Tag: language
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Words and Phrases Lost in Translation
Coming from the author’s confusion in relating to her German-speaking Balkan partner, the question is asked: can phrases and words that we give great weight to in our native tongue truly be translated across cultural and language barriers. Could it really mean the same thing for him to say “I love you” in English if he…
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Language Map of Europe
As Neatorama says of this language map of Europe: Languages correspond only imprecisely with political borders, which are designated by the superimposed red lines. The English version of this map was created by Postmann Michael in 2007 […] and there are continuing doubts regarding the accuracy of some of the language borders. I am reminded…
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Flags as Language Symbols in Web Design: Wrong
With Brazil (Portuguese), Finland (Swedish) and my home-country (the United Kingdom) as perfect examples, Jukka Korpela tells us why the use of flags to represent language options on the web is “plain wrong”. In a perfect world, there would be no need for explicit links to versions of a document in different languages. Even in this imperfect…
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Grammar Precisionists, Rejoice!
Jason points to a 10-question grammar challenge given to the students of a non-fiction workshop held by David Foster Wallace. It’s not a particularly easy challenge, made worse by the fact that my non-native English speaking girlfriend just beat my score comprehensively (this wasn’t a difficult feat, however). The answers are provided, and I particularly…
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Realising Metaphors
Deciding which part of this article on how we internalise metaphorical concepts to quote was proving troublesome, then David came along with this take on the article: Though Drake Bennet’s piece feels a little shallow — like he’s pointing to this really interesting thing and rather than explain it is merely puzzling at it beside you — he does…
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The Benefits of Child Bilingualism
Outside of the UK, bilingualism (or even trilingualism+) is the norm in Europe and, in some countries and/or regions, even expected. With that said, The Economist takes a look at the effect bilingualism has on a child’s brain. Monitoring languages and keeping them separate is part of the brain’s executive function, so these findings suggest that…
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How Language Affects Thinking
Linguistic relativity is the idea that language differences alone can affect how we perceive world experiences and thus can cause us to behave differently. In an Edge essay, Lera Boroditsky discusses some of her research into linguistic relativity and how language use (grammar, word choice and language itself) vastly alters our perceptions and thought processes, offering…
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Language Incomprehensibility Flowchart (It’s All Greek To Me)
Language Log was asked; When an English speaker doesn’t understand a word one says, it’s “Greek to me”. When a Hebrew speaker encounters this difficulty, it “sounds like Chinese”. […] Has there been a study of this phrase phenomenon, relating different languages on some kind of Directed Graph? To answer the query, Mark Liberman checks…
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British, American, and German Senses of Humour
The reason why Britons believe that the Germans have no sense of humour is a language problem, not a humour problem. One example: The German phenomenon of compound words also serves to confound the English sense of humour. In English there are many words that have double or even triple meanings, and whole sitcom plot…