Final #HDLS14 plenary: Catherine Rhodes, UNM prof, on Institutionalizing jach maaya in the Yucatan Today — as language fortification (cf revitalization); these languages are VITAL, but they’re being FORTIFIED Rhodes starts with a DOPE vignette about jach maaya, or pure maaya; she used one term for airplane, her interlocutor used a spanish-origin term & commented “oh you use jach maaya [pure maaya]”
I yelped in excitement, as I investigate analogous discourses in Malayalam! #HDLS14

Next up: Dr Melanie McKay-Cody “Our Past and Present in Linguistic Study of Intergenerational Transmission of North American Indian Sign Language” #HDLS14 McKay-Cody starts with a petroglyph which represented a sign used by Plains peoples for prayer. She then shows us a sign dated back to 6000 BCE for "hunger" which is still used in Plains and Great Basin communities #HDLS14

Next up: very excited for the plenary panel on Race, Racism, & Racialization in Sign Language Research and Deaf Studies, moderated by @linasigns (who i’m fortunate to call my collaborator!) & @jaceyhill! panelists: Anna Lim, Dominic Harrison, & David Player #HDLS14 In this conf so far, we’ve been doing a lot of making explicit, examining, and jettisoning problematic assumptions in our linguistic theories/analyses, and i am looking forward to continuing that in this session as well #HDLS14

Alexander Rice presents a corpus study of a gesture in Quichua which looks to American English speakers as “kinda” (5 HS, radial twist), but cocurrs with “absence”; it seems to be an emblem in Ecuador, and it is present across lg communities, incl Ecuadorian Sign Lg #HDLS14 Lauren Clark presents on Altaic influences in Mandarin Chinese word order: she argues that SVO & SOV shouldn’t be thought of categorically! (along the lines of what Natalia Levshina, Alex Kramer, and I + colleagues argued in our SLE workshop & in an upcoming consensus paper!)

Keynote by @ryanlepic now! @ErinWilkinson let’s us KNOW how our influential our Youthful Ryan’s work on ASL morphology had been, especially his excellent @glossa_oa paper!

This is Ryan’s 4th #HDLS, and it’s his fave conf (he’s been trying to get me to go for yearsss) I’m glad that Ryan’s mic is muted bc I’m laughing with joy and glee at this loving intro by Erin! #HDLS14

I was in too many places at once yesterday to livetweet #HDLS14, but i’m gonna try today! i’m especially looking forward to my collaborator/roommate @ryanlepic’s keynote, @c_borstell + @fbisnath’s talk on islands (not that kind!), and @MaureenKosse’s talk on dogwhistles!! first up today @jahochcam, Becker, & Catt on ASL Signbank (funfact: the pronunciation of julie’s last name in Eng. was variable/Germany amongst us hearings, but then my husband @mlipkin interviewed her for @MarketplaceTech & he had to ask her how they should say it (hock-sang!)