With more than 2,000 distinct languages, Africa has a third of the world's languages with less than a seventh of the world's population.  By comparison, Europe, which has about an eighth of the world's population, has only about 300 languages.  Africa's linguistic diversity can even be found among individual Africans.  For instance, a study of 100 inhabitants in a city in western Uganda found that the average speaker knows 4.34 actual languages.  So why is this anyway?  To help explain diversity, linguists borrow tools from evolutionary biologists:   linguists explore the relationships between distinct languages in the same way evolutionary biologists explore family relationships and speciation of living things.  Given the parallels in these two fields, it's no coincidence that Africa, the place of highest genetic diversity, contains rich linguistic diversity as well.  Claire Felter  http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/Science-Notebook/2015/0421/Why-does-Africa-have-so-many-languages

Mighty Joe Young may refer to:  Mighty Joe Young (1949 film); Mighty Joe Young (1998 film); Mighty Joe Young (musician), blues musician; or the original name for Stone Temple Pilots, who recorded the Mighty Joe Young Demo before changing their name.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mighty_Joe_Young  

Terry Moore, Ray Harryhausen, the star of the original Mighty Joe Young (1949), and the legendary stop-motion animator (who did most of the animation on the 1949 film) appear as an elderly couple at the gala in the 1998 film.  Looking at Jill Young, Terry Moore states, "She reminds me of somebody, but I can't think who."  Harryhausen replies, "You, when we first met."  Filmed in Hawaii and the U.S., Jill Young is played by Charlize Theron in the 1998 film.  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120751/

Who was Lloyd George and why is the name a tongue twister when you repeat it several times?  David Lloyd George was a British prime minister from 1916-1922.  A silent film, The Life Story of David Lloyd George, was made in 1918 but not screened in public until 1996.  The name Lloyd George has two diphthongs in a row and the tongue and jaw move enough between the two sounds to make it hard to speak quickly.

How many U.S. presidents have first and last names beginning with the same letter?  Think about it a few minutes and then find the answer at http://www.presidentsusa.net/presvplist.html

A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

colophon  (KOL-uh-fon, -fuhn)  noun  1.  A note at the end of the book giving information about its production:  font, paper, binding, printer, etc.  2.  A publisher’s emblem, usually on the spine or the title page of the book.  From Latin colophon, from Greek kolophon (summit, finishing touch).  Ultimately from the Indo-European root kel- (to be prominent; hill), which also gave us colonel, colonnade, column, culminate, excel, and hill.  Earliest documented use:  1628.

recto (REK-toh)  noun   The front of a leaf, the side that is to be read first.  From Latin recto folio (right-hand leaf), from rectus (right).  Ultimately from the Indo-European reg- (to move in a straight line, lead, or rule) that is also the source of regent, regime, direct, rectangle, erect, rectum, alert, source, surge, arrogate, abrogate, regent, and supererogatory.  Earliest documented use:  1789.

codex  (KOH-deks)  noun  A manuscript volume (as opposed to a scroll), especially of an ancient text.  From Latin codex (tree trunk, wood block, book).  Earliest documented use:  1581.

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From:  Douglas Rathbun   Subject:  colophon

Musicians are all aware of the word colophon, but referring to rosin -- particularly when we use foreign-made rosins that have the word on the package.  In most European languages the word for rosin is a variant of colophon (colofonia, colophane, Kolophonium), deriving from colophonia resina, resin from the pine trees of Colophon, an Ionic city situated on the summit of a ridge.

Republic of Vermont was formed unilaterally in 1777 from territory formerly associated with New York and New Hampshire.  The Vermont Constitution dates from 1777.  On 10 January 1791, the Republic of Vermont ratified the U.S. Constitution—the only state apart from the original 13 to do so.  Vermont was admitted to the union as the 14th state a few months later.  Most of Texas was part of the Spanish Viceroyalty of New Spain (with some parts once part of the French Royal Province of Louisiana) until 1821, when New Spain became the independent United Mexican States.  The Mexican State of Texas declared and secured independence in 1836 as the Republic of Texas.  It was annexed by the United States and reduced to its current size in 1845.  Parts of the former Republic of Texas now lie within New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, and southeastern Wyoming. 

Alta California was a province of New Spain until 1821, and then of Mexico until 1848.  It became American under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.  At that time, Alta California included all of contemporary Upper California, northern Arizona, all of Nevada and Utah, and part of southwestern Wyoming.  California in its present size wrote a bilingual state constitution in 1849 and was granted statehood without going through the territorial phase in 1850.  (See the Compromise of 1850.)  In 1846, prior to formal declaration of the Mexican–American War, a small band of men originally from the United States proclaimed the independence of California—the so-called Bear Flag Republic—but this never became a formal entity, and lasted less than a month before the area came to be occupied by U.S. Army forces as part of the American conquest of northern Mexico in the Mexican–American War.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_that_were_never_U.S._territories

The Bay Psalm Book is the world's most expensive book.  It was printed in 1640, and sold at a Sotheby’s auction for $14.2 million on November 26, 2013.  The auction firm estimated the sale price would be between $15 million and $30 million--but the final price still ensured it became the world's most expensive printed book.  The world's most expensive paper document is Leonardo da Vinci's journal, Codex Leicester, which sold for $30.8 million in 1994.  The Bay Psalm Book was the first book printed in what became the United States and this copy was owned by the Old South Church in Boston.  And guess what? The church also has another copy that will not be sold.  At one time, this church owned FIVE copies.  The last Bay Psalm Book to be sold before this one was bought at a Sotheby's auction in 1947 for $151,000 by representatives bidding on behalf of Yale University.  Thank you. Muse reader!  See pictures and link to a video at http://www.abebooks.com/books/RareBooks/worlds-most-expensive-book/bay-psalm.shtml?cm_mmc=nl-_-nl-_-CPrpt08-h00-baypalAH-341424GP-_-01cta&abersp=1

May 1, 2015  Bookface involves strategically lining up your face or another body part alongside a book cover that features a matching body part so that there appears a melding of life and art.  Librarians and other book lovers post these photos weekly on visual apps like Instagram, using the caption #BookfaceFriday.  The minitrend is giving a boost to the digital presence of institutions that are, by definition, purveyors of analog information.  A particularly ambitious bookface endeavor can call for a team effort.  Employees of the Burlingame Public Library in California enlisted six people to take 50 shots over 20 minutes for a triple bookface image featuring three mystery titles.  The photo — showing people’s faces morphing into the covers of “Guilt by Association” by Marcia Clark, “Devious” by Lisa Jackson and Charlaine Harris’s “Dead Until Dark” — generated nearly 150 likes on Instagram, almost three times the library’s average post.  Rachel Kramer Busse

See pictures and read more at http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/fashion/oh-those-clever-librarians-and-their-bookface.html

May 4-10, 2015 -- the 96th anniversary!

Children's Book Week originated in the belief that children's books and literacy are life-changers.  In 1913, Franklin K. Matthiews, the librarian of the Boy Scouts of America, began touring the country to promote higher standards in children's books.  He proposed creating a Children's Book Week, which would be supported by all interested groups: publishers, booksellers, and librarians.  Mathiews enlisted two important allies:  Frederic G. Melcher, the visionary editor of Publishers Weekly, and Anne Carroll Moore, the Superintendent of Children's Works at the New York Public Library and a major figure in the library world.  With the help of Melcher and Moore, in 1916, the American Booksellers Association and the American Library Association sponsored a Good Book Week with the Boy Scouts of America.  In 1944, the newly-established Children's Book Council assumed responsibility for administering Children's Book Week.  In 2008, Children’s Book Week moved from November to May.  At that time, administration of Children’s Book Week, including planning official events and creating original materials, was transferred to Every Child a Reader -- a 501 (c)(3) literacy non-profit dedicated to instilling a lifelong love of reading in children -- and the Children's Book Council became a CBW anchor sponsor.  http://www.bookweekonline.com/about  I remember taking Children's Literature, as an elective in library school more clearly than any other class.  During CBW, read a children's book or recall one of your favorites from the past.

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1292  May 4, 2015  On this date in 1626, Dutch explorer Peter Minuit arrived in New Netherland (present day Manhattan Island) aboard the See Meeuw.  On this date in 1776, Rhode Island became the first American colony to renounce allegiance to King George III.