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+19 +3
Words Without Borders
Between the Greek agora and the medieval scriptorium, the written word became literature. By Matthew Battles.
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+19 +4
The last acceptable prejudice
“This is the last acceptable public prejudice: bad jokes and silly stereotypes about people who speak differently. It plays out differently from other kinds of prejudice, of course. People do not choose their race. Religious beliefs are so deeply held that everyone knows to treat them gently. And sexual preference is now so widely seen as inherent that anti-gay prejudice is vanishingly hard to find in polite precincts. Language, in contrast, is seen as more freely chosen.” By R.L.G.
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+20 +4
“It’s Raining Husbands” and Other Idioms Translated into Different Languages - Lingholic
How do idiomatic expressions across the world compare? And why does it rain "cats and dogs" in English, but, of all things, "old hags" in Dutch?!
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+13 +2
Language Learning: Hobby or Obsession?
Some people learn languages for fun, others do it for work, yet still others do it because language learning is their obsession. Where do we draw the line?
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Analysis+2 +2
Thoughts on International Auxiliary Language Success
What factors make or break a international auxiliary language (IAL)? Especially a constructed IAL (ConIAL). Or why did Esperanto thrive when others such as Volapük, Ido, Interlingua, Occidental, Novial, Glosa, Neo and so many more didn't.
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+18 +1
Coming to America
On becoming African-American. By Yahdon Israel.
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+20 +5
Can a Michael Jackson Song Resurrect an Ancient Language?
Renata Flores' version of Michael Jackson's 'The way you make me feel' has become a YouTube hit in South America. Something neither she nor her mother expected when they first made the video in Quechua, the language of the Incas .
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+2 +2
Blog di Easitalian
Easitalian is a website to get online private lessons through Skype. It also has a blog (link) with a few interesting information about the Italian language and culture.
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+2 +2
Lawless French - Free French lessons and language tools from Laura K. Lawless
Free French lessons and language tools from Laura K. Lawless, including verb conjugations and bilingual articles to help you improve your reading and listening comprehension.
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+16 +5
Inspiration and Obsession in Life and Literature
This is not a traditional lecture so much as the quest for a lecture in the singular—a quest constructed around a sequence of questions: Why do we write? What is the motive for metaphor? “Where do you get your ideas?” Do we choose our subjects, or do our subjects choose us? Do we choose our “voices”? Is inspiration a singular phenomenon, or does it take taxonomical forms? Indeed, is the uninspired life worth living? By Joyce Carol Oates.
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+20 +3
Plato’s Cratylus: The Comedy of Language
Roger Caldwell talks about Plato’s views on language. By S.M. Ewegen.
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+22 +2
Ancient whistle language uses whole brain for long-distance chat
A whistled form of Turkish used to communicate across mountain valleys shows that it's not just the left side of the brain that processes language. By Andy Coghlin.
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+2 +1
Vie de merde : Vos histoires de la vie quotidienne
Ma vie c'est de la merde, et je vous emmerde. Partagez vos petits malheurs et drôles d'histoires de la vie quotidienne sur VDM.
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+20 +4
Why is Canadian English unique?
America’s neighbour resisted annexation by the US and its people remained subjects of the British monarch. But Canada’s English isn’t British or American.
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+19 +7
The curious case of whistled languages and their lack of left-brain dominance
Whistled Turkish is a non-conformist. Most obviously, it bucks the normal language trend of using consonants and vowels, opting instead for a bird-like whistle. But more importantly, it departs from other language forms in a more fundamental respect: it's processed differently by the brain.
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+27 +5
What I learned about languages just by looking at a Turkish typewriter
I don’t speak Turkish, and can’t read it either. I have never been to Turkey. I honestly don’t even know that much about Turkey. Why did I ask for a Turkish typewriter, then? Because it has one of the most fascinating keyboard layouts ever: I wanted to share with you five things I learned just from observing and researching this layout.
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+17 +2
10 Pop Culture References We Didn't Have 20 Years Ago
We adore pop culture but sometimes we just need to step back and say WTF or LOL. So we did.
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+17 +4
Gender neutral 'Mx' may be added to Oxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary will consider including the gender neutral title "Mx" in the next edition, to represent transgender people and those who don't identify by gender.
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+28 +2
Talking to ourselves: the science of the little voice in your head
If we want to understand what’s happening in the brain when people ‘hear voices’, we first need to understand what happens during ordinary inner speech. By Peter Moseley.
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+23 +2
The real secret to learning a language online
One of the founding miracles of the Internet was that it connected people around the world. But without a common language, that connection didn’t mean much. The Internet mirrored an increasingly globalized society in which not being able to speak a language could mean being locked out of a culture... By Nithin Coca.
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