Stories about Language from June, 2007
Hungary: Bilingual Education
N.Irish Magyar writes about Hungary's minority languages and bilingual education.
Morocco: English Speakers
In the confusion of speaking different languages, are English language speakers losing their edge? Felix from Morocco has more here.
Latvia: The Battles of Cesis
An outstanding post by Marginalia‘s Peteris Cedrins on the history of Latvia's the Battles of Cesis – as well as some musings on the Internet vs real libraries: “Though I...
Lebanon: Lebanese with Funny Accents
Perpetual Refugee, from Lebanon, discusses the antics and politics of Lebanese living in diaspora here.
Palestine: A Classic Case of Divide and Rule?
With so much happening on the ground, this week many of the blogs by Palestinians, and those focused on Palestinian issues, have kept their attention on the ongoing events in Gaza. Ayesha Saldanha reviews what Palestinian and other bloggers had to say about the civil war in Gaza, the World Refugee Day and conversations over picking thyme.
Hungary: “Gloomy Sunday” in Budapest
Pestcentric writes about a Budapest restaurant where “arguably the most famous Hungarian song was written: ‘Gloomy Sunday.’ Rezső Seress wrote the original lyrics here back in the 1930s.” What's known...
Tamil Blogosphere: Sri Lankan Tamil refugees in India
Back in Nov 2006, Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie was in India and had showered praises on India for giving shelter to displaced people from a number of countries. She also...
Jamaica: Trusting Walcott
“A battle over individuality, morality, divinity, and spelling was being fought on a Caribbean beach. I loved it.” A passage from Omeros inspires Jamaican Geoffrey Philp to write about why...
Ukraine: Kurkov's Novel
Music and Life – Everywhere! writes about “The President's Last Love” by Andrey Kurkov: “unfortunately, of course, surreal in Ukraine is probably real.”
Japan: Video Art, Media and Zen
An interview with Montreal-born Japan-based video producer Michael Goldberg has been posted at gyaku. In the interview, Goldberg discusses his experience with media art movements in the 60s and 70s,...
More on iSummit Dubrovnik 2007
Global Voices author Renata Avila adds another timely update to proceedings at the iCommons Summit in Croatia. There is commentary from non-English speaking sources, which has helped close the information gap for those whose first language is not English.
Singapore: Ancient Scripts of South East Asia
Noelbynature recommends an exhibition on Malay scripts current being hosted at the National Library in Singapore. “this is indeed a rare opportunity to see the epigraphy of ancient Southeast Asia...
The English language debate in the Philippines
The government wants English to be the medium of instruction in schools. A group of educators is opposed to this policy, and in fact has petitioned the issue in the Supreme Court. What ensues is a lively debate as to what language should be used in Philippine schools.
Slovenia: Blog Roundup
This week's Best of the Slobs is up at The Glory of Carniola.
Central Asia: Literature in Translation
Birds’ Books uses Uzbek author Hamid Ismailov's The Railway, one of the rare contemporary Central Asian novels translated into English, as a jumping off point for a discussion of Central...
Bahrain: Omar Al Khayam
Bahrain's Bint Battuta gives us some poetry – the famous Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam – and their various translations to digest.
Touring Libyan Blogs: Is the Arabic Language Dead?
Libyan bloggers mourn the death of the Arabic language as more Libyans resort to blogging in English. What makes them blog in a language other than their mother tongue? What do they think of the phenomena? And what is the relationship between language, religion, globalisation and terrorism? Fozia Mohamed summarises the raging debate going on in her blogosphere here.
Malaysia: Religious Scholars in Tourism Industry
A Malaysian minister is proposing that Malaysian students attending religious schools in Egypt master Arabic language. The minister hopes that they will be able to serve the tourism industry in...
Eastern & Central Europe: Children's Books in Romani
Children's books in the Romani language are a rarity, writes TOL's Romantic, but a teacher from Ukraine has recently published a few items.
Poland: “More Pope, Less Literature”
“More Pope, less literature…” This, according to the beatroot, is what Polish kids would be reading if Poland's education minister prevails.
Africa: speaking your own language
Ted Kidane came to the United States from Ethiopia twenty four years ago as a student, with $50 in his pocket. He starts his talk with a story about misunderstanding...
