Stories about Language from December, 2010
Japan: Top popular Japanese phrases of 2010
Pinktentacle reported and translated into English the “Top 60 popular Japanese words/phrases of 2010″, published on the website of Jiyu Kokuminsha.
Africa: MDGTagger available in Swahili
MDGTagger, a simple tool to help people track Millennium Development Goals is now available in Swahili: “After quite a bit of searching we found an ‘official’ translation of the the Millennium Development Goals translated into Kiswahilli here. So we now have the MDGTagger available to Swahili speakers!”
Pakistan: Language Preferences
Amrita Yasin at Pak Tea House criticizes the negligent attitude of many Pakistanis towards their national and ethnic languages.
“In the beginning was the Word”: Blogs by Bible translators
This week Christians will celebrate the birth of Jesus. Christianity appears in many forms around the world and has around 2.2 billion adherents. In this post we take a look at the blogs of the people trying to make sure Christian scripture can be understood in as many languages as possible – Bible translators.
China: Legal action threatened over #netfreedom violation
Sina blogger Wu Fei has written a letter to Tencent CEO Ma Huateng threatening legal action over the company's specific practice of filtering from QQ one term protected by the constitution and used across the Chinese Internet, government websites included: “freedom of speech”.
Guyana: Dispensable Lives?
“Thinking about how things are in Guyana these days, particularly about how cheap human life has become”, reminds Imran Khan of a poem he penned a few years ago in “a poor attempt to speak to injustice and inequality.”
China: Meaning of the word “love”
Maryannodonnell from Shenzhen Noted looks into the meaning of “I love you” in a cross cultural romantic relation in Shenzhen.
Guyana: Sun/Rain Love
Guyana-Gyal blogs beautifully about the relationship between sun and rain.
Sri Lanka: Studying In Sinhala
Za Za writes that studying only in Sinhala language can be challenging for the Sri Lankans.
Japan: Asahi's English Daily to become Electronic Only
Andy Sharp at the Diplomat's Tokyo Notes reports that the print version of Asahi Shimbun’s printed English-language daily will be discontinued next February and become electronic only. This leaves two printed English-language dailies in Japan, and Sharp notes “given their precarious positions, it would not come as a shock if,...
Africa: ICT terms in African languages available online
ANLoc partners have completed work on 2500 Information and Communications Technology terms, with a particular eye to software localization, for the following languages: Akan, Amharic, Arabic, French, Kinyarwanda, Lingala, Luganda, Songhay, Yoruba, and Zulu.
Russia: New Language for Organised Crime
In Moscow's Shadows notes that “modern organised crime has in some ways evolved beyond the language” and “new terms for new types of organised crime figures” are needed.
Caribbean: Regional Reviews
The Caribbean Review of Books has some interesting reading this week.
