Saturday, October 29, 2005

extinct - languages

thoughts and notes on inventing a new alien language for literary use

site:www.ethnologue.com extinct - Google Search

It is 25 years since I did a do it yourself course in linguistics by ordering masses of books on inter-library loan

I taught myself Faeroese, when there was no dictionary to or from english available,
with help from an old Klaksvik farmer and a child's ABC and a bible, and in Tórshavn from a retired teacher and a course for native speakers of danish.

So I got to learn about Chomsky and grammars

start here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chomsky_hierarchy


eg
They generate exactly all languages that can be recognized by a Turing machine
then look at
Post-Chomsky's linguistics

Morphology (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics) 2nd Edition (Paperback)
by Peter H. Matthews, S. R. Anderson (Series Editor), J. Bresnan (Series Editor), B. Comrie (Series Editor), W. Dressler (Series Editor), C. J. Ewen (Series Editor) "In the traditional view of language, words are put together to form sentences..." (more)


If you develope an instinct for morphology you can see if a word belongs to a language or not

googling onwards:-

Distributed Morphology
A complete overview of the theory of the architecture of grammar.
www.ling.upenn.edu/~rnoyer/dm/

Distributed Morphology:
Frequently Asked Questions List

so START WITH

http://www.answers.com/morpheme

eg
In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest language unit that carries a semantic interpretation. Morphemes are, generally, a distinctive collocation of phonemes (as the free form pin or the bound form -s of pins) having no smaller meaningful members.

English example: The word "unbelievable" has three morphemes "un-", (negatory) a bound morpheme, "-believe-" a free morpheme, and "-able". "un-" is also a prefix, "-able" is a suffix. Both are affixes.


As a genealogist and family historian specialising in Scandinavian links to USA for example
I often have to sort out mis-spelled place names in Denmark

So after learning danish for 25 yeasr I instinctively recognise non-danish morphemes in a US english version of a danish surname or place name.

JURGEN STRUMSHOLT is a US version of Jørgen Strømsholt

AKA Otto Stromholt in Phoenix USA
finding him in the Ellis Island database took weeks

Remember that english is a subset of the sounds a baby can do
and listen for example to some tapes of bushmen language, early all clicks,
which you will have difficulty hearing the subtilties of, let alone reproducing or writng them down.

eg googling
phoneme bushman click

Kung Bushman language, which is now known to exceed Ubykh by 34 consonants. ...

The Bushmen or San peoples of South Africa and neighbouring Botswana and Namibia, who live in the Kalahari, are part of the Khoisan group and are related to the Khoikhoi. However, they only recently have agreed on a collective name for themselves: ABATHWA. They have a manual communication system that they use while hunting.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=ABATHWA.&btnG=Google+Search



Pan South African Language Board has said:-
Abathwa and Seroa are only two of the African languages that have already become
extinct.
so rather than invent new why not preserve an old as a literary device

compare LATIN
no longer a family language anywhere

but still useful


see also
http://www.ethnologue.com/
lists many lost languages

thoughts and notes on inventing a new alien language for literary use

Anak Krakatau son of the big bang

"Anak Krakatau" - Google Image Search

CVO Website - 1883 Eruption of Krakatau Volcano, Indonesia: "
USGS/Cascades Volcano Observatory, Vancouver, Washington "

American Civil Liberties Union

ACLU - Google Search: "American Civil Liberties Union"
keeping USA secular and free

Monday, October 24, 2005

Kernicterus

Hvidovre Hospital





Introduktion til Fødeafdelingens hjemmeside:


NORD - National Organization for Rare Disorders, Inc.:

"Kernicterus is a rare neurological disorder characterized by excessive levels of bilirubin in the blood (hyperbilirubinemia) during infancy. Bilirubin is an orange-yellow bile pigment that is a byproduct of the natural breakdown of hemoglobin in red blood cells (hemolysis). Toxic levels of bilirubin may accumulate in the brain, potentially resulting in a variety of symptoms and physical findings. These symptoms may include lack of energy (lethargy), poor feeding habits, fever, and vomiting. Affected infants may also experience the absence of certain reflexes (e.g., Moro reflex, etc.); mild to severe muscle spasms including those in which the head and heels are bent backward and the body bows forward (opisthotonus); and/or uncontrolled involuntary muscle movements (spasticity). In some cases, infants with kernicterus may develop life-threatening complications."















Stine Barseø Kristoffersen


4 days old
she was very sleepy and
bilrubin test reasults are awaited

Kernicterus

did not feed for 7 hours
so has a tube

Gynækologisk-Obstetrisk Afdeling
Kettegård Allé 30, 2650 Hvidovre, Danmark.

Tlf.(+45) 3632 3632,


Bilirubin Encephalopathy - Google Search

Bilirubin Encephalopathy: "The patient is a 2-year-old boy with developmental delay due to sequelae from the resorption of large cephalohematomas sustained as a result of vacuum extraction during delivery. He initially had seizures, which resolved approximately 1 year previously but experienced recurrence of seizure activity after he was taken off his antiseizure medications"



with big sister Freja aged 5

MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia: Jaundice - yellow skin: "Physiologic jaundice is the name for normal jaundice commonly seen in healthy babies.
Pathologic jaundice is the name given when jaundice presents a health risk, either because of its degree or its cause. Pathologic jaundice can occur in children or adults. It arises for many reasons, including blood incompatibilities, blood diseases, genetic syndromes, hepatitis, cirrhosis, bile duct blockage, other liver diseases, infections, or medications. The term also applies to physiologic jaundice exaggerated by dehydration, prematurity, difficult delivery, or other reason."



hvidovre hospital - Google Search

her mother also had neonatal jaundice and Kernicterus


A feeding tube is a small, soft, plastic tube placed through the nose (NG) or mouth (OG) into the stomach. These tubes are used to provide feedings and medications into the stomach until the baby can take food by mouth.

WHY IS A FEEDING TUBE USED?

Feedings from the breast or bottle require strength and quite a bit of coordination to accomplish. Sick or premature babies may not have the strength, development, or coordination to bottle or breastfeed. Tube (gavage) feedings allow the baby to get some or all of their feeding into the stomach, which is the most efficient and safest way to provide good nutrition. Oral medications can also be given through the tube.

AKA Gavage tube

neonatal jaundice management - Google Search Kernicterus

neonatal jaundice management - Google Search

P.I.C.K. - Parents of Infants and Children with Kernicterus: "Kernicterus is a preventable neurologic disorder caused by newborn jaundice that can result in cerebral palsy, auditory processing problems (AN), gaze and vision abnormalities, and dental enamel hypoplasia. Newborn jaundice affects 60% of newborns in the United States each year and is the number one reason for hospital readmission during the first week of life. In the last ten to fifteen years, changes such as relaxed jaundice management guidelines, shortened hospital stays and reduced concern about jaundice in general have led to an increase in cases of excessive jaundice and acute and chronic kernicterus.

The long-term effects of excessive jaundice on the newborn brain can range from subtle (clumsiness, minor fine-motor deficits and sometimes slight AN) to severe (quadriplegia, total hearing loss, non-verbal). A few weeks after the severe jaundice incident, parents are typically able to identify abnormal newborn behaviors including poor feeding, irritability, sleep difficulty and muscle tone fluctuations. In addition, several secondary medical conditions are associated with kernicterus: severe reflux, sleep disturbances, respiratory infections and chronic constipation"


Management Neonatal Hyperbilirubinemia - Google Search

Chapter 1. Introduction: "However, there is continued concern that the rise in early hospital discharges, coupled with a rise in breastfeeding rates, has led to a rise in the rate of preventable kernicterus resulting from 'unattended to' hyperbilirubinemia (Sentinel Event Alert, 2001). A report published in 2002 (Johnson, Bhutani, and Brown, 2002), based on a national registry established since 1992, reported only 90 cases, although the efficiency of case ascertainment is not clear. Thus, there are no data to reliably establish incidence trends for either hyperbilirubinemia or kernicterus.
Despite these constraints, there has been substantial research on the neurodevelopmental outcomes of hyperbilirubinemia and its prediction and treatment. Subsequent sections of this review describe in more detail the precise study questions and the existing published work in this area."

Phototherapy should be instituted when the total serum bilirubin level is at or above 15 mg per dL (257 µmol per L) in infants 25 to 48 hours old, 18 mg per dL (308 µmol per L) in infants 49 to 72 hours old, and 20 mg per dL (342 µmol per L) in infants older than 72 hours. Few term newborns with hyperbilirubinemia have serious underlying pathology. Jaundice is considered pathologic if it presents within the first 24 hours after birth, the total serum bilirubin level rises by more than 5 mg per dL (86 µmol per L) per day or is higher than 17 mg per dL (290 µmol per L), or an infant has signs and symptoms suggestive of serious illness. The management goals are to exclude pathologic causes of hyperbilirubinemia and initiate treatment to prevent bilirubin neurotoxicity. (Am Fam Physician 2002;65:599-606,613-4. Copyright© 2002 American Academy of Family Physicians.)

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Storyopolis About Us

Welcome to Storyopolis.com

Storyopolis About Us

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