2008 IYL – A DIARY OF LANGUAGE FINDS
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September 26, 2008
“… our language [is] difficult but also one of the most musical in the East; its subtleties of sound have greatly enriched our poetry.”
The rest of the article is here. It describes the rich history of the Burmese language, its influences. The article itself is part of a supplement published 50 years ago by The Atlantic Magazine, covering all the aspects of Burmese culture.
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April 2, 2008
300+ different languages in London schools (UK)
As I was driving, listening to a BBC Radio 4 program on Cities and Ethnicities in the series Thinking Allowed, I chanced upon this little bit of information:
According to researchers, there are over 300 different languages in London schools, and 60-70 in some schools of Northern England.
The program discusses the situation of ethnic groups and their place in the city of Marseille (France) and England, and the different approaches adopted by France and Britain.
Researching the situation about London, I found that the National Centre for Languages has a website with a list of the top 40 languages found in London schools:
English 608,500
Bengali & Sylheti 40,400
Panjabi 29,800
Gujarati 28,600
Hindi/Urdu 26,000
Turkish 15,600
Arabic 11,000
English-based Creoles 10,700
Yoruba (Nigeria) 10,400
Somali 8,300
Cantonese 6,900
Greek 6,300
Akan (Ashanti) 6,000
Portuguese 6,000
French 5,600
Spanish 5,500
Tamil (Sri Lanka) 3,700
Farsi (Persian) 3,300
Italian 2,500
Vietnamese 2,400
Igbo (Nigeria) 1,900
French-based Creoles 1,800
Tagalog (Filipino) 1,600
Kurdish 1,400
Polish 1,500
Swahili 1,000
Lingala (Congo) 1,000
Albanian 900
Luganda (Uganda) 800
Ga (Ghana) 800
Tigrinya (Sudan) 800
German 800
Japanese 800
Serbian/Croatian 700
Russian 700
Hebrew 650
Korean 550
Pashto (Afganistan) 450
Amharic (Ethiopia) 450
Sinhala (Sri Lanka) 450
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March 20, 2008
Journée mondiale de la Francophonie
Check this website to see what will happen on March 20. Activities are planned not only in French-speaking countries, but others too: in Australia, Croatia, Japan, etc. Seven events are planned in the United States.
From March 14-20, a series of activities are planned in Paris too.
See this report from France24.
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March 12, 2008
Turkey : Kurds look for language rights
Here is a report from France24, on the situation of the Kurdish language in Turkey. http://tinyurl.com/2mza5u
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March 11, 2008
Microsoft and African languages
Les Afriques, a newspaper specialized in African finance, is publishing today an announcement about the translation of Microsoft tools into Zulu (South Africa), Wolof, Houassa and Ibo (Western Africa).
Let’s hope it’s a good sign for African business.
It’s only a short piece in French, but… watch this space!
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March 3, 2008
“It isn’t a noise, it’s my language!”
said Miriam Makeba, the great South African singer, about Xhosa, in 1979.
She was referring to what linguists call “a click language” (in actual fact, a family of 30 languages), spoken in Namibia and parts of South Africa, characterized by four or five click sounds (consonants). If you google Xhosa, you will find references to a number of studies on click languages, which are considered to take us back tens of thousands of years, into our very distant past.
You can view an introduction to the click sounds with KhoeKhoegowab, one of the major Xhoisan languages, here.
Miriam Makeba’s explanation and song, The Click Song, is here.
Embedding of the video is not allowed.
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Feb 26, 2008
“Motion parlementaire suisse en faveur de l’espéranto”
In the Swiss state (canton) of Neuchâtel, a group of parliamentarians are submitting a motion calling for the official recognition of Esperanto.
Esperanto (meaning ‘the hopeful one’) is an ‘artificial’ language (experts call it a planned or constructed language) developed between 1877 and 1885 by a Polish doctor by the name of Zamenhof. The aim of the motion submitted in the International Year of Languages, is to promote this international language, to demonstrate its worth in international situations, to encourage people to learn Esperanto and to facilitate international exchanges, using Esperanto.
The text of the motion (in French) is here:
There is an Esperanto version of Google:
http://www.google.com/intl/eo/
To see how far Esperanto can take you, just watch this video:
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Feb 21, 2008
“English words, we got a million of ‘em”
This is a headline found in today’s Chicago Tribune’s Web edition.
There is a problem though, and the article puts its finger on it: not everyone agrees on the actual count.
One of the interviewees said: “English is a people’s language. It grows from the ground up.”
As if every language wasn’t a people’s language and didn’t grow from the ground up?
However, we must recognize that English, and in particular American English has much in-built flexibility that seems to make it more adaptable than other languages. Or is it just that the current general context in which languages are evolving makes more of the underlying background and culture of American English?
The article is here, for you to form your own opinion.
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Feb 21, 2008
‘Amar Ekushey’
All the Bengalis out there will understand.
February 21 was picked as ‘International Mother Language Day’ for a very good reason.
This International Day pays tribute to the Bengali students who became Language Martyrs when they lost their lives in Dhaka on Ekushey February (February 21), 1952, as they were demonstrating in a protest to keep their language official in their own country. Their resistance has become a symbol of the fight to preserve languages.
This video is the best on the subject that I’ve seen so far.
Ekushey was one of the defining moments in the history of the Province of East Pakistan that was to become Bangladesh in 1971.
I am dedicating this post to Gautam, a young Bangladeshi boy who lives in the North of Bangladesh, whom I have been sponsoring for 6 years now, through the charity Plan International. ‘Gautam, tumi amaar bandhu’.
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Feb 14, 2008
‘Sorry, We Don’t Do Your Name’
This is the title of a short and interesting post by Ultan Ó Broin about Gaelic (Irish) names (Thank you WordPress for accommodating those ’special characters’).
Read here how uniformity is forced on us through politics or by virtue of the power of machines… You must read the fake Error message.
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Feb 9, 2008
Les mots français issus de la langue arabe
What do the words Algèbre, Adobe, Orange, Alcool have I common? (I’m sure you can guess their English equivalents…)
All of them (and about 500 more) were borrowed from Arabic.
Listen to a 12-minute program on Canal Académie, a webradio based in Paris. The series features Henriette Walter, a famous and meticulous linguist who explains the different paths via which Arabic words entered other languages.
Arab merchants were famous for sea trade. Words that reached the French language did so through two main paths: Spain and Sicily, in two different waves:
- During the European Middle Ages, the first wave introduced words into scientific fields: botany, mathematics, medecine, etc.
- During the colonization period, slang, or familiar language, borrowed more words. But these were used in a condescending way.
In the program, Henriette Walker explains why we say “abricot” in French and “apricot” in English. It was the same Latin word originally (for a plum!), that traveled different ways, one through Persia, the other through the Arab world. Fascinating!
http://www.canalacademie.com/Les-mots-francais-issus-de-la.html
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Feb 7, 2008
How many official languages in the European Union?
The answer is: 23
For your information, the European Union is now composed of 27 member states.
Check details on the EU website section devoted to ‘Languages in the EU‘
By clicking on the languages in the left sidebar, you will be able to hear samples of each of the 23 languages, and to understand the diversity of the people who make up the European continent.
Have fun!
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Feb 6-7, 2008
Chinese New Year
My fellow translator and Facebook friend at Yeasir Translations (China) has put some interesting videos of the Chinese New Year on Seesmic.
Here’s this one where you can see and hear Chinese people in the street. I love all that red!
http://www.seesmic.com/Standalone.html?video=mlJym8KoyQ
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Feb 3, 2008
2008 bloavezh ar brezhoneg / 2008 année de la langue bretonne
DotClear, the French open source blog solution, is the first to be available in Breton.
Breton is the language of Brittany, the westernmost part of France.
It belongs to the Celtic family of languages. Listen to the days of the week, and numbers from 1 to 10 by visiting this bbc.co.uk web page. This other page describes the Celtic languages. Map of Celtic regions and languages here.
This other site, ‘Oui au Breton – Ya d’ar Brezhoneg’ reports the loss of one Breton-speaker every day.
It has declared 2008 ‘Year of the Breton language’.
‘Bretons are increasingly attached to their language: according to the latest poll, 92% are in favor of keeping their language. The number of people openly in favor of the development of bilingual education is constantly on the increase, as is the number of children enrolled in bilingual classes.’
207,855 people are still speaking Breton, 64% are over 60 years of age, and only 4% under 40.
There were 600,000 in 1983, and 300,000 at the last 1999 census.
The site also reports on the situation of minority languages in France and in other countries.
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Jan 28, 2008
My daughter in elementary school studied this Kanji today
I chanced upon this blog, and was pleased to discover that it is owned by a Facebook friend.
There you will discover, day after day, the structure and the meaning of Japanese Kanji characters. And if you search the tabs, you will discover how to get your own name written in Kanji.
Sleek and simple, I love it.
http://kionatic.wordpress.com/
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Jan 26, 2008
Asian Network Report: Nangin Slang
“A revolution in street-based language is taking place in East London – with Cockney rhyming slang having to compete with a number of new Asian-based youth-languages like Benglish and Hinglish.
The latest to hit the East End of London is `nanging slang`. Nat Illumine takes up the story for ANR on how Nanging` slang got to be so popular with young people, writers like Gautam Malkani and filmmakers like Menhaj Huda.
The effect the Bengali community has had on the language young people use on the streets of East London.”
A 30-minute radio documentary by BBC Asian Network, here.
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Jan 24, 2008
Last Fluent Speaker of Eyak Language Dies
“Obituary of the last Chief Marie Smith Jones, the last fluent speaker of the Eyak language of the Alaskan Indians, died Monday at her home in Anchorage. She was 89. Chief Jones worked diligently to preserve her native tongue and other indigenous Alaskan languages.”
The voice of last speaker of the Eyak language:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18391658
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Jan 20, 2008
Paulo Coelho, Keynote Address to DLD08
DLD08 -Day1 – Creating universes
First few minutes on Language and the Internet.
Link: sevenload.com
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