Stories about Language from April, 2007
Turkey: A Disconnect in Turkish Class
Carpetblogger recounts some of her learning adventures in her Turkish class: “I have been spending four hours a day, five days a week in a small room with two Korean women, a Argentinian woman, a Turkish/Swiss woman (who speaks German but no Turkish) and two women from “Dogu Turkestan.””
Hungary: Space Travel
Pestiside.hu reports on the “first words of Hungarian spoken in space for 27 years.”
Latvia: “Language Issue”
All About Latvia discusses “the language issue.”
Belarus: Gospels in Romany
April 8 was International Roma Day; TOL's Romantic writes about Gospels translated into Romany language, and posts an interview on the Belarusian Roma community with Nicolas Kalinin, Belarusian delegate to European Roma Travelers Forum.
Palestine: Zionism on the DailyKos
Blogging for Palestine DesertPeace reported about an incident on the DailyKos when cartoonist Ben Heine posted images that were negative towards Zionism.
Jordan: Perceived Anti-Semitism
Jordanian blogger The Black Iris of Jordan points out how using the term “Jew” can feel like it is Anti-Semitic; as well as words like Judaism and Israel. “It is the strangest feeling but it’s like there is an anti-Semitic radar in my head that starts to beep wildly whenever...
Russia, France: “Marcho Dorilya” (sic)
Some Chechen opponents of Ramzan Kadyrov are also opposed to a French “mobile festival of artists, performers, jugglers, musicians and others that is scheduled to travel from Paris to the Chechen capital Grozny during the months of April and May.” To learn why, read this post at A Step At...
Romania: Cyrillic Script
Blog Bucharest provides a link to a Romanian-language Wikipedia page written in Cyrillic script and explains this particular “language issue” a bit.
Belarus: Romani Tales
Olia Yatskevich of Romantic posts Romani tales from Belarus: here and here.
Trinidad & Tobago: Quotes of the Week
Jeremy Taylor catches announcers out on their pronunciations and scores two very amusing quotes of the week.
Czech Rebublic: Roma in Hrabal's Work
Romantic, a TOL-hosted blog on “Roma issues around Central and Eastern Europe,” writes about representation of the Roma in the works of Bohumil Hrabal, a Czech writer.
Pakistan, India: I am a bandit
Light Within on language. “In the Angkor period of Cambodian history (9th-15th century) numerous Sanskrit and Pali words (by way of Buddhism) were absorbed into the Khmer language, and subsequently into Thai, since Thailand was a Khmer colony. The new words adjusted to their new homes imbibing the rules of...
