Stories about Language from November, 2007
Lithuania: Russian Diaspora
Lituanica writes about the Russian diaspora in Lithuania.
China: New Idiom
Doublleaf suggests a new idiom “Zheng Long Pai Hu” (zh). Its literal meaning is Zheng Long taking the tiger photo and its extended meaning is someone doing forgery for interest group to cheat the public. Even the case is exposed the person still insists the forgery is the truth.
Albania: Death Rites
Living in Shkoder writes about Albanian death rites.
The Balkans: A Dialect of Serbo-Croatian
Balkan Anarchist writes at length about an East Herzegovinian dialect of the Serbo-Croat language: “Although the Serbo-Croatian language is not particularly under threat – well, the language isn't, but the use of the name “Serbo-Croat”, it must be admitted, has significantly dropped ever since the break up of Yugoslavia –...
China: New York Charging Bull hits public
Critiques on Chinese tourists’ vulgar behaviors and ignorance of public rules on foreign land have been all-too-familiar. But this time, the Charging Bull sculpture in Wall-street aroused netizens’ different voices.
Lebanon: Introducing Yamli.com
Lebanese blogger m. introduces us to a new site, developed by Lebanese programmers. Yamli enables you to search the Arabic website, using English fonts.
Iraq: Honour and Pride
Iraqi blogger Konfused Kid discusses the concepts of honour and pride in a translation of an Iraqi song.
Fiji: Hindi and Fijian for Children
Babasiga likes the idea of schoolchildren learning Fijian and Hindi, the languages of the two ethnic groups in Fiji but wants kids to learn local dialects too.
Japan: Buzzwords 2007
Edo from Pink Tentacle blogs 60 buzzwords which has been nominated as Japanese buzzword of the year (2007) by local publishers. Among the 60 nominees, a panel of judges will select the top 10.
China: Loong not Dragon
Lanzhou city urged to standardize the translation of Chinese dragon into “Loong” as the two words convey very different imagine. Zishuo suggests to translate the word into “Yoooooog” as the word carries the horns, reflects the length and shows the tails of the Chinese dragon.
China: Mars Language
Lu ren is so frustrated about the sensitive words censorship that he starts to explore the application of Mars language (zh): a combination of Chinese words and Pinyin. For example, “i” stands for “love” in Chinese.
Japan: Japanese loanwords and their meanings
John at J-Life writes about Japanese loandwords, noting that many such words narrow their meaning when they are imported into Japanese.
Mozambique: Speaking the language of Tonga
Moçambique para todos [pt] announces the launch of the a Portuguese-Tongan/Tongan-Portuguese dictionary in Maputo this Thursday. Gitonga is the language spoken by Tonga people.
Serbia, Macedonia: Travel Photos
Novala, Europa has a lot of new photos from Kosovo and Macedonia – here, here, here, and here.
Russia, Mexico: Yuri Knorozov
De Rebus Antiquis Et Novis writes about life and work of Yuri Knorozov, a scientist renowned, among many other things, for his role in the deciphering of the Maya script.
Egypt: Yamli Search
Yamli Search is very intriguing new search engine that transliterates Arabic written in the Latin alphabet into Arabic proper, and then runs that query through Google, says The Arabist.
Algeria: Studying Korandje
Algerian blogger and linguist Lameen Souag is doing fieldwork in Tabelbala, where he is speaking “Korandje” – a clearly endangered language.
Estonia: The Language
Itching for Eestimaa writes about regional peculiarities of the Estonian language.
Hungary: Open Letter to Slovakia
Pestcentric writes an open letter to Slovakia: “Last year you even had garage bands calling for the destruction of Hungary. This is just not good. It seems that being in the European Union has led you astray. Now, I know you’ve yet to fence off the Gypsies like the Czechs...
Russia: “Rashn for Dummies”
Moscow Doesn't Believe in Tears translates “a double plus good lexicon of newspeak in Moscow’s dangerously jaded fashion community,” originally published in the Bolshoi Gorod.
Russia: Books and Periodicals
Russian Blog recommends books and periodicals to read while in Russia.
