Stories about Language from July, 2007
Estonia: Names
Itching for Eestimaa writes about Estonian names.
Poland: Harry Potter in Polish
The planned publishing date for the Polish version of the final part of the J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series is scheduled for Jan. 27, 2008. The beatroot, however, reports that four chapters have already been translated and put on the internet.
Puerto Rico: Why Write?
“Am I interested enough to write about it? Fellow bloggers know how hard it is to come up with content on a regular basis.” Gil the Jenius writes about…writing!
Jamaica: Adjust Your Tone
“Email messages here in the region can often sound abrupt, sharp and even downright rude. How do you adjust the tone of an email?” Jamaican Francis Wade has a few suggestions.
Global Voices in Persian Takes off
Global Voices in Persian finally takes off officially. It started its first baby steps in June and a few of its translations have already been republished on a few sites including a very popular one, Gooya.com and the Iranian Digg,Balatarin. On good days we get around 350 hits and 250...
Jamaica: Forrest and Freedom
“This is what I feel writing and self-publishing has given me the right that I was born with–permission to speak.” Forrest Gump helps Jamaican blogger Geoffrey Philp understand the meaning of freedom.
China: Words for the Olympics
Planning on attending the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing? Ms. Jenkins at the Elizabeth in China blog has already begun thinking up ways to help prepare her readers with Dirty Words: “…a great way to make yourself feel more Chinese. (I’m always searching for ways to feel more Chinese! Who...
Kuwait: Pictures, Sights and Events
Kuwaiti bloggers are leaping into action, discovering their surroundings, attending events and covering them, keeping tabs on the latest developments on the arrest of the Monster of Hawali and looking for racial slurs on the shelves of supermarkets. Read this post by Abdullatif Al Omar to see what else is happening.
Trinidad & Tobago, Jamaica, Dominica: On the Bookshelf
Instead of getting caught up in Potter-mania, Andre Bagoo has “fallen prey to the wonderful tone of White Teeth, a book I had avoided reading for years because of its bulk. Blake, my favorite poet, is also fashionable these days and I finished Jean Rhys’ gem A Voyage in the...
Sri Lanka: English and Universal Language
A Janusis on the prevalence of English, the cultural and historical backdrop of the “universal language”.
Hong Kong: Cyber bullying
A newspapers editor and blogger Chow Chauli was attacked by some netizens in her blog's comment section because of her criticism in the newspapers about a B.T user “Nike” who uploaded pornographic films in the internet. Some bloggers defined the case as cyber bullying. Florence who was very sympathetic with...
China: Fascinating & Urban Collection T-shirt?
Kenneth Tan from Shanghaiist blogs a story about a T-shirt design that “greatly hurting the feelings of the Chinese people”.
China: Soft Advice In a Harmonious Society
Wang Lin noticed that there are many “soft and warm advice notices” around China, such as: “Soft and warm advice: please take care of your belonging, if you lose anything, we won't take any responsibility” (zh). The blogger felt that such kind of “soft and warm advice” were a characteristic...
Serbia: Borders
Anegdote writes on the visa regime liberalization with the EU members for Serbia.
Bahrain: Arabic Translations
Bint Battuta translates the second in a series of translations of blogs written in Arabic in Bahrain.
Estonia: Smaller Minorities
Itching for Eestimaa writes about Estonia's “smaller, less vocal minorities [that] usually get lost in the shuffle.”
Uzbekistan: Cyrillic confusion
Tolkun Umaraliev posts a funny picture showing the amount of confusion created by writing Russian words with Latin script in Uzbekistan.
Eastern Europe: Swedish Blog Update 2007
In his comprehensive review, Vilhelm Konnander writes that, unfortunately, Swedish foreign minister is no longer blogging about Eastern European affairs, but otherwise, "the Swedish blogosphere on Eastern Europe is undergoing expansion and some of the necessary stabilisation to form the dynamic density needed for a blog community. [...] A disadvantage for the international audience is that blogs, with few exceptions, are in Swedish."
China: Funny Typos
ESWN translated a blog post from Sohoxiaobao on some funny typographic mistakes that have political implication.
Lebanon: Stiff Nipples
Lebanese blogger Mazen writes about a new service with a twist in its provider's name.
Africa: African Content Projects
Kenyan Pundit writes about two African Content Projects: “I’m a huge proponent of building and showcasing our local (African) content rather than bitching up a storm about how neglected we are…here’s two opportunities to do so.”
