A World of Variety: Klallam (Salishan)
Extent of the Salishan language family
Klallam is a nearly extinct
language that was spoken along the north side of the Olympic Peninsula and in coastal areas of Vancouver Island
on the other side of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. It's a member of the Coast Salish language family. Like many
Salishan languages, it has a healthy dose of glottal stops together with numerous unusual consonants,
many of which are difficult for English speakers to discern or pronounce.
It's only appropriate that I picked this language to represent the Salishan family, since
I just visited the Olympic Peninsula in January. Although,
I would like to find more information on the wonderfully named Lushootseed language (indigenous
to the Seattle metro area.)
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A World of Variety: Arikara (Caddoan)
Extent of the Caddoan language family
Arikara is a severely endangered language spoken only on the
Fort Berthold reservation in North Dakota. It's one of the last remaining representatives of the Caddoan languages, which were, in pre-contact times,
widespread in the south central U.S., primarily in what is now Oklahoma.
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Angry Pig Drives a Tractor
Posted Wed, February 25, 2009 - 11:19 PM
photography, minnesota
Some impressive snow sculptures during the Saint Paul Winter Carnival. These were up on the state fairgrounds near Machinery Hill.
Don't get in his way.
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A Really Big Pile of Sand
Here's some more pictures from my 2007 Colorado/Wyoming trip. These were taken at Great Sand Dunes National Park in the San Luis Valley of
south central Colorado. The valley is dry, with prevailing westerly winds most of the year, and is hemmed in on three sides by some
impressive mountain ranges - on the east, by the Sangre de Cristo Range. Over thousands of years, the winds have picked up, carried, and
deposited sand into a pocket on the northeastern edge of the valley. They've formed a giant playground six or seven miles in diameter, tucked
in the shadow of peaks rising seven thousand feet above.
The dunes are tall. One of the most popular hikes is up to what's known as High Dune, 600 feet above the valley floor. This is
a picture looking south with High Dune off the right edge. The little black specks are people climbing up. And in the background, a nice anvil cloud
brewing over New Mexico.
A sense of scale...
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A World of Variety: Tlingit (Na-Dené)
Extent of the Na-Dené language family
Tlingit
is a language spoken along the coast of southeastern Alaska and northern British Columbia. It's related to other languages in the interior,
the Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Alaska, but surprisingly, also to the Navajo language of the American Southwest through its membership in
the Na-Dené superfamily.
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A World of Variety: Creek (Muskogean)
Extent of the Muskogean language family
Creek (not to be confused with Cree)
is a Muskogean language that was spoken in what is now the states of Alabama and Georgia. This language and its relatives such as
Miccosukee, Koasati, and even (you guessed it...) Alabama, once dominated the southeastern United States.
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A World of Variety: Lakota (Siouxan)
Extent of the Siouxan language family
Lakota is probably the most iconic Native American culture.
The painted warriors on galloping horses, feathered headdresses, long braids, and itinerant tepees of TV and movies all owe their origin to
the indigenous cultures of the northern Great Plains.
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A World of Variety
Posted Fri, February 20, 2009 - 7:23 PM
language
I'm going to start a new series of posts, intended to celebrate the world's diversity of language. It's turned out to be depressingly
difficult to find online resources for even moderately obscure languages, never mind the myriad of little-known, inaccessible, or dying languages.
The most common information seems to be word lists, a few phrases, links to dictionaries, exhortations to buy things, two or three second badly
compressed audio clips, and lots and lots of blinking tags and
broken links that make up for in enthusiasm what they lack in scope and rigor. But it's certainly better than nothing, as chasing down
articles in scholarly linguistic journals is neither productive or enlightening if your interest, as mine, is in the full impression
of how a language is used in everyday speech.
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Some Navigation Training Ideas
Posted Mon, February 16, 2009 - 8:58 PM
orienteering, running
I thought I'd try to record for posterity some of the more unique and interesting events we've done during our informal TNT (Tuesday Night Training)
sessions.
December 2008 (Stephen & Kari) - "The Orienteerduobowlathlon".
October 2008 (Pete) - Team Memory-O at Battle Creek.
September 2008 (Todd) - Flow course at Como.
August 2008 (Mo & Biz) - "Search for the One-Eyed Hooker" at Wirth.
July 2008 (Mike) - "Leader of the Pack" plus sprint at Hyland
April 2008 (Ian) - Scrabble-O at Lake Elmo
August 2007 (Darryn) - Trail course at Wirth
More details on each below the fold.
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A Great Day at Afton
Posted Sun, February 15, 2009 - 8:19 PM
orienteering
MNOC had their second winter meet of the year at Afton State Park today. As usual in winter, it's a score event with a mass start at a given time.
Competitors can then fan out to find a variable number of controls, in any order, and must return to the finish before a given deadline, or lose
points. Scoring is first by number of controls (including penalty points), then fastest time. Today we had 26 controls, expertly set by Todd,
and 90 minutes to find them.
Map and race report are below the fold.
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