News

Crowdsourcing is a relatively new concept, which means “outsourcing to a crowd of people”. Wikipedia is probably the best known example of crowdsourcing, and over a fairly short period of time people from all over the world have managed to compile an online encyclopaedia, several times the size of “Britannica”. Anyone can submit articles on…

Translations and language issues in the world of food have been making headlines recently: a food App for the iPhone has been taking the culinary world by storm and Google’s image to text translation facility – Google Goggles – was showcased at the Mobile World Congress. Unfortunately, other linguistic renderings have been missing some of…

The Winter Olympics’ glittering opening ceremony took place on February 12 in Vancouver and was watched by an unprecedented 13.3 million TV viewers in Canada alone. With more than 80 different nations competing, the linguistic landscape in Canada is alive with foreign languages. Records are also being set outside of the sporting arena, as this…

Whether you find a collection shocking or stunning, fashion speaks to everyone and demands a reaction. As the world’s fashion elite descend on our nation’s capital this month for London Fashion Week, knowledge of languages could be as invaluable as a front row seat at the hottest shows. Even if they cannot conjugate verbs in…

James Cameron’s Avatar has been generating its own language headlines independent of the film’s mainstream reviews and press columns. This is down to Na’vi – the language created especially for the film which has quickly built up a strong linguistic fan base and a site geared towards beginners wishing to learn Na’vi. Paul Frommer is…

Last week we learnt how an animal sanctuary in Manchester struggled to communicate with a Polish speaking dog, this week a female Panda is set to have similar communication issues as she is moved abroad. Mei Lan, a US born Panda is set to travel to China from her current home in Zoo Atlanta in…