Interesting Topics from Class Weblogs: Post #1

Publish at least THREE posts to your weblog about any interesting information that you read on the other weblogs from our class. You can also use your posts to discuss About pages and blogrolling and to explore these questions: How important is evaluating an author’s qualifications?  How is a blogroll different from other media, how similar  How do you think blogrolling will evolve?

One of my colleagues’ websites that  I find particularly interesting is  Far Audience by Kennedy Elliott.  Even in nursing school, my favorite subject has always been English.  When I went back to school to complete my Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing, I also completed a minor in English–partially in order to fulfill credit hour requirements, but more importantly to fulfill a long held passion for further study in this subject.  I am probably in the minority, but I personally believe that English is the most romantic, resonant, and expressive language spoken on any continent in the world today (I will admit, I am a little biased).

As part of my studies of the English language in college, I took courses that examined the evolution of the linguistics of English, beginning from its birth to its currently modernized state.  Kennedy’s website seeks to explore the ways that various languages have developed, and how their users of “endangered languages” have found the Internet to be a useful tool to preserve these languages in the face of a globalized society that often assumes that English should be viewed as the primary language to fulfill the tasks of global communication.

I found particularly interesting these comments from Kennedy’s website:

“I would also like to delve further into what activism is taking place to encourage minority languages to create an Internet niche – either by blogging, producing electronic newsletters, engaging online petitions, or simply creating a communal website.”

As a student of my own language and its impact on how both society and culture are defined, I look forward to reading more of Kennedy’s descriptions of these “minority languages,” and what their potential impacts are on the Internet as it increasingly expands into becoming a tool which connects users on many different levels.  It will also be interesting to explore how we as citizens of the global Internet network overcome the challenges that occur due to language barriers.

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