Featured stories about Language
Stories about Language
Weathering Russian xenophobia in everyday life
In recent months, there has been more talk about "Russophobia" — anti-Russian sentiment. What they face is nothing compared to what national minorities face in Russia.
Is OpenAI biased? We checked so you won't have to
Global Voices explored how an AI image generator rendered pictures from different languages. We typed in the same phrase in nine languages and got wildly different results.
A look back at the Mayan Languages Digital Activism Summit 2023
From January 11-15, 2023, the Mayan Languages Digital Activism Summit convened digital activists and their communities to explore how the internet, digital media and technology are helping to revitalize Mayan languages in digital spaces.
The main effort of Russian propaganda language is to give the impression that there is still no war
What does Russian propaganda do? It replaces the associations of words so that we perceive the world as better and safer, as a world in which there is no war
Ukrainian linguistic battlefields
A recent Facebook dispute about gendered names of professions in the Ukrainian language is about far more than gender.
Popular Russian singer answers ‘Glory to Ukraine’. Now they want to revoke his citizenship
Singer Valerii Meladze has been openly against the war since February 2022. Now he may face harsh consequences for the words he said off-the-record in Dubai in support of Ukraine.
Indigenous and proud: A Maya-speaker’s reaction to ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’
The values that my family fostered in me encouraged me to “Remember who you are, no matter where you want to go,” and the Indigenous communities now know that we can go a long way.
Mountain Jews: A glimpse into the life of one of Azerbaijan's minorities
A Berlin exhibition provides a glimpse into the life of Azerbaijan's Mountain Jews, a group originating from Persia that settled in the Caucasus and maintained its identity to this day.
France's institutional fear of multilingualism: An interview with language activist Michel Feltin-Palas
France has always been a multilingual country, but central state institutions are reluctant to embrace this historical and cultural heritage, explains French journalist and language diversity activist Michel Feltin-Palas.
A Buryat voice calling on Russia to decolonize : Interview with Instagrammer Seseg Jigjitova
According to statistics, Russia is home to over 190 ethnic groups in which ethnic Russians account for around 80 percent of the total 146 million population. Yet Moscow maintains a Russian-centric discourse largely inherited from a Soviet colonial tradition. But its invasion of Ukraine has triggered new anti-colonial and anti-war...
The year in review: What the Caribbean looked like in 2022
The stories the Global Voices Caribbean team covered this year saw a stronger leaning towards pressing concerns like the environment and crime.
Does Messi speak Spanish or ‘Argentine’?
Focusing on a "stammering" Lionel Messi returns Americans to the colonial status of children.
Breaking the binary of trauma and resilience in mental health: Interview with Lamia Moghnieh
The declared absence of trauma has consequences on how mental health is framed by international and humanitarian organizations, according to Lebanese psychologist and anthropologist Lamia Moghnieh.
Twitter account “No Context Russia” is sad yet hilarious
A Twitter account shows images from Russia without context, portraying the country in sad and ironic tones.
With the Russian invasion of Ukraine unlikely to stop soon, Kazakhs rally around their language
Interestingly, it seems to be Putin’s war in Ukraine that induced many Kazakhs to embrace the Kazakh language, and, in some cases, to start learning it anew
Remembering Moshe Ha Elion, Sephardic Jewish author and Holocaust survivor from Thessaloniki
Moshe Ha Elion was born in 1925 in Thessaloniki; he survived the Holocaust, and is well known for his Ladino publications and songs commemorating the plight of victims of Nazi death camps.
Calls for interpreters build after NYC marathon winner Evans Chebet gets poor Kiswahili translation
Why have the race organisers, especially at the Abbott World Marathon Majors, never considered having professional interpreters, especially for the Kiswahili, Kalenjin, and Amharic languages? Many Africans online ask.
Explaining the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of China: Struggle and fight
Overseas Chinese dissidents anticipate an endless struggle targeting different social groups in China.
One of the last Ladino language speakers in Bosnia, Moris Albahari, passed away
Ladino or Judeo-Spanish is an endangered Romance language derived from Old Spanish, used by around 60,000 Sephardic Jews living in the Israel, Turkey, the Balkans, North Africa, and other former parts of Ottoman Empire.
Explaining the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of China: Jiangshan
The political rhetoric, which reflects the determination of the party to safeguard the single-party system with force, however, has become less and less appealing.
The struggle to maintain an independent russophone voice in Moldova
In de facto bilingual Moldova, russophone media Newsmaker offers independent coverage as an alternative to pro-Moscow media that influence a large part of the population, including about Ukraine.
