A bilingual love story

So how is this relevant to BT? Well, has anyone ever produced a bilingual scripture product (not a diglott, but in code-switching)? Or would this be the last taboo in BT? After all, we have texting scripture products, Twitter Bibles, etc. I suppose church acceptability would be a major problem, but then creole languages have faced the same kind of opposition. I can imagine very creative products done bilingually, though the temptation would be to use the bilingualism as a literary device (Jesus and the disciples speak one language, the authorities another, for e.g-an interesting idea in its own right) and not by the norms of code-switching (which are apparently variable, and not yet all that well-studied or understood).

Extracted text from https://www.pri.org:

Skip to content PLAY HEART ROWS Main menu Arts, Culture & Media The correspondence of Jean Sibelius and his wife Aino is a bilingual love story

The World in Words February 13, 2018 3:30 PM EST By Patrick Cox Player utilities PopoutShare Download File downloadListen to the story. 02132018-bilingual.jpg Aino and Jean Sibelius flankinga letter written by Jean to Aino. Credit: Wikimedia Commons/Patrick Cox For decades, linguist Helena Halmari has been studying code-switching, the practice of switching languages or dialects in a single conversation.

Halmari, a linguist at Sam Houston State University, is a native of Finland.

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Each week on The World in Words, Patrick Cox and Nina Porzucki tell stories about languages and the people who speak them. SUBSCRIBE Her first language is Finnish. She also learned Swedish and English at school. She and her adult children code-switch between Finnish and English. Her children are among the code-switchers she has studied.

Linguistics professor Helena Halmari ofSam Houston State University, Huntsville, TX, is studying the correspondence between Jean and Aino Sibelius. Credit: Patrick Cox In 2015, Halmari's attention was drawn to the bilingual correspondance of Jean and Aino Sibelius. It was 150th anniversary of Sibelius' birth. I talkwith Halmari for The World in Words about what she discovered about code-switching from her analysis the correspondence.

It was a great excuse for me to familiarize myself with Sibelius' music, and his profound effect on Finnish culture.

US-based FinnSauli Pillay helps me with this.He tells me that Sibelius didn't mean that much to him until he returned to Finland in late 2017 for the celebrations forthecentennialof Finnish independence.It was the night of December 6. Pillay was among a crowd of thousands who had gathered in central Helsinki.

A letter from Aino to Jean Sibelius. Credit: Patrick Cox

"I was waiting for the fireworks, and they were playing 'Finlandia,' says Pillay. "I felt, wow! Maybe Id just had a few drinks and was sentimental, but it was quite beautiful.

Finns tend to think of 'Finlandia' as a perfect evocationof the Finnish soul. But 'Finlandia' has been turned into a hymn and been sung around the world. A version of it became the national anthem of the would-be breakaway nation of Biafra, in southeastern Nigeria.

Pillay also explains the connection between Sibelius and a more recent popular musical genre in Finland: heavy metal.

Want to hear more of Sibelius' music?Here's a good introduction.

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With support from the National Endowment for the Humanities

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