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Most of us know about Esperanto, the world's most famous (and widely spread) constructed language. Lesser-known is the fact that its inventor was a renowned Yiddish scholar persecuted by Hitler, and that the language he envisioned as helping to foster global communication was "viewed with deep suspicion by totalitarian states."
Nov 8, 2016All this frivolous debate underscores the ouroborosian nature of web discourse in 2016. Because who cares, really? How often do you even need to say “read receipts” aloud?
↩︎ The Atlantic
How do you translate "quidditch" into Dutch? Tight deadlines and many, many pages meant the Harry Potter books were a translator's nightmare.
When American companies try to rebrand overseas, what's the best way to translate their names? Jane C. Hu explains how and why phono-semantic matching works, i.e., finding something that matches both the sound and the meaning.
So, how do you translate "bigly" and "I moved on her like a bitch" in other languages? In Chinese, apparently it's "I pursued her like a harlot, but I could not succeed.” Some of Trump's strange vocal tics are making linguists very frustrated.
Also, Talking Points Memo discovered a formula in Trump’s Twitter takedowns: three-sentence insult haikus. “Single clause declarative sentence, single clause declarative sentence, primary adjective/term of derision.”
Have a good chance to win Texas on Tuesday. Cruz is a nasty guy, not one Senate endorsement and, despite talk, gets nothing done. Loser!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 26, 2016
It's settled, then: Transcription companies and professional linguists suspected that Trump was saying "big league," not "bigly" this whole time. His spokesperson says they're right.
Oct 25, 2016Chinese people rarely talk about renminbi or yuan. The word they use is “kuai”, which literally means “piece”, and is the word used historically for coins made of silver or copper.
↩︎ Marginal Revolution
As it turns out, Canadians do not say “aboot.” What they do say is actually much weirder.
Let's say that aliens do manage to make contact. How would we figure out how to communicate with them, and is that even possible? Linguists and sci-fi authors weigh in.
The Inuktitut language doesn't have an alphabet. Instead, its writing system is an abugida, where each symbol represents both a consonant and a vowel.
Yes, there is an American Jewish accent and no, it's not just a New York accent. Linguists explain why the study of "Jewish English" is so complicated and the nuances of this distinctive strain of speech.
Why does Australia have one of the largest language families in the world? Two new genomics studies and biology give us a glimpse into the evolutionary tree of the continent, and lend some credence to one of Australia's old myths.
Sep 16, 2016Is it possible that, along with these differences, my moral compass also points in somewhat different directions depending on the language I’m using at the time?
↩︎ Scientific American
As any speaker (or reader) of the two languages know, Chinese and one form of written Japanese use the same alphabet despite not being able to understand each other's spoken language. Since this form isn't phonetic anyway—meaning that instead of using letters they use pictograms that have no connection to how the word sounds—does that mean that Chinese and Japanese readers can "read" the other language? Can a Japanese speaker be literate in Chinese, even if they can't speak it? Mark Schreiber addresses this persistent claim.
When did "fuck" go mainstream? The time was the morning of March 3, 1965. The place was Berkeley, Calif. Here's the story about the moment when our favorite curse word really entered the lexicon.
Sep 11, 2016Her Láadan lexicon includes an elaborate vocabulary for specifically female bodily experiences: for instance, there’s a set of structurally
↩︎ Language: A Feminist Guide
related verbs with meanings like ‘to menstruate joyfully’, ‘to menstruate painfully’, ‘to menstruate early’ and ‘to menstruate for the first time.’
Sep 11, 2016It's more correct to say, for instance, that people living in England developed a new accent than that Americans "lost" their British way of speaking.
↩︎ Atlas Obscura
Why do some languages die while other adapt, and what is the pattern to how they adapt? Is it possible to change the rules of a language just because you're determined to? How do we revive dead languages?
A fascinating interview with linguist Sarah Thomason on these questions and more.
