· June, 2010

Stories about Language from June, 2010

Japan: Questionnaire about English ability

  29 June 2010

What Japan Thinks translated the results of a questionnaire about “when Japanese feel most ashamed about their lack of English”. The number one situation? “When a foreigner asks me the way and I cannot answer. ” Here's a series of comical commercials from Nova, the now defunct English conversational language...

Taiwan: Where is the mainland?

  21 June 2010

Tim Maddog at Taiwan Matters discusses the use of the word “mainland” by people in Taiwan to refer to China. He argues it is part of an indoctrination effort by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). He has translated an article which discusses how the use of the word affects people's...

India: Fallacy Of English Medium Education

  20 June 2010

Ram Bansal at India in Peril criticizes some Indian English medium educational institutions which forbid Hindi and have no provision of Hindi to English translations or vice-versa in the curriculum.

India: The art of swearing

  9 June 2010

Rimi takes a humorous dig at contemporary use of language and swear words. She writes, pen dripping nostalgia, of days gone by when swearing was a ‘smorgasboard of wit, quick repartee, a talent for coining puns and aphorisms, and of course, analogies’.

Brazil/Bulgaria: Domain Name Debate

  2 June 2010

Following the debate initiated in January 2010, Eternal Remont blog discusses the ongoing case of the Cyrillic Internet domain name of Bulgaria “.бг” which is, allegedly, too similar to the Brazilian one in latin script “.br”.

Taiwan: Chiayi Sound Project

  1 June 2010

“Chiayi Sound Project initiated from 2008. It mainly focuses on field recording in southern Taiwan – Chiayi, the recording topics include oral history, nature environment, folk music, industry, religion and local events.” Check the project's latest recording of Mayasvi, one of the two most important rituals of Tsou indigenous people.