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Ep15: A Beautiful Day on the Marsh
Title: Languaging in Hampton RoadsEpisode 15: A Day on the MarshHosts: Jill Winkowski and Prue SalaskyDate: March 31, 2025Length: 30 min.Publication Frequency: MonthlyIn this episode of languagingHR, we look out on to one of the most iconic views in the Hampton Roads area, where the marsh meets the open water, while we explore the history of common words such as marsh and mud and heron and horizon that are used every day to describe our coastal surroundings. To help us on our word journey, we asked three local experts to join us: Dr. Steve Kuehl, Marlee Fuller, and Laura Lohse. Mud: As a marine geologist at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS), Steve Kuehl has spent his whole career studying sediment, or mud, primarily in deltaic systems, that is where rivers meet the sea. In this episode, he describes the why and how of studying mud. First and foremost, geochronology, studying the layers of sediment, allows us to learn about the history of our planet. By taking cores of mud and earth, we unearth, as it were, a record that spans millions of years. Marine scientists also study mud to learn more about our aquatic ecosystems. They measure benthic activity in, say, the York River to gauge the vitality of certain fish populations; they take cores in coastal areas to measure the patterns of buried carbon; and they study the resilience of the sedimentary activity in local marshes. Birds: With a background in evolutionary biology, Marlee Fuller has worked in bird research on clapper rails in Mississippi and prairie chickens in Oklahoma. She travels with her Coast Guard family and during her time in Hampton Roads, she was emersed, as a nature guide, in the local coastal and especially avian experience at False Cape State Park in Virginia Beach. If you haven’t had a chance to visit False Cape and Back Bay Wildlife Refuge, it’s a gem. In this episode, Fuller describes the varieties and habits of our native heron population as well as the name origins of the whimbrel and our ubiquitous killdeer. Be sure to check out this episode’s bonus content for Fuller’s vivid descriptions of local and migrating bird behaviors.The Horizon: Laura Lohse has decades of experience teaching and sailing using celestial navigation, that is using the stars, the sun, and the horizon to stay on course. For our word journey, Lohse connects the nautical terms that we use in our day-to-day language—to get a fix, to find your bearings, to give leeway, with their historical use in sailing. To shoot stars is to get lines of position from stars at dusk or dawn using the horizon as a reference. Dead reckoning is using speed estimated with a taffrail log, and in the old days a knot log, to figure out position when there is no horizon in view. And be sure to check out our bonus content (publishing weekly in April) where: Steve Kuehl describes the rock cycle, from sediment to sedimentary rock and back again(!); Marlee Fuller describes the lively behaviors of the sanderling and how a tricolored heron stealthily creates shade to attract its prey; and Laura Lohse recounts her experiences in the open ocean, from watching mola molas, that is gigantic sun fish that swim on the surface of the ocean, to experiencing the doldrums, long periods with no winds. To learn more about the organizations in this podcast, visit:Virginia Institute of Marine Science, Gloucesterhttps://www.vims.edu/False Cape State Park, Virginia Beachhttps://www.dcr.virginia.gov/state-parks/false-capeBack Bay National Wildlife Refuge, Virginia Beachhttps://www.fws.gov/refuge/back-baySchooner Alliance II, Yorktownhttps://sailyorktown.com/Sloop Luna and the Colonial Seaport Foundation, Deltavillehttps://colonialseaport.org/luna-operating-plans/To connect with us, please send your feedback and questions to [email protected]. We would love to hear from you! Be sure to like, follow, subscribe, review – it’s free and it helps other listeners find us.
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30:27
Ep. 14 BONUS: Another Voice of Faith
Title: Languaging in Hampton RoadsEpisode 14 - Bonus : A Vietnamese Voice of Faith Hosts: Jill Winkowski and Prue SalaskyDate: March 25, 2025Length: 18:13Publication Frequency: Occasional (bonus)In this Bonus episode, we talk to Trung Phan, a pastor at Vietnamese Hope Baptist Church in Annandale, Va. Phan is the youngest of a trio of Vietnamese brothers who lead churches affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention in northern Virginia; all offer services in their native Vietnamese. Like Phan, most of his congregants come from Buddhist backgrounds.This interview is an addendum to Episode 14: Voices of Faith in Hampton Roads, which featured Vietnamese, Korean and Chinese pastors talking about the use of their respective native language in worship services. Phan falls outside our geographic area of Hampton Roads in SE Virginia, but his sentiments echo theirs. He also emphasizes the importance of language in identity and stability for young people. His experience ties in to languagingHR Episode 9: What it Takes to Raise Bilingual Children; in that episode we spoke to multiple immigrants in Hampton Roads about their commitment to having their children learn their native language, its rewards and challenges. Phan, who was exposed to both Buddhist and Christian traditions in childhood, came with his family to the U.S. from the Saigon region in S. Vietnam in 1991 when he was 17. He completed high school and went to night school for IT, a career he has pursued for 20 years. He was called to the ministry in 2005 and attended seminary in Kentucky. His congregation numbers about 80 people, which swells to 150 on special occasions, such as the New Year. He describes himself as a “bridge” between the first generation of older non-English speakers and his American-born children’s generation of English-only speakers.Send your feedback and questions to [email protected]. Don’t forget to ‘like’, ‘follow’, ‘review,’ or ‘subscribe’ to languagingHR so that you never miss an episode (or a bonus episode). It’s FREE to do so and it helps others find us. THANK YOU!
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18:12
Ep: 14: Voices of Faith in Hampton Roads
Title: Languaging in Hampton RoadsEpisode 14: Voices of Faith in Hampton RoadsHosts: Jill Winkowski and Prue SalaskyDate: March 5, 2025Length: 48:50Publication Frequency: Fourth Friday (approx) of each monthIn this episode we interview several pastors, all first-generation immigrants, who minister to their flocks in the native language of their country of origin.The interviews are with Pastor Echo Lin from the Shanghai region of mainland China, who leads services in Mandarin at the more than 100-year-old independent First Chinese Baptist Church in Virginia Beach; Father Joseph Nguyen who ministers to two Catholic Vietnamese congregations, Our Lady of LaVang Catholic Church in Norfolk, and Our Lady of Vietnam Catholic Church in Hampton ; and with Luke Do, Senior Pastor of Peninsula Korean Baptist Church in Newport News.(We also talked to Pastor Trung Phan, leader of Hope Vietnamese Church in Annandale, Va. Time and geographical constraints meant we weren't able to include his interview; we will run it as bonus material at a future date.)From our interviews, we learned about the changing role of the church in each community, the importance of language for identity, the generational rifts as assimilation occurs -- and what the future of ethnic-centered churches might be as globalization and technology reduce differences.We did not address the use of traditional liturgical languages, such as Latin, Arabic, Hebrew, and Koine Greek, all of which are represented in Hampton Roads. Nor did we cover the multiple Spanish-speaking churches, by far the largest segment of non-English services in the region. Instead, we focused primarily on Asian-led churches that minister to their communities through the use of the vernacular. In talking to ministers at Korean, Vietnamese and Chinese churches we learned not only about immigration patterns in the region, but also the ealier history of colonization and missionary activity. We learned in many cases that faith was secondary to a sense of community and cultural belonging.Our interest in the topic was sparked by a sign for the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, Mehane Hiwot Abune Gebre Menfes Kidus, in the Park Place neighborhood of Norfolk . We learned that the Norfolk church, started in 2013, is part of one of the most ancient branches of Christianity, part of the Coptic tradition dating back to 300 AD. Priest Teshome Yohannes Feleke presides over a congregation of 200 drawn from throughout Hampton Roads. Services are in a combination of Ge'ez, the ancient liturgical language, and Amharic, Ethiopia's everyday language that evolved from it. (Plug in the church's name to find beautiful chanting on YouTube.) The church is celebrating its renovation with a grand re-opening on March 14/15.We also discovered Our Savior's Lutheran Church in Norge, which once held services in Norwegian. Today the language is no longer used, but the church is the proud possessor of a Norwegian Bible donated by Norway's royal family in 1939. We also learned that Norge is actually the name for Norway in Norwegian, a tribute to its original Scandinavian settlers at the turn of the 20th century!As you can gather, it's a very rich topic and we only scratched the surface of the Babel of languages used in worship in our Hampton Roads region.Please send your questions and feedback to [email protected]
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48:55
Ep13: Guinea Talk: Gloucester County's Unique Dialect
Title: Languaging in Hampton Roads Episode 13: Guinea Talk: Gloucester County’s Unique Dialect Hosts: Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky Date: Feb 2, 2025 Length: 39:44 Publication Frequency: Fourth Friday (approx) of each month Take a ride with us--to Guinea Neck! Nestled in the marshland of Gloucester County, Virginia, is Guinea Neck, where the local community has made their living off the water for centuries. Traditionally, the lifestyle of Guinea has been comprised of long hours on the water and a tight knit community, the ideal situation for the development of a unique language variation. Although receding, the Guinea dialect is well known in the Gloucester area. We tapped into oral histories to try to understand the unique features of their dialect. In this episode, we introduce you to four Guinea watermen, born and raised in the early to mid-twentieth century. We take account of their stories of living and working on the water, while walking through the stages of their lives and experiences. Along the way we talk with linguist, Dr. Bridget Anderson at Old Dominion University. Dr. Anderson is the founder of the Tidewater Voices oral history project (see info below). Dr. Anderson talks with us about how to listen for differences in the vowels and other features of the Tidewater and Guinea variations and emphasizes the importance of deeper, broader study to understand the distinct variations. We also talk with Carlene Klein who, with two other students of Dr. Anderson, through a yearlong ethnographic process, interviewed a number of the Guinea watermen. The Guinea watermen featured in this episode share stories of growing up in the remote marshes of Guines, of living with their close family connections, of learning the ropes and starting work on the water at young ages, and of the joy of being on the water. Tidewater Voices is housed at ODU Digital Commons and is available to the public for research. There are 22 Guinea oral histories in the collection. You can find them here: https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/tidewatervoices_gloucester/ Look for the Guinea subheading. If you like languagingHR episodes and want to hear more about how we created the episodes for 2024, get a behind this scenes tour by listening to our presentation to the National Museum of Language: https://languagemuseum.org/past-events/ languagingHR was also featured in The Virginia Pilot in December. Check it out: https://www.pilotonline.com/2024/12/24/says-who-linguists-look-at-tidewater-dialect-and-culture-in-podcast/ Send questions and feedback to [email protected]
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39:43
Ep12: You Can't Play Scrabble in Urdu: Endangered Alphabets and Minority Scripts
Title: Languaging in Hampton Roads Episode 12 : You Can’t Play Scrabble in Urdu: Endangered Alphabets and Minority Scripts Hosts: Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky Date: Dec. 31, 2024 Length: 48:20 Publication Frequency: Fourth Friday (approx) of each month Co-hosts Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky invite listeners to join them at https://languagemuseum.org as they present on ‘languaging in Hampton Roads’ to The National Museum of Language, part of its monthly online speaker series. The event runs from 2 to 4 p.m EST on Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025; registration is free at https://languagemuseum.org/speaker-series/#lghr The talk will be recorded and available on the NML site going forward. This month we interview Tim Brookes, a teacher, writer, and wood carver. Fifteen years ago Brookes launched the Endangered Alphabets Project to raise awareness about — and to preserve — the estimated 275 minority scripts threatened with extinction. While there are 7,000 spoken languages still extant, there are only 300 scripts worldwide. Brookes memorializes the scripts by carving them in wood, a unique blend of art and literacy. He will host his 2nd Annual World Endangered Writing Day on Jan. 23, 2025 at https://www.endangeredwriting.world/ following the success of the inaugural event last year. Live-streamed speakers include script inventors, digitization experts, font creators, community activists and in-the-field researchers. Find an archive of last year’s event at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHR3fRN60tw&list=PLYG37Sb2buKjaMtjztHjDc5pSS1a1jorr). According to Brookes, his website https://www.endangeredalphabets.com/ will feature a gallery that “celebrates a remarkable phenomenon that is springing up worldwide: people who are reviving their traditional scripts by teaching them through calligraphy workshops.” There will be give-aways and a quiz. Brookes’ two most recent books are “An Atlas of Endangered Alphabets” and “Writing Beyond Writing,” available through his website or Amazon. In our wide-ranging interview with Brookes, edited for length, we discuss minority scripts around the world, cursive writing in the U.S.,the effects of printing and mechanization, and address the question, “What is writing?” We even find some connections to Hampton Roads, our local region.
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48:35