· August, 2011

Stories about Language from August, 2011

Russia: Content Analysis of Party Manifestos

RuNet Echo  30 August 2011

LJ-user schegloff analyses [ru] party manifestos of the Russian parties using Wordle word clouds. “Opposition can be identified by the word “must,” patriots by the word “Russia,” ruling party by the word “Unity,” concludes the blogger, speaking of the word frequency in each document.

Kazakhstan: Controversy Over State Language Promotion

  25 August 2011

In early August 2011, the Ministry of Culture of Kazakhstan developed a draft law to introduce some amendments into the state's language policy. It was quickly labeled by many observers as a move to further reduce the scope of use of the Russian language, which enjoys equal status with the Kazakh language, according to the Constitution.

Russia: One Million Twitter Accounts in Russian

RuNet Echo  11 August 2011

The number of Twitter accounts in Russian crossed the point of one million, according to recent reseach [ru] by Russian Internet company Yandex. Now, Russian speakers publish around 370,000 tweets a day (comparing to 150,00o a year ago).  The percentage of daily active  Twitter users (of the total Russian speakers)...

Portugal: Petition For Galicia to Enter the Lusophone Space

  11 August 2011

The association MIL – Movimento Internacional Lusófono (International Lusophone Movement) [pt] – has written an open letter [pt] to the Portuguese Minister of Foreign Affairs, Paulo Portas, addressing the “inflection of the Portuguese State's position towards Galicia”. MIL considers the Spanish region of Galicia as an integral part of the...

Egypt: The Unspoken Languages of the Streets

We as humans have a unique ability to communicate via spoken languages. However in a crowded and loud city like Cairo, we sometimes need more than spoken languages to communicate. Tarek Amr takes a closer look at sign languages used in congested areas and the language of car honks.

Ukraine: Language Confusion

  8 August 2011

Austere Insomniac thinks that Ukraine's former PM Yulia Tymoshenko's insistence of having Russian interpreted to Ukrainian in the court-case against her is silly, as Russian is her mother tongue, and goes on to discuss language issues in Ukraine.

China: Internet memes on Wenzhou Train Crash

  5 August 2011

George Ding from China Geeks explains the meaning behind two Internet memes derived from the Wenzhou train crash incident: “it is a miracle!” and “Whether or not you believe it; either way, I believe it.”

Latin America: Should News Broadcasters Provide More English Content?

  4 August 2011

Robert Valencia from My Humble Opinion blogs about a couple failed attempts by Latin American news organizations to provide content in English. He argues: “If Latin American broadcasters wish to keep up with other international networks that have incorporated high-quality English programming, now is the time to deliver real content...

Global Voices Podcast 2: Speaking Our Language

  1 August 2011

In this edition of the Global Voices podcast we talk all about language and the internet. The way we speak, write, gesture, code and communicate is such a rich topic for discussion. It was hard to pick what to go for!

Portugal: Lusophone Communities “Have a Look” at the Center of Porto

  1 August 2011

The Portuguese cultural and artistic association 10pt has launched the initiative Olha Lá (Have a Look) [pt] aiming at “gathering an itinerant object through the Portuguese language space”.  The Lusophone communities in Porto are thus called to share and spread the perceptions of diaspora across the historic center of town...