Who's To Blame

Oh Mother Ghana; Mother Ghana
What has happened to you?
What has happened to your culture?
They say we've fold arms against 'Vernacular' language
Instead opened arms wide to 'English' language

Oh Mother Ghana Mother Ghana
Why?
At school, we are taught the things we do not know
By the 'English' language
Why not 'Vernacular' language?

Oh Mother Ghana, Oh Mother Ghana
Where is your true identity as pure African?
Where is your pride as true Ghanaian?

Oh Mother Ghana, Oh Mother Ghana,
Day after day
When we put on the uniform as students
We are forbidden to speak 'Vernacular' language

[...] Read more

poem by Francis Julian Zewu
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Single Bilingual

They call this a community
I like to think of it as home
Arriving at the airport
I am going it alone
Ordering a boarding pass
Travelling in business class
This is the name of the game
I'm single, bilingual
Single, bilingual
I come to the community
From U.K. p.l.c.
Arriving at my hotel
there are faxes greeting me
Staying in a junior suite
So there's room to meet and greet
and after work explain how I feel
'Perdoneme me llamo Neil'
I'm single, bilingual
Single, bilingual
In Brussels, Bonn or Barcelona

[...] Read more

song performed by Pet Shop Boys
Added by Lucian Velea
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17.07.2009 I Am a Witch

Today my headache grew
toothache came to stay, strong
enough to make me call a dentist
my notes resemble those written
by the witches in Terry Pratchett’s
books, their medicinal plant infor-
mation interspersed with notes
on their state of health

Like my lines jotted down
during an ACALAN conference
writing down the chairman’s words
about a lingua franca for Africa, inter-
jecting my worries about my dis-
integrating hairstyle, my
conclusion is: I really
am a witch…

[By the way, I recommended Arabic as lingua
franca for Africa, since nobody knows it we’ll

[...] Read more

poem by Margaret Alice
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Make no mistake. Canada is not a bilingual country. In fact it is less bilingual today than it has ever been.

quote by Stephen Harper
Added by Lucian Velea
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Body Language

Words and music by freddie mercury
Give me body give me body body
Give me your body
Dont talk dont talk dont talk dont talk
Baby dont talk
Body language body language body language
Give me your body
Just give me yeah your body
Give me yeah your body
Dont talk
Body language huh huh
Body language body language
You got red lips snakes in your eyes
Long legs great thighs
You got the cutest ass Ive ever seen
Knock me down for a six any time
Look at me I gotta case of body language
Look at me I gotta case of body language
Look at me I gotta case of body language
Look at me I gotta case of body language

[...] Read more

song performed by Queen
Added by Lucian Velea
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I grew up in a community that was bilingual. I've done it for a while, singing in both languages.

quote by Jon Secada
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A language is a dialect with an army and a navy.

quote by Max Weinreich
Added by Lucian Velea
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Music is the vernacular of the human soul.

quote by Geoffrey Latham
Added by Lucian Velea
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Silence and Language

Silence is our original composition and speech
Languages are the dresses we wear;

What we convey and understand remains the same
Despite the various languages we use;

Words are clothed senses in silence;
Once we decipher, understanding dawns,
Silence, peace and bliss pervade us;

What we experience, mean, understand, conceive,
think, utter, listen, perceive, understand, experience
Through languages and communication are in essence the same.
The manifestations of Silence;

Silence is Divine Mood
Lord's Speech;

Communication with our Self is Silence;
Communication with the rest is

[...] Read more

poem by Varanasi Ramabrahmam
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I'm bilingual. I speak English and I speak educationese.

quote by Shirley Mount Hufstedler
Added by Lucian Velea
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Aim for brevity while avoiding jargon.

quote by Edsger Dijkstra
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All hockey players are bilingual. They know English and profanity.

quote by Gordie Howe
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whatever language or dialect
man speaks or writes
God understands

senryu by John Celes
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Second, we also got a more authentic liturgy of the people of God, in the vernacular language.

quote by Hans Kung
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Foreign languages are another favourite topic, and as these men are bilingual they have a fair notion of what it means to speak and think in many different idioms.

quote by John Millington Synge
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Re: That

That was no language that was your life.
That was a punning linguist.
That was the headline Author Gets Off.
That was an offer of amnesty and amnesia,
a garden variety fantasia,
a sobriety test and I'm sorry, you passed.
That was in love with the history of the West,
in league with mastery, in line with most of the rest.
That was a linguist's boast.
That was no language boat and you broke it.
That was a love boat and kept you perfectly dry.
A boat in the sky.
That was a scheme with a name on it.
That was to blame and too blind to see.
That was me too.
It was you.

poem by Eric Torgersen
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Libbie

Shameless thief and sleepless night!
Listen to the linguist than a flirting wife;
For the thief comes to steal us all.

Sleepless nights and shameless theives!
Listen to the linguist than a flirting husband;
For the thieves come to rob us all.

Miscalculations!
With the red-light instead of the green-light:
But, my name is Libbie and,
Fairness is the right to tell the truth.

poem by Edward Kofi Louis
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Death is a displaced name for a linguistic predicament.

quote by Paul de Man
Added by Lucian Velea
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Wisdom lies neither in fixity nor in change, but in the dialectic between the two.

quote by Octavio Paz
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American professional athletes are bilingual; they speak English and profanity.

quote by Gordie Howe
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