Free Republic

ST. PAUL, Minn. - A proposal expanding the right to use deadly force in self-defense continues its advance through the Republican-controlled Legislature. The gun bill from GOP Rep. Tony Cornish goes before a House judiciary panel Wednesday after passing a public safety committee last week. The legislation would grant the right to defend oneself using deadly force in an expanded definition of home, including a garage, car, deck, tent, boat, overnight accommodation or other dwelling. The person wouldn't have to retreat from a threatening situation first.

Last week, Chief Marie Smith Jones, the only remaining native speaker of the Eyak language, died in her home in Anchorage, Alaska. Chief Jones' death makes Eyak—part of the Athabascan family of languages—the first known native Alaskan tongue to go extinct. Linguists fear that 19 more will soon follow the same fate. Fortunately, starting in 1961, Chief Jones and five other native-speaking Eyaks worked with Michael Krauss, a linguist at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, to document Eyak in case future generations want to revive it. How would you go about learning a language that nobody speaks? It depends....

Ogham inscriptions : [600 bc] primitive inscriptions of the old Q-Celt (600 bc) or the newer P-Celt (400 bc) that survive in the British Isles. We have a total of approximately 375 Ogham inscriptions. Ireland has some 316 Ogham inscriptions, Wales has 40 inscriptions, and the Isle of Man has 10 inscriptions. One inscription survived at Silchester in southern England, and a few Pictish Ogham inscriptions have been found in Scotland, as far north as the Shetland Islands. Ogham script often runs upward, in a vertical manner, for it was originally written as notches on wooden staves. Oghams :...

LONDON - Decades after it was thought to have been consigned to the scrap heap of history, the ancient Celtic language that is spoken fluently by only 100 people is making a remarkable comeback. Cornish has been granted official protection under the provisions of a European Union charter on "minority languages," paving the way for schoolchildren to be taught and speak it. Until recently, Cornish was thought by many to be an attractive curiosity ranking some way behind the region's beaches, smugglers' caves and cream teas. Dolly Pentreath, of Mousehole, Cornwall, the last Cornish monoglot, died in 1777 and at...