Texas' decisions could influence curriculums across the US
Education officials in the US state of Texas have adopted new guidelines to the school curriculum, which critics say will politicise teaching.
The changes include teaching that the UN could be a threat to American freedom, and that the Founding Fathers may not have intended a complete separation of church and state.
Critics say the changes are ideological and distort history.
However, proponents argue they are redressing a liberal bias in education.
Analysts say Texas, with five million schoolchildren, wields substantial influence on school curriculums across the US.
The BBC's Rajesh Mirchandani in Los Angeles says publishers of textbooks used nationally often print what Texas wants to teach.
Jefferson outStudents in Texas will now be taught the benefits of US free-market economics and how government taxation can harm economic progress.
They will study how American ideals benefit the world but organisations such as the UN could be a threat to personal freedom.
And Thomas Jefferson has been dropped from a list of enlightenment thinkers in the world-history curriculum, despite being one of the Founding Fathers who is credited with developing the idea that church and state should be separate.
The doctrine has become a cornerstone of US government, but some religious groups and some members of the Texas Education Board disagree, our correspondent says.
The board, which is dominated by Christian conservatives, voted nine-to-five in favour of adopting the new curriculum for both primary and secondary schools.
But during the discussions some of the most controversial ideas were dropped - including a proposal to refer to the slave trade as the "Atlantic triangular trade".
Opponents of the changes worry that textbooks sold in other states will be written to comply with the new Texas standards, meaning that the alterations could have an impact on curriculums nationwide.
2010-05-22
BBC News - Texas schools to get controversial syllabus
CSR@Intel · Intel's statement on conflict minerals issue
Comments
May 19 | Ann Richmond said:
Though I am truly thrilled at your statement, which I have been directed to and read many times, I am troubled by the recent discussion that Intel is involved in efforts to weaken the Conflict Minerals Bill. I am also troubled by fact that efforts are being made to weaken it, while the estimated cost to tech companies is a mere penny per product to implement as written. (I emailed intel with that estimate, and asked to be corrected if I was wrong. As yet, I have not been corrected.) I don’t know of any consumer who would mind that cost being passed on to them, particularly if it could help to ending the violence in the Congo, even if it included added administrative costs also being passed on. I cannot fathom why this would be considered too burdensome. I have read your statement many times, and I am thrilled at your support of the bill, but feel strongly that if the bill is gutted, it will have no impact. Your support for it then would serve to make you look good, but would not in actuality help the root of the problem. I am a big fan of Intel. I am a big fan of your statement. But I would love to finally hear you address these concerns. I am genuinely concerned, and I am not a “copy and paste troll.” For days, I feel that many of us have been waiting for you to answer. PLEASE do so. I am willing to take on the extra cost, if you could bring yourself to be willing to take on the extra “burden.” People’s lives matter, and if the Congolese conflict were going on in any other part of the world, we wouldn’t stand for it. Please begin to publicly address the concerns that many people are showing!
Respectfully, Ann Richmond
May 19 | Lisa Shannon said:
In a leaked industry memo, your lobby group states, “Because industrial supply chains are complex, and metals may enter an importer’s supply chain several levels below the importer’s first-tier supplier, no importer can be a guarantor the conflict minerals have not entered the supply chain…” What is Intel’s public position on this statement? Do you plan to take full responsibility for your supply chain? Guarantee it? That is the objective of the legislation.
May 19 | Lisa Shannon said:
You industry group is pushing for an escape clause called the “reasonable care defense”. Do you support this clause? Or reject it?
Your group crossed out language that would hold industry accountable for fraud, gross negligence, or negligence. Does Intel fully support tech companies being held accountable for fraud, gross negligence, or negligence when claiming your products are conflict free? Or not?
May 19 | Elizabeth Hopper said:
Dear Intel,
As a concerned consumer, I would like you to publicly respond to the questions raised by Ann Richmond and Lisa Shannon in their comments. I call on you to support the current version of the Congo Conflict Minerals Trade Act, and to see that the bill is passed in its current form. Like many other consumers, I know that I have a choice about which companies I support with my purchases, and corporate social responsibility is a major factor in my purchasing decisions. Because of this, not only is supporting the current version of the Congo Conflict Minerals Trade Act the right thing to do, but it also makes sense from a business standpoint. Thank you for your consideration of my comments.
Sincerely, Elizabeth Hopper
May 19 | Bob Digance said:
I have read your policy and believe that if you are unable to identify the mineral origin you should discontinue using the supplier.
May 19 | Lisa Shannon said:
Hi again, You said you would have the right person here to answer our questions. Any plans to do so? For the record, we said we would be delighted to have a PUBLIC meeting with Intel. Too many of these conversations have happened behind closed doors. We remain hopeful you will come around and claim your place as the definitive industry leader! The price tag is so small- less than 1¢ per product, which your industry does not dispute- it’s hard to imagine what the hold up could possibly be. But we will celebrate you if you come forward presently! Listening to your buyers will make you human rights heroes. Best, Lisa
May 20 | Nathan said:
Dear Intel Corporate Social Responsibility — I am the adoptive father of a Congolese orphan. Our family lives in Portland Oregon, where many Intel production and R&D plants are located. I write on behalf of the 5 million orphans who remain in DRC. They are sisters to my daughter. Most of these orphans lost their parents due to cascading violence resulting from DRC’s political instability — which as you well know, results principally from the local profiteeering derived from unregulated mining.
I write you on a laptop powered by an Intel processor to tell you I would gladly pay 1 penny more per product to ensure fewer orphans in DRC. I work daily to overcome the social damages caused by conflict mining. You should too.
Intel should align corporate goals with the text of the conflict minerals bill as written. The debt of conflict minerals should be carried by product purchasers, not “outsourced”, or paid for with Congolese lives. I am sure that’s what my daughter’s biological parents would have wanted. I know they would be proud to see her successes here in the USA. And how diligently she does her homework. On a netbook powered by an Intel processor.
May 20 | Philip Hedges said:
I have read the policy and I think Intel’s stance is reasonable. Customers aren’t expected to determine if the labels in their clothes are accurate, nor that all the merchandise they buy in stores are labeled accurately. A company shouldn’t be required to assume the guilt of their suppliers. Any intentional fraud should be treated criminally, but being the victim of deception shouldn’t be criminal.
May 20 | Josh Hooten said:
Intel, you sent Facebook fans here saying you’d answer our questions and nobody from Intel has posted here. What’s up? It’s starting to look like this was just an attempt to get people to stop posting about conflict minerals on your Facebook page.
Please respond to the pressing questions being asked of you. 45,000 lives a month are on the line.
May 20 | Charlotte Hill said:
I sincerely appreciate Intel’s effort to engage with NGOs and government officials in an effort to eliminate conflict minerals from your supply chain. Like other commenters above, however, I’m concerned that behind closed doors, your company is actually attempting to substantially weaken conflict minerals legislation. Can you guarantee that this is not the case? As an Intel supporter for many years, I’d love to know that you’re setting the standard in ethical supply chains, not undermining it.
Thank you.
May 20 | Ann Richmond said:
Intel, we’re still waiting. We were asked to come here specifically, that our concerns could be addressed. Any plans to actually make that happen?
May 20 | Ann Shannon said:
Could Intel please explain how any of the changes it has asked for to HR 4128 STRENGTHEN the accountability measures contained in the bill rather than WEAKEN them? The truth is that it cannot, because every change is transparently designed to gut accountability from the bill and to circumvent meaningful change to the conflict mineral trade.
May 20 | Suzanne Fallender said:
We do support legislation, we just have a different view about what will work best and have the most impact. This week, the Senators included this issue in their Wall Street reform bill, a development that we are monitoring. This is not about cost to us - we are genuinely working to find ways to move things forward and help improve supply chain responsibility around the sourcing of these minerals. One of the big complicating factors is that it is difficult to know where the metals come from as they make their way to a smelter. There are legitimate mines in the DRC and we want to ensure that they are not crippled by the actions that are taken, further harming the region. Also, legislation is only one aspect of our approach – we have taken actions over the past year to raise awareness of this issue and engage our own supply chains in finding a solution, including:
• Posted our Conflict-Free Statement about metals on our Supplier Site.
• Requested that our suppliers verify the sources of metals used in the products they sell us.
• Increased the level of internal management review and oversight, as well as our transparency and disclosure on this topic in this report.
• Engaged with leading NGOs and other stakeholders to seek their input and recommendations.
• Hosted an industry working session at our offices in Chandler, Arizona in September 2009 with more than 30 representatives from mining companies, traders, smelters, purchasers, and users of tantalum to address the issue of conflict minerals from the DRC.
• Co-sponsored a multi-industry “call to action” meeting on extractives in San Francisco, California, with industry partners and Business for Social Responsibility in October 2009.
• Funded a study with EICC members on defining metals used in the supply chain, and are working on a similar project to increase supply chain transparency for cobalt, tantalum, and tin.
• Intel currently co-chairs the EICC’s extractives working group and was the first company in the electronics supply chain to conduct on-site smelter reviews. Through these reviews, which take place at locations around the globe, Intel is determining if smelters can verify the mines of origin for the ores they process.
We respect and have listened to the many viewpoints expressed in this and other forums – as with many issues as complex as this one, while we may disagree on some points about how best to solve the issue, we do share the same objective to see peace come to the DRC.
May 20 | Rev. Heather Sparkman said:
Intel,
I am writing to ask that you support the Conflict Minerals Trade Act (H.R. 4128) as written without watering it down to make it less “burdensome” for industry. I am the mother of an adopted daughter from DRC and it haunts me to think of other women and children in DRC who are subjected to violence to due conlicts over minerals. I would gladly pay 1 penny more for Intel products in order to protect the women and children of DRC. I beleive that most Americans would feel the same way. I urge Intel to lead the way in corporate responsibility by advocating passage of the Conflict Minerals Trade Act (H.R. 4128)as written.
May 20 | Stori Sullivan said:
Intel, I applaude you for your actions that you have made to raise awareness on this issue. I am now asking that you support the Conflict Minerals Trade Act (H.R. 4128) as written. The violence in the DRC must be stopped. I feel very responsible for having used so many products that may have included these minerals in them. I am an adoptive mother to two beautiful Congolese boys. I am a sponsor of a Congolese Woman. I volunteer for a nonprofit humanitarian organization that supports orphans in the DRC. And this is not nearly enough! The Congolese people are my family. As a consumer, I am asking you to help us be guaranteed that the Congolese’s blood is no longer on our hands.
And of course, I would gladly pay 1 penny more for my products as would any American. But that is not the real issue here is it? It appears to me that you are concerned about the possible fines that you might accumulate by not being confident yourself that all of your minerals are conflict free. But holding everyone accountable for fraud, gross negligence, or negligence is the only way to end the conflict over the minerals. It is the only way to help stop the slaughtering of the Congolese people. I urge you to please take responsibility with me. Please support the Conflict Mineras Trade Act (H.R. 4128) as it is written.
Thank you.May 20 | Ann Richmond said:
Hi again— I appreciate you finally making a post here, and you list some good things, but can you please answer the direct questions posed in the comments here?
Respectfully, Ann RichmondMay 21 | Lisa Shannon said:
Hi Suzzane,
Thanks for the note. Unfortunately, you have still FAILED TO ANSWER ANY OF MY QUESTIONS related to Intel’s positions on specific suggested changes to the bill. Why is it so hard for Intel to speak publicly about an effort you have been spearheading behind closed doors to radically alter a bill that will soon be policy of the US government? What is Intel so ashamed of, if it is not about cost or self interest?
We are all for dialogue, and understanding your nuanced position. What exactly in the S.891 and HR 4128 does Intel take exception to? What exactly is Intel willing to take responsibility for in your own supply chain- or not?
I have repeatedly acknowledged- very publicly- the areas Intel has played a leadership role. I continue to commend you for this. I simply cannot understand why you refuse to speak openly on your efforts to REMOVE INDUSTRY ACCOUNTABILITY at a price of less than 1¢/ product. Your generic statements have fallen grossly flat. Please be specific and answer the questions outlined above. Thank you, Lisa Shannon
May 21 | micael said:
I was very glad for a minute or so until I read the comments that told me that Intel seem to treat the Congolese people better with their mouth than their hands…
I do very strongly urge you to support the Conflict Minerals Trade Act (H.R. 4128) and not water it down. Pleae put your words into action, so that I can feel secure next time I buy an Intel product. You don’t want me to boycott you, do you?
May 21 | Monica Johansson said:
Ms. Fallender, while I applaud Intel for taking all the steps you have described, these steps just aren’t good enough. We are asking that you FULLY support HR 4128. It IS possible to find out where your minerals are coming from, so excuses for not supporting the bill as written are not valid. Excuses such as “One of the big complicating factors is that it is difficult to know where the metals come from as they make their way to a smelter.” Determining the minerals’ origin is the core intent of the bill. Intel’s actions in trying to influence (i.e., to weaken or remove) the enforcement provisions in the bill are obviously meant to avoid being held accountable. We urge you to please support the Conflict Minerals Trade Act, AS WRITTEN. Thank you.
Monica Johansson, Letters to Congo
May 21 | Shawny Le said:
Thank you Ms. Fallender for the actions you’ve taken so far to help raise awareness on the issue. Unfortunately it is just not enough. Intel is in such a unique role right now to make a difference in the lives of millions of people, for just 1 penny per product which I think we would all agree the consumers would gladly pay if you will not. You’ve “Co-sponsored a multi-industry “call to action” meeting on extractives” which is remarkable and I’m sure in doing that you will recognize that this is our “call to action” for you. You are the ones that can make a difference. We are asking you, begging you, on behalf of the Congolese men, women and children that cannot to ACT now.
May 21 | Kenneth J. Connor said:
OK, these protesters have gone out of their way to make a deliberate denial of services attack on the Intel Facebook page. They have cut&paste SPAMMED the Intel site with nothing but invective and misinformation. The proposal they support is flawed fatally and totally untenable. I see no reason why Intel, which is an acknowledged leader in peace and justice issues, should kowtow to this group of people who would stoop low enough to hijack a Facebook page. This is a blatant publicity attempt and an attempt to market a book. As a progressive myself, I am outraged that such a spam attack has been leveled at Intel. It is low grade and unworthy of real progressives…and I condemn their vandalization of a Facebook page.
May 21 | Suzanne Fallender said:
We continue to see a great deal of interest and passion for the conflict mineral issue. First, I want to thank those who have been following our blog and other sites like Facebook for updates and those who do recognize the steps that Intel is taking to address this very important issue. Let me assure you that we are listening to your comments and feedback and sharing them with the right teams inside of Intel who are working hard to address this issue.
I am committed to keeping you regularly updated as we have more information to share. I will continue to post here at our CSR@Intel blog (see my May 19 post) and we’ll also alert people through Facebook, Twitter and other channels, referring them back to this blog often any time we have an update or more to share with you.
Now, on to a few questions that have been posted.
First, several of you have asked us why we take exception to the current House legislation. While we agree with the primary objective of the House legislation, we do not agree with certain provisions that in our view would create a layer of bureaucracy that generates more paper but does not solve the underlying problem. Specifically, given the complexities in the supply chain and our work over the past year on this issue, we don’t believe that the proposed reporting mechanism in the legislation (i.e. the import declaration form provision) is practical to implement. This will not serve the ultimate objectives of improving accountability and transparency. Our goal is to make sure we have the right systems and reporting mechanisms in place - we haven’t been waiting around for legislation on this issue and have been taking proactive steps to address this problem directly with our supply chain.
Others have also asked whether we’re willing to take responsibility for our own supply chain. We’ve clearly outlined the steps we are taking to work with the suppliers in our supply chain in my previous posts, and I’ve also included our policy below (adopted in Nov 2009 and posted on our website) for quick viewing.
Intel’s Conflict-Free Metals Policy
• Intel takes very serious the allegations that metals mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo may be making their way into the electronics supply chain; and profits from this illegal mining may be fueling human rights atrocities in the Eastern Region of the DRC.
• Intel expects our suppliers to comply with the Electronic Industry Code of Conduct and to only source materials from environmentally and socially responsible suppliers. Intel has systems and procedures in place to help ensure that our suppliers comply with these expectations; however, due to the complexities of the metals supply chain, we are currently unable to verify the origin for all metals used in our products.
• In support of this, Intel will commit to: 1. Trace and map our supply chain for tantalum, tungsten, cobalt, tin and gold 2. Support development of independently verifiable supply chain transactions, when available and credible, to document the routes taken and intermediaries involved from mine of origin to final product.
I will do my best to answer additional questions posted here that I can and will also update you periodically as I have more information.
2010-05-21
Louis Belanger: Aid workers in Haiti trying to find the right balance by "going local"
Whom do you choose? How much is too much? When do you change gears? Those are just some of the questions swirling through the minds of aid workers as they scramble to help Haitians recover from the devastation of the quake.Some lost everything. Some had nothing to lose. Almost all lost loved ones and their peace of mind.
Some were living on the streets when the earth jolted, so technically they haven't lost their homes. Others still have their homes but they've lost the confidence to sleep in them.
Wary of creating dependency, aid agencies are shifting their focus from relief to recovery and reconstruction but the fact is that for many of the most vulnerable, the need for long-term support is undeniable.
A grandmother who suddenly finds herself raising a handful of grandchildren may not need a job or a loan, she needs an income. And in the absence of a national social protection program, it's difficult to credibly give a family start-up funding for a new enterprise without also assuring ongoing support while they get back on their feet.
Oxfam staff and our local partners are struggling with these dilemmas as we pass the four-month mark since the quake. Adjacent to some of the small settlements that jam every open space in the city, Oxfam funded 55 community canteens with the goal of ensuring the most vulnerable were receiving one nutritious meal a day. Each canteen prepared lunch for up to 80 or so people.
Midday a steady stream of women and girls arrive with their plates and pots to be filled. They have been identified by community committees or Oxfam partner organizations as the most vulnerable because of what they've lost or what they never had.
The food, sourced locally and quite tasty, is prepared by other women hired from the community, most of whom it seemed had been a cook or operated a canteen before the quake.
Knowing we were meeting only a portion of the need, the canteens were located just outside the squatter camps to minimize the risk of a stampede from residents who haven't been selected for support.
The plan is to end the canteen services and give each household start-up funds to help launch a business. Feasibility studies have been done and lessons from past disasters are being put in practice. But the scale and complexity of the Haiti disaster with its urban character means that we aren't sure how viable these businesses will soon be or how soon a family can expect to become self-reliant.
So the question remains what more we must do to ensure people's basic needs are bring met - and their rights protected - as we transition from relief to recovery.
Follow Louis Belanger on Twitter: www.twitter.com/louisoxfam
Google fails to revolutionize the cellphone market
Google has announced that it will soon bring an end to its online sales of its Nexus One handset. The company will still show off Android phones on its site, but purchases will be done the old-fashioned way: through mobile service providers.
Google's direct sales model was an attempt to radically alter the business model for mobile handsets. Instead of buying a phone from a carrier, with a contract and a subsidized up-front cost, the company was hoping to cut out the network. Customers would buy the phone directly from Google, paying the full fee up-front, and then putting in a SIM of their choice.
This, however, ignored the realities of the phone market, as the company soon discovered. Its approach to tech support—send an e-mail and maybe get an answer eventually—was always doomed to failure. Given how important phones are to our lives and our lifestyles, that was never going to be acceptable. Customers might not like calling call centers, but if there's one thing worse than being stuck on hold waiting for the muzak to end, it's not being stuck on hold at all, because there isn't even anyone to call.
A month after launching the phone the company relented, giving its customers the ability to talk to someone. But this was not the only problem with its sales model.
As it wrote in the announcement, "it’s clear that many customers like a hands-on experience before buying a phone." A phone is something that people want to touch, to see how heavy it is, what it looks like in person, how good the screen is, if it fits nicely in their pocket—for many of us, the phone is an extension of ourselves, which is why we see so many different shapes and styles of handset on the market. So expecting people to be happy buying a handset that they cannot even touch, much less play around with, was a bridge too far.
There's also the small matter of expense. A one-off payment of $529 is hard to stomach. In many countries, we're not accustomed to paying so much for mobile phones, as normally their true cost is hidden—we pay less up front and commit to paying a monthly fee for 12-24 months. Only those brave souls who were willing to stump up for the early termination fee would get any idea of the true cost of their handset.
In a world of subsidized handsets, then, the Nexus one felt very expensive. It's true that SIM-only contracts are cheaper than with-handset ones, but the difference rarely feels significant enough to justify buying a full-price phone—much better to pay a little bit more each month and avoid the up-front cost. Even if you do the math and work out that the Google way is cheaper, there's still the unpleasant prospect of spending so much at once.
So, when looking to enter the European market, it's no surprise that the company sought to form partnerships with network operators and fall in line with every other major handset company, ensuring that the phones are available through the mobile operators' extensive retail stores, and that the initial pricing results in much less sticker shock. In the UK, for example, where Google has partnered with Vodafone, the Nexus One can be had for free on any call plan costing £35 or more per month.
Google is now attempting to build a similar retail presence in the US, and when it has done so it will end its online sales. It might not have an easy time accomplishing this, however. Its attempts to partner with Verizon and Sprint resulted in rejection by both networks, so the prospects for a CDMA version of the Nexus One seem very poor indeed.
Google's demands on branding and a refusal to allow the networks to cripple the handset, combined with the strong sales of the Motorola Droid and the buzz surrounding the new HTC Droid Incredible, are likely the cause for Verizon's decision. Similarly, with Sprint touting the new Android-powered HTC Evo 4G, there's little room for the older Nexus One.
This leaves the GSM providers as possible Nexus One promoters. As yet, there's no indication of who those might be; AT&T is obviously most interested in promoting the iPhone (and now iPad), so it might be unlikely to give the Nexus One much promotion. T-Mobile was the distributor of the original Google handset, the G1, so the company may find more joy there.
Google isn't the first to try this approach; Apple had originally hoped for a similar shift in business models. The first generation iPhone was, at $599, even more expensive than the Nexus One. After just two months on market, Apple cut the price by $200, offering a $100 credit to disgruntled early adopters. Subsequent models were introduced at prices much more in line with industry norms.
The subsidized business model is purportedly unpopular among the handset manufacturers; it dilutes their branding and diminishes the perceived value of their products. Customers don't realize that high-end phones actually cost hundreds of dollars, hence their surprise and outrage at ETFs. But with two high profile attempts to change the market—and two equally high profile failures to actually do so—it's clear that mobile operator partnerships and subsidized phones are here to stay.
Quantum teleportation achieved over ten miles of free space
Quantum teleportation has achieved a new milestone or, should we say, a new ten-milestone: scientists have recently had success teleporting information between photons over a free space distance of nearly ten miles, an unprecedented length. The researchers who have accomplished this feat note that this brings us closer to communicating information without needing a traditional signal, and that the ten miles they have reached could span the distance between the surface of the earth and space.
As we've explained before, "quantum teleportation" is quite different from how many people imagine teleportation to work. Rather than picking one thing up and placing it somewhere else, quantum teleportation involves entangling two things, like photons or ions, so their states are dependent on one another and each can be affected by the measurement of the other's state.
When one of the items is sent a distance away, entanglement ensures that changing the state of one causes the other to change as well, allowing the teleportation of quantum information, if not matter. However, the distance particles can be from each other has been limited so far to a number of meters.
Teleportation over distances of a few hundred meters has previously only been accomplished with the photons traveling in fiber channels to help preserve their state. In this particular experiment, researchers maximally entangled two photons using both spatial and polarization modes and sent the one with higher energy through a ten-mile-long free space channel. They found that the distant photon was still able to respond to changes in state of the photon they held onto even at this unprecedented distance.
However, the long-distance teleportation of a photon is only a small step towards developing applications for the procedure. While photons are good at transmitting information, they are not as good as ions at allowing manipulation, an advancement we'd need for encryption. Researchers were also able to maintain the fidelity of the long-distance teleportation at 89 percent— decent enough for information, but still dangerous for the whole-body human teleportation that we're all looking forward to.
Science, 2010. DOI: 10.1038/NPHOTON.2010.87 (About DOIs).
Report: Facebook caught sharing secret data with advertisers
The privacy issues that have been hounding Facebook may be coming to a head. A report in the Wall Street Journal indicates that the Facebook, along with MySpace, Digg, and a handful of other social-networking sites, have been sharing users' personal data with advertisers without users' knowledge or consent.
The data shared includes names, user IDs, and other information sufficient to enable ad companies such as the Google-owned DoubleClick to identify distinct user profiles. Some of the sites in question, including MySpace and Facebook, stopped sharing the data after the Journal asked them about it. The surreptitious data sharing was first noticed (PDF) by researchers from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and AT&T Labs in August 2009, who brought it up with the sites in question. It wasn't until WSJ contacted them that changes were made.
Not surprisingly, Facebook appears to have gone farther than the other sites when it comes to sharing data. When Facebook's users clicked on ads appearing on a profile page, the site would at times provide data such as the username behind the click, as well as the user whose profile page from which the click came. "If you are looking at your profile page and you click on an ad, you are telling that advertiser who you are," Harvard Business School professor Ben Edelman told the Journal. Advertisers contacted by the paper said that they were unaware of the additional data and did not make use of it.
Facebook has tweaked its privacy policy throughout its history, with the most recent moves to open up more user information to the public drawing heavy criticism and FTC complaints. Users have also had a tough time navigating the site's often-Byzantine privacy controls, which has led to a trickle of user defections. With these latest revelations about Facebook ignoring industry standards, not to mention its own privacy policies, that trickle may turn into a torrent.
Scientists create artificial life in laboratory - Times Online
Synthetic life has been created in the laboratory in a feat of ingenuity that pushes the boundaries of humanity’s ability to manipulate the natural world.
Craig Venter, the biologist who led the effort to map the human genome, said yesterday that the first cell controlled entirely by man-made genetic instructions had been produced.
The synthetic bacterium, nicknamed Synthia, has been hailed as a step change in biological engineering, allowing the creation of organisms with specialised functions that could never have evolved in nature. The team at the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland, is investigating how the technology could yield microbes that make vaccines, and algae that turn carbon dioxide into hydrocarbon biofuels.
The achievement has, however, stirred ethical concerns. Critics called for tighter regulation, citing the potential for bioterror or “bioerror” that could endanger health or the environment.
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Dr Venter, who has been working on synthetic life for a decade, told The Times: “It is our final triumph. This is the first synthetic cell. It’s the first time we have started with information in a computer, used four bottles of chemicals to write up a million letters of DNA software, and actually got it to boot up in a living organism.
“Though this is a baby step, it enables a change in philosophy, a change in thinking, a change in the tools we have. This cell we’ve made is not a miracle cell that’s useful for anything, it is a proof of concept. But the proof of concept was key, otherwise it is just speculation and science fiction. This takes us across that border, into a new world.”
Julian Savulescu, Professor of Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford, said: “Venter is creaking open the most profound door in humanity’s history, potentially peeking into its destiny. He is going towards the role of a god: creating artificial life that could never have existed naturally. The potential is in the far future, but real and significant. But the risks are also unparalleled.”
In the research, published in the journal Science, scientists made a synthetic copy of the genome of a bacterium, Mycoplasma mycoides. Several inert DNA “watermarks” were added to distinguish the synthetic genome from the natural version.
The man-made genome was then transplanted into a related bacterium, Mycoplasma capricolum. This “rebooted” the cell so that it was controlled by the synthetic genome, transforming it into another species. The cell has since divided more than a billion times.
Paul Freemont, of the Centre for Synthetic Biology at Imperial College London, described the achievement as a “step change advance”. He said: “The applications of this enabling technology are enormous.”
Others, however, are unconvinced. Ben Davis, who works on synthetic biology at the University of Oxford, said: “I still think we are quite a long way away from artificial life. “You could take this synthetic genome and write in new genes with known functions, but that is not so different from molecular biology at the moment.”
David King, of the pressure group Human Genetics Alert, called for a moratorium on similar research and Pat Mooney, of the ETC Group, which campaigns against biotechnology, said: “This is a Pandora’s box moment. We’ll all have to deal with the fallout from this alarming experiment.”
2010-05-20
Some people NEED change NOW: World Scale Personal voice Control
Ruthie Ackerman: To Publish or Not to Publish
It was the Battle of Mogadishu, Somalia in October 1993 that changed everything.
Not only did the United States pull out of Somalia without completing its mission, the images streaming out of the country of U.S. Staff Sgt. William David Cleveland being dragged, naked, through the streets of Mogadishu forever changed how photographs of the dead are viewed in the U.S. media.
Never before had a series of photos changed U.S. policy so completely. In future conflicts, from Rwanda to Liberia, the U.S. was reluctant to intervene because of the embarrassment -and horror--over what became known as the "Mogadishu Moment."
Americans rarely see photos of the dead, especially their own, in mainstream media outlets. The U.S. media has been trained to tiptoe around publishing images of American corpses, not wanting to outrage the families of dead soldiers and citizens. Images of war and crises are political and the U.S. media censors them accordingly.
The earthquake in Haiti seems to have been an exception, when the awfulness of the disaster somehow made publishing the photographs more important than protecting the dignity of the dead. Both The Washington Post and The New York Times chose to publish graphic images of the carnage in Haiti, to which The Post's Ombudsman Andrew Alexander defended the decision by saying: "Journalism is about truth, and the horrific images convey reality."
Yet Susan Sontag in her New Yorker essay, "Looking at War: Photography's view of devastation and death," didn't seem to agree. After looking at photographs of black lynching victims at a New York gallery, she asks: "What is the point of exhibiting these pictures? To awaken indignation? To make us feel "bad"; that is, to appall and sadden? To help us mourn? Is looking at such pictures really necessary, given that these horrors lie in a past remote enough to be beyond punishment? Are we the better for seeing these images? Do they actually teach us anything? Don't they rather just confirm what we already know (or want to know)?"
My view of photographs of the dead was recently challenged when I was faced with an ethical decision about whether to publish a series of brutal photographs on the website I founded, Ceasefire Liberia, a citizen media site connecting Liberians around the world. The same questions Sontag asked plagued me as I woke up, checked my inbox, and found photos of two men who had been beaten to death by a mob for attempting to rob a store in the West African nation of Liberia.
The pictures were sent to me by the blogger, Saki Golafale, who often writes for the Ceasefire Liberia site. Yet this was the first time in Ceasefire Liberia's year-long existence that I had woken up to photos of murder victims staring out at me from my computer.
I read the story Saki sent searching for some clues to what I was seeing. Saki's account of the story was that four men attempted to rob the Buzzy Boy Shop in the Wood Camp community of Paynesville at gunpoint, firing into the air to scare the owner, Mr. Grant. After Mr. Grant handed over the money to the men, residents, who had heard the gunshots, rushed into the store. The men fled, but two were caught and beaten to death by the angry crowd.
"They were to be burned with tires, but we saw that as a waste of time," an unidentified person told Saki.
In many ways this story is not surprising. I had read about vigilante justice in the U.S. State Department's 2009 Human Rights report on Liberia. I know the justice system in Liberia is in tatters. Police are unpaid, jails are full, and criminals walk free. Justice is rare. The residents of the community knew that calling the police would lead them nowhere. They had tried to call the police after other incidents. This was the third robbery in the community in just one week. Frustration had built, there was no longer any point in reporting the crimes, the residents said.
One resident at the murder scene said, "The police and the criminals are the same." Another said, "It is better to kill them than to report these useless men to the authorities because they will be released very soon."
Yet reading Liberia's Human Right report, a document written in legalese, and seeing brutal photographs of the dead, are two different things altogether. As well-written as the State Department's report was I didn't recoil from it the way I did from Saki's photos.
As I stared at the gory pictures so many thoughts flooded my mind. The sheer brutality of the situation struck me: the pool of blood, the awkward position of the body, the near-naked corpse, the pieces of wood, presumably used to beat the man, which now lay next to him. The legs of the crowd, which included women in brightly colored African skirts, stood next to the body. What were they thinking as they stood there? In one photo a man leans over into the picture with a camera to get a closer shot of the dead body lying awkwardly in the sand. Tires lay nearby.
Is it ethical to post these photos?, I wondered. Yet, is it ethical not to post them? Would the story be as powerful or real to readers without seeing what mob justice actually looks like? Are some things just too brutal to be disseminated? Unfortunately, this brave new world of citizen media does not come with a rulebook, or a code of ethics, like many mainstream outlets do.
My decision to post the photos (with a disclaimer to readers) was based on the fact that Ceasefire Liberia is one of the few citizen media outlets in Liberia. Its mission is to report stories, which are not covered in the mainstream Liberian or international press. If Ceasefire Liberia did not tell the story- and show the images-of what happened in the Wood Camp community in Liberia, the story would be forgotten. Part of journalism's mission is to bear witness, no matter how brutal the truth is.
Some readers disagreed with my decision, feeling that photos of vigilante justice solidified the stereotype of Africa as savage, dark, and uncivilized. Like Sontag, these readers asked whether the photos, "rather just confirm what we already know (or want to know)?"
My answer to Sontag and others is this: The point of publishing horrific images is to anger, sadden, appall, help us mourn, teach us about the world, and make us feel compelled to act.
As a journalist, and the founder of a citizen media site, my job is to shine a spotlight on the world, not keep it hidden in darkness. If by doing so people are awakened to the horrors that exist in their backyards, and others, than the images have done their job and I have done mine.
Follow Ruthie Ackerman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ruackerman
Colloquial Welsh morphology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to:navigation, searchThe morphology of the Welsh language shows many characteristics perhaps unfamiliar to speakers of English or continental European languages like French or German, but has much in common with the other modern Insular Celtic languages: Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Manx, Cornish, and Breton. Welsh is a moderately inflected language. Verbs inflect for person, tense, and mood with affirmative, interrogative, and negative conjugations of some verbs. There is no case inflection in Modern Welsh.
Modern Welsh can be written in two varieties — Colloquial Welsh or Literary Welsh[1]. The grammar described on this page is for Colloquial Welsh, which is used for speech and informal writing. Literary Welsh is closer to the form of Welsh used in the 1588 translation of the Bible and can be seen in formal writing.
Contents
[edit] Initial consonant mutation
- Related article: Lenition
Initial consonant mutation is a phenomenon common to all Insular Celtic languages, although there is no evidence of it in the ancient Continental Celtic languages of the early first millennium. The first consonant of a word in Welsh may change depending on grammatical context (such as when the grammatical object directly follows the grammatical subject), or when preceded by certain words, e. g. i, yn, and a. Welsh has three mutations: the soft mutation, the nasal mutation, and the aspirate mutation. These are also represented in writing:
Radical Soft Nasal Aspirate p b mh ph t d nh th c g ngh ch b f m d dd n g ∅* ng m f ll l rh r A blank cell indicates no change.
For example, the word for "stone" is carreg, but "the stone" is y garreg (soft mutation), "my stone" is fy ngharreg (nasal mutation) and "her stone" is ei charreg (aspirate mutation). The examples show usage in the standard language; the soft mutation is slowly supplanting the nasal and aspirate mutations as the mechanism behind the mutations ceases to be understood. In some areas, the aspirate mutation is unknown (it is sometimes joked that a sign of hypercorrection amongst learners is to order "jin a thonic" in a bar).
*The soft mutation for g is the simple deletion of the initial sound. For example, gardd "garden" becomes yr ardd "the garden".
[edit] Soft mutation
The soft mutation (Welsh: treiglad meddal) is by far the most common mutation in Welsh. When words undergo soft mutation, the general pattern is that unvoiced plosives become voiced plosives, and voiced plosives become fricatives or disappear; some fricatives also change, and the full list is shown in the above table.
In some cases a limited soft mutation takes place. This differs from the full soft mutation in that words beginning with rh and ll do not mutate.
Common situations where the limited soft mutation occurs are as follows – note that this list is by no means exhaustive.
- feminine singular nouns with the definite article or the number one (un)
- nouns or adjectives used predicatively after yn
- adjectives following mor ("so") or rhy ("too")
Common situations where the full soft mutation occurs are as follows – note that this list is by no means exhaustive:
- adjectives (and nouns used genitively as adjectives) qualifying feminine singular nouns
- words immediately following the prepositions am ("for"), ar ("on"), at ("to"), dan ("under"), dros ("over"), trwy ("through"), heb ("without"), hyd ("until"), gan ("by"), wrth ("from"), i ("to"), o ("of")
- adjectives used adverbially (after yn)
- nouns used with the number two (dau / dwy)
- nouns following adjectives (N.B. most adjectives follow the noun)
- nouns after the possessives dy (informal your) and ei (when it means his)
- an object immediately following the subject (typically after conjugated verbs)
- the second element in many compound words
- verb infinitives following an indirect object (e.g. rhaid i mi fynd - it is necessary to me to go)
- inflected verbs in the interrogative and negative (also frequently, in the spoken language, the affirmative)
The occurrence of the soft mutation often obscures the origin of placenames to non-Welsh-speaking visitors. For example, Llanfair is the church of Mair (Mary), and Pontardawe is the bridge on the Tawe.
[edit] Nasal mutation
The nasal mutation (Welsh: treiglad trwynol) normally occurs:
- after fy – generally pronounced y – ( "my") e.g. gwely ("a bed"), fy ngwely ("my bed"), pronounced yngwely
- after the locative preposition yn ("in") e.g. Tywyn ("Tywyn"), yn Nhywyn ("in Tywyn")
- after the negating prefix an- ("un-") e.g. teg ("fair"), annheg ("unfair").
[edit] Notes
1. The preposition yn becomes ym if the following noun (mutated or not) begins with m, and becomes yng if the following noun begins with ng. E.g. Bangor ("Bangor"), ym Mangor ("in Bangor") Caerdydd ("Cardiff"), yng Nghaerdydd ("in Cardiff").
2. In words beginning with an-, the n is dropped before the mutated consonant (except if the resultant mutation allows for a double n), e.g. an + personol → amhersonol (although it would be retained before a non-mutating consonant, e.g. an + sicr → ansicr).
Under nasal mutation, voiced plosives become nasals, and unvoiced plosives become aspirated nasals.
[edit] Pronunciation
The aspirated nasals may appear at first hard for English speakers to pronounce. However, in fact they are generally pronounced as an aspirated nasal followed by h, and this does not in practice result in a large cluster of consonant sounds because it is preceded either by the vowel ending of fy, or a form of yn where the -n is possibly replaced with -m or -ng to match the first letter of the mutated word. For example:
- fy + tadau → fy nhadau, pronounced as fyn hadau
- yn + Caerdydd → yng Nghaerdydd, pronounced as yng haerdydd
[edit] Grammatical considerations
Note that yn meaning "in" must be distinguished from other uses of yn which do not cause nasal mutation. For example:
- In the sentence Mae plastig yn nhrwyn Siaco, trwyn has undergone nasal mutation.
- In the sentence Mae trwyn Siaco yn blastig, plastig has undergone soft mutation, not nasal mutation.
- In the sentence Mae trwyn Siaco yn cynnwys plastig, cynnwys is not mutated.
Note also that the ’m form often used instead of fy after vowels does not cause nasal mutation. For example:
- Pleidiol wyf i'm gwlad. (not *i'm ngwlad)
[edit] Aspirate mutation
The aspirate mutation (Welsh: treiglad llaes) turns the unvoiced plosives into aspirated fricatives. It is easiest to remember based on an addition of an h in the spelling (c, p, t → ch, ph, th), although strictly speaking the resultant forms are single phonemes which happen to contain an h as the second character.
The aspirate mutation occurs:
- after the possessive ei when it means "her"
- after a ("and")
- after â ("with")
- for masculine nouns after the number three (tri)
- after the number six (chwech, written before the noun as chwe)
The aspirate mutation also causes an h to be added before words beginning with a vowel (e.g. oed = age, ei hoed = her age), although a and â before a vowel change to ac and ag and the word beginning with a vowel is itself unaffected.
[edit] Mixed mutation
A mixed mutation occurs when negating conjugated verbs. Initial consonants which change under the aspirate mutation do so; other consonants change as in the soft mutation (if at all). For example, clywais i ("I heard") and dwedais i ("I said") are negated as chlywais i ddim ("I heard nothing") and ddwedais i ddim ("I said nothing").
[edit] The article
Welsh has no indefinite article. The definite article, which precedes the words it modifies and whose usage differs little from that of English, has the forms y, yr, and ’r. The rules governing their usage are:
- When the previous word ends in a vowel, regardless of the quality of the word following, ’r is used, e.g. mae'r gath tu allan ("the cat is outside"). This rule takes precedence over the other two.
- When the word begins with a vowel, yr is used, e.g. yr ardd ("the garden").
- In all other places, y is used, e.g. y bachgen ("the boy").
The article triggers the soft mutation when it is used with feminine singular nouns, e.g. tywysoges "(a) princess" but y dywysoges ("the princess").
[edit] Nouns
Like most other Indo-European languages, all nouns belong to a certain grammatical gender; in this case, masculine or feminine. A noun's gender conforms to its referent's natural gender when it has one (e.g. mam "mother" is feminine), but otherwise there is no pattern, and gender simply must be learnt.
Welsh has two systems of grammatical number. Singular/plural nouns correspond to the singular/plural number system of English, although unlike English, Welsh noun plurals are unpredictable and formed in several ways. Some nouns form the plural with an ending (usually -au), e.g. tad and tadau. Others form the plural through vowel change, e.g. bachgen and bechgyn. Still others form their plurals through some combination of the two, e.g. chwaer and chwiorydd.
The other system of number is the collective/unit system. The nouns in this system form the singular by adding the suffix -yn (for masculine nouns) or -en (for feminine nouns) to the plural. Most nouns which belong in this system are frequently found in groups, for example, plant "children" and plentyn "a child", or coed "forest" and coeden "a tree". In dictionaries, the plural is often given first.
[edit] Adjectives
Adjectives normally follow the noun they qualify, while some, such as hen, pob, and holl precede it. For the most part, adjectives are uninflected, though there are a few which maintain distinct masculine/feminine or singular/plural distinctions. After feminine singular nouns, adjectives receive the soft mutation.
Adjective comparison in Welsh is fairly similar to the English system. Adjectives with one or two syllables receive the endings -ach "-er" and -a(f) "-est", which change final b, d, g into p, t, c by provection, e. g. teg "fair", tecach "fairer", teca(f) "fairest". Adjectives with two or more syllables use the words mwy "more" and mwya "most", e. g. teimladwy "sensitive", mwy teimladwy "more sensitive", mwya teimladwy "most sensitive". Adjectives with two syllables can go either way.
These are the possessive adjectives:
Singular Plural First Person fy (n) ein Second Person dy (s) eich Third Person Masculine ei (s) eu Feminine ei (a) The possessive adjectives precede the noun they qualify, which is often followed by the corresponding form of the personal pronoun, e.g. fy mara i "my bread", dy fara di "your bread", ei fara fe "his bread", etc.
The demonstrative adjectives are 'ma "this"' and 'na "that". They follow the noun they qualify, which also takes the article. For example, y llyfr "the book", y llyfr 'ma "this book", y llyfr 'na "that book".
[edit] Pronouns
[edit] Personal pronouns
The Welsh personal pronouns are:
Singular Plural First Person (f)i, mi ni Second Person ti, di chi Third Person Masculine (f)e, (f)o nhw Feminine hi The Welsh masculine-feminine gender distinction is reflected in the pronouns. There is, consequently, no word corresponding to English "it", and the choice of e/o (south and north Welsh respectively) or hi depends on the grammatical gender of the antecedent.
The English dummy or expletive "it" construction in phrases like "it's raining" or "it was cold last night" also exists in Welsh and other Indo-European languages like French, German, and Dutch, but not in Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, or the Slavic languages. Unlike other masculine-feminine languages, which often default to the masculine pronoun in the construction, Welsh uses the feminine singular hi, thus producing sentences like:
- Mae hi'n bwrw glaw.
- It's raining.
- O'dd hi'n oer neithiwr.
- It was cold last night.
[edit] Notes on the forms
Third-person masculine singular forms o and fo are heard in North Wales, while e and fe are heard in South Wales.
The pronoun forms i, e, and o are used as subjects after a verb. In the inflected future of the verbs mynd, gwneud, dod, and cael, first-person singular constructions like do fi may be heard. I, e, and o are also used as objects with compound prepositions, for example o flaen o 'in front of him'. Fi, fe, and fo are used after conjunctions and non-inflected prepositions, and also as the object of an inflected verb:
- Weloch chi fo dros y penwythnos?
- Did you see him over the weekend?
Fe and fo exclusively are used as subjects with the inflected conditional:
- Dylai fe brynu un newydd i ti.
- He ought to buy you a new one.
Both i, e, and o and fi, fe, and fo are heard with inflected prepositions, as objects of verbal nouns, and also as following pronouns with their respective possessive adjectives:
- Wyt ti wedi ei weld e/fe heddiw?
- Have you seen him today?
- Alla i ddim dod o hyd i fy allweddi i/fi.
- I can't find my keys.
The use of first-person singular mi is limited in the spoken language, appearing in i mi "to/for me" or as the subject with the verb ddaru, used in a preterite construction.
Ti is found most often as the second-person singular pronoun, however di is used as the subject of inflected future forms, as a reinforcement in the imperative, and as following pronoun to the possessive adjective dy ... "your ..."
[edit] Ti vs. chi
Chi, in addition to serving as the second-person plural pronoun, is also used as a singular in formal situations. Conversely, ti can be said to be limited to the informal singular, such as when speaking with a family member, a friend, or a child. This usage corresponds closely to the practice in other European languages; however, Welsh has a more complex system, involving a third form, chdi, used almost exclusively in the language's northern varieties.
Further information: T-V distinction[edit] Reflexive pronouns
The reflexive pronouns are formed with the possessive adjective followed by hun "self". There is variation between North and South forms. The first person singular possessive pronoun fy is often heard as if it were spelt yn.
Singular Plural North First Person fy hun ein hun Second Person dy hun eich hun Third Person ei hun eu hun South First Person fy hunan ein hunain Second Person dy hunan eich hunain, eich hunan Third Person ei hunan eu hunain Note that there is no gender distinction in the third person singular.
[edit] Emphatic pronouns
Welsh has special emphatic forms of the personal pronouns. They are perhaps not extremely common in lower registers of the language, though they are nevertheless alive, especially in set phrases like a finnau "me too".
The term 'emphatic pronoun' is in fact misleading since they do not necessarily indicate emphasis. They are perhaps more correctly termed 'connective or distinctive pronouns' since they are used to indicate a connection between or distinction from another nominal element. Full contextual information is necessary to interpret their function in any given sentence.
Less formal variants are given in brackets. Mutation may also, naturally, affect the forms of these pronouns (e.g. minnau may be mutated to finnau)
Singular Plural First Person minnau, innau ninnau Second Person tithau chithau Third Person Masculine yntau (fyntau) hwythau (nhwythau) Feminine hithau The emphatic pronouns can be used with possessive adjectives in the same way as the simple pronouns are used (with the added function of distinction or connection).
[edit] Demonstrative pronouns
In addition to having masculine and feminine forms of this and that, Welsh also has separate set of this and that for intangible, figurative, or general ideas.
Masculine Feminine Intangible this hwn hon hyn that hwnnw, hwnna honno, honna hynny these y rhain those y rheiny In certain expressions, hyn may represent "now" and hynny may represent "then".
[edit] Verbs
In Welsh, the majority of tenses make use of an auxiliary verb, usually bod "to be". Its conjugation is dealt with in Irregular Verbs below.
There are four periphrastic tenses in Welsh which make use of bod: present, imperfect, future, and conditional. The preterite, future, and conditional tenses have a number of periphrastic constructions, but Welsh also maintains inflected forms of these tenses, demonstrated here with talu 'pay'.
Singular Plural Preterite First Person talais talon Second Person talaist taloch Third Person talodd talon Future First Person talaf talwn Second Person tali talwch Third Person talith talan Conditional First Person talwn talen Second Person talet talech Third Person talai talen
- Notes on the preterite:
- First and second singular forms may in less formal registers be written as tales and talest, though there is no difference in pronunciation since there is a basic rule of pronunciation that unstressed final syllables alter the pronunciation of the /aj/ diphthong.
- Word-final -f is rarely heard in Welsh. Thus verbal forms in -af will be pronounced as if they ended in /a/ and they may be written thus in lower registers.
- In some parts of Wales -s- may be inserted between the stem and plural forms.
- In parts of South Wales forms like talws are heard for talodd.
- Notes on the future:
- di is used instead of ti, thus tali di, not *tali ti.
- Forms like taliff may appear instead of talith in some southern parts of Wales.
- Notes on the conditional:
- Note that the future was formerly also used as an inflected present. A small amount of frozen forms use the future forms as a present habitual: mi godaf i am ddeg o'r gloch bob bore - I get up at ten o' clock every morning
- -s- may be inserted between the stem and endings.
In the preterite, questions are formed with the soft mutation on the verb, though increasingly the soft mutation is being used in all situations. Negative forms are expressed with ddim after the pronoun and the mixed mutation, though here the soft mutation is taking over (dales i ddim for thales i ddim).
[edit] Irregular verbs
[edit] Bod and compounds
Bod 'to be' is highly irregular. In addition to having inflected forms of the preterite, future, and conditional, it also maintains inflected present and imperfect forms which are used frequently as auxiliaries with other verbs. Bod also distinguishes between affirmative, interrogative, and negative statements for each tense.
The present tense in particular shows a split between the North and the South. Though the situation is undoubtedly more complicated, King (2003) notes the following variations in the present tense as spoken (not as written according to the standard orthography):
Affirmative (I am) Interrogative (Am I?) Negative (I am not) Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural North First Person dw dan ydw? ydan? (dy)dw (dy)dan Second Person —, (r)wyt dach wyt? (y)dach? dwyt (dy)dach Third Person mae maen ydy? ydyn? dydy dydyn South First Person rw, w ŷn, — ydw? ŷn? (d)w ŷn Second Person —, (r)wyt ych wyt? ych? — (ych) Third Person mae maen ydy?, yw? ŷn? dyw ŷn
Affirmative (I am) Interrogative (Am I?) Negative (I am not) Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural Preterite First Person bues buon fues? fuon? fues fuon Second Person buest buoch fuest? fuoch? fuest fuoch Third Person buodd buon fuodd? fuon? fuodd fuon Imperfect First Person roeddwn roedden oeddwn? oedden? doeddwn doedden Second Person roeddet roeddech oeddet? oeddech? doeddet doeddech Third Person roedd roeddyn oedd? oeddyn? doedd doeddyn Future First Person bydda byddwn fydda? fyddwn? fydda fyddwn Second Person byddi byddwch fyddi? fyddwch? fyddi fyddwch Third Person bydd byddan fydd? fyddan? fydd fyddan Bod also has a conditional, for which there are two stems:
Affirmative Interrogative Negative Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural bydd- First Person byddwn bydden fyddwn fydden fyddwn? fydden? Second Person byddet byddech fyddet fyddech fyddet? fyddech? Third Person byddai bydden fyddai fydden fyddai? fydden? bas- First Person baswn basen faswn fasen faswn? fasen? Second Person baset basech faset fasech faset? fasech? Third Person basai basen fasai fasen fasai? fasen?
- ddim ("not") is added after the subject for negative forms of bod.
- There are many dialectal variations of this verb.
- Colloquially the imperfect tense forms are o'n i, o't ti, oedd e/hi, o'n ni, o'ch chi and o'n nhw. These are used for the declarative, interrogative and negative.
- In speech the future and conditional forms often receive the soft mutation in all situations.
- Welsh and other Celtic languages are unusual among the European languages in having no fixed words for "yes" and "no". If a question has a verb at its head, the relevant part of that verb is used in the answer e.g.: Ydych chi'n hoffi coffi? (Are you liking coffee? = Do you like coffee?) then either Ydw (I am = I do = Yes) or Nac ydw (I am not = I do not = No)
A few verbs which have bod in the verbnoun display certain irregular characteristics of bod itself. Gwybod is the most irregular of these. It has preterite and conditional forms, which are often used with present and imperfect meaning, respectively. The present is conjugated irregularly:
Singular Plural First Person gwn gwyddon Second Person gwyddost gwyddoch Third Person gŵyr gwyddon The common phrase dwn i ddim "I don't know" uses a special negative form of the first person present.
[edit] Mynd, gwneud, cael, and dod
The four verbs mynd "to go", gwneud "to do", cael "to get", and dod "to come" are all irregular in similar ways.
mynd gwneud cael dod Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural Preterite First Person es aethon nes naethon ces caethon des daethon Second Person est aethoch nest naethoch cest caethoch dest daethoch Third Person aeth aethon naeth naethon caeth caethon daeth daethon Future First Person a awn na nawn ca cawn do down Second Person ei ewch nei newch cei cewch doi dewch Third Person eith ân neith nân ceith cân daw dôn The forms caeth, caethon, caethoch often appear as cafodd, cawson, cawsoch in writing, and in places in Wales these are also heard in speech.
In the conditional, there is considerable variation between the North and South forms of these four irregular verbs.
mynd gwneud cael dod Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural North First Person awn aen nawn naen cawn caen down doen Second Person aet aech naet naech caet caech doet doech Third Person âi aen nâi naen câi caen dôi doen South First Person elwn elen nelwn nelen celwn celen delwn delen Second Person elet elech nelet nelech celet celech delet delech Third Person elai elen nelai nelen celai celen delai delen [edit] Prepositions
In Welsh, prepositions frequently change their form when followed by a pronoun. These are known as inflected prepositions. Most of them, such as dan, follow the same basic pattern:
Singular Plural First Person dana i danon ni Second Person danat ti danoch chi Third Person Masculine dano fe/fo danyn nhw Feminine dani hi There is some dialectal variation, particularly in the first and second person singular forms. In some places one may hear dano i, danot ti, or danach chi.
The majority of prepositions trigger the soft mutation.
[edit] Notes
- ^ For a complete treatment of literary Welsh, see A Grammar of Welsh (1980) by Stephen J. Williams
[edit] References
- King, G. (2003). Modern Welsh. Oxford: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-28270-5
Welsh linguistics
