Category Archives: Languages/Linguistic curiosities

by Pisana Ferrari – Branding and Social Media Manager Despite progress in recent decades, gender disparity still affects many aspects of economic, social and cultural life. Two researchers at the Information Sciences Institute of the University of Southern California have used AI to uncover a very substantial gender disparity, with a 4:1 male-female imbalance, also …

“New research using AI on a corpus of 3.000 books reveals a 4:1 male-female literary imbalance”

by Pisana Ferrari – Branding and Social Media Manager “CODA”, the winner of the 2022 Oscar for “Best picture”, is one of a number of recent films about the Deaf community (1) (2). It tells the story of a hearing daughter in a Deaf family (“CODA” stands for “ Child Of Deaf Adults”), who helps …

“The surge of sign languages on screen is a sign of better representation for the Deaf community. Or is it?”

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 …

“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 If you are not a linguist or an ethno-anthropologist with a special interest in minorities in the former Soviet republics, you probably don’t know what Chuvash, Udmurt, Komi, Buryat or Kalmyk are. They are just some of the important minority languages (about 135!) spoken by the …

“The role of cultural and linguistic heritage in skirting censorship around sensitive issues and in the face of oppression”

by Pisana Ferrari – Branding and Social Media Manager Foreign-born workers may face language barriers that compromise their ability to understand training materials, signage, safety and hazard alerts as well as verbal instructions, and can potentially increase their risk of on-the-job injury. Languages also have different dialects, and workforces can include people with different literacy …

“Adequate communication is essential to guarantee health and safety at work: this poses an additional challenge when you have a multilingual workforce”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village Around the world people who do not identify as male or female are increasingly using gender-neutral pronouns. Many have taken to adding these in their e-mail signatures and social media profiles, and pronoun badges are also becoming popular in companies, schools and universities. Some languages …

“The gradual rise of gender-neutral pronouns in Hong Kong and mainland China”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village Never before has translation been as important as during the coronavirus pandemic. Understanding relevant medical terms is vital at all times but all the more so during a global health crisis, where compliance to containment measures is critical in order to protect individuals and the …

“COVIDLatino, a project to disseminate critical, timely, culturally sensitive, entertaining and relatable COVID-19 information for minority communities”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village Russian and Ukrainian are part of the Slavonic (or Slavic) language family. This group of related languages in central and eastern Europe also includes Polish, Czech and Bulgarian. A thousand years ago, the language spoken across Russian and Ukrainian territories would have been similar, like …

“Ukrainian and Russian have common Slavic roots but are about as different as Dutch is from German (or even English)”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village The “Best film” Oscar was won by “Coda”, a film about a hearing daughter in a deaf family who helps her family’s business while pursuing her own aspiration of becoming a singer. The film has a cast of largely deaf actors. At the Awards ceremony …

“The Academy Awards have long been criticized for lack of representation but the 2022 edition was a celebration of diversity”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village New candidates for UNICODE approval A number of medical emoji have been approved in past years and are available on most user keyboards. These include emoji for the brain, heart and lungs, for syringes, X-rays, pills, thermometers, stethoscopes and adhesive bandages. A broader variety of …

“Physicians, patient advocates and volunteers launch an online campaign for more “medical” emoji to approved by UNICODE”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village Is Asturian a language or a dialect? There is no universally accepted criterion for distinguishing a language from a dialect and the debate around this issue is long standing. The distinction depends on one’s point of view. From a political standpoint a “language” may simply …

“Is Asturian a “language” or a Spanish “dialect”? What is it that differentiates a language from a dialect anyway?”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village The story The protagonist, Kristin, is a 24-year old Swedish immigrant in Scotland. She lives with her Brazilian-born Scottish boyfriend Ciaran, whose first language is Portuguese, as he was adopted when he was three years old. They speak English during the first years of their …

““How we are translated”, a novel which explores the “in-between-ness” of living in several languages at the same time”