2022-06-23
by Pisana Ferrari

The rise of “Hinglish” from everyday use by Indian millennials, Gen Z & Y, to different sectors of the Indian economy

The use of “Hinglish”, a combination of Hindi and English, is becoming increasingly common in India in the everyday conversations and online communications of millennials, Gen Z and Gen Y. (1) English lexicographer, etymologist, and media personality Susie Dent says Hinglish is “the hippest slang on the streets and college campuses of India“. In recent …

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2022-06-15
by Pisana Ferrari

“Multicultural London English” (MLE) due to become the UK’s dominant dialect, linguists say

“Hench, peng, shook … if you don’t know what any of these mean, you’re nothing more than a wasteman. MLE is sweeping the country!” These are the opening lines of recent article in The Guardian, which refer to “Multicultural London English”, a dialect which has its roots in the patois spoken by Caribbean migrants who …

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2022-05-02
by admin

The use of words where syllables are inverted or parts are truncated is increasingly going mainstream in French culture and poses challenges to translators

by Pisana Ferrari – Branding and Social Media Manager “C’est l’anniv de ma meuf ce soir, si t’es dispo on peut prendre un apéro chez moi puis aller, comme d’hab, au resto qui est juste derrière le coin, et après au ciné pour voir le film “45 ans”. “T’es ouf? Ce film est super relou, allons plutôt faire la teuf chez Maxime” (see English translation below at footnote 1). Some of the …

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2021-05-12
by savita.gauchan

German is an interesting case of how grammar can facilitate the creation of new words and influence the evolution of a language

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village The coronavirus pandemic has led to an explosion of new words and phrases in many countries and cultures. We have written about this new lexicon, and how it is helping people to make sense of the changes in our lives, in a few articles for …

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2021-02-23
by savita.gauchan

Sci-fi is a fertile breeding ground for neologisms: some have entered everyday language and even scientific jargon

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village Many words we consider everyday vocabulary like “spacesuit”, “blast off”, “deep space”, “zero gravity” and “alien” have their roots in science fiction, and not in science, as one might think. The word “robot” was first used to denote a fictional humanoid in a 1920 Czech-language …

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2021-02-22
by savita.gauchan

The “Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows”, a project to give names to our most profound emotions

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village The name of the “Sonder café”, recently opened in Cape Town, South Africa, takes its inspiration from one of the neologisms listed in the “Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows“. “Sonder” means “the realisation that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as …

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2021-01-30
by savita.gauchan

In defence of jargon – it might be annoying but it also has its uses, including for status compensation

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village Jargon is, by definition, “exclusionary” and can get in the way of understanding crucial information, says Andre Spice, Professor of Organisational Behaviour at the University of London, writing for The Conversation. Research has shown that when used by doctors it can lead to patients not …

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2020-10-27
by savita.gauchan

“Cancel culture” may be one of the key linguistic trends defining the last decade

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village While language change is not a new thing, says Chi Luu, a computational linguist and natural language processes (NLP) researcher, “it’s different in how fast and how virally it can spread now, as well as the impact it can have on real life, as speakers …

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2020-09-17
by savita.gauchan

In the era of internet language punctuation is morphing into new shapes, acquiring new tasks, and new meanings

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village The age of online communication has brought about a radical reinvention of punctuation, in ways that transgress the boundaries of what is commonly defined as “good grammar”. This has sparked concerns about the future of formal language and become a hot topic of discussion. In …

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2020-09-17
by savita.gauchan

Addressing cross-cultural issues in emoji “translation”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village Emoji have become an immensely popular form of online communication. The numbers about their use are staggering: it is estimated that more than 700 million are used every day on Facebook alone. Many consider emoji simply a way of adding emotional charge to social media …

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2020-09-08
by savita.gauchan

What are “contact languages” and why are they in danger of extinction?

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village When groups of people who speak different languages come together, they sometimes create a new one, combining bits of each into something new that everyone can use to communicate easily. A recent article in BBC Future warns that these “linguistic mash-ups”, better known as “contact …

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2020-09-08
by savita.gauchan

Russian literary classics set in 2020: updates to Russia’s greatest books

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village Fiona Bell is a literary translator and scholar of Russian literature, based in Oxford. She won a highly competitive fellowship from the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) in 2018, and her translation of Natalia Meshchaninova’s Stories received a 2020 PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant. If you …

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