Stories about Language from December, 2008
Trinidad & Tobago: Language Lessons
“What's with the dumbing down of the English language by people who should know better?” From Trinidad and Tobago, Coffeewallah thinks that “poor language is really a way to keep people oppressed.”
Japan: How to learn a foreign language
Britty at Brittys Wake gives suggestions to Japanese about how to learn a foreign language [ja]. “There are two things that are absolutely necessary if you want to learn a foreign language. The first is time, and the second is skill in using your native language.” On the need for...
Egypt: Egyptian Dialect Wikipedia
Wikimedia has agreed to create a new section - a Wikipedia in the Egyptian Dialect. This decision was the catalysis for a discussion across the Egyptian blogosphere. Is it a good or a bad move, and is Egyptian and standalone language, or just a dialect of Arabic?
Japan: Japanese Language Proficiency Test Day
Takeshi at Saigon kara kita tsuma [サイゴンから来た妻] writes about his Vietnamese wife who took the Japanese Language Proficiency Test [en] [日本語能力試験, nihongo nōryoku shiken] today, as do thousands of other people every year who want to test their Japanese level. Seeing his wife to the test site, Takeshi-san was moved...
Myanmar: English translation of Constitution
Myat Thura uploads an English translation of Myanmar's constitution
Jamaica: When You Gotta Go…
Need to go to the bathroom in Jamaica? Iriegal can point you in the right direction.
Japan: Ikeda on the Fall of Japanese
Minae Mizumura‘s The Fall of the Japanese Language in the Age of English, which sparked debate recently in Japan on the future of the country's national language, is the subject of a blog post [ja] by Nobuo Ikeda. Ikeda writes that his wife had bought the book and described it...
Taiwan: Newspaper for the Immigrants
Bao Bon Phuong, a unique immigrant-focussing Vietnamese newspaper celebrates its second year from its first issue in Dec. 2006. On its blog(zh), the editor 張正 Zhang Zheng writes : “Everyday, the editorial team receives dozens of letters written in Vietnamese. Each letter contains different state of mind: to thank somebody,...
Serbia: “The Proper Way To Do Propaganda”
Belgraded dissects and does his best to translate some of the samples of Serbian war propaganda.
Sudan: Arabic language colonization
Kizzie of the blog I have no tribe, I'm Sudanese writes about what she calls the “Arabic linguistic colonization of Sudan”, a country where 142 other languages are spoken.
Russia: Quantum of Solace/Mercy
A “review of the Russian version of ‘Quantum of Solace’” that doesn't “go any further than the title” – at Eagle and the Bear.
Bangladesh: Bangla Town in New York
Farid at Bangla in Use Globally posts some pictures of the Bangla Town in New York, USA.
India: Poets on Mumbai Terror
Nothing articulates your heart like a poem. Sometimes the complex composition of a poem simplifies complex issues of life, sometimes it helps you come in terms with your surroundings. Poets from India are saddened by the recent terror attacks in Mumbai. You will find them asking questions in their poetry and sometime they are even answering them for us. Here are a few snippets of their expressions.
