Parrot Time Magazine

"Evolution is a process of constant branching and expansion." - Stephen Jay Gould

One of the key points to survival is the capacity for expansion. Countries expand their borders to take more land and resources as their populations grow and they need to protect themselves from invaders. This is how empires are created. Languages expand by absorbing words from other languages or inventing new ones to adapt to the changes in culture as well as increase their speaker base. Businesses expand to gain more profits and hire more workers, increasing their reach and visibility.

Parleremo has also had to expand over the years, not simply in the languages it provides materials and resources for, but also in the systems it makes available to its members. A third way it has expanded is by creating projects related to it in order to increase its reach as well as branching into other mediums.

Parrot Time is an example of one of those projects. It provides people that may not yet use Parleremo with a language and cultural outlet as well as a view into some of the things Parleremo is about. It also provides a means of promoting projects belonging to other language enthusiasts and thus providing Parleremo members with another source of information.

We have also expanded even further into the publications field, releasing free, simple dictionaries and word search puzzles. I released an ebook earlier this year, "Find Your Way to Languages", available for sale online, to further raise awareness of the site as well as provide people with fresh information.

For those that want a more physical representation of their love for languages, we opened a Zazzle store last month, which sells products such as shirts, buttons, mugs, and bags, all with language themes, such as "Hug me, I'm a polyglot" and "Language Freak". Profits from the store go to maintaining the site, and thereby ensure the future of Parleremo itself.

Other projects are in development or expansion, such as a "Word-a-Day" system, being distributed through Twitter (the beta testing on this has been going on for a while).

To further keep track of all these projects and make them more clearly available to people, we began a blog this past month called "View From the Town". There you will find articles on languages but also information regarding the happenings in Parleremo as well as activities in the other projects. There is even an explanation of how Parleremo was built and an article on how this magazine, Parrot Time, is made.

We hope to keep expanding into more outlets and projects in the future, and we hope you will be with us!

Erik Zidowecki
ERIK ZIDOWECKI
EDITOR IN CHIEF