Weekly News Splatter: May 2, 2010

Coming off the appearance of Foreign Accent Syndrom in the news splatter last week, we have another story of a rare neurolinguistic disorder from Discovery news: bilingual aphasia. The details on this one seem fuzzy and apparently the original story has not been vigorously fact-checked yet, but apparently a Croatian girl who was in the process learning German emerged from a coma with only her second language skills intact. One of the linguists interviewed for the story, Michel Paradis, wrote a book on the subject which is available online (apparently for free?). It's not an easy read, but the first few chapters are interesting.

We also have a thought provoking segment from WNYC's On The Media, about the growing multilingual nature of the internet. Personally, I found the tone a little too hopeful, like we could (or should) prevent the Internet from becoming just an extension of the real world. Maybe it's the anarchist streak in me, but I like to think that I would have helped set the demolition charges on the Tower of Babel.