John Gordon Ross

Almost everyone uses language, so inevitably almost everyone thinks they are an expert in it. I don’t consider myself an expert, though most of my work requires at least language competence and sometimes actual skill, but I do follow the blogs featured on this feeds page.

(If you are wondering where the translation-related feeds have all gone, I have put them on their own page.)

Most of the blogs represented here are in English, most of the time, but don’t be surprised to find other languages used. Go with the flow – I occasionally find myself pleasantly surprised at how much I can grasp in languages I have never seen before.

Language On the Net

languagehat.com » Green’s Languages.

Thursday 29 October 21:38:30 UTC 2015

Another interesting passage from Alien Tongues (see this post), this time on Julien Green: The choice of a language in which to write obviously depends much less on the constraints of the external context than does the choice of a language for any given utilitarian speech utterance. […] Or consider Julien Green, who wrote novels drawn from his American experience … [Link]

Language Log » "…not simply Mandarin Chinese pronounced in a different way"

Thursday 29 October 11:00:44 UTC 2015

Chuin-Wei Yap has an interesting article about the southern conurbation known as Chaoshan in China Real Time: "Underground Banks Trace Roots to the Sicily of China" (WSJ, 10/27/15). Chaoshan is a portmanteau name composed of the first syllables of the two main cities that it encompasses: Chaozhou (Teochew) and Shantou (Swatow). I have long been intrigued by Chaoshan because of … [Link]

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