Stories about Language from April, 2007
Uzbekistan: Alphabets
Uzbek has been written with four different alphabets over the last century, and the government of Uzbekistan has been trying to make the transition from Cyrillic to Latin for many...
Algeria: Say Camel in 40 Words
Algerian blogger and linguist Lameen Souag draws our attention to the fact that there are more than 40 words used in Arabic to mean and describe camels.
China: Slogans with Chinese characteristics
Banyue from DANWEI blogged some outrageous Chinese slogans, such as: Popularize the first child, control the second child, exterminate the third child, Whoever does not follow family planning will have...
Japan: Three Days Priest
Harvey from Japan Newbie explained the expression of mikka bouzu, three days priest, which is used to describe someone who is unable to stick with something they have started to...
Liberia: the man da can put Charles Taylor inside
Liberian Ledger on Liberian English and “the man da can put Charles Taylor inside.”
Kurdistance: A Week Like Any Other
The news coming out of the Kurdish blogs this week is as varied as the landscape of Kurdistan itself. From predictions on Syrian Kurd alliances with Israel, to censorship in...
Japan: Chinese-Japanese Rapper Nycca
James from Japan Probe introduced a trilingual Rapper Nycca. The post is linked to a youtube video of the singer's self intro and rap in three languages: Japanese, Cantonese and...
Writers in Guatemala
In Guatemala, most of the writers find it really hard to publish a book, and even harder to make it profitable. They often work as journalists, analysts, engineers and also...
Tanzania: blog about Swahili film in the US
A blog about a Swahili film, Bongoland II: “This weekend we conducted screen tests for JUMA. The process went well and we were very impressed by the brave souls who...
Ukraine: Yulia Tymoshenko's Article
Taras Kuzio discusses Yulia Tymoshenko's lengthy Foreign Affairs piece – and her allegedly good command of English: “In Tymoshenko’s case we can thank her growing knowledge of English on my...
Algeria: To Exist or Not to Exist
A query on LINGUIST List the other day asked for examples of other languages which, like English, have a verb “exist” distinct from the general-purpose existential “there is”. In Algerian...
Russia: Unreadable News
Copydude discovers a site featuring “unreadable” Russia news: “Make no mistake, this is break-the-mould journalism. All Russia News is so unreadable it is not only machine translated, it is written...
Lusosphere Reports The First Round of East Timor's Elections
Timor-Leste is holding its first national election as an independent nation, and the vote counting now indicates the need for a second round to decide the next President. The voting...
China: New Slang
Joel Martinsen from Danwei translated two articles (one from YWeekend and another from Wu Fei's blog) discussing about new slang in China, the latter was worried about the impact of...
Ukraine: Family History
Wu Wei resumes writing about her father's life: “No wonder his nationality was not so clear. And no wonder he could apparently speak Polish, Romanian, Hungarian and Ukrainian when he...
Bahrain: What's An Imbecile?
Bahraini blogger Mahmood Al Yousif discusses the meaning of the word imbecile and admits that he “was actually generous in that term’s use in some cases.”
Bahrain: Neutral Language?
Bahrain-based blogger Bint Battuta writes her thoughts on the book Perfume – from a linguistic perspective. “Perfume is a novel written in German, but set in France. I read the...
Bulgaria: Names and Nicknames
Petya notes on the Bulgarian way of simplifying life for the local bureaucrats: “There are more nicknames in Bulgarian than names.”
Slovenia: Difficult Language
The Glory of Carniola explains “why you will never learn Slovene.”
Japan: Salarymen
In case you think a salaryman is the person in the accounting department on whose best side you want to be, the an englishman in osaka blogger brings us photos...
