My name is Ji Wei Xiao. I'm the chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures. Welcome, everyone. I'm very honored to be here to open this DML Alumni Korea panel tonight. It seems that the great British poet is wrong. He said, April is the cruelest month. But it turns out, March it. And thank you, guys, for making the second and successful attempt to come here. I feel very grateful to my colleague, the Italian professor, Sara Diaz, who has spent months trying to put together this wonderful panel. So I want to let us just give her a round of applause. She is the real hostess of tonight's show. I am also supposed to introduce our dean, Richard Greenwald. But he couldn't come. He has to go to a week. He sent his regrets. I want to let you know that he is a strong advocate for liberal arts education. And you know, one of the purpose of this panel is to get you guys to believe, to convince you guys of the worth and value of the liberal arts education. So let's do it. Thank you. Thank you, G. We appreciate that. More importantly, I want to thank everybody here for coming. This is an amazing turnout, perhaps a little bit too amazing. Let's hope no fire inspectors are in the area. But I'm very glad you could join us here for what promises to be an amazing panel with some really terrific panelists. My name is Sara Diaz. I teach all levels of Italian language here. And I coordinate the Italian language program. I'm also the faculty liaison for internships for the department. So if you are looking for an internship, you might come to me and then I might direct you to your specific faculty member to work with. I've also had the opportunity over the years to work with several student internships to mentor them in their internships. And I have seen personally firsthand how proficiency in a second language really gives students an edge in the labor market. It really gives you a tool that you could apply in any field. And I think each one of our panelists here is going to speak about how knowledge of a second or of a third language has really helped advance their careers. And I also imagine enrich their lives. Before beginning, I just need to give a quick thanks to the Department of Modern Languages for making this event possible, the Humanities Institute, Italian Studies, and the Faculty Committee on Public Lectures and Events for their support. Also, I would like to thank Alumni Relations and Kimberly Nicoletto at Academic and Career Development Center for their assistance. The format for today's panel is going to be very straightforward. Panelists will speak for about 10 minutes about how their experiences at Fairfield University and with modern languages in particular have prepared them for their professions. Presentations will be followed by a Q and A. And I do hope you'll stay a little longer, grab a bite, a cookie, and chat one-on-one with our speakers. They're all very nice, none of them bite. I'll now briefly introduce each panelist. And after that, I'll just turn it over to them. So it is I'll begin with someone who is my extreme pleasure to introduce because she's a former student, and that is Ali Famiglietti. Ali graduated from Fairfield University in 2014 with a double major in Italian and English education. After graduating, Ali moved to Italy to work as the program assistant for Fairfield's program in Florence, and later completed her master's in Italian at Middlebury's Italian campus. And her Italian is excellent. She is now a reservations executive at Perfetto Traveler. Next up is Sean Hassett. Sean graduated from Fairfield in 2010 with a double major in French and German and a minor in women's studies, which is very impressive. He studied both in Paris and in Heidelberg, Germany while at Fairfield, so keep this in mind. You don't have to study in just one country. Since graduating, Sean has served as the senior international sales specialist at Ulbricht Steel for seven years, where he uses both his French and German language skills to support clients in the special metals industry. Welcome, Sean. Our next up is Clevisa Kovachi. She graduated from Fairfield in 2014, majoring in international studies, politics, and French. She currently works as the operations coordinator of the Youth Assembly at the United Nations Friendship Ambassadors Foundation. I can't wait to hear all about that. She has engaged in, she has worked with international organizations in France, Indonesia, India, and China, and with UN Women in Kosovo and the permanent mission of Albania to the UN. So thanks for joining us. And last but certainly not least is Jennifer Rollinsen. Jennifer Rollinsen graduated from Fairfield University in 2001 with majors in international studies and Spanish. She went on to earn her master's in social work from Fordham University and earned her BSN in nursing from UConn. She is currently a registered nurse working at St. Vincent's Medical Center and also has been a preschool nurse consultant for six schools in the Fairfield County and currently works as a school nurse in Norwalk and Wilton Public Schools. This is also Jennifer's second visit to our alumni panel and I know there's a lot to look forward to here. Our last panelist on our program, Maria Zachary, couldn't make it tonight because of scheduling conflicts. With that, I turn it over to our distinguished panelists. Thank you. Hi, everyone. My name is Ali. Thank you so much for coming. This is amazing to see so many people who are here. It just adds to everything that we're doing. So how many people just wondering have already studied in the country of their language? Okay. And then how many people want to study in the country of their language? Okay, all right. Pretty good, but I feel like everybody's hand should have been raised at some point but that's okay, we'll get there. And then just out of curiosity, I worked for the Fairfield Florence program after I graduated. Is there anybody here who went through the program or okay, one, wow, okay, cool, just good to know. Oh, okay, I can't see everyone. And can you hear me all right? Am I talking slow enough? Because I'm from Long Island so I tend to talk fast so just let me know. Okay, great. So I think that you guys saw the pamphlet but when I was a student at Fairfield, I think the most important thing was I was extremely involved here. I think that right now you need to be laying your foundation for everything that comes after because everything that happened after, I think once you graduate, at least for me, my experience has just been sort of like a tumbling into life and lots of unexpected things but I definitely felt that Fairfield prepared me for everything that I did after college. So that's really important. And also just wondering how many of you are upperclassmen, junior or seniors? Okay, so is everyone else a sophomore or freshman? Or you just don't want to raise your hands? Which, sorry, so a sophomore and freshman, I'm just curious. Okay, awesome, well it's great that everybody's here but it's really nice to see how many of you guys came. First of all, the fact that you came is just amazing so great, okay, good. So during my time at Fairfield, I was an English major and I was an Italian major. And then I was involved with peer mediation. I was a new student leader. I was an RA and then I also worked in study abroad and I was just, as you can tell, really excited about everything I was doing here because Fairfield was a great place but all these things that I did later turned into skills that I used in real life. So I think that if you haven't already started seeing which clubs are good for you and the ways that you want to get involved, start doing that now because Fairfield, it has so many resources that are available to you and you need to take advantage of those things. I know that people have been saying this to you since you arrived on campus but it's so real and if you leave and you didn't take advantage of these resources, that's on you. So get involved now, not to say that in a menacing way but I really mean it. But yeah, so that involvement was really important because and then on the other hand, you have the academics at Fairfield which will really prepare you for anything that you're gonna wanna do later.  I personally did a master's in Italian after I graduated and that was, I felt so prepared, I felt so well prepared by Fairfield to take on the academics afterwards and I could just tell my classmates in the master's were also well prepared but I just had that sort of level of comfort that really let me excel later on and I think something for me that was really important was always taking advantage of my professors. I always was in Dr. Carlin's office when Professor Diaz is here, I was always there too so just use your professors, use your resources or do most of you do this already or yeah, cool, good. Okay, then, okay, so all of that was really important. Then how many of you studied abroad again already? Just wondering, okay, cool. That's obviously something that I hope is important to many of you if you're doing language, I really think that you should take advantage of Fairfield Study Abroad programs because they're there and I personally don't think that you can master a language unless you live in the country where that language is spoken so if you're really serious about this, definitely look more into Study Abroad. And then, okay, so after I graduated, I got a job with the Fairfield Florence program so Fairfield kindly employed me after I graduated and this was just such a good experience but because I got to use my language skills and I also got to use the skills that I was cultivating at Fairfield so that was just really important for me to take that next step and then also on the other hand, the reason I was employed at all when I graduated was because I had these language skills because I really wouldn't have gotten this job at all if I didn't have the skills to use them because when I was in Florence, I needed to be able to help students with lots of things. Whoever studied in Florence, you already know that you kind of need a lot of help from your program assistants, probably Lorenzo. So that was really important and then I did Fairfield, I also did Middlebury at the same time that I was the program assistant which was a challenge but it was something that I could take on because I was already well prepared. Does anybody have any questions at this point or I'll just keep going, okay. Yeah, yes. Yeah, sure, okay. So Middlebury is an excellent program just letting everybody know, again, if you're serious about your language of study, they have programs in almost every language. So it's either can be a summer, a year and a summer or you can do it in a summer and a year because Middlebury has you go, you have to do a total full immersion so you have to already be on the level to be able to do full immersion which again, Fairfield prepared me to be at that level so if you're here, you're probably already good for that for any master's program in a language and then Middlebury has you go to your country of study so since I was already in Florence, I'm sorry, I can't see you, since I was already in Florence, I just had my roots there and continued the program from Florence, Italy but doing one summer semester at Middlebury's campus in the US. Okay, no problem and thank you. Okay, so then we'll talk kind of a challenge that I had after Middlebury was that I still want to stay in Italy and I know that my experience is like pretty unique because I went straight abroad and I went into a job market in a different country so I ended up getting a work visa in Italy and I ended up taking a job that I just never expected to do which was teaching English for preschool and elementary school students and this is not what I imagined. I, if I thought I thought I would teach older people but it ended up being the best thing I ever did because first of all, I went to a town where I was one of two Americans and this was a town of 80,000 people which in Italy is considered a city and I also knew that I was studying in Florence and Florence is great but it's so international, there are so many Americans that you don't really use your Italian there but I wanted more which is something that I learned at Fairfield and sorry, if I'm going over. So I went to Busarizio, I taught children, the three-year-olds taught me Italian and that's how I mastered it but a lot of the time that I was there it wasn't without challenge. A lot, I spent probably the first four months convinced that I was going home every day because it was very lonely. I was now in this environment where I was totally by myself I didn't have my American comforts that I had in Florence. I didn't have the same access to making friends as I did but at the same time something just told me to stay and if I didn't stay I wouldn't be where I am now. So those types of full-emerging experiences are something that's just a little out of the box I really encourage you to take for you that might just mean studying abroad but you just have to kind of know that for yourself. And but when you have the opportunity do take it. So that was really important to me as well. Then sorry just checking my notes. I also don't think that you can be truly fluent in the language unless you fully immerse yourself in it so I would just keep that in mind and then since I was in Bustar Ciccio I was applying for jobs. I knew I wanted to come back to America but I also knew that I wanted to use my Italian. I wasn't willing to accept working in an office and doing a job that had nothing to do with what I had studied and what I had worked so hard to achieve. So I ended up finding just on the internet this position that let me move to Rome for the summer this past summer and then had me transfer back to New York in the fall. So I actually just moved back to New York in November and what got me that job which is reservations executive which is a really nice title at a travel company. So I do high end tourism for people who want to go to Italy which kind of after you heard everything that I studied sounds kind of perfect I think. But it's because I had my language skills and that's really everything. I mean a lot of my experience prepared me for this but when I interviewed with them the things that they found most impressive were my education and the fact that I was an American who could speak a foreign language because just to let you know like we don't really, not many of us exist. I know there are a lot of people in this room but like you are one of few people and you really need to be aware of that and take advantage of it while you can. So I think that's it. Thank you. You're welcome. Hello, my name is Sean. I graduated from Fairfield in 2010 with French and German as Professor Diaz said and most of that was not planned which is kind of a theme that continues throughout most of the rest of my life so far. But it's working out okay. So when I started at Fairfield I thought what I wanted to do was foreign language teacher education so I was gonna do French and that was gonna be fantastic. So that didn't work out which in retrospect I'm very happy about because I don't think that that would be a great environment for me at all, limited patients and things. But anyway. So you know I was taking French then all of a sudden I was like you know I should add another language too I should take German also. So I started taking German as well and then sort of made the decision to study abroad in both Paris and in Heidelberg, Germany which for me when I went to Paris that was sort of like and I don't wanna say easy but it was a lot easier because I already spoke French very well so it was pretty easy to acclimate and you know do whatever I had to do kind of thing. In Germany it was definitely a little more trials and tribulation full I guess you could say. By the time I'd gotten there I think I had forgotten almost every single word of German that I learned in basic German which led to a lot of fun experiences like you know talking to somebody at the dryer in the laundry room in the dorm that I was living in and she's asking you know this has been going on for a long time like is there something wrong with it and I wanted to agree with her but what I ended up saying was something like yes it is allowed to already be done yet and she sort of looked at me and was like yeah, okay. So you know so many things like that but I think that those are good things to happen because you know you kind of learn that whatever. You're gonna make a mistake, it's gonna be fine and you're gonna just move on with it and who cares if you know some random girl thinks that you don't know how to speak German because you don't, cause it's true so it's fine. So after that, thankfully through the time in Germany and the kind of immersion experience that you were talking about as well I picked up a little bit more and was actually able to tell her the next time that it was working fine. So following those experiences abroad and you know I didn't have any specific plan at all when I was looking you know starting to look out into the workforce for a job until you know randomly like just looking at things there were a few language kind of options that were appealing to me where I work now it's a steel company essentially based here in Connecticut and how does language and steel go together? Well that's something I had no clue about either. What it is basically is that you know I work in the international sales department of that company which it's pretty small it's only a few of us but you know they were looking for somebody that speaks French and who had had experience abroad and you know who also had a second language which for me was German which was another large sort of area that we do business in. So really the only reason that I had this job is because of the language skills that I had and the international traveling experience through the studying abroad and all of that. So I mean I guess that's yeah it was it's kind of funny even now because you know people always expect me to have some sort of like science-esque background like oh okay yeah do you know about material science I'm like no not really I know how to speak French but you know it turns out that's all you kind of need to start and then everything else it's you know you learn as you go just like you do when you're acquiring language skills.  You know it just sort of teaches you regardless of how like miserable it may feel that you can't talk to anybody and you're saying everything wrong and everybody's lashing at you and all those things but you know you make it through and then you're at the other side and you're like good I'm glad I did that like I can manage a lot now like more than you thought anyway so yeah I mean and I can't really speak enough to about the language programs in department here at Fairfield I mean the support of all the teachers in the programs both while here and while studying abroad as well it yeah you really couldn't ask for anything more so definitely all the resources that you would ever need are available which is great there's so many fascinating experiences that you can open yourself up to through doing this and in my job now I still am able to go back to Europe I think I'll usually go like three-ish times a year back and forth and it's kind of funny now too because you know for me what I'm doing is I'm basically traveling around to like tiny little places that I would have had no idea existed you know just visiting customers and talking to people and sort of really connecting with people on that level of oh we speak the same language and then you know there's always like wow you're American and you speak French how do you do that that's great and it's you know it's like a little icebreaker kind of thing I guess and then things go pretty well and yeah I mean it's great so that's all I really have to say Hi guys I'm Clevisa thank you so much to the department and to Fairfield University for organizing this and inviting us it's always so exciting to be back and of course shout out to my French professors in the room and of course thank you guys for being here this was such an amazing crowd so while I was at Fairfield University I majored in French and in those courses with wonderful Dr. Goldfield and Dr. Artopoulos is where I really learned the mechanics and the theory of foreign language then when I studied abroad in Ex-improvence France that's where I got to put everything that I learned into practice and studying abroad really gave me the confidence to know that I could like be out there travel alone by myself and make it and that's something that would become very important for me later on. I was also president of French Club at some point and being involved with the clubs at Fairfield University really helped me to develop organizational skills and more cultural awareness so that's why that's my little advertisement for a French club and of course the other language clubs here. So after Fairfield University I did graduate school at Science Point Paris and Columbia University getting a dual master's in international affairs and development. Now what was required for my diplomas was that I had to prove proficiency in foreign language so be aware that if you do apply to graduate school afterwards it could be international business or international law you may be required to prove again your proficiency in language so it is important to keep it up. Afterwards I was an assistant teacher for French in France for a study of broad group of Americans and then a master teacher for Dartmouth College in China teaching English and of course these positions obviously required speaking French in France and even in China although I was teaching English what really helped is the fact that I had a background in foreign languages because the people hiring for this position were looking for people who had an understanding of language, grammar, mechanics and some sort of pedagogy that went with that. At some point I ended up doing an internship with UN Women in Kosovo and I am pretty sure part of the reason why I got that position and the position with the permanent mission of Albania to the UN is because of my Albanian skills. Literally it said in the job posting that they prefer people who spoke local languages and for Kosovo that was Serbian or Albanian and I had Albanian and it's extremely important that you're able to speak the language because in addition to getting your professional work done it'll help you connect with the people on a much deeper, much more meaningful level and you'll really realize that when you're out on the field and you can actually understand what people are saying but the other UN staff don't. At some point I also did a consultancy in Indonesia like a seven month project and did a very short term project in India. Now here I was working through interpreters for part of the time and one thing I have to point out here is that if you don't speak the language on the ground you're gonna experience exactly what, we've all experienced at some point that you're not quite getting what's going on and even though we work through wonderful translators and interpreters they perform really high quality work for us it's not the same as being able to connect one on one with the people there. Even if you have just a basic understanding of the language at least you'll be able to understand where the discussions are going that you're sort of on the right track. So that's what I have to say about working through translators. Currently I'm working as the operations coordinator of the Youth Assembly of the United Nations. If some of you guys have heard about it it's a program that takes place in the UN. We bring together about 1,000 young people ages 16 to 28 but we have some older and they gather in the United Nations headquarters to engage in discussions and taking action for the sustainable development goals and sustaining peace. So a lot of international development jargon there but it's quite interesting for me. So in my job I don't use foreign language a lot. We do have delegations that are coming from Haiti or from Francophone Africa so sometimes I'll be able to speak with them in French. On my last day of the conference I met somebody who was Albanian and that was really exciting for me. So I got my Albanian on. So the last part of my five minutes or however much I have left I wanna give some tips to you guys for how you can engage with foreign language on different levels. So as I see it there about three levels in how you can engage with foreign language. One is like tier one top professional level. If you wanna work in the World Bank the United Nations International Rescue Committee save the children any of these organizations that do international work and they have field offices all over the world you absolutely must be able to have a very high level of proficiency of languages and not just one language but the profile of these sorts of people like UN staff they're all fluent almost always fluent in at least three languages usually four or five languages so you do need to be like at the top level of your foreign language because you'll be using the foreign language with clients, with partners, in meetings it has to be like really top level and the way that you can achieve that level is obviously by studying abroad and speaking a different language please don't study abroad in London or anywhere, Anglophone, sorry. But also do be strategic about where you study abroad. So if you want to work in international development and poverty alleviation you want to prove that you can work and function in a developing country or in a post-conflict country that means going to Senegal looks much more impressive than going to Paris. If on the other hand you wanna work with international business or the luxury goods industry then going to Milan, Paris or Florence will be really great for you. So the second level in which you can engage with foreign language is a little less intensive is you can do tutoring or translating on your own and who doesn't need some extra money on the side. So I did that for a bit and it was very helpful. It's a good experience for you and it's something that you can do even without having a really, really top level of your language. So I highly recommend that's one way and it looks really good on your resume as well. It's a good experience. And finally, the third level is you have some understanding of foreign language in which you can engage with people for fun or just kind of on the side. So you can speak with friends in different languages when you go to different countries it's always much more fun, much more interesting to connect with people on a personal level even though you're not conducting business. For me, this past few times that I was in New York City somehow I always ended up with an Uber driver that was from Francophone, Africa. So the whole ride we would speak in French and it was really interesting for me to learn about their background and their experience in their country and in New York City. And finally, foreign language is really good for your brain really words of Alzheimer's so it's good to have. And I wanna finish by saying that this is a very competitive job market that we're living in probably the most competitive despite getting through the recession with thousands of people graduating with really high qualifications you need to be able to set yourself apart. And foreign language is one of those things that will open many doors for you. So especially here, I have to say this especially here where we are in Northeastern United States, the job market no matter what industry you're in tends to be very structured, very rigid and saturated. So you definitely want to have like your eighths cards and foreign language can definitely be one of those. So knowing all this and hearing from everybody here I hope you guys will be able to use language and really leverage them to put yourself to put your best self forward on the job market after. Thank you. Hi, good evening, thank you. Thank you again for having me. So I was just thinking of when I was here at Fairfield and probably sitting in the same seats you all are sitting in. And I heard your thank you for your introduction and I'm thinking like, who are you talking about? And then I'm like, oh, she's talking about me. I never would have thought that I would be, have a master's in social work that I'd be a nurse speaking Spanish. I just never thought it would turn out that way but I am so happy that it's turned out that way. The reason I mention that is because I think when I was a freshman in a sophomore I did not have a real distinct career path. I think a lot of my friends did. I had a lot of friends who were business majors, accounting majors, sciences and they had very clear paths for what they wanted to do. They knew what they wanted to be and where they wanted to end up. And I didn't really have that. And I knew that as an underclassman someone who really needed to develop more of a path that I wanted to follow and do what I liked. And that was foreign language. Dr. Farrell and I have been friends since we were 12. So seventh grade is when we met and we both sort of pursued the same level of foreign language and of Spanish particularly. Excuse me. So again, I was just following what I loved, doing what I loved and I figured, I hope this will work out. I don't really see where I'm gonna go with this but I'm just gonna continue to do what I'm passionate about and I felt pretty secure that it would work out in the end. So when I was at Fairfield I did study abroad. We've had a lot of discussion about studying abroad and yes, it's so invaluable. It's so important, it's so helpful and it's really important to be living outside of your comfort zone. So it really does push you to learn and do things that you wouldn't typically do and only you are gonna benefit from that. I also did a mission trip through the chapel to Mexico which again, helped me learn about different cultures, really got me involved with the community and also gave me an opportunity to practice language again. I think what really, kind of looking back and it really impacted me the most was my working with Head Start. I don't know if they are still active in the community they are. It was my job on campus, well on campus, but not on campus, where I was going over to Bridgeport and I was working in some of the schools there and I just was so impacted by the inequality and they were so close to Fairfield yet they felt like I felt like I was in another world and so it was so important to me to learn more about that and become more impactful in their community and their culture which of course in other language is incredibly useful in doing that. So when I graduated from Fairfield and I was looking for jobs, again, I was kind of looking for jobs online, I knew I wanted to be in New York and I saw a job for work in a foster care agency and I thought, well, I worked with kids, let's try it. So I had interviewed with them and they said, oh, I see you speak Spanish and I said, well, yes. And they said, great, you're gonna be our bilingual case worker and I thought, okay, great, let's try this out and again, it was beyond my comfort zone, I was really thrust into a lot of work that I was not familiar with but again, it forced me to kind of step up and to push myself to learn and to do more. So with that being said, I did go to grad school and I did get my master's in social work because I did enjoy the work so much and I did feel that I wanted to do more. So I pursued that and ended up working for many years at a children's law firm in New York City which was incredible. Doing custody, visitation, cases, foster care cases in all the courts and all the boroughs and being able to speak another language in that sort of setting is really incredible. I mean, speaking with foster youth, foster parents, all sorts of families and all sorts of different situations, many of which were speaking a foreign language. So being able to speak Spanish and really being able to impact their lives and improve their lives and really, especially on behalf of children, was like so incredibly rewarding and it was something I loved doing. And then I went on, then I went on to nursing school and a lot of people would say, like, why did you leave social work and you didn't like it and what was wrong with it and absolutely nothing was wrong with it. I just felt like I wanted to do more and I wanted to give more specifically to vulnerable populations. So that's what I did and I became a nurse and I started working in lots of different areas and I ended up, I've been working in the hospital for many years at this point and being able to work again as a frontline worker as a nurse with vulnerable populations being patients, of course, and having another language just adds more to what I can offer my patients. We've got, I work in Bridgeport, which of course is an urban setting, a lot of Spanish-speaking patients and families. I worked in family birthing, which is very emotional, it's very intense and being able to speak another language with these patients is so incredibly important. One story that I shared last time I was here on the panel was one day I was heading home, I had already changed, I was in my street clothes and I heard the sounds of something that we call a precipitous labor. Are there any nurses here? There are a few, okay, hi guys. So precipitous labor is when someone's giving labor and it's imminent, it's gonna be really incredibly quick and all of the emotions and discomforts that go along with that. So I'm kind of getting ready to leave and I hear this going on and I turn and I see there's a machine called a Marty machine, which is a, basically it's like a computer, it's kind of like FaceTime, but you FaceTime with a translator and it could be any language. So I see the Marty getting rolled down the hall and someone screams, the Marty's broken and I kind of poke my head and I say, hey, what's going on? And they said this patient, she's about to deliver, she doesn't speak English, she doesn't have anyone with her. The Marty's broken and we don't know what to do. We stay here with us. And I was one of two Spanish speakers on the floor in totality. So I said, well, sure. And to be able to be there with her through that and to be able to experience, communicating with this young lady who was scared, nervous, in pain, didn't know what to expect and alone was incredible. To be able to guide and coach her through that and see her baby safely delivered and her happy and in her safe and healthy, of course, was incredible. The doctor, once I kind of said like, okay, I'm kind of done here. He said, well, I could have done that without you. And I said, but she couldn't have. She couldn't have, so. So, no, that's it. So, not, you know, doctors can be wonderful, but nurses are better. And, you know, nurses are really there for the patients as are the doctors, but really the patients are paramount. And, you know, he had nothing to say to that.  And, you know, all was well and good. So, you know, I was asked of course, and I think we've all touched upon it, you know, do you have more job opportunities speaking another language? Of course you do.  And I said, yes. And I interviewed and I think maybe less than three hours later they were calling saying, you know, we want you for this job. So, you know, I'm, it's, you know, I can't say for what exactly, which particular part of the background they were most interested in, but it certainly helps complete the package. And I think that it certainly, as you have mentioned, you know, it raises your level of, or the ability, the abilities that you have to do your job. And it makes you more, you know, well-rounded, more desirable, and I think more effective. They did, my current supervisor did go to bat for me to negotiate salary given the language skills and other skills as well. So it is going to help you and further your career. And in my case, you know, it helps me help my patients. So I think they, at the end of the day, you know, they win. You know, they're the ones that benefit from this. So I guess what I'm trying to say is I too was in your shoes, I was too was in your seat. If I had ever imagined listening to myself, I wouldn't believe it because I really didn't know what I wanted to do. But I did believe that if I did what I loved that everything would work out and I'd be happy. And I am happy to report that that is true. So I'm very pleased. I love what I do. Every day is different. Every day is a challenge. I'm always learning. I love my students. I love my patients. I really appreciate the flexibility of what I do and what I have. I never thought that flexibility would be so important. But as I age, I realize that it is. So follow your heart. Do what you love. And I wish you all lots of luck. Do you have any questions from our panelists? I think, actually, a lot of it I lucked out with through study abroad requirements. I think that a lot of the classes I took in Germany counted towards my German major. I think, actually, originally I had only planned to minor in German. But through whatever miraculous happening, there were enough credits that I could actually make it a major coming back and taking another class or two classes, whatever it was. So yeah, so definitely if you do go at least at the time that I was there, there was a lot of flexibility and a lot of assistance to try to make sure that if you want to do this, then more power to you can do it. And Fairfield definitely worked with me to make everything work out smoothly on that end, for sure. Can I respond? I was an English education major. So first I came to Fairfield and was like, I'm going to teach English at high school after I graduate. And then as I went through, I was like, no, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to go to law school. And that is the last place I see myself ending up now. So it's just really funny because as I was going through, I took the LSAT as a senior. And I remember talking to Dr. Carolyn. And I just had this horrible feeling while I was taking the LSAT, like why am I doing this? This is not worth my time. And then at the same time, I was working in study abroad just for fun, because we never know what could happen. And they approached me and said, we have an opening at the Fairfield Florence program, which it's something I said I would never do. And I was in Florence. I was like, never, I'll never do this job. And then I was like, yeah, that sounds better than this. So I ended up there. So yeah, I think that anything could really happen. Yeah, I could say something about that, too, I guess. I for a while really thought that I was going to go back to school to pursue a doctorate in foreign language and probably in French media literature or something like that. But getting into senior year and after studying abroad, I just saw that OK, that could still be well and great at some point, but now was not the time. I really just wanted to be out there and be doing things. And not to say that there's anything wrong with going immediately into school if you have that discipline and you're able to do that, that's fantastic. But I think the important takeaway that I had from that is regardless of whether I decided to continue and try to go back to school and do all of those things or not, there were still opportunities for me based on the language skills that I acquired here.  You might find yourself still adding things or changing them, that's what happened with me. But what's very helpful, I think, a good tip for you guys is to do some real industry research. So whatever it is that you want to work, part of the reason why so many people change their minds is because they don't know enough about their field or their type of work. So if you want to avoid that or you want to be as direct as possible, do a lot of deep industry research.  Ask them what it took together, ask them what their daily life looks like. Literally go on Google and look up what it takes. I also recommend looking up different job positions that are open that you would want to see yourself in 10 years, because it'll give you a really good idea of what qualifications would be needed. And then that way you could work teleologically. You have this goal and then you know what steps it would take to get you there. So I'm saying this because a lot of people, they're just going to call it saying, I don't really know what I want to do. And by the time it's time to apply for jobs, your thinking might not quite match the reality or you may think you know what practicing law means until you actually try it out. So do a lot of research. Talk to people, network to find out more, look up different positions and also try them out through internships. Internships while studying abroad. Did the rest of you also do internships studying abroad? Or was that, because you have that experience as the program director as well as having had an internship studying abroad. So I studied abroad, I actually studied abroad in Florence when I was a student and while I was there, the program offered an internship opportunity. So I think it also, someone asked a question about combining majors and making that all work. So I taught English in an elementary school when I was studying abroad as my internship, which let me get credit for my English major, for my Italian major and then also that was like a capstone of some sort at some point. So that experience was just what set my study abroad apart from basically everyone else that was studying abroad but also for myself, it made me realize that I wanted to be a lot more immersed in Italian culture. And then also when you actually go abroad, make sure you ask your professors and the program that you apply to if this is an opportunity because I don't think you should leave the country that you study in without having an internship experience. Most of the Fairfield programs do offer this. I'm like 95% sure. And was there anything else I should speak to? Okay. That's a tough one, it's a bit philosophical almost. Well it's the, I did a philosophy minor so just bear with me to understand and to grasp reality as it is. We use language as a medium to communicate it. And so therefore the more languages you know, the better you are able to describe and to communicate with other people and to connect with other people. There are certain things for example, like certain words, certain concepts that I think of in Albanian. I'm sitting with somebody and I'm trying to explain but they're not getting it. I can only say it in Albanian or French or whatever it is. So it helps you express a part of yourself that might not otherwise be as easily accessible or as easily possible. That makes any sense? I also think like I mentioned, you know it also makes you live outside of your comfort zone and it makes you a little uncomfortable which is important for growth of course. But you know I think of, you know for example, working in the hospital and working with patients again that are so incredibly vulnerable in a very you know open sort of relationship with me as the nurse and they're uncomfortable. You know so I understand that discomfort having you know learned another language and they may not speak English or maybe they do a little bit but they don't want to because they're nervous and they don't think they speak it well. So I think like you had mentioned it makes you connect and communicate and really understand in my experience your patients much better than for example using a Marty computer system to communicate with them. And you know I know I can say I understand how it is to feel uncomfortable and you know in a surrounding that's not comfortable to me thinking of studying abroad and now here I have a patient who may be from South America for example they're uncomfortable and they're having the same experience as I did to some extent. So I would say that it also you know really can create a relationship with the person you're working with that goes beyond just language. Just to kind of add to that I think another thing you know that discomfort is really a great tool to use especially to reflect on you know what you would perceive perhaps as you know normal or like you know your idea of the world and it really kind of helps you see like okay like I am so uncomfortable with this or like all of this stuff is happening but you know you can really appreciate it and you can really appreciate you know sort of what you have and as well as you know really opening your mind to new experiences and opportunities and just kind of learn to say okay you know what it's gonna be fine like things happen and it's okay. One quick thing that I wanna add into what you were saying is that it helps you build connections and that is very very crucial because in other parts of the world especially in the developing world there are not a lot of people who speak English or Anglophones who speak the local languages so if you do speak the local languages you have already taken down one barrier that's a wall between you and the people there and so the people there will trust you a lot more it helps to build trust even if it's a business meeting you wanna do a negotiation and it's gonna be in English the fact that you can speak the language of your partner or the party that you're negotiating with already puts you at a huge advantage like I've seen this happen in practice so it really helps you connect and build a trust that only you would have and the people around you the other Americans around you won't be able to get that. Yeah I definitely agree and a lot of the meetings that you know we have overseas and things like going in speaking French like definitely you can get a lot further than you can than you could if you did not have that and definitely. I'm just gonna add one thing which is I think the struggle of learning a language is what makes it worth it to begin with. I wasn't lucky enough to be born bilingual it's something I'm always very jealous of other people for but I think that because I had to do this myself it just, first of all I got to know a side of myself that I never would have known if I didn't take this on and then also just to put it shortly once you are the only person in an eye hospital in Rome who can translate for somebody whose eye is about to fall out and you're like holding that person's hand and the only person that can tell them what the doctor is saying in Italian you grow also I mean she was fine and she got the care that she needed but those are the types of moments that change who you are fundamentally and just the only thing that made the difference in that moment besides that I was physically able to hold her hand was that I could speak for her and speak for the people that she needed to communicate with so. I would say it's not an extra difficulty that you face it's actually easier because once you've learned one language then you basically have a tool in the blueprint to learn other languages it's like playing a musical instrument once you know how to read music or write music and then you can jump from one instrument to the other including crossing over instrument families so you can also cross over language families so learning a language actually it becomes easier the more you learn the easier it becomes because there are so many connections with the language families like the Latin languages that they'll just help you and build over one another so it's easier actually not more hard. Sometimes too though with that if you are one issue that I have that's not really that big of a thing but if I'm speaking French sometimes there's only a German word that I can find for like one word in my sentence which is so frustrating because you're like why do I know this in German but not in the language that I'm speaking right now but thankfully a lot of the people that I speak with also speak German so it's fine if you just throw it in but it's funny to see like the overlaps of the languages and it definitely does get easier though the more that you know. Definitely immersion, immersion is a huge one. You can do that obviously through studying abroad and being in another country but for those of you who don't necessarily have the means or the opportunity to study abroad you can immerse yourself within your own home so when I studied for some French proficiency exam they're very very difficult. The way that I would study and practice I would always have the radio playing in the background French news and when I would be doing chores I'd have the radio playing in the background. I would read all of my news in French and I stopped reading English news altogether and that's pure immersion that you can create within your own home, within your own setting. I think it's also to be more specific to like it can't, for me it has to be something I really like otherwise I'm just not gonna pay attention especially when you're at the stage when it's not easy yet so what I started with when I was in college still is over the summer I read all the Harry Potter books in Italian because I had read them 12 times in English so I already knew the story and actually helped for me like fill in a lot of those gaps so even if you have a favorite movie or I don't know you like to listen to cooking shows or something like that I would like stick to what you're interested in because it'll create that. I think that learning about the culture of the areas that you're learning the language of is also really important because through cultural understanding and through the learning of the language I think you can really sort of fundamentally connect the two and realize how they influence each other which is really interesting just even if you look at words or phrases that exist in English compared to French or German or whatever it gives you kind of even more insight I think into what makes Germany, Germany or France, France or wherever, wherever. Well it's eight o'clock now and I invite anybody who has any additional questions to stay and speak directly to our panelists and for the rest of you thank you for coming and thank you for that wonderful talk.


The first talk is from Professor Nathan Hill from Trinity College, Dublin. His title is Relative Chronology of some Bola, some changes. Thank you very much for having me. I am honored to be giving this talk at Beidah. I was there in December of 2019, was given a very nice welcome. And I hope I'll be able to join you again in Beijing sometime. Not too far in the future. The first thing I'm going to discuss is how I have done this work, because I'm using a new tool that we call Kaper. So it stands for Computer Assisted Proto Language Reconstruction, and it was initially built by Shungong in 2020 when he was working with me in London as part of an ERC project. And we were specifically looking at the reconstruction proto-Burmish. So then he got this job in Vienna and wasn't able to continue working on it and one thing and another. So it left the software in a kind of suspended animation, yeah. So then in, I don't know why this isn't going forward. Okay, then in 2022, there was actually a very brilliant high school student named Seth Knight who rewrote the code base for the program. So now it's back up and running, yeah. So this is just to show you on, on, there's the European Union's kind of research repository called Zenodo. Shungong has uploaded his video. He has, I think it's a two hour video that explains this thing of Kaper and what it does. And then also here is the code base that was written by Seth Knight also on Zenodo. And then it's also on GitHub as a kind of active place for development.  It's totally open. So this is the, I'm going to give you a sort of demonstration if you like of some things I discovered using this new method of Shungong. Excuse me. Okay, so first I'll just explain how, how it works or how it's, you know, supposed to work. Because I don't want it to be a little bit of a black box for you. So this is a diagram where you have your various daughter language lexicons that should be machine readable. And this is an important point of his system. They don't have to be like already perfectly aligned for semantics and whatnot. The idea is, you know, most computer based work in historical linguistics has worked with a very small word list and we don't want to do that we want to be proper historical linguists and use as large as possible of lexicons. Okay, so then it goes into this thing, the reconstruction assistant, and then the linguist interacts with it, sort of rerunning software adjusting various things. And then at least in theory, it outputs an etymological dictionary. So, now I'll explain a little bit how it works. Where we have some a tested forms here in a charm in Bola and in model model is called all long to in in Chinese saw in the rest of this presentation I will call it long to. And we have some hypotheses about sound changes. And then the software runs those changes backwards on the attested forms to propose reconstructions. And we see here if we run the software backwards on a Chang Pee, we get these reconstructions as possible so Bay and be a and be a and be and be a, yeah. Whereas if we run them backwards on model we get be, or as I should say be, and be, and be. But if these three words are cognate which we have hypothesized they are the only reconstruction, they will predict all of the attested forms is this one in the middle. So, just to, you know, restate that we run all the sound changes backwards on all of the attested forms. And then we take the intersection of the possible reconstructions. And those are then, you know, if you like the proposed reconstruction used by the software. And one thing that I think it's really brilliant about the system is that the reconstructions are actually never stored anywhere. They're always created on the fly by applying the sound changes to the attested forms. Okay, so now I'll just show you what it's like to use this system. Here are this is the called called the cognitive assignment boards. And here are the various proto forms. And here we see under this proto form, different, you know, proposed proto lexemes with the with the attested forms underneath them. And then this is a slide I can't change anything but if I were really using the software, I would be able to assign, you know, move these around dynamically to to say, actually, I think this proto form belongs with this with this, or rather this attested form belongs with this proto form. And, and the thing that's sort of really nice about this is it's it's brought all the data that could be reconstructed to the same proto form together for me already. So in this way it's it's very easy to find like for instance, more themes inside of compounds that are part of the same inherited, the same inherited, you know, lexeme, if you like, okay. And then here's the other major interface which we call the transducer editor and debugger. So this is where I write my sound changes here on the left. And then the correspondence patterns are automatically calculated based on on on on those sound changes. Yeah, so those sound changes applied to the cognate judgments you just saw. So you can put you can see here it says current is finance a transducer is old, and then switch finance it transducer so you can compare an old one and a new one. In order to, for instance, if I propose a change, I want to know does it help or does it hurt. And actually, one thing that's very nice is if new correspondences become exceptionless. Then they turn green, and you get a smiley face, whereas if my proposal makes things that used to work, if it makes them no longer work, then they turn red and you get a frowny face. So you get very active feedback from the machine about whether your proposed sound changes are good or not, but I'll just emphasize the linguist is making all of the cognate judgments and proposing all of the historical phonology. The computer is not actually doing any thinking, it's just keeping track of the internal consistency of my own work. So, so now I will just move ahead. Okay, so now we want to, you know, apply it actually to Bola, and the, I'll say that let's say subjectively speaking, I find that the system works sort of almost too well.  Yeah, it becomes very burdensome. So, so actually the, the sort of discovery phase, it has become so fast that then writing up the findings becomes what's, you know, annoying. So we're going to look at a few interacting sound changes, none of them are particularly glamorous, but just to sort of show that, I don't know that this approach works also to, you know, to propose some sound changes in the history of Bola. But then with an emphasis on fleeting, sorry, feeding and bleeding relationships in relative chronology. Okay, so two notational conventions and these come directly out of the system, we have this symbol that is like does not turn into, yeah. So, this is just something you'll see in the data that I give, and then a dagger in front of what looks like an attested form. So this means that without the sound change that I'm currently exploring. There's no way to generate the, the actually attested Bola form. So in this case, this word is, you know, no, sorry, I should have said, yeah. So, so that form cannot be generated from any protobermic reconstruction is what is what this way of writing it tells you. Instead, that the form marked with the dagger is what we would have expected by applying all of the sound changes other than the one on under discussion. So, for instance, in this case, this for me is form and this long soup form, which mean dry point to this protobermic form, and this protobermic form would turn into this Bola form occur according to our current sound change proposals. But that is in fact not the real form which is why it's marked with the dagger. Okay, so the other symbol going the other way with the not through it. Is like this. Now what does that mean that means without the sound changing question, one could still arrive at the attested form. But that, but that the proto form that you would need to get this is tested form is not the one you need to get the cognates and other languages. So, in this case, for instance, we have this in Burmese and we have this in long to. And we have this in, in, in Bola, and they all go back to just queue, but without the particular sound change that I'm investigating right now. The Bola form would have to go back instead to, to this different proto vowel. Okay, so, so I think these two conventions are very helpful in terms of increased explicitness so we find out exactly what a particular proposal is contributing to the overall system. So, yeah, so both notation systems show what what it is concretely that goes wrong, if we don't include a particular sound change. Okay, so now I just go on to some sound changes. So here is some kind of a vowel fronting or rounding after media glide. So in general inherited who becomes out in Bola, but it remains who after an inherited yeah. So I think that rather than a sound change like who changes to our except after yeah, which is a little bit finicky. Instead, we should assume that the yeah, change the quality of the valve from who to you. And then this new valve was not targeted by the, the, the change to out. So that so if you buy that explanation we need this change. And without this change. The relevant words in Bola would have to reconstruct to this other vowel, rather than to. But we know that that's not what happened because of the final K in long sue. So I'll just show you now the evidence. And then I've put the word Bola in bold, just because these charts of evidence, you know, have a lot of stuff on them so that your eye will be brought immediately to the to the Bola form. Yeah, so you see here that long sue has a K final K. So we know that the protocol must be but the Bola has not changed to out which usually does. So that's why I proposed this change. Yeah, am I doing okay with time. Okay, so. Next is this change that I've already referred to out so this has to come after the change that we just proposed because the change we just proposed leads this change. And here's evidence it's it's there's lots of evidence you know cry for instance at the bottom, a good to better burn word. It's not in in in Bola but rather is now. Okay. And then we, you know, we've already. So we've created this value in order to get the right performance from our to change. So now we have to get rid of this. This and change back to and, and we, you know, we have to do that or these again these attested Bola forms could not be cognate with these long sue forms. And now a very small change is this is that out the final K becomes a global stop it's hardly worth mentioning, and probably quite late in any case it has to happen after that to our change right because. Yeah, because the K the final K was part of the conditioning environment. Okay, and then we have this. I'm never quite sure, you know, I'm I'm I'm a struggling with so I'm not so great at reading IPA. So in the following cognates the important factor is that the long suit does not point to final, because remember long suit changes to the very famous change in in long suit first discussed by Robins Berlin in the 50s. So, in these cases, long suit doesn't have it has out. So it must go back to a different vowel in in the proto language. So, so I propose that that vowel also becomes now this is a different vowels actually this this changes sort of independent in chronology from the preceding ones mostly except that it this can only happen after the U has done all its stuff including changing into into our yeah because otherwise this this would have fed those changes. And the following examples could have been fed by the change of which is why a reconstruction is possible for Bola without this proposal. So, so here's where the, the notation that the system is pointing to you see is quite nice here it's saying, you know, I can't get the attested Bola form. Instead the attested Bola form should have been this unless we unless we include the sound change. And as here it's saying, oh, I could get this. I could get this attested Bola form, but it would have to come from a different proto form than the proto form that the other languages are pointing to. So, I think that kind of subtle distinction is nice output of using the caper program so so so we need this sound changing order to get these attested forms. We don't need the sound change in order to get these attested forms but we do need the sound change in order for these attested forms to be cognate with, for instance, with the old Burmese and the long suit forms that you see on the screen in front of you. Okay, and then. Lastly, you know the the the advantage of all, you know, precise work in in the historical analogy is that we can identify loan words right so because the outcome in long so here is irregular showing who rather than out. And if you like showing who rather than oak, which are the outcomes in long so of either proto or proto, you know, oh, that means that in fact, there's no way for us to get these words. And then you see they're actually extremely close between the different languages. So, I think the fact that none of our historical phonology can get us these forms, and the forms just to phonetically synchronically are extremely close across the languages suggest that they're loan words now I don't necessarily know what you know language they're from. Is it long so borrowed it from Bolo or Bola borrow from long so or maybe both borrowed it from some other language and I would point out just from my knowledge of Burmese which is not very good that who means happy in Burmese and means matter or fair in Burmese. So, my guess is that these are the loan words from Burmese into both of these languages. So, yeah, so that's sort of the, you know, I thought so let's say just to sum up what what we've done I introduced this software package designed by gongshun and then rewritten by Seth Knights and shown you how I've been using it to explore the the history of Bola, and in particular, relative chronology of sound changes in Bola. These feeding and bleeding relationships and, and, you know, this is only one small part of Bola historic phenology that I've that I've been able to explore using this method. But I think this shows some nice interactions between sound changes mostly to do with the value and and similar phenomena. And once we've worked out the relative chronology. And we have used it also to identify some loan words, probably from Burmese into these languages that can be now separated out and not considered cognate anymore. And that's, that's my whole presentation. Yeah. Yeah, so let me just say like if you're getting started in the first place. Yeah. What it needs is it needs. Some lexical lists that are in IPA where the semantics have been aligned somehow. Yeah, like. So for example, you know, in the step project in Berkeley they already digitized the Sun Hongkai. And the big Huang Bufan book. Yeah. So the easiest thing to do because those are already in IPA already semantically aligned is you can just use any, any, any data in there is already sort of ready to go if you like, yeah. If you want to use data that's not in there, then you need to prepare it yourself. And what that means is it needs to be in IPA, and somehow the semantics need to be aligned. Now the way we would recommend to do that is there's a thing that the Max Planck Institute has called. Oh, the concept to con it's called yeah. And this is a is a kind of standardized way of referencing semantics, and they provide some software tools that help you to do that also automatically. And those software tools also include Chinese. So, so basically, if you start from a list that is just like, let's say, two columns, one is IPA and one is the meaning in Chinese. Then you could run some Python script over the meaning of Chinese, it would assign it to a reference in the concept icon. Then you would have to check that. And if once you had done that, it's ready to put in our system. So yeah, so now you said, do you have to have any sound change proposals in the beginning. No, is the answer but you do have to have cognate judgments, right. So if you're starting, let's say you, these are two languages no one has ever worked on just pretend. How do you get that initial those initial cognate judgments. There's also a piece of software that Mattis list has made, which is called link pie. Yeah, and it will do that for you. And it basically it's a kind of, you know, it looks at a phonetic similarity and the and sort of some things we are used to like cook and correspond with Cha and things like that. So it's a kind of like, you know, it's very rough. It only gets about 80% right, I would say. But it's very helpful to save you the time from having to do the very obvious things. Yeah. So if you were really starting from the beginning, you would have those. You know, that a spreadsheet for each language, you would, you would align those semantics, and then you would run link pie over it all. And then you would put that into paper now. So if you like to work on the Burmese languages, we have already digitized everything we can get our hands on, which, which in particular means most of the works by die. So he and his people he works with have published little short grammars, long grammars on, you know, I don't know five or six different languages, and then each one has a vocabulary at the back so some 1000 words some 4000 words we've digitized all of that already it's up on the note that you can download it yeah.  Yeah, which are this one and this one. So you can start in either one. Now, if you have that data and those cognate judgments you don't have to have any sound change proposals and you will still get this because this is showing you the patterns. And those patterns exist whether or not you have made any proposals right it's a, it's just a fact that, you know that that, so in this case long suit K corresponds to Bola K in these examples that's just a fact right. So just like that for you. And now, you know, you might, for instance, propose because you know about the work in the litter in the literature you might propose that G becomes K, initially, in both of these languages. So then I write that proposal over here. I have to write it as a finite street transducer which takes a tiny bit of care, but actually the way the syntax of finite state transducers is extremely close to how we already write sound changes in the kind of in the kind of what's it called sound sound patterns of English, you know, notational model that we all learn anyhow. So you write the sound changes there. And then you press this button that says calculate. And then, you know, it will you see. So let me just, I don't know if you can kind of oops if you can just look really close at the screen. What you have here is the tested form, and then you have to reconstructed forms, and the two reconstructed forms are from the old the first one is from the old finite straight state transducer. And the second one is from the new finite state transducer so in this case they're the same, because we're not working on this question. Yeah. If there were. If they say the old one was somehow bad and didn't predict this form there would be an X here. And then if our new proposal or new our news, our new sound change fixes it, then you would get to check and then it would also turn up green. Yeah.  But actually, it's some you know it's not quite as easy as that because you almost always when you propose a sound change, it gives you some things right, but it also breaks some things that have been working. And especially, you know the more refined your sound changes get the more easy it is to break everything.  So, so let's say I work on the transducers a while. So now I have better historical phonology. So this is the moment where I can find new cognates right because think of it this way think of like German sound which means fence and English town. If you're just thinking in the abstract using very strict semantics you would never come up with this. Yeah. But once you figured out the historical phonology, it becomes obvious. And this is where the process that should go calls refishing happens where we take our new sound change proposals, and then we go and we grab the whole lexicon that we have, and we reconstruct all of the proto forms of all of lexical items. And that's when we get back to here. So let's say this was German sound and this was English town or something, it would find that they have the same reconstruction, and then it would put them next to each other on this board. And then that's where the computer is really being helpful because it says, Well, now sound has the same proto form as town. Do you want to put them together. It would have them in different columns. And then I decide okay yeah, you know sound town, you know maybe a town is a thing with a fence around it so I can propose it. Yeah. But, you know, maybe one of the words means chalk and one of the words means cheese, then I might say oh it's a coincidence so I won't combine them. Yeah. And that's the way that it that the computer is being helpful is it's really like I improve the historical phonology, then it looks for cognates. And then I get to decide whether I like those cognates or not. And then I have more data, and then maybe I can improve my historical phonology more. If I improve my historical phonology for more it looks for more cognates and, and that's the sort of what's a virtuous circle.


Hey guys, I'm Marissa and today I want to share with you my favorite scripture from the Book of Mormon. So my favorite scripture is found in Mosiah chapter 2 verse 41 and I love this scripture. I'm going to read it to you real fast. It says moreover, I would desire that you should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things both temporal and spiritual and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven that thereby they may dwell with God in the state of never-ending happiness. I love this scripture because I think happiness is something that every single person who has ever lived is searching for and right here we have an exact recipe of how to be happy. It's by following the commandments and enduring to the end or holding out faithful or keeping your promises that you have made God. So just to demonstrate a little story that I like about this. So Gordon B. Hinckley in one of his talks, he shared this story. He says, I recall a bishop telling me of a woman who came to get a temple recommend. When asked if she observed the word of wisdom, she said that she occasionally drank a cup of coffee. She said, now Bishop, you're not going to let me let that keep me from going to the temple, are you? To which he replied, sister, surely you will not let a cup of coffee stand between you and the house of the Lord. And so the commandments are something that I think get misinterpreted a lot. Commandments are something that aren't easy, but are the easy things always, but the easy things often aren't always the ones that are worth it. The things that are worth are the hard things, and I really do know that keeping the commandments makes us happy. I've had times where I keep the commandments and when I don't, and I notice a really big difference in my life when I do keep the commandments. I'm so much happier. So I love that scripture because it really teaches me that if I want to be truly happy and if I want the kind of happiness that lasts, I know exactly what I need to do, just to follow the commandments and do what he's asked me. I also like that it says that if we hold out faithful to the end, we'll be received in heaven to dwell in this day of never-ending happiness.  I'm going to think about the things that mattered and the things that I enjoyed and I'm going to be in a better place. I'm going to be looking back and be proud of myself. That's my goal. So I encourage you guys to read this scripture and ponder it and think about it. Do you want to be happy?


Hello and welcome to NewsClick and to this conversation with Prabir Purkayashta on last Sunday's referendum victory for President Erdogan of Turkey. Prabir, welcome to the program. The narrow victory is expected to give President Erdogan wide-ranging powers and the fear is that this will sort of undermine the Turkish Republic. Can you give us a sense of what is it that Erdogan is planning to implement with this referendum victory? Well, I don't think the issue is what Erdogan is planning to referendum but what's the powers that this referendum has given him and this powers essentially gives it an executive presidency which means President Holz is head of the state and the head of the government which it wasn't earlier. It also allows the president to belong to a political party which again the earlier president was supposed not to be here to sever his relations with the party once he became the president. So you are supposed to be neutral in terms of parties which also is now been taken away. I think the most significant parts of it is apart from being a presidential form of government is also allowed to get the judges he wants. So out of the courts which is about 15 judges, 12 would then be selected by him and the council of ministers of course report only to the president. So this is one part of it. The second part of it is that also he can he has the right to issue presidential decrease and those decrease have in some sense legal powers. So it also cuts down what the constitutional preserve of the parliament is which is to enact laws. So he can issue a decrease which are not in against the laws and those decrease will have the power of the law. So he has therefore expanded the presidential powers to an extent that we can only call it electoral elected dictatorship. And therefore I would say that this referendum is allowing Erdogan to exercise what would be called a constitutional coup. Of course it comes into operation in 2019 when the next elections takes place. But essentially this will undermine whatever the constitutional structure which Turkey had from 1980. And what we are now likely to see is essentially elected dictatorship. The sanctified by a vote of course but nevertheless allowing him to exercise powers far beyond what a presidential form of government also does. So the checks and balances of the system within the executive, the judiciary all this is going to be completely disturbed by what Erdogan's referendum has done. So now the margin of victory is only 2 percent and the vote is yet to be confirmed but a series of opposition parties have sort of put out statements questioning the validity of the referendum itself. Apparently international observers have stated that this was not done under sort of international conditions for a referendum. Can you throw some light on what are the complaints that opposition parties are raising? Well there are three major complaints. Let us take the most immediate one first which is that unstamped ballot papers were accepted by the electoral board which conducted the referendum and unstamped ballot papers to the tune of 1.5 million. This is what the figures that we have have been accepted by the electoral board. The margin of victory is only 1.38 million. So why during the referendum, not even earlier during the referendum the electoral board would have accepted unstamped ballot papers is not clear to anybody. This seems to be a direct violation. The argument is that we are not sure of winning the referendum and therefore this move to accept unstamped ballot papers which also means the possibility of electoral fraud. So this is one argument which is there. The second argument is that the between the yes vote and the no vote. The it was a completely unlevel fielder if you will. So the yes voters of course in the full run of everything they could go anywhere hold meetings. They had the radio, they had the television. So it was also a complete state support for the yes vote while the no voters were not allowed to hold meetings, they did not have access to the radio, television and so on. And do not forget 160 media outlets have been closed in the last one year or so. So Eddogan has already taken out a lot of the media opposition to him. And therefore what you had was a completely situation where the yes voters, Eddogan supporters and the parties which supported him had complete one way access to the electorate while the others did not. So this is the second part and the third and this is also a serious one which is all the 18 amendments which were placed were voted as one block. Now this is very unusual when you have 18 amendments to the constitution. So to say that each of the amendments should have had a yes no sanction, instead of that it was you omnibus yes no vote. This also has been argued is not something which a normal referendum should have been for a constitutional amendment, a set of constitutional amendments. So these are I think three major issues that are there. Turkey is a very critical country both for Europe and Asia. On the one hand it is a member of the OECD, it is a member of NATO, it has been trying for several years to get into the EU. On the other hand in terms of the West Asian conflict, Syria for instance, Turkey is a very critical player, it has the largest number of Syrian refugees. What does all this mean in terms of the future, the Kurdish question for example? Let us first see Turkey's position in the world today. Now Turkey has a position vis-a-vis Europe, has a position vis-a-vis West Asia. It could be a gateway between Europe and Asia if it wanted to. But unfortunately it seems to have been playing a new Ottoman role vis-a-vis West Asia at least in the last 5-6 years that we are seeing, particularly with the Syrian crisis. So instead of being a gateway between Europe and West Asia which is what earlier they were talking about, they seem now to have decided the need to increase their sway over West Asia. And let us not forget the AKP is really Muslim Brotherhood. So this is the Ikhwan in some form and therefore they are wanting to support the Ikhwan, the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, supporting the insurgents in Syria and lining up with essentially Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the other Gulf monarchies against what they saw as a secular government of Bashar al-Assad. What Eddogan has got himself into in Syria is the one which is going to dominate what we are likely to see. And there what you said is right, the Kurdish issue is a very key one and HDP as you know has been virtually banned in Turkey. Its leaders are in jail, both the co-founders, the co-leaders of the party have been charged with various crimes are in jail for from November onwards, a number of their parliamentarians are in jail. So HDP which is the key party today in the Kurdish areas which is also a large left and secular support inside Turkey is the one which has been under attack. Also under attack and essentially a military attack has been the PKK or the Kurdish area. So the ceasefire which had taken place about few years back, the ceasefire has now disappeared and Turkey is again in a state of civil war in the Kurdish areas. So how will this play out is I think the far more important question that Turkish relation to Europe which are virtually now sundered and what is Turkish relations going to be with NATO. Turkey at the moment is playing a game of keeping relationship with the NATO as well as trying to dicker with Russia. I think this has to be seen which way Eddogan is now going to go. He I think at the moment would like to play both sides that is the way it is. But having enmeshed himself on the Kurdish question in this civil war situation, looking at the Kurdish groups in Syria who are now asking for autonomous region within Syria, a federal government if you will. I think this is going to be the crux of Eddogan's problem how he resolves it because on one side the Kurdish Kurds are being supported by the Americans, other side Syria, Iran, Hezbollah is with the Bashar al-Assad government and the allies of Eddogan were really the ISIS and the al-Qaeda forces and what are called the Free Syrian Army. Now this is the one which how long Eddogan can support already has come out against ISIS in some form, how long he can continue with this alliance and continue the military intervention Syria we will have to see. It does give him the ability to disentangle himself if he wants, but given the Kurdish question and the role Eddogan is playing it is not it is not likely that he is going to make up with the Kurdish PKK or the Kurdish forces. It seems he wants to establish a completely unitarian, majoritarian democracy if you will democracy within courts. Comparisons that are being made between Modi in India and Eddogan in Turkey and do you see this as a bit tenuous or do you see sort of parallels between what's happening in Turkey and what the future holds for in India given that the BJP now has control or will soon have control over the upper house as well. Well let's put it this way there are certain similarities and also certain dissimilarities and both have to be taken into account in terms of political ideological positioning if you will. Both are expressing majoritarian forms of court and court democracy. They believe that if you have the votes if you have the majority then the minorities rights can be taken away and the voice of the majority should be the only voice heard. This is the in some sense the underlying similarity between the what the BJP is and what the AKP and Eddogan are. The difference is that Eddogan has already had an emergency in fact this entire referendum was held under emergency which has been now going on after the military coup that took place and he's already put about 400,000 people put them behind bars at some point or the other. A large number are still behind bars 125,000, 30,000 people have been sacked from government service and school teachers, college teachers and so on. He's closed down as I said early 160 media outlets major journalists are in jail or have been or have really left the country. So you have a situation already where the democracy that the structure of democracy as we know it to be has already been dismantled by Eddogan and this is the constitutional completion of that if you will. I think India is not that simple because India we have from 1947 a democratic structure the constitutional structure which has been built. There are the states which are also powerful there is a federal power power structure if you will and you have also the judgments of the Supreme Court talking about the basic structure of the constitution that you cannot dismantle it just by parliamentary degree. So these are some of the protections we have which will certainly see that it's not very easy to do go the Eddogan way. The democratic structure was relatively weak in Turkey which is allowed Eddogan now to do what he has done. I think that's not going to be so easy in India and I think the basic structure of the Indian democracy with the people who are who have always valued their power not only the power of vote but also the power of expression. I think that is not so easy to overcome the way Eddogan has done it in Turkey. Don't forget India is 1.2 billion people and Turkey is relatively much smaller. So even size in this case does matter politically. Thanks Rebi for sharing your views. Newsclick will be covering these issues in West Asia closely and we hope to get back to you with more such analysis. Thank you for watching Newsclick.


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Hello and welcome to the Dave Trumbo show presented by Buffalo Wildlings. I'm Greg Royce shown by Stevenson Beach volleyball head coach Dave Trumbo. Coach last weekend you went down to the small college national championships and event even attended every year, but this year it was sanctioned by the ABCA so a little bit bigger of a deal a little bit bigger of an event and You were able to go to an own pool play and vanced the finals in the bracket You know beat Warner twice and then reach the finals, but then ran into a very strong Weber team Yeah, it's you know, I'm happy we got to the finals disappointed that we didn't win Yeah, I was proud of the way that we played We came went down there and we're able to and last time we played Weber I think we talked last time excuse me last time we played Warner Yeah, it all the matches went three. Yeah, and so this time that didn't happen But we barely beat them three to two. Yeah, we beat a pretty good team from San Diego City College We beat Warner and the way it stacked up We end up getting a buy after the first day And so Warner had to play a third match on that Saturday But they won it and the way the pointer French worked out.  But the the ones threes and fours again beat them just like they did the day before a little bit closer At the ones it went three on a can Jang at the ones lost the first game and they had to win the second and third But the threes and our fours took care of business. Yeah, so then we got to the finals and like you said the AVCA is taking this over It's really is a big deal And we got to want we got to Weber in the finals Somebody we had beaten three to two on our Florida spring break trip But I think that kind of upset them a little bit because we had never taken off set from a match from them at all And then we beat him three to I really thought we had a great chance at all five of our pairs Yeah, unfortunately it went, you know Annika and Jang at ones lost twenty one nineteen twenty one nineteen at the twos It went three And they had the match They end up losing the second set after winning the first set twenty eight twenty six That was Lauren weaver and Katie Lefford. So it was close, right? Even though it was four to one. It was very close Congratulations to our fours Julie Knight wine and Victoria Prokic who went four and oh Down there in at the small college national championship. So good showing. Yeah, we nobody really wanted to carry the trophy through the airport Because it said runner-up Yeah, I've had the opportunity to carry a couple of those championship trophies in the airport. That's always a fun time Yeah, except it said runner-up. So even I turned it towards me so people could see Because we don't like coming in second. Yeah And I was like you said, you know matches very close Like you said we talked about you know on your Florida trip when you played Warner was five nothing But all the matches went three, you know, same thing Sounds like against Weber where you beat him last time and a couple matches just swung those couple points They were able to get the win. Right. Yeah, we we felt pretty good about the threes Darien, Ohioman and Jesse Freeman they had won 11 matches in a row. Yeah, and they had beaten these guys It went three when we play they played Weber and they but they didn't feel like they played well So they they were feeling pretty good going in they just did not have a good day Yeah, I mean when you win 11 in a row like that at the threes But you win 11 in a row you're feeling pretty confident going in and unfortunately it didn't work out for them and That day. Yeah. All right now shifting gears to this weekend Now you head out to Illinois have four matches pretty wide range of opponents I'm including division one opponent facing a more head state while you're out there in addition to You know an AI program a division three program So just talk about the range of opponents you'll face out there this weekend Yeah, it's it's we've never been out there. I think it might be a little even chillier than it is here But and we're playing at 9 a.m.  So we're really looking forward to that match and You know, I I think that you know, I thought in Florida took us a little while to get warmed up because we had been offered two Weekends as far as it's a different gear in competition.  So, you know, I'm thinking we're ready I think we're ready this weekend after playing the weekend before in Florida. Yeah, absolutely All right, coach. We wish the best of luck this weekend and safe travels and we'll talk to you next week. Thanks, Greg All right for Dave Trumbo. I'm Greg Royce. This has been the Dave Trumbo show


Well, we'll be talking more about North Korea in a moment. First, let's just focus on the Middle East. And for that, I'm joined by William Taylor, a former State Department official who's now with the U.S. Institute of Peace. You've just flown back, actually, today from Afghanistan. President Trump said his top national priority was dealing with Islamic status. Is he getting the right way about it? Apparently, he's had some success in Afghanistan on reducing the numbers of the Islamic State fighters, and we've seen today, yesterday, that this big bomb is focused on that without any civilian casualties that we know of so far. So that's a strong step. He gave his generals, I think, 30 days to come up with a strategy to defeat the Islamic State. What have we learned so far? Is it really just very similar to what Obama did, but with more cash? General McMaster, as your report indicated, is enroute out there right now. He's well respected. He's spent a lot of time in Afghanistan, knows it well, knows the challenges. He's part way through a review to come up with a new strategy. And we will see, I think, shortly what kind of strategy he comes up with. And just staying with Afghanistan, I mean, does that mean more troops? Because he has asked for a few thousand more, perhaps. Not a huge surge. General Nicholson has asked for several thousand more, not a surge, as you say, but some additional troops that would allow him to put Americans down a layer or two in the Afghan army, the Afghan national forces. This would help them, the Afghan national forces, do what they need to do. But I think General McMaster is going to evaluate that request. I don't think that decision has been made yet. It's moving, of course, to the Middle East now. I mean, it's a truism, isn't it, that you can't defeat Islamic State just militarily. I think that's very important. That's the important question in Afghanistan as well as in Syria. The Afghanistan situation is such that there's a well-developed, or developing military strategy for the defeat of ISIS and trying to get control of Taliban. There needs to be, this is what our sense was at the Institute of Peace, there needs to be a corresponding political strategy. They've got elections coming up, they have negotiations possibly with the Taliban. That needs to be integrated in with a stronger military. Yeah, but so much ground that had been taken by the coalition in Afghanistan has now been re-taken by the Taliban who are fighting Islamic State. The Taliban are supporting the Islamic State in some sense. We're getting back to where we were earlier, where the Taliban was providing refuge, support for terrorist organizations, including the Islamic State in Afghanistan. So we're focused on Islamic State, also trying to figure out how we can either co-opt or defeat the Taliban. Okay. We'll leave that. Thank you very much. Thank you.