John Gordon Ross

A Man for All Reasons

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Language Stuff

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

Language Log » Why electronic machine translation services sometimes seem to fail

Sunday 29 January 13:38:04 UTC 2017

The inability of Google Translate, Microsoft Translator, Baidu Fanyi, and other translation services to correctly render jī nián dàjí 鸡年大吉 ("may the / your year of the chicken be greatly auspicious!") in various languages points up a vital distinction that I have long wanted to make, and now is as good a time as ever. Namely, just as you could … [Link]

Omniglot blog » Language quiz

Sunday 29 January 12:03:34 UTC 2017

Language quiz image Here’s a recording in a mystery language. Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken? [Link]

Urban Word of the Day » immigrant

Sunday 29 January 8:00:00 UTC 2017

What every inhabitant of the USA is, except the Native Americans. A: Dude, I fuckin hate them immigrants! B: Well whaddaya think your great great great grand father was? [Link]

languagehat.com » Cracking the Indus Script.

Sunday 29 January 1:30:09 UTC 2017

Mallory Locklear has a piece at the Verge on an old and probably unsolvable problem, the Indus Valley script. She writes that “new work from researchers using sophisticated algorithms, machine learning, and even cognitive science are finally helping push us to the edge of cracking the Indus script,” but that’s your basic science-journalism hype — that edge is a long … [Link]

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