Category Archives: Languages/Linguistic curiosities

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village The authors of a study titled “Effective Communication About Pregnancy, Birth, Lactation, Breastfeeding and Newborn Care: The Importance of Sexed Language”, published in Frontiers in Global Women’s Health, warn against the potential consequences of “desexed language”. They refer to an edition of The Lancet medical journal which highlighted an …

“Replacing “mothers” with “birthing people”: is inclusive language around female reproduction going too far?”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village The book “Dancing on ropes. Translators at the balance of history”, written by Anna Aslanyan, is based on the author’s experience as a Russian-English translator and service interpreter. Aslanyan grew up in Moscow and lives in London. She writes for a number of publications, including …

““Dancing on Ropes. Translators at the balance of history” by Anna Aslanyan: a review”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village On the 26th of October Helena Dalli, the EU Commissioner for Equality, proudly announced the launch of “EU Commission Guidelines for Inclusive Communication”. The purpose of the document was to set common standards for inclusive communication and to provide practical examples and advice to all …

“EU Commission internal guidelines for inclusive communication withdrawn over widespread protests”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village Laura Marris, a well-known American writer and translator, began working on a new English translation of the novel “The Plague”, by Nobel Prize winner Albert Camus, in September 2019, just months before the COVID-19 pandemic exploded. Camus’ book is an allegorical tale set in a …

“Translating a great literary classic about a pandemic during a pandemic: the case of the new English version of Albert Camus’ “The Plague””

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village “The hidden history of coined words”, by best selling US author Ralph Keyes, is a delightful compendium of stories about how new terms have been created over the past centuries, most of which, says Keyes, “whimsically, to taunt, even to prank” or as a result …

“The “Chaos Theory of Word Creation”: why successful neologisms are just as likely to be created by chance as by design”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village Michał Rusinek is a Polish lecturer in literary theory, rhetoric, and creative writing at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków as well as the translator of many books for children and adults. He writes essays, limericks, short stories, radio plays, television scripts, and song lyrics. He …

“An interesting reflection on the untranslatability of what makes us unique as a nation, a society and a culture, by acclaimed Polish author and translator Michał Rusinek”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village Language really matters when it comes to scientific communication and education. How can you have conversations about science when the scientific terms you wish to talk about do not exist in your own language? Sibusiso Biyela is a science communicator and journalist from South Africa, …

“In South Africa a new AI-based project offers the opportunity for a large corpus of scientific terms to be translated into six indigenous languages”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village The collateral damage of letting English become the exclusive lingua franca is that papers published in languages other than English often go unread. On the flip side, scientific knowledge in English may not be able to contribute to local decisions in places where the language …

“Letting English become the lingua franca in science means that studies in other languages often go unread”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village The last time film subtitles made quite a buzz was in 2020, when South Korean director Bong Joon-ho’s film “Parasite” won the Oscar for Best Picture. Parasite’s win in this category came as a surprise and sparked lively discussions as the film was in its …

“Subtitles rarely make headlines but those of the South Korean series “Squid Game” are breaking the internet”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village Punctuation has a very long history, often marked by divisiveness. The introduction of each new mark was met with suspicion, disdain, and sometimes even with violence (yes! read about the 1905 “Comma strike” by Moscow printers in our article at this link). As US author …

“Stripping literary works of all but their punctuation can reveal interesting characteristics about the authors and make for beautiful art”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village The past few years have seen increased attention drawn to issues of systemic discrimination. Racism, sexism, ableism, classism, homophobia, transphobia … are all being called out as socially, ethically, and politically unacceptable. “But in what appears to also be a recent development, we’re seeing the …

“Is ageism the last “acceptable” bias? High time that it receive the same standard of scrutiny as other forms of discrimination, says a recent UN report”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village On September 30, UN International Translation Day, the Society of Authors in London launched a new campaign in which some of the biggest names in the business are asking publishers to name give full book-cover credits to translators. The leaders of the #TranslatorsOnTheCover effort are …

“On UN International Translation Day the UK Society of Authors launched a campaign calling for full book-cover credits for translators”