Arrested, extradited and arraigned, the leader of the indigenous people of Biafra, Nandikhanu, appears in court, gets a date for beginning of trial on charges of treason. Reports coming in of the suspension of direct visa employment for Nigerians by the United Arab Emirates. The reason is rising crime by Nigerians in the country. And the report details how Boko Haram and other violent groups in northern Nigeria are recruiting bandits. We'll be talking to the reporter who worked on the investigation. And with that, we say good morning and thanks for joining us here on The Breakfast on PLOS TV Africa. It's the last day in the month of June and the last episode of The Breakfast for this month. Good morning, Anita. Yes, good morning and good morning to you. Thank you very much for joining us. And today, like you mentioned, final day in this month of June. And I was thinking to myself yesterday, isn't this year running very fast? Well, I think it's running at the same pace as every other year. There's just so much going on at the same time. And so it feels like it's running faster than usual. There's been a lot for the 2021 year. And it almost feels like from 2019 to date, we've lived in the same year because of the pandemic and because of COVID-19. But of course, that's coupled with other issues that Nigeria also has. So that's why it feels it's a lot faster than usual. But yes, looking forward to wrapping up the year. Like we said, at the end of 2020, we hope that the year ends with the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. So let's hope that this year actually ends with, well, COVID-19 ends this year completely. Most of the world would have to take the vaccines for that to happen. And we know just how much progress we've made in Nigeria is still a long, long way to go. Extremely long way to go. We'll take our steps at our own pace, I believe, to the best of our abilities as a country. Let's begin our top trending stories today with the biggest story in the country at the moment, which is about Namdi Kanu. We know all the stories regarding his arrest and how he basically jumped bail, went to the UK. And how the federal government announced that he's been arrested and extradited to Nigeria. And he will now begin or continue his trial. So the cable newspaper put together a timeline of his arrest.  So we know about the radio Biafra in 2014. That seemed to be one of the earliest expressions of the Biafra agitation since the Nigerian Civil War. So after that radio Biafra was launched, it basically became the face of one of the biggest cessationist movements in Nigeria since after the war, of course. And then in October 14th, 2015, Namdi Kanu was arrested at a hotel in Lagos by operatives of the Department of State Services. And then later that year, several courts actually ordered the IPOP leader to be released. But the DSS failed to comply with that. They instead slammed a five-count child in him for treasonable felony. And in 2016, three courts ruled his remandant in the Kuja prison. They basically cited threats to national security. And then on April 25th, 2017, the Federal High Court in Abuja granted Namdi Kanu bail on health grounds. Three days later, he became a free man. And that's after he was detained for 18 months. Now, when they granted him bail, it was based on three conditions. Number one, that he wasn't going to grant him any interviews. Number two was that he was going to be forbidden from addressing crowds of more than 10 people. And that he was just going to do these things and abide by these rules for his bail conditions. But within just a few weeks of his release, he broke all these rules. He was seen with a crowd. He granted me the interviews. Even in that interview, he was asked if he was not afraid of the consequences. He said that putting all those restrictions on him was like asking him not to breathe. Because why would he not speak to the media? Why would he not address a congregation and all of that? You know, his charities were a Jewish leader. He highly respected Nigeria and his senator with a 100 million Naira bail bond. You know, the story really gets complex from there. And there was a time when, you know, members of the army went to his place to arrest him. And Namdi Kanu said that about 28 people were killed during that day or on that day. And the family members managed to take him away from his bedroom and smuggle him out of the country. And that he went to Israel where he felt safe and then later on to the UK. So after many years, you know, all the way from 2015, Namdi Kanu has finally been arrested. And we didn't know where. But the British High Commission put out a statement yesterday saying Namdi Kanu was not arrested or extradited from the UK. The federal government has not mentioned exactly where. But they said this was really a covert operation. And it really was very quiet because usually you'd find, you know, government statements about this here and there, you know, all over the place. Well, this seemed like a very quiet operation. They swooped in, arrested him, brought him back to the country. And now he's set for trial in July. Okay. Well, I think I'm just going to fast forward to the most recent, you know, I think, you know, a lot of people are already aware.  It didn't actually start in 2014. It started a lot. Already be after a year. But the agitation didn't start in 2014. The direction only changed in 2014, you know, with, you know, his emergence. There was always Masab and Rafa Wazuriki and a couple other people who had pushed for, you know, the same BFR agitation.  You know, so his emergence basically, you know, made it louder, made it more, not necessarily violent but vocally or verbally very insultive. The controversies, you know, from yesterday really were how did it happen? How long had it been, you know, had it been under, you know, in custody of the Nigerian government? They said Sunday, Sunday 27th. Where was he arrested from? If he was extradited from the U.K., you know, how did it happen so fast? You know, so those were all the controversies from yesterday. And of course, eventually, like you mentioned, there was a statement by the U.K. High Commissioner saying he wasn't arrested in the U.K. So somehow, some way, he maybe had left the U.K. and, you know, was arrested someplace else. Because a lot of people had argued that it was not possible for you to just, you know, invite a person from the United Kingdom so fast, you know, without any appeals, you know, against the accreditation, without any court cases, without anything. And then people started bringing up Umarudiko as an example, you know, with, of course, President Muhammad Ubarri once again. So there is all of those, you know. There is mixed emotions concerning this. There is actually so many angles. There's those who are celebrating.  It must be an open trial. It must be a fair trial and all of that. There's those who say, well, they don't feel sorry for him because of what have, the things that have happened in the South East and last long while, you know, with the violence, the killing of police officers and, of course, the attacks on INEC offices. There's also those, I'm going to share a couple of people of messages from random people that I saw on the Internet. There's those who have criticized the celebration and reminded people that, you know, Namdi Kanu is really not Nigeria's problem. There's, you know, Nigeria has bigger problems than Namdi Kanu. And for those who are celebrating, you know, they, you know, were almost silent when they heard that Shekhar was dead. You know, they didn't celebrate Shekhar's death, who, of course, has been responsible for the death of thousands of Nigerians. That wasn't celebrated as much as the arrest of Namdi Kanu. And so, you know, it seems very hypocritical if we're talking about living in a peaceful and a safe Nigeria. I'm going to share, you know, there's Shekhar Husani here saying that the fundamental rights of Namdi Kanu should be respected in compliance with the relevant articles of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. His trial should be guided by justice, fairness, and rule of law, not sentiments, prejudice, hate, ill feelings, vengeance, or bigotry. There's another person here, Oye Kuzi says in the beginning, there was Oazirike and Masab. Then Namdi Kanu came along with IPOB. In the future, somebody else will emerge because the ebopolitical elite will not change. I know them. They didn't change after Abbasin Jardiz, Grace Anambra on Nangige. There's also someone here saying, I'm glad they've arrested Namdi Kanu. Food will be cheap, kidnapping will stop terrorists in the North who cease fire. Killer, full-on headers will maintain peace. Corruption will end. 100 million Nigerians will be lifted out of poverty. Suckers, of course. This one here says Masin Namdi Kanu's arrest on Tutorban has shown that Nigeria has all it takes to arrest, well, terrorists, and Banditry and Boko Haram and Isob Minas in Nigeria. Sanibacha said, any insurgency that lasts more than 24 hours, government officials have a hand in it. And also adds that whether you are for or against Namdi Kanu's arrest do not lose sight of the issues. The price of self-determination is no crime and must never be criminalized. Adjections won't go away, but this presents a unique opportunity for Igbo leaders and the five stages to begin to jail the Igbo's. I'm going to stop there. But those are just random comments from persons. And quickly also just share my thoughts on the part where a lot of people have also said that this shows that the Nigerian government has the capacity, has the capabilities to arrest any person and has no excuse for not being able to arrest Shakao, any of the Bandit leaders in the last couple of years in Nigeria, in the last six and last 10 years. There's absolutely no excuse why any of those people couldn't have been picked up. Even Namdi Kanu could have been arrested outside Nigeria. I have no idea where he was picked up. But they had the resources, they had intelligence enough to find him wherever he was and bring him back to Nigeria. And there's absolutely no excuse why the Bandit we spoke about yesterday who was boasting about killing soldiers cannot be arrested. There's absolutely no excuse. And I remember when they used to give that excuse as a big as Belgium or bigger than Belgium and so it's very difficult to find terrorists in there. Nobody knows where Shakao is. All those for me are total bullocks. There's absolutely no excuse and no reason why any of these people who have been committing atrocities against the Nigerian state in the last three, four, five, six, ten years could not have been arrested. There's absolutely no excuse why the Nigerian government could not have the intelligence to pick up Abu Bakar Shakao or any of the Bandit leaders, the Boko Haram leaders which we'll be talking about today, they're currently recruiting. It's part of the things that we were discussing in our program this morning. There's absolutely no excuse on the face of this earth why the Nigerian government has failed to be able to pick up every single person who has committed crimes against Nigerian state led to the loss of lives and families and properties worth billions. You can't even quantify what those lives cost. But there's no excuse whatsoever why they haven't been able to get all of those and we simply are today, or well, not we, some people are celebrating the arrest of Namdokan. I understand the perspectives of people who talk about the Boko Haram insurgency, talk about all the killings and all those other challenges in the country but I would like to examine Namdokan's case on his own merits and not say, oh, how about this, how about that, how about that. Based on Namdokan's situation, right? Can we all agree that the charges placed on him maybe have some basis? The fact that he's basically stared up agitations in Nigeria asking for, you know, secession, a break out of the country, instigating violence, that's what we should focus on and not say, how about this other person, how about the other person. And Namdokan, is he guilty? Agitation for secession is not a crime. Okay, if you say so. But what he has been charged for, Trees Nibble Felony, let me read out this charges for, he's been charged for managing an unlawful society, publication of different matrimatter, illegal possession of firearms, these are all things and that's why the law courts exist for, you know, people who know better than us legally, to determine whether or not he's innocent or guilty. So let's wait for July the 26th and examine these issues on their own merits because you won't say, how about this other person. No, I'm simply mentioning, nobody has said Namdokan is innocent. Nobody has said that he may not be guilty of these crimes or some of the things that he's done. Let us assess the situation on its own merits. We can't leave that out of the conversation because if we simply ask, Nigeria has suffered... Why do you go to the law court? When you go to the law court... You can't leave it out of conversation, I'm sorry.  You wouldn't say that. The judges and the lawyers would argue based on what's been told. I am not going to be in court with them and I'm simply saying, no, I'm not going to be in court with them and I'm simply saying that regardless of how you want to make this, he might be entirely guilty and if he's guilty, he should pay for his crimes. But in this conversation, you cannot leave out the fact that Nigeria till today still suffers from failure of government to arrest people who have led to the loss of dozens, hundreds, thousands of lives. So what if we focus on the one they have already arrested now? Let's move on now. Our second top trending story, Something Lighter, right? And we're talking about Nigerian students who are innovative and putting all their creativity to work. And we know that in a federal university of technology, students of that school are not new to this kind of innovation. Back in 2017, 500 level students of the Federal University of Technology, had produced a solar powered car. I mean, this made headlines across the country. And just yesterday, we saw videos of students of that same school. That video should be up in a minute. Basically, with this car locally built, it looks sophisticated in some way, painted in black, really beautiful design. Even though I didn't catch parts of the video where the car moved, but the car looks great. And I think that's the kind of innovation that we should support in the country. Okay. Well, kudos to them. I'm not necessarily, I personally am not necessarily excited about things like that. Yes, I know that the government should be able to support and invest better with skills like that and talent like that, absolutely. But in that space, there is a lot more that, I personally feel that we should have been in a way better place. And when we see videos like that, every now and then we see a young boy in Anambrao, in Bainway, with a small cut on some tires and the remote control and everybody is clapping for it. But there's kids in Singapore, kids in China, kids in Australia who are doing things a hundred years beyond that. And some of all those things, religious show me personally that we're still in 1970 or we're still in 1950. And I wouldn't necessarily clap for all of that. Kudos to them. And I hope that they're able to develop more of those skills and they get the support that they need from their state government, from their federal government to be able to do a whole lot more also. Alright, we'll take a short break. While we come back, of course, we're going to look through the papers this morning and see what major stories are making headlines across the country. This morning with Adimullah Akinbola. Stay with us.


Hello, I'm Nancy Eisen. Welcome to Barn's Takeout. I'm the Gun Family Chief Curator and Happy New Year. If this is the start of your new year, January 1st, everything is off to a fresh start. I'd like to share with you today a picture that I think is wonderfully uplifting. In many places it's a cold time of year and this is a wonderful Mediterranean landscape that was made by Amadeo Modigliani the Italian artist in 1919 in the south of France and perhaps this is the year where we get to travel again who knows. Now we're in room 19 of the Barn's Foundation so that's one of the rooms upstairs and we're looking to the right hand side of the doorway that you see sort of just off-center in the room and I'm just going to focus in so you can see exactly where I'm in. Here we are, it's a wonderful little scene just nestled in between a suitine and a matis and as you can see has this really wonderful warm palette to it. Let's look at the work more closely. Now you might be surprised if you've come across any of Modigliani's works to know that this is one of the pieces by him. He only made four landscapes in his career so we feel very fortunate at the Barn's Foundation that we have one and it shows cypresses and houses in Ken so even the title there lets us know that we're in the south of France. Now ordinarily Modigliani lived and worked in Paris like so many young artists he was attracted to the city he had left his native Italy to make a life in Paris and there he had become part of a thriving artistic community. But during the First World War life became quite tough for artists. Modigliani had health issues and he couldn't enlist so he carried on working as a as an artist while other young men went to the front. However he still managed to have a reasonably good existence in Paris in the First World War. He had his first solo exhibition during that time but he had health troubles as I mentioned and those were not improving during this period. What's more in the last months of the First World War Paris was bombed. German bombing began on the outskirts of the city in the early part of 1918 and so there was a quite understandably great fear for people's well-being. On top of all of this Modigliani had a drink problem that was getting quite out of control and so his dealer, his art dealer Leopold Zabrowski persuaded him along with a doctor that it would be the best thing for his health and his safety indeed to go to the south of France. And in order to persuade him to do this he encouraged Modigliani to travel with a friend of his, the painter Soutine, and also with his girlfriend Jean-Ébutin. Jean took her mother for the sake of propriety. You know it was not really the dumb thing for a young woman to go off traveling with a boyfriend in the early 20th century but Jean at this time was already expecting Modigliani's child so propriety is one thing but perhaps they're a little late to that. Nonetheless despite all the trepidation Modigliani set off for the south of France in the spring of 1918 and seemingly settled there quite nicely. At first he writes back to his dealer and I've got a little citation from a letter. All these changes, changes of circumstance and change of season make for me, make me fear a change of rhythm and atmosphere so we get a sense that he was worried about this and yet quite quickly he finds a new community in the south of France and starts to experiment. Now what can we say about this landscape? If we look up the way it's painted you can see that really it's quite thin and this is something that's quite distinctive of Modigliani.  You can see on the top of the roof that he has seemingly sketched in those little architectural details in blue paint and then filled them quite hastily and again in the colors of the wall we see those little specks of white. I quite like to this way that the look you see that blue outlining here on the barks of the trees there. Now Modigliani and Soutine lived separately from most of the the people that they traveled with. You know Jeanne Boutaine and her mother lived in a guest house, Zabrowski and his partner lived in a guest house and also they traveled with a Japanese painter Fujita and his wife and they they may have traveled together in fact or or they may have just met up when they got to Nice but Soutine and Modigliani stayed in a farmhouse and some of the landscapes actually show that so this really is is typical of the kind of rustic buildings that you see in the works that Modigliani makes of these landscapes and interestingly he decides not to use a landscape format. Instead this landscape is vertical. Now we know that Modigliani used vertical canvases to paint portraits that that seems more logical but my colleague Simonetta Frequelli who's an art historian and works a lot on Modigliani has suggested that maybe he he created this high format to give the sense of hills. The landscape in the south of France is very rocky and you know has lots of changes in altitude and most of the views in fact all the views that Modigliani paints are from Utdiken so looking down the hillside this is much more immediate than some of them. A lot of the landscapes that he makes give you more of a sense of of the surrounding area whereas here the focus is very much on the buildings and what are the coloration and again just focus in on this lovely rich yellow you can just sort of sense the warmth in this palette. I love the way that you get this sort of golden highlight over the white ground it's almost dazzling in its brightness and then just these little flecks of orange as if to describe fruit entrees all very hastily done. Now the south of France for many artists of Modigliani's generation was synonymous with Cezanne. Cezanne had passed in Exxon Provence in 1906 but his memory was still very strong and I think that this was an opportunity for Modigliani to experiment with those kind of colors and to reconnect with the idea of being a Mediterranean painter. He had the Italian heritage the south of France I think in that way seemed quite an obvious location for him to be in and he actually stayed until May 1919 in the south of France so this canvas is dated 1919 and we know that it's likely from that moment because in a letter it was probably made at the beginning of that year. Modigliani tells his art dealer Leopold Zabrowski that he's making these pictures you know he says that the first one might be a bit childish but generally speaking they're all right here you know to paraphrase. What I would say is that the exercise was quite short-lived although Modigliani stayed and worked in the south of France he didn't make many landscapes just those four and when he returns to Paris yeah really the exercise is over but it's wonderful I think to have this little glimpse of an artist working in sandy climbs and really I think you know on a on a cold day it might get us all thinking about where we might head to next. Well thanks very much for listening and see you soon on Barn's Takeout. Bye bye. I'm Tom Collins new Bauer family executive director of the Barns Foundation. I hope you enjoyed Barns Takeout. Subscribe and make sure your post notifications are on to get daily servings of art. Thanks for watching and for your support of the Barns Foundation


What is good mama squad and welcome back to our channel if you guys are new make sure go hit that subscribe button and turn your Post notifications, so you can notify every single time we post as you guys read by the title team of Ry is back with another prank I'm going to be having bad period crap see how he reacts. I don't really know if it's a prank I feel like it's more of a reaction So I'm just starting my period and I get really really really bad period pains and my period pains Oh my god They are terrible like I get them to the point where I cannot breathe So I'm going to be kind of just like making them ten times more worse than they really are and I'm fake Kind of like faking it because I'm not really having bad cramps today. Thankfully. I also before we even get onto this video I want to give a huge shout out to our best friends Madeline Steven Madeline just did this on Steven and I thought it was hilarious and it's more of like I want to see what he does for me because you know boys don't understand what girls go through when it comes to periods He's gonna be scrambling. Hopefully hopefully he's you know getting me like water or just making me feel better Let's see what he does. I think it's gonna be really cute. Hopefully he does his job But Marvel Squad, I'm really excited to get back in the grind of things I'm so excited for next week because it'll be full time I'm just so excited for everything that's about to come on our channel and team of eyes and they keep coming back with These fire pranks.  You guys are so supportive So all right my squad so I kind of told Bill Bill's gonna be here in like 10 minutes I told him to just walk in because I'm having really bad period pains That I don't really want to walk downstairs and go get him from the door So I told my dad unlock the door for him So I'm gonna go set up the camera really quick and just get prepared for when he does get here So I will see you guys when Bill gets here All right Marvel Squad, so I got my heating pad Bill's gonna be here any minute So I'm just gonna lay this on my stomach really quick So basically I just do this when I'm having a little bit of period cramps now lay down and I like I Just lay there like this because this like always helps me with my period pains Like I don't know if it's just a mental thing, but it always helps me So Bill should be here any minute and now we just kind of just wait Okay It makes your stomach feel better Yes, I do I get terrible cramps Be careful Why don't you lay down Okay, yeah, they're bad on the first day, but I've never are they actually I Wish I could like take the cramps and put them in my body Wait, what No I could see that I know Yeah I don't know what I don't know what medicine to give you Okay, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Okay Do you need anything else? Do you want medicine? What kind of medicine?  What do you why I just want to shut. What do you need from me? Yes, it's not all the way Okay, what do you need for me? I don't know what I need my kisses kisses.  I'm trying to help anything I could see that They're excruciating is it pain or is it like just overwhelming?   Okay, don't get mad I'm having back pains too, so this hurts I really bad because you're leaning over you. I have to lean over Okay, I'm sorry. I just your posture needs to be strapped in the back Then all my cramps move up on like this it like really I feel like I suffocate the cramps or something Like if they go away. Yeah. Oh, that's cute, but I'm sorry. I'm so much pain. Oh I don't even know you get cramps as bad like I know girls cramps could be this bad. Yeah, it's bad bad.  Yes. No not punched scraped.  Yes, Bill You don't understand What what makes them go away? There has to be something to make them go away Is there a medicine you can take? No, it hurts so bad. You don't want a tum? No, Tums. Tums. We got medicine Tums. No Well, then what can I do? I'm trying to help you Have you been like this all day because I literally since I just got here Yes, I told you that's why I want to go downstairs and get you because my period cramps are this bad.  I Got up at like nine and I texted you why did you text me you should have called me. I did touch you You should have called me. I would have woken up and sat on the phone with you for a little bit Oh my god, this thing is getting hot. Are you sure you're not gonna overheat? This thing is like burning. If it wasn't I would be I would be in real pain I need to get some sleep that probably it probably makes it worse I bet you they're worse because you didn't get enough sleep because you've been up since four Did they start hurting like in the morning? Is that what you woke up? You have medicine for the stuff. Don't you have some some sort of like it just hurts really What medicine is it? Oh Oh It's over here. Oh, I don't want to take any right now I took some already like a while ago, and I kept waiting and I'm wearing off like six hours And what time did you take it? I took it at like seven oh It's 12 40 so 15 minutes. I'll be six hours. Can we take it in 15 minutes? Yeah, really? Well, we'll take it in 15 minutes just I can't Got it, baby.  Come on good. We come up better than usual Okay, I'm sorry.  All right. What else can I do?  Do you want like if we go for a walk it'll probably make it better. No do crunches No crunches. It will stretch my oh, I can't move right now. It hurts, baby Your belly muscles, let me look it up on my because it'll I'm not gonna do that one The first day of the period ways Applying a heating pad, okay, you got that hot water bottle. Oh, no You can find these So this is supposed to help your muscles relax Relax your muscles because this is So dizzy right now bill No, no, no, don't pass out stop stop stop stop.   He's there. Huh? I'm not actually I'm period cramps What do you mean?  What do you mean? What are you doing? Yeah No, but your reaction was sweet. It wasn't a prank.  I don't want to have big marble spot I literally got you crackers and water and I know that was so sweet of you bill I was literally looking up ways to Subside your pain, baby. Oh my god.  No, I'm you're such a fiver See, I didn't even I thought you were just like messing around with me trying to get your mind off of like your period Hashtag team or I No, but I think I was actually helping I even help when I'm out when you're Oh, do I just make them work? You do help. I just don't think you understand that I don't I just don't think you understand the pain that I have to go through the only thing that was real With your prank was your nasty gas. Yeah, I farted. I actually did for it. I don't usually Stunk up the place. I did just like I didn't want to say anything But then I was like, oh, maybe this will make her laugh and it did that's my girl I hashtag team or I ever know coming through with the lid party. Yeah, you got me. I'm sorry everyone, but I care for her and no matter if it's a prank or not. I'm not gonna like Think it's a prank because I want to make you feel better no matter what no matter, you know Where we are no matter what you're doing. I always want you to feel good. I love you Oh guys, we also hung up We didn't show you guys in the last video, but we actually hung up the stars now the day our story began This is the night we hung it slowly but surely this is the sky with all the stars The exact night that we met you guys watched our reveal gave me a ring Go watch that because I surprised him with go watch the video. Um, I gave her a ring She gave me um this we just thought it would look cute in my room since we're always in here filming and we're so much better My uh place but I'm so glad that you're okay that we could like actually do stuff today Because literally I was like, all right well the whole day is like you know screwed because her cramps are bad because you've had had bad cramps But not that bad. Yes, I do. Oh my god. Yes. I do. You're just not here to experience. I get Excruciating. Where am I not here It's been three years with you. No because I was on medicine before then I got off that so a couple months. It's been Geez mama squad. Well Team bill's gonna come back team bill's gonna come back even stronger I cannot wait to get this girl back mama squad So if you're not subscribed yet go down and hit that subscribe button turn on post notifications So you get notified the next time I prank this girl or any time we post We were trying to keep you guys entertained and um having an uplifting mood during this quarantine that we're all in So i'm gonna give a post notification shout out to um iris lean weaver Thank you so much for being a part of our channel. We love you Yeah, so come below any video ideas you guys want to see from us during this quarantine Because we might be locked in here longer. We don't know yet, but we really anyway that was squad We will see you guys in the next video Peace Oh and one more thing mama squad we want to start a new thing on our channel Where we're gonna tell you guys to comment something at the end of every video So we could see who is watching our videos till the end So for those of you that have made it this far everyone today comment Down below your favorite animal comment your favorite animal So we could see who is watching our full videos all the way through We love you guys and we will see you in the next video, but until then peace


First Wednesdays is sponsored by the Vermont Humanities Council and by the Kellogg Hubbard Library, with video production supported by Orca Media. The Hubbard Library is the first First Wednesday lecture of the season. My name is Michelle Singer. I'm the Adult Programs Coordinator here at the library. First Wednesdays is a program with the Vermont Humanities Council that happens on the first Wednesday of the month, October through May, in nine libraries around the state of Vermont. We are pleased to host this series in this region of the state. I'm so glad that you've come out to this talk in months later. Thanks. Nice to see you. So many faces here tonight. Tonight we are rolling out a new way for you to give feedback about First Wednesday's talks. We're asking you to sign in on the iPad or the notebook that are making their way around the room. You just fill out the form and click Submit and then you can hand the iPad or the notebook to your neighbor. And those are here floating around. Some of you have already done that. You can also use your mobile device to sign in. The website is on the top of the screen. And we also have the traditional paper sign in if you prefer to do that. And that's going to make its way around the room as well. If you sign in electronically, you will receive an email from Vermont Humanities tomorrow asking for your feedback. Your input helps us and the Vermont Humanities Council choose topics and speakers for these first Wednesday lectures. You will only receive one email. And signing into the talk tonight will not add your name to any mailing list unless you often ask. So please let me know if you need any help with that sign in. We would like to thank the Vermont Humanities Council sponsors and library sponsors who helped bring this lecture series to the library tonight. Our statewide underwriters are the Institute of Museum and Library Services to the Vermont Department of Libraries. And this popular series is underwritten by the Peter Gilbert Endowment Fund. Tonight's talk is specifically underwritten by Vera Pumpers and we appreciate all that. Thank you to Orca Media and the VAC for taping this program. The video will be available on their website under the first Wednesday series. Information and brochure for the first Wednesday series are on the table in the hallway outside along with community input forms which you're welcome to fill out tonight to take with you and fill out later. At this moment, please make sure your cell phones are silent and note that the restroom is in the back. Without further ado, I am very happy to welcome our speakers tonight. Thank you. Elon Stavins is a Lewis Sebring, professor of humanities, Latin America, the Latino culture at Amherst College, the publisher of restless books and host of NEPR's podcast in contrast. The best-selling author of on-borrow words, Spanglish, Dictionary Days and many other books, his work translated into 20 languages has been adapted into theater, TV, film and radio. Please help me in welcoming Elon Stavins. To be here today together with you, I am particularly excited because it is an ongoing project this one of having first Wednesdays in Vermont and some of us getting invited to it. I am in awe and salute the state for this idea of having the public library opened up to topics in every first day of every first Wednesday of the month. I wish it was done in other parts of the country as well. At a time when reading and culture in general are a deceit in a state of attack, I feel that this idea of gathering the civic and civil engagement with a variety of topics is certainly very important for those of us who are on this side of the podium and that have the microphones. There's one place here if anybody is looking for an extra chair. I will begin by telling you that I had to make a confession that I have a passion. Maybe you can call it an obsession and that is that I can't live without dictionaries. I have a collection in my personal library of a wide array of dictionaries many of which are absolutely obsolete and useless and a few of them are contemporary, present, very engaging and those are the ones that I open most frequently. I am a devoted reader of dictionaries and I am also a critic of them and have been on the side of making them. I want to talk to you today about all those relationships that I have with the dictionaries and what is it that we do with dictionaries, what do they do to us, how do they came to be, the varieties of dictionaries that exist across cultures, particularly across cultures. I am very interested in the differences between English-language dictionaries and French-language dictionaries or Spanish or German or Hebrew or Arabic. And many of the also-leaved dictionaries that I have in my house have to do with the fact that, well, I don't know many of those languages, still I have the dictionaries with me. I also have entire collections of Don Quixote. Another passion of mine in languages, Sanskrit, Korean, that I don't understand, but I am sure the book is as good as it is in Spanish and likewise with 100 years of solitude. I have become this fan of the book and have collected as many possible versions, sometimes two translations within the same language as possible. One thing I don't have is translated dictionaries because dictionaries don't get translated. Dictionaries are only emerging and emerging in their own language and for that reason they are also stuck in them. Let me tell you how my passion began. It began with my father as many things do in my life. When I was a young man and you might relate to this type of scene or anecdote, I would be at the lunch or dinner table talking about whatever was happening in the world or whatever was happening in my world, when I would say something that my father would suddenly hear and say, stop, you use that word improperly or incorrectly, and I would say, how do you know? And he would say, I know because I am a friend of dictionaries and one day you might become one yourself. Go and look up that word and you will find out if you have the right definition and if so, the right usage of it. There was nothing more annoying than my father telling me that there was this sacred text that had the truth and nothing but the truth as if it had a right from Mount Sinai, that whatever the dictionary would say was correct and without reasonable doubt. And thus, impatiently I would go and open up the dictionary, making sure at least inside my heart and my mind that my father would be wrong this time, that I would be able to find a definition if not in the first instance, in the second or in the third or in the fourth that would be able to serve me as proof that he did not know the language he thought of complete and that I would be able to debate it or prove him wrong. But yet again, he was 30 or 40 years older than me, I would go to the dictionary and find out that he was right and also find out other things because I would stop in that second definition or the third definition or the fifth and realize that words keep on changing, that words are never settled, that language by definition is in constant change. In fact, the most constant aspect of language is that it is always changing and that transformation is what keeps the dictionaries alive and us going to them all the time. I was born and raised in Mexico and my first language was in Spanish. My first language was Yiddish. In talking to my father, at times the conversation would be in Yiddish and he would send me to a Yiddish language dictionary and at times the conversation with him or with some classmates or with my siblings would be in Spanish and I would go and find out whatever the Royal Academy of the Spanish language, the official dictionary of the language into which I was born would say about this word or that word. The fact that that dictionary had been printed in Madrid and not in Mexico City and the fact also that among the very first typos or mistakes that the Royal Academy had made in referring to Mexicans was that we were not Mexicanos. The way it is usually referred to in Mexico were Mexicans but Mexicans as if they didn't know that all of us did not use that word was proved to me that whoever was behind those dictionaries could be wrong, that they were not prophets, that they were not really connected with the divine, that there were always human aspects to the language. Eventually I realized that what my father was telling me was not only to look up this word or that word in this language or that language but to realize that the dictionary is a great companion, a great friend, that it is really next to you throughout your life, either you battle against it or you embrace it as such. And that sooner or later you realize that it is an incredibly vast reservoir of words that you might know but you might also not know and they are available to you right there. Dictionaries can be very small or can be very large like the dictionaries that I would look up at that time or many of the dictionaries that I have in my personal library tend to be this mammoth-like door-stopping volume that contain the entire language or at least they suggest or they propose that to us. They contain the entire language and they make it available for whatever moment we might be able to need it. But stop for a second and savor this thought which to me is one of the most exciting dictionaries. All the words we use at any time of the day, young and old when we relate to somebody in a very formal way and when we relate to somebody in an informal way words that sometimes surprise us and words that we think we know very well all of them are contained between these two covers as if the language could be handled, could be restrained as if the language was really capable of fitting into a book. Of course we know that language always jumps out of the dictionary and the sooner we hear a new word we realize that it might not be yet in the dictionary that the dawns or the erudites that are putting the dictionaries together might still be debating it or might be analyzing it and that sooner or later that word might enter or might not. And so there are two types of dictionaries and I'm going to talk about a number of different types. I would say the dictionaries that dream of including everything in I would call them very pretentious a arrogant and the dictionaries that realize that they are limited that there is a lot of language that is outside and that eventually that language is going to be brought in those are more humane, more humble, more modest dictionaries that realize that the change of language is the change of their edition and that whatever new edition is going to be brought up or brought out is an edition that will need to reflect the current generation in the way it speaks or it doesn't speak for it is well known that those that are more liberal and more daring in the use of language tend to be younger that those that are young are ready to invent new words that are ready to challenge the syntactical and morphographic patterns that we have of the language and that most of that creativity that eventually makes it to the dictionary comes from youth or comes from those that are not at the center of our society but can be immigrants or can be newcomers or can be tourists that will see things anew, things for the very first time and that will feel that the language can be more elastic can be more creative those of us who are of a certain age tend to be more conservative we believe that the language needs to be protected that the language needs to be passed on to the next generation and in many ways the creation of dictionaries is a desire to pass on what the previous generation knows so that the patterns that have been used for some time can be prolonged, can be projected into the future and whatever the future does with them, it's up in the air but there are over two types of dictionaries and this distinction is one that the lexicographers use more often there are prescriptive dictionaries and there are descriptive dictionaries the prescriptive dictionaries are the dictionaries that use the language inside to tell people how to speak, how to write, how to engage with the language in contrast the descriptive dictionaries again more humble, maybe more humane are the ones that realize that you can't teach people through a dictionary but instead the dictionary is a reflection of how people speak and what you do as a lexicographer or as a dictionary maker is nothing but reflect that change let me give you an example the dictionary of the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language is a prescriptive dictionary it wants to establish the way the language should be spoken the animosity that I felt as a young man through Spain through the fact that the book was published in Madrid had much to do with the fact that many of us in Latin America 450 million people react to the fact that 35 to 40 million people who are in Spain feel that they have the rights and the property of the Spanish language and that the rest of us should use it in the way they want even with an accent sometimes incomprehensible but the fact is that in my doing so the Royal Academy has been very clear in saying that there are words that they will not include because these are words that should not be used in the Spanish language meaning only the words that they believe that should be used will be included in a prescription of how the language will be used I know that this sounds a bit dictatorial authoritarian but not all cultures have this vision of a democratic language that English has many dictionaries dictionaries in Arabic, dictionaries in Swahili dictionaries in Spanish often have that prescriptive approach of using the dictionary to establish the way the language ought to be used this means of course that there are going to be many occasions in which somebody like me would find as a young man or today would find something in the dictionary that is not there meaning I will not find it there in that sense, since I was very young I realized that the prescriptive dictionaries are really two parallel ones the dictionary that has everything that was included in that the academies accepted to insert in them and in all the words that were left out I would say that that is an imaginary dictionary the dictionary of what was left for the rest of us to savor and to use now the prescriptive dictionaries are much more dynamic are much more engaging it's not surprising that English is first and foremost a language that embraces the scriptive dictionaries the OED, the Merriam Webster are all dictionaries that are all the time including new words as soon as they hear them as soon as they see them cubulating in different places they will consider them and eventually they will nominate them to be integrated there's an entire process about those words getting and at the end of the year there's always a statement that the Merriam Webster dictionary has accepted this year between 10 and 100 words and these are the words and this is a result of the impetus that comes from the readers, the users the entire population of how we use the words and how we feel that the words should be integrated into those pictures thus the descriptive dictionaries are mirrors or reflections or statements or testimonies of how we're using the language in the current time if an extra terrestrial would suddenly arrive on earth and open up magically the latest edition either online or in print of the Merriam Webster won't be the way Americans are using the language in that particular moment and maybe that would be a tool for dialogue with ETs or a science fiction like maneuver a mechanism for them to control us to pull us down and at the same time not all descriptive dictionaries have been as benign and as democratic as I am describing for a long time the OED refused to include the word F-U-K-C it is that word has never made it it has a C-K and that is because they in Oxford believed that with the right spelling the word should not be included in there because it was nasty it was a sign of low class a way of communication and it wasn't until 1974 where after much debate that word finally made it into the dictionary when a word makes it to a dictionary in many ways it is a cultural statement I think that 1974 more or less it announces that after the 60s about the upheaval of a new generation the dictionaries needed to be much more flexible much more open and let's confess it, let's be honest it's hard to think of a more nervous and active and elastic word as F-U-C-K you can use it to express admiration and annoyance you can use it as an adjective and as a noun and as an adverb it is incredible it can mean something sometimes it doesn't mean anything and it's not to include that word it would be practically not to include 1% of all the words that are very important that the word is there as my father would often say if you go to the dictionary you will also find words that you probably are curious about that it would be good for you to look at that have to do with sexual parts are you interested in sexual parts? I was 16 or 17 or about women and you know many of us do the most nerdy do go to the dictionaries when our bodies and our minds are just discovering the word it would look at whatever part of the body in order to be amazed that yes it is the stride and that it's not a figment of our imagination the most delicious aspects of dictionaries are the challenges that those that make dictionaries in putting together a definition now think of this whoever thought of this idea of compiling a volume of the entire language that we use was either genius or absolutely mad we have an enormous array of possibilities in words in those words by putting them in a volume that are establishing that they are our heritage but how do we establish that heritage think for example of the word yellow how on earth would you define the word yellow one thing that you could do is you can say it is not green or it is a combination of this and that but yellow is yellow and very often if there is poetry in a dictionary and I think dictionaries are full of poetry it is in the concise abbreviated way that a word that defies definition is presented to us the word air yellow the word love how do you define the word love in one sentence because the challenge of a dictionary maker is that the word will appear at the very beginning followed with a letter that will say this is a verb or this is a noun or this is an adjective and then a sentence that usually does not run more than two lines that will state what that word means in clear, concise direct language that will never use the word you can't say yellow is yellow it can never use the word that is being defined and it can never use a word in the definition that is harder than the word that is being defined in other words dictionaries are meant for people to be understood they don't want to simply show off although to me a dictionary is always a form of showing up but it has to be accessible and it has to be readily understood by others and in that I am always astonished by the creativity that these dictionary makers have in coming up with definitions of something that we find absolutely mundane like yellow or like air or like love but let me stop in the word love about maybe 15 years ago I did an experiment with my Amherst College students I happened to be very lucky in having multi-lingual dictionaries and in having multi-lingual students meaning students that come from the francophone world and from the Hispanic world and from the Arabic world and so what I asked them once as an assignment is to go and look up the word love in their own language in Russian in German in French in Italian in English in Spanish in Hebrew in Chinese and of course the first reaction that one has is that the word should be defined exactly in the same way everybody understands the word yellow in the same way if somebody in Moscow or in Bogota or in Cairo the word yellow is the word yellow because we see the color yellow we register and now we're going to define it in a particular way but what do you do with human emotions human emotions that are defined by the culture in which they are experienced now all of us in one way or another know what love is but think do we really know what love is we can use the word love to describe love of oneself self love love of God love of nature love of the world and love of country we can talk about romantic love we can talk of love of parents and siblings and family in general and we can talk of love when connected with friendship and love of one's passion my love for dictionaries do I use the word love in the same way when I tell my wife I love you and when I say to a student this is a wonderful paper I love it is the word love really meant in the same way when a young person first discovers love and uses that word for the first time or when somebody 58 tells his wife I love you we've been married 32 years and it is as if it was the first is the word different has the word changed so my students went out on this quest and came back and what we are in them together found out was really wonderful the fact that we had to look for the official dictionary of their own language meaning the Royal Academy of the Spanish language dictionary or the La Ruse dictionary in French or the OED by official I was already entering into this quackmire of who is who represents the language who is the authority in the language in what way is the OED that we trust more than somebody just coming up with a dictionary in a small publishing house in Brooklyn or in Dallas that tells the rest of the population this is the way you should use the language so in asking them to go to the official site I was hoping that we would get a statement of what that culture sees as love and what we found out together with them was astonishing because in many ways also expected almost stereotypical the French in the La Ruse dictionary the first definition is one that stresses romantic love it is about encountering somebody else that you will you will almost be paralyzed very French the Germans at the very beginning used the word love to define love of one's country and it felt in the way they delivered that there was something almost a deterrent almost as if you don't choose that love but that love chooses you there were others that emphasized at the very beginning because there were various definitions 2, 3, 4 love of friendship like the Italians or other languages that simply talked of love in a vague and open way like a connection with things that you empathize with or that change you and transform you inside so my quest together with them was to try to understand by making choices the culture stresses a particular type of approach to the emotion that the language concise as it is in the very first definition in the dictionary is validating more than others as if the stereotype that we have as French as falling in love romantically comes already in the La Rose dictionary in the way that the view that we have of Germans being exact and devoted to one's nation or to one's country shows up as well and so I wonder if in the realm of emotions we are dealing with a tense at the finding anger or envy do you distinguish the words envy and jealousy in a dictionary do we see them not only by what they mean in terms of the language or do we see them through the prism and the lens of the culture that we ourselves are projecting and are projected into in that sense you will not be surprised by the fact that we do a history of certain types archetypes, prototypes and stereotypes of a society by reading dictionaries across time go and open up the word woman in the OED the very first definition shows up around 1870 and it is as a companion to man we couldn't put in the age of the metron movement we couldn't put such a definition and the same thing goes for a pet or goes for the centrality of the male character in many of those dictionaries in the middle of the 19th century is a question and as a result most of the things that are defined are defined in relationship or in perspective to the male and as the world has become more pluralistic more open more equal hopefully you see that the definitions move in a variety of ways reflecting the changes of our time I am not only Mexican but I am also I grew up in a small minority in Mexico, a Jewish minority and so the word Jew has always been one that I look for in dictionaries to see how they have described it it is another word that has always surprised me at the very beginning for instance in the history of the Spanish language the very first dictionary that we have coincides more or less with the writing of the second volume of Don Quixote in 1614 the first dictionary of the Spanish language is published in 1615 the second part of Don Quixote I am telling you this because this is Cervantes is known as the depository of our language and so the fact that the very first dictionary was published at the same time is a statement of the language that he is using and of how the inquisition for the very first dictionary was published under the ages of the inquisition allowed or didn't allow certain words to be included Cervantes is incredibly open about the words he includes and just like Shakespeare it invents all sorts of words because writers have the right to invent as many words as they want and eventually those words to the dictionary because Shakespeare invented about 2,000 lawyers being one of them that eventually makes it to the OED the same thing more or less would Cervantes but the very first time that a dictionary in Spanish in 1614 uses the word Jew is to describe somebody who engages in satanic endeavors and is attempting to be one ready to lead Christians in the wrong path fortunately that is no longer the definition that exists of a Jew in the current dictionary but it has been a very slow process to say the least if you go from 1614 to the current definition there is almost I feel a reluctance of making the Jewish religion autonomous and legitimate and authentic and instead it is always the counterpart of Christianity and the one that stole or didn't steal what Christians and what Jesus did or didn't do the history of mistakes in dictionaries which is I mean just as one is in awe by the words and how they are described one is also astonished by how certain words have been defined over time in Portuguese the almost until very recently the definition for day for the day was the time that it takes the sun to circle the earth it wasn't until a number of Portuguese writers wrote to the dictionary makers that they finally changed the definition to the time that apparently takes the sun to circle the earth as if Galileo had not crossed and we were still earth centric for a long time in the dictionary of the Spanish language the definition of dog was a canine that raises one back foot in order to pee and I think it was only in 1983 after Garcia Marcus wrote to the Royal Academy saying that this was an embarrassment that they changed it and brought in an entirely different definition one of the the challenges that we face today is that dictionaries are still central to our culture but undergoing a rapid change most of us no longer go to a physical book open it up and see what it says or it doesn't say instead we go online and we look at OED or at Merriam-West Webster type the word and come up with a definition it's incredibly fast speedy efficient practical but there is something that is missing there and I might sound as a nostalgia here but the fact that sometimes in the middle of the night suffering of insomnia I don't have anything to do and I'm not ready to turn around once more in my bed I go and open a dictionary and a word and a definition allow me to jump to another word into another definition back to the early part of the volume to the middle it is very much like the pleasure we still have in having libraries that is we don't have books that are delivered to us on a Kindle or on an iPad but we can go to a library and browse around and see all the books that are next to the book that we were looking for and by chance we will stumble upon one that actually is the one that was waiting for us the book that was waiting for us that will change our life that we didn't know was there as a friend waiting and that is what happens with dictionaries that are imprinted for them there are words that are waiting for us that we didn't know we don't know we won't know until we open the dictionary and browse haphazardly accidentally in a jazzy way and stumble upon a word that we might or might not use but is all of a sudden a capsule telling us what the entire world looks like through that unique word a word that is it's unique and it's for us the OED in its second edition has 100 around 175 thousand entries it has 20 volumes and those entries are of a historical nature because there are different types of dictionaries again the dictionaries that are ready to offer one definition and one alone as a statement of what the current language is and the dictionary is like the OED that want us to go back in time and see how the word has been used and often give us a quote from Milton or Shakespeare or T.S. Eliot to understand the context to understand how that word is framed and phrased historical dictionaries are dictionaries not only for the common use but they also tell us that before us somebody has used the word yellow and that that word might actually have been used in a different way and here are two or three examples of how it has been used in 1895 in 1910 and in 1955 and by offering us that many of possibilities that bouquet feel that the language our language is really not ours that we are but part of a chain of users many have used it before many will use it after us and we are its keepers its protectors its destroyers we are the ones that have the language for now at one point somebody else will come along and carry the torch just as we are carrying the torch from somebody who came before us and that pushes you to understand the language in a different perspective it is not only a way to communicate between us, it is also a way to communicate with the dead that is what really the classic is you open Milton's Paradise Laws and you are engaging with a writer that has been dead for 400 years 300 years and likewise when you open a dictionary you realize that some of these words are not going to be there in the next edition because they will not be used in the same way and probably they will not be used all together upon arriving as a Mexican immigrant, a bad hombre to the United States in 1985 I thought I knew what the word badge B-A-D was and I was happy about it I was slowly making English my own language I did it by at night opening Moby Dick a book that I had read in Spanish and having a dictionary next to me and I would read the very first line or the very first paragraph call me Ishmael and I whatever word I would not know I would look up in the dictionary and make a little note to myself and being a book of the 19th century being this magisterial epic novel of the 19th century there were many words that I didn't know and so I would accumulate notes in a hefty manner until I would realize that I was almost competing with a size and scope of Moby Dick and that actually the object and subject of my attention was not Melville as such but was the OED that was telling me so much of what I needed to know to understand this classic novel I would turn off the light and then I would try to remember all the words that I had just looked up and all the definitions that I had written to memorize them and as if to have them in my reservoir in my database that word wasn't used at that time in order to be able to use it and be a show off I was an immigrant I wanted to use the language the way a native would use it and the best way was to use my memory and use every intellectual equipment that I had in order to make that language my own I soon realized that there are two creative forms the creative form of the fiction writer that uses the language in a straightforward way to describe a world that he's or her imagination are presenting in a kind of journalistic way describing it as if it was existing before his or her eyes and then there was the other creativity the creativity of the dictionary that was allowing me to understand everything that was in this first book and I have and I came to the conclusion then a conclusion that I cherish to this day I believe that every novel yesterdays, todays and tomorrows is already contained in the OED the OED has to be scrambled, rearranged throw all the words into the air and if you are T.S. Eliot or Maya Angelou catch the ones that you're going to use in your poem or in your play and then you're going to turn that dictionary into your own language into your own statement into your own vision but it is already there David Foster Wallace a genius is going to come across in this year or in ten years she is going to use already the words that are contained in that dictionary she is going to rearrange them in a way that none of us here know exactly how and yet when that arrangement is made we are going to be amazed we are going to realize that the words can have yet another way of coming together that we didn't know in existence and that is the beauty of the language and the beauty of the dictionary as a seed, as a container of things that are present but things that are past and things that are future as well I told you at the very beginning that I am not only a reader in a user of dictionaries but I am also a maker of dictionaries and so all this critique that I have given you of the lexicographers as pretentious it applies to me as well I have worked for some time with a colleague at Merriam Webster and suggested certain words and they looked at the way they use the words that come from the outside they debate them and eventually they accept them or they don't accept them it is a wonderful process and I have done for better or worse a dictionary of something called Spanglish Spanglish is the mix of Spanish and English it is a hybrid language it uses a little of the Spanish and a little bit of English to create something that is in between Kenies from here there are close to 60 million Latinos in the United States and just like any previous immigrant group they use the language in the best way they can sometimes without the education that they wish they had because they have to bake meat and provide for their children and the result is like English the mix of Yiddish and English that happened in the second generation the children of the immigrant of the Jewish immigrants or Chinglish the mix of Chinese or Mandarin with English or Franglais the mix of French and English Spanglish is an incredibly dynamic form that is taking place right now in cities like Miami and New York and Los Angeles and Chicago and I faced the challenge of making the very first dictionary of the Spanglish language and I felt like a thief and I think every dictionary maker is a thief we are thieves because we steal from people the language that is used on the street we codify it we catalog it we present it to others as authoritative this is the way I have heard the word from Spanglish say clica or beautiful used three times what are the laws of dictionaries is that if you are going to insert the word you have to have heard the word in three different places that are not connected with one another that users are not connected with one another with the same meaning resulting of them in other words you can't invent the word all of a sudden and say that and so we I together with a group of researchers went all across the country to harvest the Spanglish terms that are being used all over quickly realizing that there is a Cuban way of using this new language in a Mexican way and then an Anglo way of when we are learners of the language in that we needed to figure out spelling Spanglish isn't the process of navigating between an oral form of communication to a written form and a dictionary allows the language to feel that it has arrived that it is settled that it has led it is grounded in doing that dictionary when we published it many colleagues thought that we had done a disservice to Hispanic culture by giving legitimacy to this hybrid that is emerging in front of our eyes and of our ears others like me felt and feel that those hybrids are what make language interesting and that constant transformation often results in a language that is altogether new Latinos in the United States don't speak Spanish and many of us don't speak exclusively English we can speak a middle language a middle ground the way middle languages were spoken with different invasions by the Romans or by the French or by the Americans in different moments in history and people needed to react to those influences colonial or imperial presences by adapting one of the most confronting and defiant critiques that we faced and I come here to the end of my talk is it came from the purists and they called themselves purists they said that language needs to be pure in order to survive and I perfectly understand this worldview of course in the age of Trump the word pure is very uncomfortable because it has supremacy components or connotations but there is a feeling and a sense that language needs to be protected in dictionaries are authorities the way academies are authorities I would go to my father and my father would say this is the way the language is used he was an authority he was telling me that there is a right way of using the language and there is a wrong way of using the language and so I thank the purists for pushing us to protect the language I also believe that impurity in language in particular is important and so I return to the word bad and to Michael Jackson I don't know if I have to say more but having understood what the word bad was about when I first arrived to this country and the way Melville would use it I quickly heard the way everybody did the use that Michael Jackson was doing of bad which really meant good and so my bad or this is bad can be this is good and that means that a word will fluctuate and be transformed the word gay the word queer words that in Shakespeare's time could mean happy or bizarre today might have a completely different connotation it's not that Shakespeare is old fashioned Shakespeare belongs to his time and we belong to ours in the future the word gay or queer or bad might be understood totally different the way I'll war when accepting the nomination to be vice president used the term information superhighway to refer to the web the word web wasn't yet in vogue at the time and today when I say to my students alright you can use the information superhighway they have no idea how war is still alive I think and so am I I think too the words change and we change them and they receive them and they change them as well and so bad is good and words need to be protected but also we need to recognize that the words change and we change with them that we are the change that the words are cost upon and that the words are not ours but we are transient entities English language was before us and English language will be after us we are simple and passing users of it dictionaries as authoritative and authoritarian as they might be are our helpers our providers the reciprocals of what the language is but we can't be paralyzed by them they are also open to change open to critique they are ours they don't come from outside and eventually somebody who is a student today just arriving to the college will become the next lexicographer and will say that the way Professor Statham was using a word what's not the wrong needs to be updated in the right way and happily so thank you nations complains 20 million people in this country there are Latinos no I mentioned 60 million so please do something in that dictionary the latino is degrading to bundle up the people the latino voters it's just the obsessive I don't understand what you're saying can you develop it or not what comes to people Latin America at the beginning of it because the colonization this tragedy they become latinos I remember that thing I don't understand what you're saying because the people in Mexico they are they are not latinos they are Mexican Spanish descendants they are mixed with the indigenous population I don't understand what you're saying I don't understand what you're saying I don't understand what you're saying I appreciate your comment the term Latino is one that the Hispanic population has chosen for itself it uses an X these days it has gone through a variety of terms Hispanic Spanish speaking the Mexicans the Cubans and the Puerto Ricans within that community the rubrics that we use to define our communities can be very problematic the term African American Black Negro in a certain time so those terms are in themselves not stable but in constant change Latino is a term that I use for myself and that is current today just as Hispanic was used 20 years before though I would prefer other terms there is a kind of resignation when the majority uses a term for language is the rule of the majority and if everybody I found that would establish if I might not like the fact that instead of techo or roof or ceiling the word rueful and I might teach my students to say roof or ceiling or techo but if 60 million people are using rueful I might make a tantrum and I might say I don't want this word in my dictionary but then I'm going to turn it into a prescriptive dictionary not a descriptive dictionary so the language is for the people, by the people to the people and for better if there was a question here and then I go here go ahead so you mentioned Cervantes and the the development of the standard Spanish definitions are there Americans which have had an oversized influence individual American writers whose speakers have an oversized influence on redefinition of words sure are they English language in the United States there is a fascinating relationship between literature and language there are writers that use a word for the first time and then that word eventually is used by others or accepted in dictionaries TS Eliot used words that eventually made it to the OED Shakespeare is the best example 2000 words he invented that eventually made it so writers, yes there are many American writers that have used different terms who is it Twain is a perfect example of the usage and a very controversial example of the usage of terms in Huckleberry Thin he uses the language that the child will have and the language that the slave will have he is not black we can debate issues of appropriation he is taking certain words using them and some of those words will eventually be used because they are being used in the text by readers making them to the dictionary I think that the consequence or the corollary of what you are saying is the tension that exists between the oral way we use the language and the written way we use the language we can use words in whatever way we want but there is a kind of tyranny of the printed word once a word is printed that word has grounded and it becomes it becomes a statement of its time and it is raped by whoever it is raped and it is accepted the same thing happens with for a long time up until the middle ages contracts were a handshake today we need a contract that is in written form the written way of using the language will establish that whatever agreement the same thing goes with the usage of the words in the contract or in that novel so yes David Foster Wallace is another wonderful example he was an erudite of the language in infinite jest he pushes the language over the edge he sometimes engaged in debates with his copy editors who would tell him there is no such word in English and he would say I don't care I want to keep that word in my novel who are you to tell me the tension with copy editors that we all face the copy editor version of my book came in I hide my head under the ground for two days and then come out yeah it's there are many American writers who have established worth Magia Angelou in Beloved there are plenty it particularly happens in general ethnic writers often feel that the language doesn't belong to them until and unless they make it their own they adapt it to themselves and ethnic writers can be at the forefront of making the language much more elastic including a number of words that we were not accepted so going back to Jewish in Yiddish in words like Shmok, Shmendrik, Bagel Popik, Chutzpah these words were not in the language until the Jewish immigration came in and until writers like Anzia Yerserska Ibrahim Kahan, Izi Pashemi Zinger established them through the New Yorker and others as words that are legitimate today those words coming from Yiddish or Hebrew are part of the English language and you don't have to italicize them nobody italicizes the word Mesusa anymore it's part of the English language but it wasn't part of the English language 200 years ago and the word sombrero or the word taco the same thing those many words that have to do with food that have to do with emotions and with sexual parts those words come from other languages unfortunately this is a good moment to not all languages have the same amount of words English is incredibly lucky in being I want to say something that has controversial elements here English is an imperial language a colonial language a language that goes beyond its constraints and inflicts itself on others but it's a very elastic language and so it includes words of those encounters words that it harvests in Vietnam in Cambodia in Latin America in Russia it's open to including all those words much more than French the French are always saying we don't want more English the Americans are saying we're speaking whatever we are and we'll see what happens the fact that we use the word table for a table it's so arbitrary why don't we call the table child to read that that word table is going to be connected with that object but there is this fluidity when you travel across languages when you travel in the world but when you are multi-lingual you realize that it could be messa or it could be tabla or it could be a variety of things the words and the objects are really divorced and it's the culture that connects them and I love those aspects as well now dictionaries force upon us those words in a much more direct fashion but languages I love this section in chapter 2 of the bible where where there is this Adam and Eve this naming of objects and by naming the objects the objects become your property of course in today's world there is this sense of appropriation and that everything is human-centric there's a beautiful passage in 100 years of solitude a book I highly recommend where there is an epidemic of insomnia and everybody forgets because they haven't slept for so long how to refer to things these objects they don't remember that is a chair and so one of the Aurelianos suggests that they should put a little sign as in Montessori that would be a chair so every object the cow the egg the chair the mother but then they forget what those objects are for and they have to add which is used for people to sit down which is used for breakfast and of course by doing that they are already creating language they are establishing what a dictionary does the definition or the description of what the world is all about what do we use the cow for what do we use the chair for always from the perspective of the user of the language yes I'm interested in your Spanglish dictionary in what language are the definitions written good I'm going to answer that question but I'm going to take a little detour there are monolingual dictionaries and I should say that there is a contradiction at the heart of the American experience we are the most powerful country in the world the most the one that is most shaped by immigrants meaning every single language from every single part of the world is spoken on American territory today and yet we have phobias for foreign languages we believe everybody should speak English because Jesus is spoken and so and so and so and so we the most current and the most sellable dictionaries are monolingual dictionaries the OED it might be kind of stating the obvious but the OED is a monolingual dictionary it's a dictionary that gives the word in English and gives the definition in English there are bilingual dictionaries and students in particular tourists use them all the time English the word is in English and Spanish because it's sold in Spain or depending on where you're using it and so it will be how you use the language in Spanish and in English and sometimes it will be two books in one and in opening in the reverse and you will see Spanish in English and Swahili and Swahili in English and the definition will be in one language and then it will be the definition in the other language there are fascinating monolingual dictionaries and multi-lingual dictionaries I have some that can be a word in one language and then the definition in English in French in Portuguese in Hebrew etc whatever and that's extraordinary unto itself the dictionary assumes that the world is not the way Jesus spoke it there's a plurality of language this dictionary has two editions now so we have the dictionary that lists the word in Spanglish and gives the English language definition and now there's an edition of the word in Spanglish and a Spanish language definition both of them are bilingual dictionaries but there's not a monolingual dictionary yet of Spanglish with the Spanglish definition no I might be dead before that I think we have time for one more question yes you talked about your collection of dictionaries and you have a Swapili one useless probably for me but do you have any other than two language dictionaries because I didn't know there was too many dictionaries of African languages I have about seven or eight dictionaries of African languages I have a lot of dictionaries of African slang I particularly like slang American slang African slang Spanish slang and I have a number of them published in England in India and in Africa in different places I have dictionaries also that are like dictionaries that are sexual parts that are used throughout the Spanish-speaking world because we in the same language as a George Bernard shop would say we're separated by the same language Kujia Kujia and so we have the way the word will be used in Mexico is different to the word that will be used in Chile or in Paraguay and they will use many other words so this lists a word it goes by country and it tells you all the words that are used for the male part or whatever I have dictionaries of cowboy English medical English advertising my wife is ready to kill me thank you very much