· March, 2009

Stories about Language from March, 2009

Hong Kong and the Philippines: Satire or racism?

  31 March 2009

A Senate leader in the Philippines just filed a resolution condemning a Hong Kong writer Chip Tsao for his article “The War at Home” in HK Magazine (originally published on 27 of March). Now the article has been taken down in the website but the Senate Resolution also asked the...

France, Americas, Africa: The “Y'a Bon” Awards

  30 March 2009

On March 17th 2009, a group called les Indivisibles [Fr] launched the “Y'a Bon Awards”, a dubious honour bestowed upon politicians, journalists, or any public officials who have contributed to the spreading of racism in France. The Awards have sprung from reactions to a century-long advertising campaign that has not sat well with most black people in France.

Global Voices Book Challenge – Read Your Way Around the World!

  26 March 2009

April 23 is UNESCO World Book Day – and just because the Global Voices team loves blogs, doesn’t mean we have forgotten other forms of the written word! In fact, because we think reading literature is such an enjoyable way to learn about another culture, we have a fun challenge for all Global Voices contributors and readers, and bloggers everywhere.

Israel: The Language of Taxis

Rasha Helwa, who is a Palestinian citizen of Israel living in Acre (and describes herself as living in Palestine), has written a series of short posts at her blog Zaghroda about her thoughts when taking shared taxis, and on the significance of the language - Arabic or Hebrew - that the driver chooses to use.

St. Lucia: Visiting Gros Islet

  23 March 2009

Repeating Islands’ Blog visits St. Lucia and discovers that “the fishing village of Gros Islet – the principal setting for Derek Walcott’s Omeros – seems serenely frozen in time.”

Lao idioms

  22 March 2009

Bryan, A Laotian American writer, identifies some of the popular Lao idioms.

Japan: Italian news commentary in Japanese

  21 March 2009

Italian comedian and opinion-leader Beppe Grillo's blog [ja] is the only blog that is translated into Japanese (and English), presenting Italy from an unusual perspective. In his blog, he also hosts the translated version of journalist Marco Travaglio‘s weekly talks on the misdeeds of the current Italian government [it].

Taiwan: Diplomatic Officer's Blogposts Ignite Ethnic Controversy

  21 March 2009

Bloggers and netizens in Taiwan found that Kuo Kuan-ying, an information officer in the Taiwan diplomatic service in Toronto, who blogs under his pen name Fan Lan-chin, publishes insulting posts which has provoked more controversy and debate of Taiwan's long unsolved ethnic hatred.

Algeria: Scanned Manuscripts Online

“The Princeton Digital Library of Islamic Manuscripts has put a large number of Arabic, Persian, and Turkish scanned manuscripts online. Plenty of interesting stuff there, but one that particularly stood out for me was the untitled Treatise on ancient, alchemical and magical alphabets,” reports Algerian linguist Lameen Souag.

Guyana: The English are Coming

  20 March 2009

“…plenty visitors from Engerland is here for cricket, and to be hospitable, we the people must speak in a way that they can understand”: Guyana-Gyal is practicing her English.

Martinique, Dominica: Mount Pelee

  19 March 2009

Repeating Islands’ Blog takes us to Martinique's Mont Pelée volcano and also offers a glimpse into the work of the Dominican/Martinican poet “whose verses…commemorated the tragedy of Mont Pelée…when the town of St. Pierre was destroyed by the 1902 eruption.”

Hong Kong: Ng-hao big-naug or you are dead!

  19 March 2009

On Tuesday, March 18, a local police shot at a Nepali homeless man twice at close range and one of the bullets end up in the head, leading to the man's death. The police report soon after the shooting said that the police officer went to check out the hillside...

Japan: I wanna know America!

  18 March 2009

Koichi (耕一), a webdesigner living in Oregon (U.S.A.), tells about American culture, people, food, language and much more at his personal website Koichiben: Amerika ga shiritai (コウイチ弁、アメリカが知りたい lit. Koichi dialect: I wanna know America). Writing and video-blogging in Japanese, he proposes every time a new interesting topic with the aim of...

Hungary: Subtitling vs Dubbing

  14 March 2009

Csíkszereda Musings is campaigning against Hungarian TV dubbing – and in favor of subtitling: “My problem is that saying that you are the world’s best dubbers is akin to saying that X is the world’s best instant coffee. It may be true, and you may even be proud of it,...

Global recession and its discontents

  13 March 2009

Today the world seems flat. From Asia and Africa to Europe and the Americas, the people of the world are experiencing the traumatic effects of a global economic recession. This post is an attempt to describe the social impact of the great financial crisis as seen and felt by ordinary citizens around the world.