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+8 +1
Belarus endures Russification as native language fades away in schools
Belarus, which has created a political and military alliance with Moscow, is being further Russified as schools ditch the Belarusian language.
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+4 +2
Most of Australia’s First Nations languages don’t have gendered pronouns. Here’s why
Australia’s 460 First Nations’ languages see the world in unexpected ways, revealing perspectives on the natural and spiritual worlds.
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+37 +13
The Most Mispronounced Brand from Every Country
Kodak. Ikea. Sony. Sometimes, a brand name just sounds like what it represents — even if the name doesn’t actually mean anything at all.
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+20 +4
To save Cherokee language, a digital tool shares tales of Standing Rock and Big Snake with the next generation
Cherokees Writing the Keetoowah Way provides English translations of historic documents and lessons to help the next generation learn.
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+19 +2
Let's keep our writing simple, precise, cogent and clear
But sometimes it's worth sending a reader to the dictionary if the word fits the nuance of the writing.
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+27 +3
Why we learnt to write the way we do
Workplace writing cannot succeed with a one-size-fits-all approach. Yet most of us enter the workforce having learned exactly that: the essay. Why do we use this approach and how does it limit successful communication? An essay is the perfect writing tool for an education setting. The simple beginning, middle and end pattern helps students tackle the challenging task of assignment writing. And the predictable structure allows teachers to mark dozens of essays more efficiently. But surely more complex writing tasks call for different tools in our writing toolbox? Here are 4 features of essay writing that can slow us down
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+24 +5
7 Unusual Writing Systems From Around the World & How They Developed
Over the millennia, human language has produced a variety of beautiful, unusual, and weird forms of writing. Here are 7 of them.
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+21 +2
Infocom’s ingenious code-porting tools for Zork and other games have been found
The Z-machine allowed porting from mainframes to TRS-80, Apple II, and others.
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+42 +6
40 years of Turbo Pascal
The legacy can still be felt today
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+49 +9
How thinking in a foreign language improves decision-making
Research shows people who speak another language are more utilitarian and flexible, less risk-averse and egotistical, and better able to cope with traumatic memories
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+49 +10
Amazing Discovery Claims Elephants Have Specific 'Names' For Each Other
As elephants wander the African savannah, they might keep in touch with relatives by calling out their individual 'names'.
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+27 +3
AI steps in to save 5000-year old Cuneiform writing
With few experts left in the world who understand this ancient form of writing, can AI step in to save the language?
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+26 +5
Cursive writing to be reintroduced in Ontario schools this fall
Cursive is making a comeback. Relegated in 2006 to an optional piece of learning in Ontario elementary schools, cursive writing is set to return as a mandatory part of the curriculum starting in September.
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+19 +4
Hundreds of years after the first try, we can finally read a Ptolemy text
It was only natural for Alexander Jones to feel thrilled when he saw a sixth-century palimpsest at the Ambrosiana library in Milan for the first time. It happened in 1984 when Jones was working on his dissertation using manuscripts in Italy. With the tools at his disposal, including a portable ultraviolet lamp and microfilm, he could only read a few lines. But Jones’ interest was piqued because there were pages of the text that no one had succeeded in reading.
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+19 +4
Learn a Language with ChatGPT
Learning a language can be frustrating. There are many phone apps that promise to teach you a language but, for the most part, they really just teach you words. That’s useful, but to be conversational, you really need something better. There’s no shortage of quick introduction videos on YouTube and grammar lessons that can get you a crude start on a language, but it is a long way to get to conversational.
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+4 +1
I cannot tell a lie: Chat GPT wrote a chunk of today's column
Let's take this writing bot for a spin down some twisty roads to see if it can pass itself off as a human literary voice. Maybe keep a bucket handy.
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+18 +3
Norse Runes were just as advanced as Roman Alphabet writing, historian finds - Medievalists.net
In the Middle Ages, the Roman alphabet and Norse runes lived side by side. A new doctoral thesis challenges the notion that runes represent more of an oral and less of a learned form of written language.
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+19 +5
Brekkies, barbies, mozzies: why do Aussies shorten so many words?
Colloquialisms such as barbie and smoko are like accents – part of the glue that sticks Australian English speakers together.
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+9 +2
Psychologists studied speakers of languages from Hindi to Hungarian to find out why obscenities sound the way they do
This quote is by the main character in the sci-fi novel The Widening Gyre by Michael R. Johnston. Writers like Johnston who invent alien profanity rely on their intuitions about what sounds offensive here on Earth. We wanted to explore whether there are universal sound patterns in profanity. So we designed a series of studies involving speakers of different languages and found surprising patterns in how swear words sound across the world.
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+26 +5
Never Completely Dutch: Flemish Writers in the Land of Freedom
Writers Ivo Victoria, Sarah Meuleman and Geert Buelens all found it liberating to move to the Netherlands. But it wasn’t long before they encountered the downsides of their destination country.
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