Giggles

Linguists boy­cott Kansas hear­ings on intel­li­gent design of English

The state board of edu­ca­tion in Kansas plans to hold hear­ings in May on the “intel­li­gent design” the­o­ry of the ori­gin of Eng­lish, which claims that the lan­guage was con­struct­ed in the ear­ly 6th cen­tu­ry by a com­mit­tee of unknown experts guid­ed by a Supreme Gram­mar­i­an. But pro­fes­sion­al lin­guists are most­ly boy­cotting the hearings.

Six years ago, when con­ser­v­a­tives pre­vi­ous­ly held a major­i­ty of seats on the Kansas board of edu­ca­tion, they estab­lished guide­lines encour­ag­ing schools to give equal time to the the­o­ry of lin­guis­tic cre­ation­ism, which claims that Eng­lish was cre­at­ed direct­ly by God five hun­dred years ago at the start of the Great Vow­el Shift so that the King James Bible could be trans­lat­ed into it. But this trig­gered a back­lash, and they lost con­trol of the board, which repealed the guide­lines. Now that con­ser­v­a­tives are back in a major­i­ty posi­tion, they are instead pro­mot­ing the teach­ing of the intel­li­gent design the­o­ry. But lin­guists are not will­ing to appear at their sched­uled hear­ings on the subject.

Ganked from ladytabitha, who got it from gram­mar­gasm, which I must now join.