Category Archives: Languages/Linguistic curiosities

Antonella Sorace, Professor of Developmental Linguistics at the University of Edinburgh, says that while understanding and speaking a language come naturally, learning to read and write is not something that brains develop automatically. Prof. Sorace raises a question that matters a lot in the context of comparative education surveys and assessments: “Are some languages more difficult than others”? (i) …

“Are some languages more difficult to read and write than others? This matters a lot in comparative education assessments“

Further to widespread internal and external criticism and mockery, Stanford University has taken down their “Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative” (EHLI) website, created in May 2022. The EHLI was an effort co-sponsored by the Stanford CIO Council and the People of Color in Technology (POC-IT) affinity group. The primary motivation of the initiative was to …

“Stanford University’s initiative to replace racist and harmful terminology backfires”

NourbeSe Philip is a Caribbean born Canadian poet, novelist, playwright, essayist and short story writer. One of her books, Zong!, published in English in 2008, is at the heart of a major translation controversy. Zong! is a 182 page poetry cycle composed of words sourced exclusively from the two-page case report, Gregson vs. Gilbert, which related to the murder of 150 …

“M. NourbeSe Philip’s work was translated and published without her consent. Who ultimately owns the stories we tell?”

Meghan O’Gieblyn is an award-winning author and “spiritual advice columnist” at Wired. In a recent article she reassures us that visual media is not (yet) replacing text as our main form of expression but that do we need to be aware that our relationship to language is changing. On the one hand the artificial intelligence …

“Is visual media replacing text as our culture’s dominant form of expression? Pictures’ capacity to convey “a thousand words” is a palpable advantage”

It’s that time of the year again when dictionaries announce their selection of top trending words. “Words of the Year” (WotY) are supported by usage statistics and tend to reflect societal attitudes and concerns. The tradition dates back to 1971, with the German Wort des Jahres, and the American Dialect Society’s WotY is the oldest English-language version …

““Permacrisis”, “gaslighting”, “goblin mode” and “shortage” are some of the Words of the Year 2022″

A study by MIT scientists from the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences (BCS), published in September 2022 in Science Direct, has analysed thousands of legal documents using a text analysis tool that identifies repeating textual features. Their research has pinpointed several features that distinguish legal from nonlegal texts, including unnecessary jargon, passive sentence structures, …

“Research by MIT cognitive scientists sheds light on the features that make “legalese” so difficult to understand for lay people”

The Guardian has recently published an extract from the last work by Japanese bestselling author, translator and academic Haruki Murakami, Novelist as a vocation. In this extract Murakami writes about how he became a writer and how he “discovered” the unique and original style which characterises his literary work. Murakami had just turned 29 when …

“Japanese bestselling author Haruki Murakami on writing in a foreign language … and why less is more“

Cultures and societies are dynamic and so is awareness of social justice issues. Recent global movements such as #metoo and #blm have shone a light on many of the inequities in the world and highlighted the need to work towards a more inclusive society. Awareness of the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) is …

““Neurodiversity” may be the next frontier in discussions around DEI in the workplace”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village “Holding my brush to write this letter, two streams of tears flow/ Of the thousands hardships I have suffered nobody knows” … These words are translated from “Nüshu”, which literally means “the script of women”. Nüshu is a writing system created and used exclusively by …

“New film celebrates Nüshu, China’s secret, female-only language from feudal times. Is it still relevant to women today?”

A study on accent bias in Britain, titled “Speaking up”, has recently been published by the Sutton Trust, a UK charity whose work focuses on social mobility issues. The study, based on the experiences of sixth-formers, university students and professionals, reveals that 30% of university students, 29% of university applicants (mainly 17-18-year-olds), and 25% of …

“Recent study reveals the extent to which accent bias is pervasive in British educational and work settings”

With 300 million speakers in 106 countries across 5 continents, French is the world’s fifth-most spoken language. For centuries French was a prestigious and élite language in which many of the world’s influential political, commercial, intellectual and artistic discussions were conducted. Over the last three decades times French has lost ground to English, which has gradually established itself …

“President Macron’s new €185 M project aims to promote the French language as an international lingua franca”

It refreshing to be reminded, in a very enjoyable article by sociolinguist, academic and best-selling author Ingrid Piller, for Language on the Move, that the concept of “correct spelling” in English is much younger than the language. When the monks transcribed biblical texts in medieval times, they did not regard orthography as an issue or …

“The challenge of spelling in English and how a knowledge of language history can help make sense of it “