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 » PyeongChang: how do you say that in English?
Should we say the name of the host city of the 2018 winter Olympics the way the Koreans pronounce it [pʰjʌŋtɕʰaŋ]? Or should we say it more in accord with English phonetics? The following article by Jane Han spells out the controversy clearly: "NBC, read my lips – it's PyeongChang" (The Korea Times [2/18/18) For Olympics viewers in the U.S., … [Link]
languagehat.com » Beyond Greek.
I was intrigued enough by a reference to Denis Feeney’s Beyond Greek: The Beginnings of Latin Literature 
Omniglot blog » Pining for the fjords
Last week my phone stopped working when I was in the middle of a Russian lesson on Duolingo. It never objected to me learning Russian, or any other language, before, so I don’t know why it chose that moment to cease functioning. I took it to a phone repair shop, but unfortunately they couldn’t help, so I bought a new … [Link]
Language Log » Language machinery
Xavier Marquez, "Stalin as Reviewer #2", Abandoned Footnotes 117/2018: Most people reading this blog probably know about Trofim Lysenko, who, with Stalin’s help, set back Soviet genetics in the late 1940s, preventing any discussion of Mendelian inheritance. Yet Stalin’s influence on Soviet scholarship after WWII was much more far reaching. He intervened in disputes concerning philosophy, physics, physiology, linguistics, and … [Link]
Language Log » Rhetoric in Troll-land
Anton Torianovski, "A former Russian troll speaks: ‘It was like being in Orwell’s world’", WaPo 2/17/2018: You got a list of topics to write about. Every piece of news was taken care of by three trolls each, and the three of us would make up an act. We had to make it look like we were not trolls but real … [Link]
Urban Word of the Day » Grass Money
Instead of gas money, one pays for a ride by smoking down with them instead. Hey, want to drop me off at the office, I'll give you some grass money.
[Link]
languagehat.com » The Political Power of Translation.
Bathrobe sent me this piece by Chenxin Jiang, saying “This is a slight article but it’s wonderful to see someone moved to translation by the chance to contribute something to the world”: It goes without saying that literary translation, too, is a deeply political act, one that makes particular texts accessible to particular readers by transporting them across linguistic boundaries. … [Link]
Language Log » Barking roosters and crowing dogs
The following full-page ad was published in a Chinese daily in Malaysia: 
It shows a rooster barking to welcome in the Chinese New Year (CNY). The picture comes from this article: "Only in Malaysia do absurdities like a CNY ‘barking’ rooster thrive", by Mariam Mokhtar (Free Malaysia Today [February 18, 2018]). The article begins: Our institutions are either gripped by … [Link]
0 responses so far ↓
There are no comments yet...Kick things off by filling out the form below.
You must log in to post a comment.