· June, 2007

Stories about Language from June, 2007

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 adore and am addicted to the Internet — I would rather my mind resembled a library than looked like cyberspace....

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 to the world, though, is “a watered-down translation of an already softened reinterpretation.”

Tamil Blogosphere: Sri Lankan Tamil refugees in India

  22 June 2007

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 said that India's action of providing shelter to refugees from various countries, though it had needy people of its own...

Jamaica: Trusting Walcott

  20 June 2007

“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 he trusts poet Derek Walcott more than his pastor.

Japan: Video Art, Media and Zen

  19 June 2007

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, as well as his recent documentary entitled “A ZEN LIFE” about Japanese author/translator D.T. Suzuki, widely credited as having introduced...

More on iSummit Dubrovnik 2007

  17 June 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

  17 June 2007

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 in one collection.”

The English language debate in the Philippines

  17 June 2007

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.

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 Asian literature, language, translation, and the impact of modernism and the Soviet Union on Central Asia.

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

  11 June 2007

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 Malaysia. Malaysia has seen number of Arab tourists increase in recent years. MarinaM does not like this idea. “Nor do...

Africa: speaking your own language

  6 June 2007

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 – he was visiting a tax preparer (which he found weird as, in Ethiopia, the government never gives money back...