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Not just the language we choose but how we talk influences our effectiveness http://ow.ly/1sYmWk #ibtok #language #speech

"The Enduring Voices team is pleased to present these Talking Dictionaries, giving listeners around the world a chance to hear some of the most little-known sounds of human speech. Several communities are now offering the online record of their language to be shared by any interested person around the world. While you probably won't walk away from these Talking Dictionaries knowing how to speak a new language, you will encounter fascinating and beautiful sounds--forms of human speech you've never heard before--and through them, get a further glimpse into the rich diversity of culture and experience that humans have created in every part of the globe. "

"Autism is a poorly-understood neurological disorder that can impair an individual's ability to engage in various social interactions. But little 5-year-old Iris Grace in the UK is an excellent example of the unexpected gifts that autism can also grant - her exceptional focus and attention to detail have helped her create incredibly beautiful paintings that many of her fans (and buyers) have likened to Monet's works. Little Iris is slowly learning to speak, whereas most children have already begun to speak at least a few words by age 2. Along with speech therapy, her parents gradually introduced her to painting, which is when they discovered her amazing talent."

"The journalists at Charlie Hebdo are now rightly being celebrated as martyrs on behalf of freedom of expression, but let's face it: If they had tried to publish their satirical newspaper on any American university campus over the last two decades it wouldn't have lasted 30 seconds. Student and faculty groups would have accused them of hate speech. The administration would have cut financing and shut them down. Public reaction to the attack in Paris has revealed that there are a lot of people who are quick to lionize those who offend the views of Islamist terrorists in France but who are a lot less tolerant toward those who offend their own views at home."

"the phrase #JeSuisCharlie-"I am Charlie"-was soon adopted worldwide by individuals and organizations eager to stand in solidarity with the magazine. But before we were all Charlie Hebdo, before Charlie Hebdo was a symbol of free speech and editorial courage, Charlie Hebdo was, for many, a symbol of Islamophobia, its cartoon depictions of the prophet Mohammed less an exercise in political courage than a gratuitous provocation of a marginalized religious group that has long been made to feel unwelcome in France. This is worth remembering, even now, even if, like me, you don't agree with the charges. Missing in much of the coverage of the events of the past few days is a sense of the demographic context in which they occurred. "We're talking about a country with 6 million Muslims, the biggest population in Europe, where Muslims experience all sorts of discriminations on a day-to-day basis," the French-Algerian journalist Nabila Ramdani told Sky News in 2011. "Many view [the Charlie Hebdo cartoons] as pure racism dressed up as satire.""