Stories about Language from June, 2010
Global: Greek to English, Chinese to Russian, and Spanish to Macedonian
Wikidioms is a new online resource that aims at helping translators to cope with this challenge of translating idioms. Below is an interview with Wikidioms' founder Pavel Kats, and with one of its contributors, Yasna Trandafilovska.
Japan: Questionnaire about English ability
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...
Guide to Vietnamese Restaurant Menu
Viet World Kitchen provides a useful guide to understand Vietnamese restaurant menus
Martinique, Guadeloupe: French Football Flop now Racial Controversy?
The French national football team has been through some rough times prior to the 2010 FIFA World Cup, but the past three days have stirred up old issues around "Les Bleus". Bloggers follow the play.
Taiwan: Where is the mainland?
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
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.
Hong Kong and China: Local languages
Wangbo discusses the relation between language and identity in China and Hong Kong by referring to a blog post written by Luqui Luwei.
East Timor: “Government needs a proofreader?”
The Lost Boy identifies the grammar errors in a press statement released by the Ministry of Defence and Security of Timor Leste
India: The art of swearing
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’.
Israel: IDF Poetry Slam Between Druze, Bedouin Soldiers
Picture this: Druze and Bedouin Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers sitting in a room singing call and response poetry to each other in the ancient Arabic style of Zajal. The video and background information can be found at Nizo's Blog, subtitled “A Gay Palestinian Muses on the Missile East.”
Brazil/Bulgaria: Domain Name Debate
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
“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.
