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 » Lake Talk.
The New England Historical Society features “Nonantum, the New England Town With Its Own Special Language” (based on Erica Noonan’s 2001 Boston Globe story “In Newton, they still speak the language of the lake“): No matter where Nonantum natives go, they can tell someone is from their village when they hear them speak Lake Talk. Lake Talk is the unique … [Link]
Language Log » Take A Hint
Today's xkcd: 
Mouseover title: "2060: The gregarious superintelligent AI, happily talking its way out of a box, is fast becoming a relic of the past. Today's quantum hyper-beings are too busy with their internal multiverse sims to even notice that they're in boxes at all!". To be read along with this? [Link]
Urban Word of the Day » what are those?
an exclamation shouted by social media users everywhere when referring to someone without "shoe game". originated as a vine, and can sometimes be funny, but lots of lame people don't say it with enough force and end up looking extremely awkward. kid: "mom, I got one question for you." mom: "oh alrigh-" kid: "what are those? ." *points to moms … [Link]
Language Log » Pernicious garbage
The blogger of "The Wanderlust Diaries" has a post called "What China is This?" (10/17/15). In it, she includes the following sign as an example of the elusiveness of " correct English spelling and translation" in China, though she recognizes that there are now many Chinese who speak English fluently, in contrast to when she first went to China in … [Link]
Language Log » Intentional mistranslation
From a student: Here are very popular "emoticons" [VM: "image macros" might be more appropriate] that young Chinese people send each other while online chatting. They use "literal" translation of Chinese into English to achieve a comedic effect. I don't think they reflect the young generation's bad English; they actually suggest that the young Internet generation's English is good enough … [Link]
Language Log » Difficult Taiwanese characters
[This is a guest post by Michael Cannings] This brief news segment features a poster with a lot of interesting points packed into three short lines of text. The billboard is a traffic safety announcement by police in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan. 
[Screengrab with most of the text visible] The word in focus in the report is bái (the reporter says … [Link]
Language Log » Lingua is dead. Long live Glossa!
[This is a joint post by Eric Baković and Kai von Fintel. Much of the content of this post is also found in Kai's posts on his own blog, semantics etc.: "Lingua → Glossa" (11/2/2015) and "Lingua Roundup" (11/5/2015).] As many readers of Language Log know by now, the editors and the entire editorial board of a major linguistics journal, … [Link]
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