIE language was also highly infl
Graca Martins

Chronology: History of English - 0 views

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    Chronology of Events in the History of English pre-600 A.D. THE PRE-ENGLISH PERIOD ca. 3000 B.C. (or 6000 B.C?) Proto-Indo-European spoken in Baltic area. (or Anatolia?) ca. 1000 B.C. After many migrations, the various branches of Indo-European have become distinct. Celtic becomes most widespread branch of I.E. in Europe; Celtic peoples inhabit what is now Spain, France, Germany, Austria, eastern Europe, and the British Isles. 55 B.C. Beginning of Roman raids on British Isles. 43 A.D. Roman occupation of Britain. Roman colony of "Britannia" established. Eventually, many Celtic Britons become Romanized. (Others continually rebel). 200 B.C.-200 A.D. Germanic peoples move down from Scandinavia and spread over Central Europe in successive waves. Supplant Celts. Come into contact (at times antagonistic, at times commercial) with northward-expanding empire of Romans. Early 5th century. Roman Empire collapses. Romans pull out of Britain and other colonies, attempting to shore up defense on the home front; but it's useless. Rome sacked by Goths. Germanic tribes on the continent continue migrations west and south; consolidate into ever larger units. Those taking over in Rome call themselves "Roman emperors" even though the imperial administration had relocated to Byzantium in the 300s. The new Germanic rulers adopted the Christianity of the late Roman state, and began what later evolved into the not-very-Roman "Holy Roman Empire". ca. 410 A.D. First Germanic tribes arrive in England. 410-600 Settlement of most of Britain by Germanic peoples (Angles, Saxons, Jutes, some Frisians) speaking West Germanic dialects descended from Proto-Germanic. These dialects are distantly related to Latin, but also have a sprinkling of Latin borrowings due to earlier cultural contact with the Romans on the continent. Celtic peoples, most of whom are Christianized, are pushed increasingly (despite occasional violent uprisings) into the marginal areas of Britain: Ireland, Scotland, Wales.
Dana Huff

Books That Shaped America - National Book Festival (Library of Congress) - 16 views

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    The Library of Congress shares an exhibition of "Books that Shaped America." Librarian of Congress James H. Billington says that the list is "intended to spark a national conversation on books written by Americans that have influenced our lives, whether they appear on this initial list or not."
Dana Huff

Shakespeare in American Life - 8 views

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    A lasting online resource and a companion project for Shakespeare in American Life, a radio documentary produced by Richard Paul and narrated by Sam Waterston, airing on Public Radio International (PRI) stations beginning in April 2007.
Gloria Custodio

Full 30-minute program in MP3 format - 2 views

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    Luci Tapahonso (native American poet) talks about poetry in English and Navaho.
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    Luci Tapahonso (native American poet) talks about poetry in English and Navaho.
Dana Huff

The Great Gatsby - Studio 360 - 10 views

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    "Studio 360 explores F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and finds out how this compact novel became the great American story of our age. Novelist Jonathan Franzen tells Kurt Andersen why he still reads it every year or two, and writer Patricia Hampl explains why its lightness is deceptive. We'll drive around the tony Long Island suburbs where Gatsby was set, and we'll hear from Andrew Lauren about his film G, which sets Gatsby among the hip-hop moguls. And Azar Nafisi describes the power of teaching the book to university students in Tehran. Readings come courtesy of Scott Shepherd, an actor who sometimes performs the entire book from memory."
Dana Huff

Eighteenth-Century Audio - 9 views

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    Recordings of 18th century American and British poetry.
Dana Huff

Reader Idea | Trees and Transcendentalists - NYTimes.com - 7 views

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    Great lesson plan to coordinate Tu B'Shevat, Arbor Day, environmentalism, and American poetry. Kudos, Kathleen Harsy.
Dana Huff

Teaching 'The Great Gatsby' With The New York Times - NYTimes.com - 16 views

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    The New York Times' collection of resources for teaching F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby.
Asha Infoetch

Apply for the trainer training course - 0 views

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    You will get a training certification by availing of American TESOL Institute - Trainer Training Program on skill training course, hr training courses and other courses for trainers.
Andrew Spinali

Was Dickens's Christmas Carol borrowed from Lowell's mill girls? - Ideas - The Boston G... - 0 views

  • Dickens had encountered that narrative trope in the stories written by the Lowell mill girls, who typically published either anonymously or under pseudonyms like “Dorothea” or “M.” In one anonymous story called “A Visit from Hope,” the narrator is “seated by the expiring embers of a wood fire” at midnight, when a ghost, an old man with “thin white locks,” appears before him. The ghost takes the narrator back to scenes from his youth, and afterward the narrator promises to “endeavor to profit by the advice he gave me.” Similarly, in “A Christmas Carol,” Scrooge is sitting beside “a very low fire indeed” when Marley’s ghost appears before him. And, later, after Scrooge has been visited by the ghosts of Christmases Past, Present, and Future, he promises, “The spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach.”
  • That’s not how the scholars see it. Literary borrowing, even quite detailed borrowing, was accepted practice at the time—“It was just a different way of looking at things back then,” says Archibald. (“American Notes,” for instance, includes many pages of writing by the famed 19th-century physician Samuel Gridley Howe, all without attribution, and apparently without any thought by Dickens that he was doing something improper.)
Dana Huff

Home Page of K. Nichols - 8 views

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    Kathleen Nichols has one of the best websites I've seen. I have used it a lot over the years.
Dana Huff

The Big Read | A Farewell to Arms - 5 views

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    The Big Read/NEA's Reader's and Teacher's Guide for Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms. Excellent radio show.
Dana Huff

xkcd: The Carriage - 8 views

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    Grand Theft Auto: The Emily Dickinson Edition. This cartoon from xkcd made me laugh. Enjoy!
Joshua Sherk

Education Week American Education News Site of Record - 0 views

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    education sources and news
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