languagingHR

Title:  Languaging in Hampton Roads

Episode 15: A Day on the Marsh

Hosts: Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky

Date: March 31, 2025

Length: 30 min.

Publication Frequency: Monthly

In this episode of languagingHR, we look out on to one of the most iconic views in the Hampton Roads area, where the marsh meets the open water, while we explore the history of common words such as marsh and mud and heron and horizon that are used every day to describe our coastal surroundings. 

To help us on our word journey, we asked three local experts to join us: Dr. Steve Kuehl, Marlee Fuller, and Laura Lohse. 

Mud: As a marine geologist at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS), Steve Kuehl has spent his whole career studying sediment, or mud, primarily in deltaic systems, that is where rivers meet the sea. In this episode, he describes the why and how of studying mud. First and foremost, geochronology, studying the layers of sediment, allows us to learn about the history of our planet. By taking cores of mud and earth, we unearth, as it were, a record that spans millions of years. Marine scientists also study mud to learn more about our aquatic ecosystems. They measure benthic activity in, say, the York River to gauge the vitality of certain fish populations; they take cores in coastal areas to measure the patterns of buried carbon; and they study the resilience of the sedimentary activity in local marshes. 

Birds: With a background in evolutionary biology, Marlee Fuller has worked in bird research on clapper rails in Mississippi and prairie chickens in Oklahoma. She travels with her Coast Guard family and during her time in Hampton Roads, she was emersed, as a nature guide, in the local coastal and especially avian experience at False Cape State Park in Virginia Beach. If you haven’t had a chance to visit False Cape and Back Bay Wildlife Refuge, it’s a gem. In this episode, Fuller describes the varieties and habits of our native heron population as well as the name origins of the whimbrel and our ubiquitous killdeer. Be sure to check out this episode’s bonus content for Fuller’s vivid descriptions of local and migrating bird behaviors.

The Horizon: Laura Lohse has decades of experience teaching and sailing using celestial navigation, that is using the stars, the sun, and the horizon to stay on course. For our word journey, Lohse connects the nautical terms that we use in our day-to-day language—to get a fix, to find your bearings, to give leeway, with their historical use in sailing. To shoot stars is to get lines of position from stars at dusk or dawn using the horizon as a reference. Dead reckoning is using speed estimated with a taffrail log, and in the old days a knot log, to figure out position when there is no horizon in view.

And be sure to check out our bonus content (publishing weekly in April) where: Steve Kuehl describes the rock cycle, from sediment to sedimentary rock and back again(!); Marlee Fuller describes the lively behaviors of the sanderling and how a tricolored heron stealthily creates shade to attract its prey; and Laura Lohse recounts her experiences in the open ocean, from watching mola molas, that is gigantic sun fish that swim on the surface of the ocean, to experiencing the doldrums, long periods with no winds.  

To learn more about the organizations in this podcast, visit:

Virginia Institute of Marine Science, Gloucester

https://www.vims.edu/

False Cape State Park, Virginia Beach

https://www.dcr.virginia.gov/state-parks/false-cape

Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge, Virginia Beach

https://www.fws.gov/refuge/back-bay

Schooner Alliance II, Yorktown

https://sailyorktown.com/

Sloop Luna and the Colonial Seaport Foundation, Deltaville

https://colonialseaport.org/luna-operating-plans/

To connect with us, please send your feedback and questions to [email protected]. We would love to hear from you! Be sure to like, follow, subscribe, review  – it’s free and it helps other listeners find us.

Title: Languaging in Hampton Roads

Episode 14 - Bonus : A Vietnamese Voice of Faith 

Hosts: Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky

Date: March 25, 2025

Length: 18:13

Publication Frequency: Occasional (bonus)

In this Bonus episode, we talk to Trung Phan, a pastor at Vietnamese Hope Baptist Church in Annandale, Va. Phan is the youngest of a trio of Vietnamese brothers who lead churches affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention in northern Virginia; all offer services in their native Vietnamese. Like Phan, most of his congregants come from Buddhist backgrounds.

This interview is an addendum to Episode 14: Voices of Faith in Hampton Roads, which featured Vietnamese, Korean and Chinese pastors talking about the use of their respective native language in worship services. Phan falls outside our geographic area of Hampton Roads in SE Virginia, but his sentiments echo theirs. He also emphasizes the importance of language in identity and stability for young people. 

His experience ties in to languagingHR Episode 9: What it Takes to Raise Bilingual Children; in that episode we spoke to multiple immigrants in Hampton Roads about their commitment to having their children learn their native language, its rewards and challenges. 

Phan, who was exposed to both Buddhist and Christian traditions in childhood, came with his family to the U.S. from the Saigon region in S. Vietnam in 1991 when he was 17. He completed high school and went to night school for IT, a career he has pursued for 20 years. He was called to the ministry in 2005 and attended seminary in Kentucky. His congregation numbers about 80 people, which swells to 150 on special occasions, such as the New Year. 

He describes himself as a “bridge” between the first generation of older non-English speakers and his American-born children’s generation of English-only speakers.

Send your feedback and questions to [email protected]. Don’t forget to ‘like’, ‘follow’, ‘review,’ or ‘subscribe’ to languagingHR so that you never miss an episode (or a bonus episode). It’s FREE to do so and it helps others find us. THANK YOU!

Title: Languaging in Hampton Roads

Episode 14: Voices of Faith in Hampton Roads

Hosts: Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky

Date: March 5, 2025

Length: 48:50

Publication Frequency: Fourth Friday (approx) of each month

In this episode we interview several pastors, all first-generation immigrants, who minister to their flocks in the native language of their country of origin.

The interviews are with Pastor Echo Lin from the Shanghai region of mainland China, who leads services in Mandarin at the more than 100-year-old independent First Chinese Baptist Church in Virginia Beach; Father Joseph Nguyen who ministers to two Catholic Vietnamese congregations, Our Lady of LaVang Catholic Church in Norfolk, and Our Lady of Vietnam Catholic Church in Hampton ; and with Luke Do, Senior Pastor of Peninsula Korean Baptist Church in Newport News.

(We also talked to Pastor Trung Phan, leader of Hope Vietnamese Church in Annandale, Va. Time and geographical constraints meant we weren't able to include his interview; we will run it as bonus material at a future date.)

From our interviews, we learned about the changing role of the church in each community, the importance of language for identity, the generational rifts as assimilation occurs -- and what the future of ethnic-centered churches might be as globalization and technology reduce differences.

We did not address the use of traditional liturgical languages, such as Latin, Arabic, Hebrew, and Koine Greek, all of which are represented in Hampton Roads. Nor did we cover the multiple Spanish-speaking churches, by far the largest segment of non-English services in the region.

Instead, we focused primarily on Asian-led churches that minister to their communities through the use of the vernacular. In talking to ministers at Korean, Vietnamese and Chinese churches we learned not only about immigration patterns in the region, but also the ealier history of colonization and missionary activity. We learned in many cases that faith was secondary to a sense of community and cultural belonging.

Our interest in the topic was sparked by a sign for the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, Mehane Hiwot Abune Gebre Menfes Kidus, in the Park Place neighborhood of Norfolk . We learned that the Norfolk church, started in 2013, is part of one of the most ancient branches of Christianity, part of the Coptic tradition dating back to 300 AD. Priest Teshome Yohannes Feleke presides over a congregation of 200 drawn from throughout Hampton Roads. Services are in a combination of Ge'ez, the ancient liturgical language, and Amharic, Ethiopia's everyday language that evolved from it. (Plug in the church's name to find beautiful chanting on YouTube.) The church is celebrating its renovation with a grand re-opening on March 14/15.

We also discovered Our Savior's Lutheran Church in Norge, which once held services in Norwegian. Today the language is no longer used, but the church is the proud possessor of a Norwegian Bible donated by Norway's royal family in 1939. We also learned that Norge is actually the name for Norway in Norwegian, a tribute to its original Scandinavian settlers at the turn of the 20th century!

As you can gather, it's a very rich topic and we only scratched the surface of the Babel of languages used in worship in our Hampton Roads region.

Please send your questions and feedback to [email protected]

Title: Languaging in Hampton Roads

Episode 13: Guinea Talk: Gloucester County’s

Hosts: Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky

Date: Feb 2, 2025

Length: 39:44

Publication Frequency: Fourth Friday (approx) of each month

Take a ride with us--to Guinea Neck!

Nestled in the marshland of Gloucester County, Virginia, is Guinea Neck, where the local community has made their living off the water for centuries. Traditionally, the lifestyle of Guinea has been comprised of long hours on the water and a tight knit community, the ideal situation for the development of a unique language variation.

Although receding, the Guinea dialect is well known in the Gloucester area. We tapped into oral histories to try to understand the unique features of their dialect. In this episode, we introduce you to four Guinea watermen, born and raised in the early to mid-twentieth century. We take account of their stories of living and working on the water, while walking through the stages of their lives and experiences.

Along the way we talk with linguist, Dr. Bridget Anderson at

We also talk with Carlene Klein who, with two other students of Dr. Anderson, through a yearlong ethnographic process, interviewed a number of the Guinea watermen.

The Guinea watermen featured in this episode share stories of growing up in the remote marshes of Guines, of living with their close family connections, of learning the ropes and starting work on the water at young ages, and of the joy of being on the water.

Tidewater Voices is housed at ODU Digital Commons and is available to the public for research. There are 22 Guinea oral histories in the collection. You can find them here: https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/tidewatervoices_gloucester/  Look for the Guinea subheading.

 If you like languagingHR episodes and want to hear more about how we created the episodes for 2024, get a behind this scenes tour by listening to our presentation to the National Museum of Language:

languagingHR was also featured in The Virginia Pilot in December. Check it out: https://www.pilotonline.com/2024/12/24/says-who-linguists-look-at-tidewater-dialect-and-culture-in-podcast/

Send questions and feedback to [email protected]

Title: Languaging in Hampton Roads

Episode 12 : You Can’t Play Scrabble in Urdu: Endangered Alphabets and Minority Scripts

Hosts: Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky

Date: Dec. 31, 2024

Length: 48:20

Publication Frequency: Fourth Friday (approx)  of each month

Co-hosts Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky invite listeners to join them at https://languagemuseum.org as they present on ‘languaging in Hampton Roads’ to The National Museum of Language, part of its monthly online speaker series. The event runs from 2 to 4 p.m EST  on Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025; registration is free at https://languagemuseum.org/speaker-series/#lghr

The talk will be recorded and available on the NML site going forward.

This month we interview Tim Brookes, a teacher, writer, and wood carver.  Fifteen years ago Brookes launched the Endangered Alphabets Project to raise awareness about — and to preserve — the estimated 275 minority scripts threatened with extinction. While there are 7,000 spoken languages still extant, there are only 300 scripts worldwide. Brookes memorializes the scripts by carving them in wood, a unique blend of art and literacy.

He will host his 2nd Annual World Endangered Writing Day on Jan. 23, 2025 at https://www.endangeredwriting.world/  following the success of the inaugural event last year. Live-streamed speakers include script inventors, digitization experts, font creators, community activists and in-the-field researchers.

Find an archive of last year’s event at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHR3fRN60tw&list=PLYG37Sb2buKjaMtjztHjDc5pSS1a1jorr). 

According to Brookes, his website https://www.endangeredalphabets.com/ will feature a gallery that “celebrates a remarkable phenomenon that is springing up worldwide: people who are reviving their traditional scripts by teaching them through calligraphy workshops.” There will be give-aways and a quiz. 

Brookes’ two most recent books are “An Atlas of Endangered Alphabets” and “Writing Beyond Writing,” available through his website or Amazon. 

In our wide-ranging interview with Brookes, edited for length, we discuss minority scripts around the world, cursive writing in the U.S.,the effects of printing and mechanization, and address the question, “What is writing?” We even find some connections to Hampton Roads, our local region.

Title: Languaging in Hampton Roads

Episode 11: From Dogwoods to Diospyros: The Origins of Plant Names in Hampton Roads 

Hosts: Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky

Date: Nov. 30, 2024

Length: 36 min

Publication Frequency: Fourth Friday (approx)  of each month

In this episode of Languaging Hampton Roads, we talk with three botanical experts about the origins of common and scientific names of plants and fungi that grow in the Hampton Roads area: Nicole Knudson is a botanist and owner of the Norfolk-based business Lady Fern’s Native Plants, 4900 Colley Ave, Norfolk;  [email protected]; Vickie Shufer is a naturalist and herbalist and owner of Wild Woods Farm, Virginia Beach, https://wildwoodsfarm.us; and Sarah Winkowski, a Hampton Roads native who is a graduate student at the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences at the University of Washington. 

Our experts take us on a journey from high among the trees to low on the woodland floor and finally under leaves and logs, as they explain the names of some of our iconic plants, such as the dogwood tree, the persimmon tree, Spanish moss, the Yaupon holly, and mushrooms such as chicken of the woods and the chanterelle.

 Our discussions also span history with commentary on how the common names of plants have evolved over the years, including the Native American origins of the English common name of the Yaupon holly; the medieval idea that plant shapes signified their medicinal use; and the prolific period of botany work in colonial Virginia and its connections to Carl Linnaeus. Listening to this episode is like exploring our native environment, a foray into the natural areas of Hampton Roads.

In this episode, we promised to provide a list of volunteer opportunities for those who want to get more involved in the area’s native plants:

Places to volunteer with native plants include the Norfolk Botanical Garden https://norfolkbotanicalgarden.org; the Elizabeth River Trail, https://elizabethrivertrail.org; the Elizabeth River Project, https://elizabethriver.org. 

 Also, check out Virginia’s Master Gardener organization to find your city’s chapter: https://mastergardener.ext.vt..edu.

Another Virginia Extension program is the Virginia Master Naturalist program; the Tidewater chapter, Tidewater Master Naturalists, https://tidewatermn.org is taking applications now through January for the 2025 volunteer training class.

Virginia Native Plant Society, https://vnps.org to find your local chapter.

Title: Languaging in Hampton RoadsEpisode 10: The Ebb and Flow of Coastal Carolina LanguagesHosts: Prue Salasky and Jill WinkowskiDate: Oct. 31, 2024Length: 34.15 minPublication Frequency: Fourth Friday (approx) of each monthCo-hosts Prue Salasky and Jill Winkowski delve into the history and language of Hatteras and Ocracoke Islands, part of the Outer Banks, OBX, of North Carolina, our neighbors to the south and part of our geographical culture in Hampton Roads. They interview two experts on the region. Scott Dawson, whose family traces its roots back to the 1600s on Hatteras, has devoted countless hours to researching the language and culture of the Croatoan people and their early encounters with English settlers. An amateur archaeologist and historian, he has identified artifacts and produced word lists of the Carolina Algonquian spoken on Hatteras Island when the first English settlers arrived in the 16th century. (https://www.coastalcarolinaindians.com/category/research-databases/blair-a-rudes-indigenous-language-collection/). He credits the efforts of English scientist and polymath Thomas Harriot (Hariot) working with Croatoans Manteo and Wanchese for much of what’s known today about the indigenous residents, their culture and language. We also learn more about Thomas Harriot and his scientific accomplishments, among the greatest of his generation. Dawson is a founder of the Croatoan Archaeological Society (http://www.cashatteras.com) and also opened a museum on Hatteras to tell a different version of the “lost colony” of Roanoke Island (https://www.lostcolonymuseum.com).. Linguistically, sociolinguist Prof. Walt Wolfram, William C. Friday Distinguished University Professor at N.C. State, places the dialects spoken on the Outer Banks islands as part of the Tidewater diaspora. For example, the brogue spoken on Ocracoke, he says, is closer to that of Tangier Island in the Chesapeake Bay than to that of nearby mainland communities. A scholar of language variation, Wolfram contrasts the vibrancy of the distinctive English dialect of the Lumbee in Robeson County with the rapidly declining use of Ocracoke’s traditional dialect. He is also the director of the North Carolina Language and Life Project which documents dialects and speech variations.Listeners can find speech samples for the Lumbee, Ocracoke Islanders and many more by searching for The North Carolina Language and Life Project on YouTube.The changes in language use and dialect over 400 years in these coastal communities first tells the story of English settlement and its impact on indigenous communities. Then ongoing changes reveal shifting demographics and how geography intersects with language and identity.

Title: Languaging in Hampton Roads

Episode 9 : What It Takes to Raise Bilingual Children

Hosts: Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky

Date: Oct. 2, 2024

Length: 38.08 min

Publication Frequency: Fourth Friday (approx)  of each month

Co-hosts Jill Winkowski and Prue Salaskyexplore the topic of how best to raise bilingual children. It’s an endlessly complex topic with multiple angles. First, they share some of the changes in research that show the benefits of bilingualism and the study of languages on the physical structure of the brain. They also touch on the changes in attitude toward English variations fueled by demographics and a global economy and the subsequent status accorded to those proficient in more than one language.

To determine what it takes to raise children bilingual – and what fuels the drive on the part of parents – they talk to several foreign-born residents of Hampton Roads. These include university professor of language and art history, Rosa Motta, a native bilingual speaker of Italian and Sicilian; Silvina Bocca, a Spanish speaker from Argentina, an MD/PhD, an expert in infertility and in-vitro fertilization; Brenda Musto, a Spanish speaker from Argentina whose parents were native Italian speakers. She now runs a medical residency program at Eastern Virginia Medical School. They also talk to her daughter Bernie, a high school senior and dual bilingual in Spanish and English; to Yuliya Dobrydneva, who works in biomedical sciences, and her husband Boris Dobrydnev from Moscow, a physicist; and to Russian speakers Elena Chambers from Belarus and Natalya Peretyatko of Kazakhstan, founders of the Russian school in Newport News.

We learned how years of English study in their home countries prepared these parents to become bilingual but it wasn’t until they came to the U.S. and were immersed in an English-speaking environment that they reached fluency. They talk about their backgrounds and the intense efforts they put into raising their children as heritage speakers – and how success isn’t guaranteed. There’s ‘no recipe’ for success. The parents talk about the challenges and rewards of passing on their culture through language.

We end the show with reference to the hugegrowth of formal bilingual/foreign language education in Hampton Roads in the past decade: These include a Russian daycare in Virginia Beach; multiplepreschools with  Spanish language options; dual immersion Spanish/English programs in the public schools in Virginia Beach and Newport News (the latter serves 600 students and has a waiting list);  weekend language enrichment programs in multiple languages; and the featured Russian school in Newport News. We also learned about the Seal of Biliteracy that high schoolstudents in Virginia can now earn as part of their high school diplomas for proficiency in a foreign language.

Send your questions and feedback to languaginghr@gmail com.

Title: Languaging in Hampton Roads

Episode 8 : Road Trip in Hampton Roads: Uncovering the Origins of Geographical Names

Hosts: Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky

Date: Sept. 5, 2024

Length: 31:45 min

Publication Frequency: Fourth Friday (approx)  of each month

Co-hosts Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky take a road trip to the far corners of Hampton Roads in S.E. Va. They’re in search of the provenance of the names, Elephant’s Fork in Suffolk, Cuffeytown in Chesapeake, and Chic’s Beach in Virginia Beach, and what those names tell us about the history and culture of the region. 

The duo talk about toponymy, or the study of place names, and semiotics, the study of signs, and how those disciplines apply to their discoveries. 

They share the rules and regulations involved in the official naming process.

At the state level there’s the Virginia Board on Geographic Names: Senior Map Archivist, Library of Virginia, 800 East Broad St. Richmond, Va. 23219; 804-692-3617; [email protected].

Nationally, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, BGN, was fully established in 1947; its naming conventions include allowing only 5 places nationwide to have names that include an apostrophe (Martha’s Vineyard is one of them). The BGN works closely with state, tribal and local governments, as well as the general public.

At Elephant’s Fork the duo uncover a community recognition of the name but no understanding of how it came to be; subsequent research, including the use of the free digitized archive of Virginia newspapers, virginiachronicle.com, unearthed its origin in a giant tin elephant used to advertise the emporium of one H.J. Bowen in 1903.  Stories attached to the name included that of Mary Chapman, as recorded in Tidewater Voices,  https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/tidewatervoices, an ongoing digital archive project of Old Dominion University in Norfolk; and that of Angelo Scott, a current Suffolk resident, who recounted his perceived experience of abrupt integration as a 2nd-grader in 1971.

At Cuffeytown, a historic community in Chesapeake founded by free blacks in the 1700 they recount their difficulties in finding the historic Cuffeytown cemetery, the final resting place for the Cuffeytown 13. These were Civil War veterans who fought for the Union. Crops at peak growth prevented their access. They did visit the AME Zion Church, founded in 1866, and learned there the identities of the 13 veterans, almost half of them Cuffeys. (See the below list) 

5th USCT 

Pvt. Walter Smith, Co. I

10th USCT

Sgt. William Coffey, Co. G

Pvt. Bluet Cuffey, Co. H

Corp. Emerson Cuffey, Co. G

Pvt. Lemuel Cuffey, Co. F

Sgt. Wilson Cuffey, Co. H

Sgt. William Cuffey, Co. F

Corp. William Sevils, Co. H

Pvtd. Cornelius Smith, Co. F

Pvt. James W. Smith, Co. F

Pvt. Samuel Smith, Co. H

Pvt. John Whitehurst, Co. H

36th USCT

Sgt. Thomas Van, Co. C

From there the intrepid pair took the back roads to Chic’s Beach in Virginia Beach, whose recorded history dates back to Native Americans and then the earliest European settlers, but whose current nickname harks back to the mid-20th century. The bayfront neighborhood, officially called Chesapeake Beach, saw a flurry of real estate dealings in the early part of the 20th century and was built out by the 1960s. Local lore attributes the nickname that stuck, Chic’s Beach, to one Luther ‘Chic’ Ledington who operated a hot dog stand in a beachfront building until 1967. 

There’s so much to learn from the names we see around us daily! Send feedback and questions to [email protected]. 

Languaging Episode #7 Notes: July doldrums

https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/languaginghr

Title: Languaging in Hampton Roads

Episode 7 : July doldrums

Hosts: Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky

Date: August 9, 2024

Length: 18:40

Publication Frequency: Fourth Friday of each month

In this off-the-cuff mini-episode, hosts Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky give listeners information on the name and whereabouts of Hampton Roads, Virginia, and its “rival” Tidewater. They also reveal that the podcast’s title, languaging, “is a word” and divulge its meaning - to solve complex problems through the use of language.

In laid back summer mode, the duo reflect on their six prior episodes that started with a spotlight on Tidewater Voices in January 2024. The online archive, available at Tidewater Voices: Conversations in Southeastern Virginia | Old Dominion University Research

is an ongoing 20-year ethnographic project by Old Dominion University linguistics students, under the supervision of Dr. Bridget Anderson. That first episode focused on identifying a Tidewater accent and the history of the region. 

Jill and Prue go on to recount the scope of their episodes to date: an exploration of the roots of the word ‘menhaden’; learning about the work of a coalition of local tribes to revive the Algonquian language; raising awareness of research on patient/health provider interactions; a discussion of the development of sign language dialects; and, most recently, interviews with performers in the spoken word poetry scene in Hampton Roads. 

Finally, Jill answers her question about the role of the present perfect, while Prue poses a new question for listeners – is it true that the labio-dental fricative [v] is the only letter in the English alphabet that is never ‘silent,’ as in ‘g[h]ost, thum[b], etc.?

Send your answer and any feedback via email to [email protected].

Listeners can also visit their new website, www.languaginghr.wordpress.com, with access to all episodes of languaginghr as well as full interviews with those featured on the podcast.