Planet Word, Washington D.C.

A new museum in Washington, D.C., is Planet Word, a place dedicated to words, mostly English words (though plenty of other words from other languages sneak in, kinda like English). We visited on a recent Saturday.

Sign around the corner from the entrance

The museum bills itself as an "immersive language experience." It certainly has lots of interactive exhibits, even outside with Speaking Willow, an aluminum sculpture with little bell-shaped speakers that activate when a visitor comes within camera range. Each of the 364 speakers broadcasts a different language.  

Speaking Willow

Another outdoor sculpture is a person made out of letters. 

Many alphabets, one human

Inside, the experience starts on the third floor with a twenty-foot tall wall of words. Through an ingenious use of lights and narrative, visitors experience the various roots of the English language and have a chance to interact. The narrator asks questions and small microphones let visitors respond when the color wheel shows up on the wall.

Wall of words

Onomatopoetic words and the color wheel

A poorly-lit selfie

A better selfie

The next room has The Spoken World, with various screens representing the languages in the countries on the globe in front of it. As the speaker describes the quirks of their language (because every language has quirks), occasional images show up on the globe.

German information from native Nina

Wolof information from native Mariame

The main exhibit on the second floor is the Library, with many interactive signs, a lot of books to read, and a secret room. The ceiling is mirrored to make it look twice as big!

The library dark and quiet

A saying on the wall

That book case is sticking out!

The Word Worlds room has electronic paint brushes that paint with words like hibernal, tempestuous, crepuscular, and other creative adjectives. "Painting" the walls with the brushes will change the images to match the terms, creating a winter scene or a storm or whatever. My kids had a lot of fun changing the images, especially with the surreal paint that changed airplanes into dragons and houses into castles.

An ever changing landscape

Joking Around is a humor gallery that has a "guess the phrase" game along with joke challenge tables where two visitors face off in trying to make each other laugh.

Fruit punch

Horsing around

In the dog house

Two on one does not seem fair

A nearby room features karaoke and explains how lyricists come up with great songs.

No video, sorry!

The first floor has the obligatory gift shop and an exhibit on how advertisers use language to catch people's attention. Visitors can even make their own ads!

Using real ads

My son "Visitor" made this ad

In the Words Matter room, visitors can see various words that people find special for various reasons. Visitors are invited to add words on other walls.

Love those foreign words!

The building originally was the Franklin School, one of the early public schools built in the District of Columbia. It opened its doors in 1869. An exhibit shows the layout back then, along with pictures of the students.

Once an education building, always an education building!

The building also has a small free library out front.

Take a book, leave a book!

The other bit of trivia about the building is how the first wireless telephone call was made from the top floor, in 1880! Alexander Graham Bell was the inventor of the photophone before he invented the telephone. So the phone used light to send the message.

Historic plaque

Dora The Explorer in Germany

No, this is not some double-length episode available only on DVD coming in 2006! It's one of the things we saw during a trip to Germany. J was sick on the last day, so we stayed at the hotel and watched some TV. They have a German Nick Jr. channel and on it is Dora the Explorer, simply called Dora.

Anyone who has seen the English version of the show knows that a central element is Dora's bi-lingual life. She speaks English and Spanish, as do some of her friends. A few only speak Spanish, notably the transportation guru Tico the Squirrel. If Dora needs a boat, car, or hot air balloon, Tico is sure to show up in the nick of time to help her out.

The odd thing about the German version of the show is that Dora speaks perfect German. Even odder was the part of the episode where they needed some transportation and Tico showed up spouting the perfectly English phrase, "Hi guys, I can take you where you need to go!" Hearing Tico speak English was flabbergasting to me and my wife. The children were unphased by this shocking turn of events. English is clearly the second "bi-lingual" language in the German version.

To see a list of the international versions of Dora with their language pairs, go here.

Naughts and Zeds: Britishisms in America

Naughts and Zeds is an ongoing series of posts on the differences between language, culture, and everyday items in America and in Britain. For a list of previous posts, go here.

Ever wonder about the words and phrases attributed to the British and sometimes used in America? I remember being surprised during Mark Kermode's review of The Avengers that he thought Loki used a rather R-rated word at one point. I believe he described it as "a very Anglo-Saxon swear word." When I saw the movie, I didn't notice anything. But it is explained on a web site dedicated to Not One-Off Britishisms. I should warn you that the post does translate it into current R-rated slang.

This is the blog's self-description:

 Over the last decade or so, an alarming number of traditionally British expressions have found their way into the American vocabulary. This page offers a growing list of Britishisms that have been widely adopted in the U.S.–that is, they are not “one-offs.”  Each entry offers a definition/American equivalent, followed by quotes representing the first and most recent American usages I’ve found.

It's another good resource to understand the differences and samenesses of our shared language!

h/t to Happy Catholic who posted about Streets Ahead!

Jacob's Lingo

Jacob is getting better and more creative at expressing himself orally.

Lately I've been trying to warn him if he won't be able to play with something soon. I have a nice microphone for podcasting that looks just like the microphone Bruce Springsteen uses in a video Jacob likes. Jacob discovered the mike in the study and quite often begged to go there to sing. I wasn't crafty enough to record him singing, since that would require turning the computer on and a host of other complications and distractions. Anyway, I was done with podcast recording and had decided to put the microphone away the next day. So I told Jacob he wouldn't get to play with it after that day. He went nuts and said, "I don't want to play with the microphone anymore! Put it away! PUT IT AWAY!!" I tried to explain that he had the rest of the day, but he wouldn't hear it. So I put it away. Similar incidents have happened with library toys and puzzles that had to go back. Even though he is upset, he usually doesn't get violent (occasionally a toy gets tossed across a room) and he is pretty coherent.

Some phrases are less coherent and sound like idioms translated directly from another language. At the store the other day, I was talking to Jacob and then Lucy demanded my attention. In order to switch me back, Jacob said, "Come back with your face!" That certainly got my attention since it took me a little moment to parse it. What did he mean? Where did he get that from? Mommy and I never said anything like that before.

The worst examples are when your children repeat things back to you. On a typical morning, getting socks, shoes, and jackets on two toddlers is more of a challenge than it should be. I find my patience bleeding away as one child will get socks and shoes and then run off while the other child finally decides to come, sit, and be shod. As this was going on the other day, Jacob grinned and said to me, "You kids are killing me!" I almost asked him where he heard that before. The answer came to me in an instant--me. At least it wasn't swearing, which I only do in my head on rare occasions. Luckily, the kids can't read minds. Then I would be in trouble.

Conversations with Jacob certainly are fun. I'm looking forward to what he will come up with next.

L's Lingo

Language skills are coming fast and furious for L. She is getting more adept at telling us what she wants ("cracker" or "milk" or "juice"). At her godparents' home, she was able to identify a wide range of stuffed animals, including a whale, a giraffe, and a lion. She's great at asking for cell phones and knows how to hold them up to her ear and say "hello" and "goodbye." She hasn't figured out how to dial them, for which we are grateful.

Lucy says my name a lot!

L is developing a lot of skill with contractions. Her favorite sentence structure is "It's _____," where the blank could be any number of words. When I get up in the morning and she sees me, "It's Daddy!" If she can't get some toy out of a box or a granola bar from inside its wrapper, "It's stuck!" If she sees a certain toy/sticker/video/doll, "It's Diego!" She hasn't done much with "I'm" other than "I'm poopy." She makes that claim often, and quite often erroneously. On the other hand, she's always dead right when we drive around the corner to our house and says, "We're here!"

Lu has also created a new contraction. As she grows bigger and more capable, she wants to do things on her own. Whether it's walking up or down the stairs, getting into chairs, or using forks or spoons, she often warns us off by saying "by'self." That's her way of saying that she wants to do it "by myself." She's so cute when she says it, how can a parent say no? So far, she hasn't wanted to do anything too dangerous yet. Hopefully it stays that way.

With all these skills, it's not long before L and J start plotting together. World domination, here they come!