Archive for the ‘Language in the media’ Category

Jan
01
2011

Language police ignore textual chainsaw massacre of English

By Catherine Field. 5:30 AM Saturday Jan 1, 2011

France is famous for defending its language.

It’s not just at the United Nations and European Union, where French diplomats insist on the right to use French in official discourse, or even at the International Olympic Committee, which – to the outrage of Britain’s tabloids- has insisted that posters and pageantry for the 2012 London Games be in French, an official IOC language, alongside English.

The biggest defensive activity is on the home front. The government appoints an official watchdog to monitor the purity of French against English incursion.

A committee of language experts, La Commission Generale de Terminologie et de Neologie, hands down Zeus-like judgments in the Journal Officiel, the publication of legal record, on native words that should replace intruders.

For instance, one is urged to use logiciel rather than software, and courriel (a contraction of courrier electronique, or electronic mail) for email.
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Jun
05
2010

Yemen language schools near-empty after militant student

(Reuters) – When Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab enrolled in an Arabic course in Yemen last year, few who met him could have guessed what this withdrawn young man was really up to, nor the devastating impact he would leave behind.

Staff at the now-deserted language center where he studied are still reeling from the actions of the Nigerian, suspected of trying to blow up a U.S.-bound plane in December, just weeks after leaving the Arabian peninsula country.

Adil Badi, a teacher at the Sanaa Institute for the Arabic Language, said radical Muslims such as Abdulmutallab, a student from a wealthy family who had no criminal record, had used the Arabic courses on offer in Yemen as a pretext for entering the country to meet fellow militants there.

“They had something else to do in Yemen but their excuse was to study Arabic,” Badi said.

Prized for the purity of its dialect and cheap living costs, Yemen was long a popular destination for students of Arabic. But over the years, a number of foreign militants have arrived in Yemen in the guise of Arabic students, only to join al Qaeda training camps.

Sherif Mobley, a U.S. citizen currently being held in Yemen on suspicion of belonging to al Qaeda, also first came to the country as a student of Arabic at a language institute, before attending a university run by prominent hardline Muslim cleric Sheikh Abdul-Majid al-Zindani, officials say.
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Jun
01
2010

Indonesian is top Asian language on Facebook

(AFP) – 8 hours ago

JAKARTA — Indonesian is the top Asian language used on Facebook and the fifth most popular in the world, according to a new study of languages used on the social networking site.

More than 20 million Bahasa Indonesian speakers are now Facebook members, the survey by research company Inside Network found.

English is the most common language, with over half of Facebook’s 400 million-plus users — followed by Spanish, French and Turkish.

But Indonesians are way ahead of the Asian pack, despite patchy communications infrastructure and little computer access for many of the country’s 234 million people.

And it could lead to money-making opportunities, according to the California-based research company’s Inside Facebook site, which tracks the social networking giant’s rapid spread across the planet.

“As Facebook continues to grow around the world, and add the bulk of its new users in countries outside of the United States, users? language may become an increasingly important factor for marketers and developers,” the report said.

It underlined the importance of tailoring the site to different cultures and localities.
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May
30
2010

Face aux journalistes, Frédéric Mitterrand défend la langue française

Rédigé par Victor de Sepausy, le dimanche 30 mai 2010 à 07h08

Le ministre de la Culture, Frédéric Mitterrand, s’est posé en défenseur du bon usage du français lors d’un déplacement dans la ville d’Anger. Le ministre et écrivain reproche notamment aux journalistes de corrompre notre langue.

En oubliant l’emploi correct de la forme interrogative ou en laissant de côté le subjonctif et la concordance des temps, le français se trouve maltraité par les professionnels de l’information. Allant plus loin dans ses attaques, M. Mitterrand affirme que les journalistes font courir au bon usage de notre langue un risque encore plus grand que les apports de l’anglais.

A entendre ainsi parler le ministre de la Culture, on se demande presque s’il n’en oublie pas qu’il n’est pas celui de l’Education nationale. Mais, avec l’arrivée de l’iPad, M. Mitterrand se montre très optimiste pour la presse papier qui saura sans doute profiter au mieux de ce nouveau terminal de lecture.

Toutefois, le ministre recommande tout de même, sans vouloir donner dans le passéisme, un contact répété avec « le vrai livre », sous-entendu celui qui est fait de papier. Oui, certainement, on ne sait pas encore quelles seront les conséquences dans l’évolution de nos habitudes de lecture de l’emploi de ces nouveaux modes de transmission de la culture.

N’oublions pas que M. Mitterrand s’est rendu, au départ, à Anger, pour commémorer le 450ème anniversaire de la mort de Joachim du Bellay (1522-1560). Cet ardent défenseur du français, dans un temps où langues grecque et latine étaient encore la norme, signa notamment en 1549 la Défense et illustration de la langue française.

Source: http://www.actualitte.com/actualite/19290-Frederic-Mitterrand-defense-langue-francaise.htm

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May
14
2010

Avatar’s blue language on the rise

GILES HARDIE. May 14, 2010 – 10:54PM

With thousands of languages listed alongside animals as endangered or extinct, Avatar’s 3D universe and the internet have spun off a new language which is rapidly gaining speakers.

Linguistics expert and mild mannered academic, Professor Paul Frommer, spent the last five years on another planet learning the native tongue. Except, of course, the planet didn’t exist and nor did the natives.

Frommer was in fact developing a new language. Designing it from the grammar up. The language wasn’t Esperanto Mk II, but rather Na’vi, the language of the native people of Pandora in James Cameron’s blockbuster Avatar.

With the end of production on the film – and then of course the spin-off game – he might have thought his work was done, but that was before the online Avatar community hunted him down.

In the face of globalisation and technology, UNESCO estimates that at least 50 per cent of the world’s more than six thousand languages are losing speakers. Frommer mined many of these to create the foundations of a language now spoken by thousands of people, more than a large number of the real dying languages.

With blue-tongued boffins learning the nearly 1000 words that already exist, and trawling every possible film, game, interview and background document to find possible additions to the lexicon, Frommer has found unexpected cult status.
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May
10
2010

Australian TV show teaches Aboriginal language

(AFP) – 13 hours ago

SYDNEY — An Australian TV channel is broadcasting the first lessons in an Aboriginal language aimed at young children, in a bid to stem an alarming decline that has wiped out hundreds of native dialects.

“Waabiny Time“, for three to six-year-olds, teaches “yes”, “no” and other basic terms in the Noongar language, which is spoken in the southwestern region around Perth.

The show, broadcast daily and repeated on Saturdays, started last month with 13 half-hour episodes and proved so popular the entire series is now being screened again.

“I realised while working with Aboriginal communities that kids weren’t talking with their grandparents in their language,” producer Cath Trimboli, told AFP.

“It is disappearing, kids are not encouraged to talk in this language. So I wanted to work on this.”

Noongar is one of about 60 indigenous languages still spoken in Australia, compared with about 250 — and up to 700 dialects — in circulation at the time of white settlement in 1788. Of 13 Noongar dialects, just five now remain.
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Apr
30
2010

Alabama Gubernatorial Candidate Tim James Defends Controversial ‘Learn English’ Ad

Friday, April 30, 2010

This is a RUSH transcript from “The O’Reilly Factor,” April 29, 2010. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

Watch “The O’Reilly Factor” weeknights at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET!

JUAN WILLIAMS, GUEST HOST: In the “Personal Story” segment tonight: a bizarre campaign strategy targeting non-English speaking people. A Republican candidate for governor in Alabama put out this ad called “Language.”
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Apr
27
2010

‘This is Alabama, we speak English’

Posted by Richard Adams, Tuesday 27 April 2010 10.00 BST

Anti-immigrant madness isn’t just confined to Arizona. Here’s one of Alabama’s Republican candidates for governor

In this art house-style election ad, Republican candidate for governor of Alabama, Tim James, wanders about a shadowy room pondering the single biggest issue currently confronting the state of Alabama: offering driving tests in foreign languages.

“Alabama offers drivers license tests in 12 languages,” reads the campaign’s caption. “As governor, he will push to have the test given in only one language, English.”

Language may be the candidate’s strong point but his mathematics isn’t so good: Alabama appears to offer driver’s theory exams in 13 languages – English, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, French, Greek, German, Russian, Arabic and Farsi – plus American sign language, so that would be 14. But who’s counting?

“This is Alabama, we speak English,” says Tim in the video. “If you want to live here, learn it.”
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Apr
22
2010

Georgia to ban films in Russian language

By Vladimir Kozlov. April 22, 2010, 10:00 AM ET

MOSCOW — The Eastern European country of Georgia is preparing amendments to its film law whereby all films will have to be dubbed into Georgian.

“All theatrically released films have to be dubbed into Georgian as of January 2011,” Tamara Tatishvili, director of the Georgian National Film Center, told THR. “To my knowledge, the Ministry [of Culture, Monument Protection and Sports] and representatives of local distribution companies are now negotiating a smooth transition to the new scheme.”

The legislation is to make releases of films in Russian illegal, but it is not likely to have as big an impact as the adoption of similar legislation in the Ukraine which caused theater closures and public indignation in January 2008 in the country’s Russian-speaking areas.

But, unlike Ukraine, which is divided into the Ukrainian-speaking western and Russian-speaking eastern regions, in Georgia, the vast majority of the population speaks and understands Georgian.

Similarly, interests of major Russian distributors are not to be affected as they are not present in the Georgian market. According to Tatishvili, at the moment, only one theatrical distribution company is operating in the country, and it is local.

Source: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/world/news/e3i3a5fb1561d2145a38d9aa5667e982f0b

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Apr
07
2010

English abbreviations on TV banned in China

2010-04-08 08:23 BJT

English abbreviations on TV banned in China CCTV-International
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Jul
23
2009

Marneuli TV to teach Georgian language to Azerbaijani population

23 July 2009 [12:51] – Today.Az

Georgia’s Marneuli TV television channel which covers several districts of the Kvemo Kartli region populated by Azerbaijanis will launch a new project in October.

The television channel will broadcast weekly lessons of Georgian language for Azerbaijani population, Internews Georgia reported.

“They will be simulated lessons attended by 10 to 12 students,” Marneuli TV Director Shalva Shubladze said.

He said in soviet times similar programs were broadcast by a state channel.

“The televised Georgian language lessons will be conducted by specialists from the Linguistics Institute,” Shubladze said.

He said Azerbaijani population shows great interest to learn Georgian language.

“Ethnic Azerbaijan find it difficult to communicate with Georgians. It is specifically difficult for young people who can not speak Russian,” he said.

The project is funded by Open Society-Georgia.

Source: http://www.today.az/news/politics/54060.html

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Jul
21
2009

Yiddish Resurfaces as City’s 2nd Political Language

By SAM ROBERTS. Published: July 20, 2009

In 1897, Isaac Fromme, an office-seeker from the largely Jewish Lower East Side, punctuated his campaign palaver with Yiddishisms to refute insinuations that he was Irish. In 1922, Fiorello H. La Guardia was re-elected to Congress from East Harlem after he rebutted charges of anti-Semitism by challenging a rival to debate in Yiddish. La Guardia, a son of Jewish and Italian parents, was fluent in Yiddish. His Jewish rival was not.

That Yiddish remains the second language of New York politics was demonstrated yet again over the weekend in the disembodied debate between Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and the State Senate.

On Friday, Mr. Bloomberg said that for the Senate to adjourn for the summer without voting to extend his control over New York City’s school system was “meshugeneh.”

To which State Senator Hiram Monserrate replied on Sunday: “We believe it would be meshugeneh not to include parents in the education of our children. As opposed to loosely using the word ‘meshugeneh,’ we would also say we don’t need a yenta on the other side of this argument and this debate.”

Neither Mr. Monserrate, who is Hispanic, nor Mr. Bloomberg, who is Jewish, was surgically precise with his Yiddishism.
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Jul
08
2009

Study tracks English language change

Published: July 8, 2009 at 12:04 PM

UPPSALA, Sweden, July 8 (UPI) — A Swedish doctoral student has tracked changes in English language usage, examining the world “million” and how its usage has morphed.

Donald MacQueen of Uppsala University said he used historical collections that include everything ever written in a dozen U.S. and British newspapers, including news, features, editorials and classified advertisements.

In his English linguistics dissertation, MacQueen examined the word “million,” especially how language usage shifted from the previously nearly totally dominant “5 millions of inhabitants” to today’s “5 million inhabitants.”

He said he determined the modern construction occurred in U.S. newspapers during the middle 1880s and in Britain only during the mid-1910s. That, he said, suggests usage in U.S. newspapers influenced the shift in the British newspapers.

He said the transition occurred about the same time the U.S. economy overtook the British economy, an event MacQueen suspects was an impetus for the change.

“Another discovery I made … is that when the use of the two constructions began to be roughly equal in frequency, the newspapers chose quite simply to avoid using such constructions, writing numeral expressions instead,” he said. “After World War II, when there was no longer any doubt which construction was the ‘right’ one, the newspapers reverted to writing number-word expressions again.”

MacQueen defended his dissertation June 8.

Source: http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2009/07/08/Study-tracks-English-language-change/UPI-57911247069073/

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Jul
06
2009

Welsh speakers have the advantage when it comes to Klingon

WELSH speakers are more likely to be able to master the difficult Klingon language beloved of all Star Trek fans.

Computer expert Alex Greene of Wrexham, one of a select group of people who can speak Klingon fluently, believes that’s because the creators drew on several languages, including Welsh, for the intergalactic dialect.

The 46-year-old Star Trek fan said: “I do believe that if you can speak Welsh, you have an advantage where Klingon is concerned as some sounds are similar such as ‘ll’ and ‘ch’.”

Alex began learning the language in 1986 and took a year to master its intricacies.

He added: “Star Trek is one of my hobbies. My other hobby is languages.

“I have always enjoyed foreign languages, listening to them and communicating with them. Up to 1986 it had been French, Japanese and Esperanto.

“Then a trained linguist came up with an actual working grammar for the Klingon language for one of the Star Trek movies.

“It was designed so that actors could easily learn a couple of lines for a script. But later a Klingon dictionary was published. I picked up a copy and learned Klingon as a fun challenge.”

Now recognised as one of the world’s foremost experts on the language Alex teaches Klingon to others.
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Jul
03
2009

Esperanto founder’s Polish home city offers in-bus lessons

WARSAW (AFP)—The Polish home city of the 19th century founder of Esperanto is teaching the artificial language with panels in local buses to honour the 150th anniversary of his birth.

Bialystok council announced it was paying homage to Ludwik Zamenhof by replacing on-board advertising with teach-yourself Esperanto panels providing vocabulary and basic phrases, Poland’s PAP news agency reported.

The move in the northeastern city is part of preparations for an anniversary congress of Esperanto-speakers from around the globe, due to take place from July 25 to August 1.

Zamenhof, who was Jewish, was born in Bialystok on December 15, 1859.

At the time, the city was part of the Tsarist Russian empire, and the hub of an ethnically-diverse region inhabited by speakers of Polish, Yiddish, Belarussian and Russian.

Zamenhof dreamed of a day when people would be able to communicate in a universal language free of political connotations and misunderstandings, fostering world peace.

In his spare time, the ophthalmologist Zamenhof devised the easy-to-learn tongue in 1887 from elements of Romance, Germanic and Slavic languages and a slice of Latin and Greek grammar.
The language’s name is derived from his writer’s pseudonym Esperanto, a reference to the word “hope”.

Zamenhof died in 1917 and was buried in Warsaw’s Jewish cemetery.

Around two million people worldwide are estimated to speak Esperanto.

Source: http://www.ejpress.org/article/37719

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Jul
01
2009

Parliament Passes Bill With Fines for Poor Use of Slovak Language

Bratislava, June 30 (TASR) – The observance of the rules of the state language will come under the stricter supervision of the Culture Ministry after Parliament on Tuesday approved the much-discussed amendment to the State Language Act.

The amendment, which was approved by 76 of the 136 MPs present, will introduce sanctions for breaking the rules of standard Slovak in official communications. If shortcomings and mistakes appear and these aren’t corrected after repeated calls from the Culture Ministry, fines of €100-5,000 may be imposed.

The amendment has been criticised mainly by ethnic-Hungarian SMK MPs, who protest that it will restrict the language rights of ethnic minorities.

According to the legislation, minorities can use their native languages when talking to doctors and healthcare personnel and at social facilities provided that they do so in towns and villages where at least 20 percent of the inhabitants come from the given minority. This used to be allowed only for people who do not understand Slovak.

Inscriptions on memorials, monuments and plaques may be written in a minority language, but the text must be followed by a Slovak translation. The same applies to public events, which can be opened in a minority language but must also be interpreted into the state language. The reverse order used to be obligatory.
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Apr
28
2009

Supreme Court OKs regulation of language on TV

By MARK SHERMAN – 1 hour ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is giving tentative approval to government regulation of the use of even a single curse word on live television.

But the court, in a 5-4 decision Tuesday, is refusing to pass judgment on whether the Federal Communications Commission’s “fleeting expletives” policy is in line with First Amendment guarantees of free speech. The justices say a federal appeals court should weigh the constitutionality of the policy.

The decision throws out a ruling by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York. The appeals court had found in favor of a Fox Television-led challenge to the policy and had returned the case to the FCC to let the agency provide a “reasoned analysis” for its tougher line on indecency.

The commission appealed to the Supreme Court instead.

Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jcf6uVCslUc-AlgyiAxrFrrX_LxwD97…

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Jan
27
2009

TV ‘must promote Scots language’

Page last updated at 12:17 GMT, Tuesday, 27 January 2009

Any new Scottish television network should feature programmes in the Scots language, research commissioned by the Scottish Government has concluded.

The study of Scots language provision found it was a “living language” but said more needed to be done to preserve and enhance its status.

It said promoting the language could bring major social and economic benefits.

The findings will be discussed at a conference in Stirling next month.

In September, the Scottish Broadcasting Commission, which was set up by the Scottish Government, called for a publicly-funded Scottish network digital channel.

It said it should be committed to high-quality entertainment, news and current affairs with online content.

The audit into the Scots language, compiled by Dr Rhys Evans of Integrate Consulting, said it was important that it featured prominently in the prospective channel’s programming.

It also called for the Scottish Government to consider how new media such as the internet could be harnessed to increase access to Scots language services.
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