heh i grew up in this church they said no thank you to illegitimate power at every turn and nearly got kicked out of methodism for it

Hypersomnolent Franzbrot is going to sweep the triple crown

All of these stories are brilliant, but this one in particular makes me choke up every time Language as a gift given to a child who may never know the world of rivers and flowers that language used to describe

All of these stories are brilliant, but this one in particular makes me choke up every time Language as a gift given to a child who may never know the world of rivers and flowers that language used to describe

When is this going to end? What is there to even say anymore?

When you are feeling weary or despairing, remember that there are people in every corner of the world taking life affirming action in the direction of more justice. The fact that you can't see it all is a comfort because it means there is an excess of positive actions happening all at once. #onwards

this thread resonates a lot

Guest opinion: "Three years after the Normandale Park shooting, I have the uneasy feeling that my city has moved on, failing to absorb important lessons about its most expensive bureau."

The recently concluded Yoorrook Justice Commission found that the colonization of Victoria, which involved "massacres, disease, sexual violence, child removal, cultural erasure and linguicide," amounted to genocide. This thread provides the report's text on the loss of First Nations' languages.

People living under fascism didn’t survive by giving up joy—they protected it. They held onto the things fascism tried to erase: art, friendship, jokes, rituals, language, memory. Not as escapism but as resistance. As proof they were still human. Joy isn’t frivolous under fascism. It’s strategic.

Okay. Once again we're doing this the harder way. The work remains the same. Hold onto each other, get people food and medicine and shelter and safety. Tell the truth. Break the locks. The labor of hope.

do not use the "make everything permanently worse for my entertainment" machine. do not use the "steal air from black people in tennessee" machine. do not use the "poison all information everywhere" machine. do not use the hallucinating machine. do not use the "dispossess the poor" machine.

love it when a headline is a question that's very, very easy to answer: NOPE

This is your reminder that nothing human-made is inevitable and you hereby have all the permission you need to reject bad/harmful social, technological, and political paradigms and to work toward something better.

That we continue to persist at all is a testament to our faith in one another.

Love zines? Love your Indigenous or minoritized language? Love making art as resistance? This is the workshop for you!

Excited for this over the coming month! Come learn how to make zines and ebooks in Indigenous & minoritized languages, and get some hands-on practice, in community with folks around the world 🐦🐦

Really excellent resource for Know Your Rights materials in lots of Indigenous languages:

This took a while to get done, but I've chronicled my day among the protesters in Los Angeles, and the idea that this is anything but a celebration of cultural heritage and a firm, nonviolent demand to protect family, friends and neighbors is totally ridiculous. prospect.org/justice/crie...

mass protest is not the right way to oppose fascism. the right way to oppose fascism is to shake your head and say “no thank you” whenever a fascist offers you some fascism

Protesters Urged Not To Give Trump Administration Pretext For What It Already Doing

The are line dancing in the middle of the protest while shouting Fuck ICE

kind of just endlessly sad and grieving that there are so few voices in the public sphere making the basic principled argument that immigration is an affirmative good in every way and the best way for this country to serve humanity is to welcome people who want or need to leave their homes

Very smart, high ROI initiative from the Spencer Foundation. Providing bridge funding for canceled NSF grants: 1) directs funds to projects already screened by a top-noch review process. 2) avoids imposing proposal prep costs on researchers. 3) ameliorates the disruption from GOP sabotage.

for linguists, disavowing Pinker is as common a professional activity as replying “well, I don’t actually speak a lot of languages” at parties (it helps that he’s not a linguist, just a creepy little asshole)

dang, this was a good day to return from bluesky hiatus

There’s something that sticks in my mind about how distinctive phonemes (in this case, /l/) can become emblematic of a community or an identity. The sound itself carries something big. I don’t have any fleshed out ideas about it, but it feels important 🐦🐦

If anyone wants to listen to an actual Sudanese woman displaced by the war, this video by Esraa Alrasheed, shared by @e-l-p.bsky.social, is really powerful: youtu.be/tlvxjStjj_w?...

at work I email with people who have lots of different Englishes, and I really loved the personal-ness of everyone’s distinct ways of using language lately most emails have lost that distinctness of voice, it’s all flat ChatGPT LinkedIn US English. it makes me sad. I miss the human idiosyncrasies

Don't let the assholes distract you from the world being beautiful and worth protecting.

More of this, everywhere, please

"People here are exhausted by the endless cycle of exile, with no safe place left to go. How many times must we abandon the places we love — filled with our memories and our lives — only to be cast into the unknown?"

every spring I feel so grateful to live in Portland. “City of Roses” is true, they love it here, they bloom untended on highway medians, they flourish in yards where they were planted thirty years ago and forgotten about, they flood the city with the smell of new life and make the days lighter 🥖🌹

A wonderful article about the work of one of the members of ELP’s 2024 Ready to Revitalize program, @gibrilk.bsky.social, and how regenerating relationships with sacred forests & Indigenous languages go hand in hand: “The forest does not speak, but it remembers.” (Limba: "yama thɔmɛ buyaŋ buŋ")

There’s an Urdu name for a “Jack of all trades” that translates to “every talent Lord.” A Korean version is “eight direction beauty.” But my favourite name for someone who tries their hand at lots of different things is the Lithuanian Barbė devyndarbė. It means “Barbie nine jobs”

Recovering from my shock at seeing this.. I'm thinking about the dire implications for fieldwork, ethnography, anthropology, and basically any field of study that is predicated on TALKING TO ACTUAL PEOPLE.

Really enjoyed talking to this journalist for this piece - it’s nice to see media coverage that’s open to nuancing/not breathlessly hyping the role AI tools can play in language revitalization. #linguistics 🐦🐦

"Speak English," he said, racistly.

To paraphrase my brilliant colleague Amanda Holmes: researchers working with Indigenous communities often focus on the research product and outcome, neglecting the living, ongoing relationships that matter most. The way AI dovetails with broader “just make the product” cultural norms is infuriating

Get in losers, we’re doing the “nonprofit killer bill” thing again This grants a Treasury employee unilateral power to call any nonprofit a “terrorist” and revoke their tax-exempt status without due process or evidence (seeing a pattern?) Call your reps and let them know that’s unacceptable

“I asked ChatGPT-“ okay well I asked the big oak tree at the center of the woods and she said you’re a lazy dork

Without downloading any pics where are you mentally

Even if you’re not working in language revitalization, and just want to learn how to get started (or ask general questions about the work), these folks are an AMAZING fount of knowledge, international connections, and genuinely warm & empathetic vibes. Cannot recommend them enough. #linguistics 🐦🐦

"Na'mbali lulimi lwaatu lutali tuli agh biti bitali namiili - without our language, we are like trees without roots." 🌳 In this digital story, Kyamanywa John reflects on how his #language is much more than what he studies as a researcher - it's the history, identity, and roots of his community.

"Languages don't die out, they are killed." - Yásnaya Aguilar, Mixe linguist and activist to Mexico's Congress, spoken in the Mixe language #LangSky #Linguistics #Language