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Icelandic is a beautiful language, and it's amazing to learn it hasn't changed too much from the Old Norse spoken by Vikings. Icelandic is also, however, an incredibly difficult language to learn. While other languages descended from Old Norse like Swedish and Norwegian have evolved and simplified greatly, Icelandic retains a complex grammar that's very tough for most English speakers to wrap their minds around. Icelandic verbs are conjugated for tense, mood, person, number, and voice, and then nouns are inflected for gender, number, and case. In other words, we English speakers generally expect verbs to change very little (we change, it changes) and we expect nouns to always stay the same (save for a simple -s for most plurals and -'s for possessives). In Icelandic, those words are constantly shifting, and they do so in a multitude of often-irregular ways. Given these daunting difficulties, it's understandable if any prospective visitor to Iceland gets a little...

John Shoenbar never deserved to have a school named after him. Back in January I went to the Ketchikan City Council and proposed that Ketchikan's flag should be revised or replaced . Now I'd like to offer up another suggestion for the community that no one will probably pay any attention: Schoenbar Middle School should change its name. There are only two schools in the Ketchikan Gateway Borough School District named after people—Houghtaling Elementary School and Schoenbar Middle School. Houghtaling was opened in 1961 and named after longtime school board member and local education supporter Bert Houghtaling. The middle school’s name was selected a few years later in 1964. According June Allen , the name Schoenbar was chosen because, ironically, the decision makers at the time did not want to name another school after a person—so they named it after its location on Schoenbar Road. Naming the middle school after Schoenbar Road, however, effectively named it after John Sho...

origins of the languages in my plan Some time ago, a friend posted on Facebook about choosing a new language to learn. He said he was aiming to learn seven to nine languages in his life, so he needed to be careful about what he chose to spend time on. I was struck by his words because I'd never really considered that I should consciously limit the number of languages I'd try to learn. Now I think about it all the time. It makes sense, of course: Growing up, we all realize in one way or another that everyone has limits to their knowledge of different languages. If you intend to learn several languages over the course of your life, then, it should help to plan deliberately and conscientiously how to meet those goals. I love languages, and I do intend to keep learning many throughout my life—so it's about time I made a plan.

"Political correctness" is a buzz-term that draws millions of haters. It's not a new phenomenon, either. The concept has been lambasted for decades, in the United States and elsewhere, accused of attempting to quash free expression and truthful discourse in favor of sugar-coated, politically convenient language. If you search around online, you'll undoubtedly find far more sites devoted to attacking political correctness than defending it. Donald Trump: tackling the real threats to America Spoiler:  Political correctness doesn't deserve all the hate it gets. When politicians criticize "political correctness," they're just using it as what one author calls " the mother of all straw men ." In the end, being politically correct is mostly about just being a polite, decent person. It's about being conscious of the words you use and open to changing your language to be more widely acceptable and respectful. Some people hate that, ap...

Let me start by saying that I understand learning a fictional language is a hobby. Many people have hobbies that don't seem to have any particularly useful purpose. I'm sure I have hobbies that some would judge to be a waste of time, and I certainly have plenty of knowledge (including knowledge of fictional worlds) that many would judge to be useless. Nevertheless, I resent learners of fictional languages. I resent those who learn fictional languages not because I believe their pursuits are harmful, but because they clearly have aptitudes that could be put to exceptionally greater uses.

I watched the Superbowl today and briefly lamented the Seattle Seahawks' unfortunate loss. (They're Alaska's unofficial NFL team.) After my moment of caring about sports, however, my thoughts returned to something I'd tweeted earlier: next year's logo ( source ) Well, I found out there actually won't be a "Super Bowl L." It'll be officially labelled " Super Bowl 50 ," basically for the reason in my tweet: "Super Bowl L" would look dumb. In 2017, though, the NFL will return to its Roman numeral ways with Super Bowl LI . I don't know who originally thought up keeping track of the National Football League's championships with Roman numerals, or what the arguments for it were among those who decided on it 49 or 50 years ago. Regardless, I can understand it was simply a decision based on style and marketing, and it's been a steady tradition kept for 49 years, with only a short interruption next year. Who knows,...

my levels on Duolingo Lately I've been having a lot of fun with the website Duolingo . It's a gamified language learning website where you can choose one or more languages to learn, take placement tests if you know something already, and move up a learning tree lesson by lesson. Before I discovered Duolingo, I used the website Livemocha . It also has many languages to learn (more than Duolingo) and has all sorts of lessons to go through. After Livemocha was bought by Rosetta Stone and revamped their website, though, I lost interest. Tied in with Rosetta Stone's business, it seems to have lost its focus on website accessibility and intuitive learning. One area in which Livemocha still excels is in pairing learners with native speakers. (Duolingo has no equivalent.) Livemocha facilitates finding, chatting with, and getting feedback from native speakers of whatever language you're learning. You can also give others feedback on submissions in whatever your own nativ...

November is Native American Heritage Month in the United States, and I figured I should share a selection of my blogging on indigenous knowledge, history, and education. Without further elaboration, here's my selection of posts: Maps: Maps That Infuriate Me: European Claims to North America Percentage of Indigenous People in Each Territory, Province and State Mapping Indigenous Autonyms Coast to Coast Mapping Indigenous Autonyms in Canada History: Quick Alternate Histories: A Post-Beringia Pre-Columbian Migration Two Research Ideas from Northwest Coast-North Pacific History College assignments: Movement, Diffusion, Diversity and Stateness: North American Historical Patterns Before 1519 Native Worlds of New Spain: The Diversity and Power of Indigenous Communities in Colonial North America Art: An Indigenous/Non-Indigenous or Western/Non-Western Art Dichotomy? Visiting 'Ksan in Hazelton, British Columbia Red: A Haida Manga and the Possibilities of Graphic Novel...

Working in the visitor industry in Ketchikan, Alaska, you meet a lot of people. The majority of visitors arrive by way of one of a few major cruise lines—Holland America, Princess, Celebrity, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian, Carnival, or more recently, Disney . (Royal Caribbean owns Celebrity, and Carnival owns both Holland America and Princess, so there are even fewer major cruise corporations involved.) A clear majority of visitors to Ketchikan are also North Americans—vast numbers of Americans, many Canadians, and even a fair number of Mexicans. Add to that the large number of British, Australian, and other Anglophone visitors, and there aren't many visitors left who don't either come from the same continent, speak English, or—in most cases—both. Out of those I haven't listed yet, I would venture to say that most are European. There are plenty of people who visit speaking South Asian or East Asian languages, but I know many of them are Americans, Canadians, or Australians...

the offending kefir bottle Greek Gods, one of my favorite brands for kefir, has a little story on the back of their bottles: The Greek word "kefi" refers to enthusiasm and the positive joyful spirit of life. Believed to have been consumed for thousands of years, kefir remains a great addition to any diet. It is delicious and may be beneficial to the body. The Greek Gods kefir is exceptionally creamy, smooth and rich in taste. The only problem—which you might suspect right away—is this: The word "kefi" has nothing to do with the word "kefir." The word "kefir" is of unsure origins, but it is known to have come from the north Caucasus region from a complex family of languages entirely unrelated to Greek. The word might have something to do with "foam" (which makes sense)—but nothing to do with joy. The funniest part, I think, is that Greek Gods is doing exactly the same thing the father did in My Big Fat Greek Wedding —taking ...

Last October, I went to Mexico without being able to speak Spanish. I would call my knowledge of the language "less-than-survival level." However, I managed to do pretty well navigating the daily need-to-do tasks I had while in Oaxaca. Why is that? I mean, it could have been far more difficult for me to spend five days in Mexico without knowing the language—but it wasn't. The historian in me has only one conclusion to make: The main reason I managed as easily as I did was because of the continued rise of global uniformities. In his book The Birth of the Modern World , Christopher Bayly traces what he names "the rise of global uniformities" from 1780 to 1914. Let's explore what this concept means for all of us.

Indianaʼs treaties ( source ) I've just recorded my first ever podcast, and uploaded it to SoundCloud . It's entitled "Indiana: Thoughts on Indigenous Revitalization,"  or "Indiana" for short. Please take the time to listen to it, or read the transcript below: Hello, my name is Peter Stanton, and this is my very first podcast, entitled "Indiana." Be sure to check out the transcript of this podcast and my other writing on peterstanton.blogspot.com . Think for a moment about humble Indiana—Indiana, the land of corn and basketball. What does the name Indiana mean, anyway? Unsurprisingly, it means "land of the Indians"—a name thought up by white people, of course. But would you guess what percentage of people living in Indiana today are Native Americans? It's 0.4 percent. What kind of sick joke is that? That's about 25,000 people in a state of 6.5 million.

Mexico City airport Back on Saturday, October 27th, I left on a trip to Oaxaca, Mexico for a history conference. I was terribly harebrained in the lead-up to leaving Ketchikan—and after I left. To wit, I forgot my passport when packing and my savior girlfriend had to bring it to the airplane. Then, after staying with cousins in Seattle, I forgot my phone with them. The next day, however, I had quite the success in comparison to the previous screw-ups. I made a plan for what I'd see in la Ciudad de México (Mexico City) and I accomplished it entirely.

my first "Tlingit Word of the Day" tweet As I continue my small efforts to promote Lingít , (the Tlingit language), I've begun to occasionally post Tlingit place names or other "words of the day" to Twitter and Facebook. This is my first compilation of the posts I've done so far, and hopefully there will be many more to come.

UAS recently put up signs for each of its student apartments (which, by the way, are very nice to stay in). The signs give a nature-related name to each building that begins with its already-established letter designator: I, for example, live in building A, which now has a sign saying "Aurora." The signs look great, and I love that a translation is provided for each word in  Lingít (Tlingit), such that "Aurora" has "gisʼóoḵ" beneath it (a new word I'll remember now). I have found one problem, however, and it's the sign in front of building B:

On Monday the 27th, (Memorial Day), I returned home from Georgetown for the last time—a new graduate ready to began something new, back in the town where I grew up. In past years, I always thought I was coming back to Ketchikan, Alaska. This time, though, after a year spent exploring the history of the Tlingit and their homeland, I felt much more that I was returning to Kichx̱áan, Lingít Aaní. Kichx̱áan is the Tlingit name for the site that the city of Ketchikan was built on. Clearly, the Tlingit name was adapted by the Euroamerican settlers, but it was also changed—anglicized—and turned into something different. Using indigenous place names, rather than ones created or changed by colonizers, restores to a place some of historical meaning. Even more essential, perhaps, is the acceptance and use of indigenous autonyms—Native peoples' names for themselves. A new map of the contiguous United States provides an impressive, near-comprehensive display of such autonyms and is very muc...

Shepherdstown, WV A few weekends ago I attended a conference in West Virginia with several other Georgetown students to present a paper of mine I had written last semester. The conference was very fun and my paper ended up winning third place out of the undergraduates, which was awesome. However, the panel session I presented in was entitled "Relations Between the West and 'the Rest.'" I don't know why, but they placed "the rest" in quotes, but not "the West." "The West" has always seemed to me like a problematic term to use when talking about the modern world, and although it's really commonly used, it did bother me a little at the time. (By the way, you'll have to forgive my use of " scare quotes ." You'll see a lot in the post.) A few days later, I watched a YouTube video where the commentator made a statement about Mexico: He said that in recent decades Mexican families had been adopting a more "We...

Dear Editor of the Ketchikan Daily News, I would like to make a serious, concrete suggestion for Ketchikan High School: Get a Tlingit class. There are a number of obstacles to providing a class in the Tlingit language at Kayhi, but the first and most important is to find a will among the superintendent, school board, and community members. I believe this idea has the capacity to bring our community together, and once we have the will to provide a Tlingit class, everything else will be easy. The benefits of having just a single Tlingit class far outweigh the difficulties or costs. Having a Tlingit class at Ketchikan High School signifies that the whole community has taken a positive step toward recognizing and valuing its Tlingit heritage, and it provides students of all backgrounds with the opportunity to learn more about their home than they ever could have before.

the Tlingit alphabet I've written quite a few times on this blog about Native American languages, and Lingít (Tlingit) in particular. Back in August  I made the case that the Tlingit language deserves more respect and attention in Southeast Alaska, including a presence in public school classrooms. Now I'd like to follow that broad idea with a serious, concrete suggestion for Ketchikan High School: Get a Tlingit class.

Georgia and Georgia - quite a topographical contrast (screenshots taken from Google Maps) Well, here's a question for you: Why don't we call other countries by the names they call themselves? For example, the names of Germany  seem particularly silly, with different languages using radically different words to refer to the same place. If we all just called it Deutschland it'd be quite a bit easier to understand each other. I mean, Deutschland isn't that difficult to pronounce, and I'm sure the Germans (excuse me, the Deutsch ) would appreciate the gesture of respect toward the name they use for themselves. If you don't agree with me on that point, however, consider this: Why don't we at least call other countries by the names they call themselves when doing so would make things easier for us ? In this case I am referring specifically to the country we call  Georgia , located in the Caucasus Mountains along the divide between Europe and Asia. In the ...