Comments on: Staring down the Covid-19 lockdown with multilingual humor

By: When your commercial content delivers a PK - Global Media Land

When your commercial content delivers a PK - Global Media Land — Mon, 19 Sep 2022 13:37:01 +0000

[…] Africans are often united in iconic and ironic moments. From “my fellow South Africans” in lockdown to the more recent winning of the CAF Cup by Banyana Banyana, we revel in South […]

By: Who to Trust: How Covid-19 information Chanllenging Tranlators, the Government and the Whole World – Lixia Zhou

Mon, 26 Oct 2020 16:23:58 +0000

[…] Africa’s government has been heavily criticized on social media by their people because they do briefings mostly in English, while its official languages like […]

By: vichuda

vichuda — Sat, 10 Oct 2020 04:29:20 +0000

The situation in South Africa really similar to my home country, thailand, such having a very strict curfew—and we, Thai, makes fun of our government (too) as they act as if virus has an operate time only during the day, or hearing funny phrase from the goverment’s leader—in my case, it is ” thailand will win” and we make fun of him because he is too much of a soldier to think that everything is a war. I totally agree in adding more languages in signs, notice or anything that give out information about the covid-19 as this disease is not about classes but all human beings.

By: The pandemic presents the biggest language translation challenge for COVID-19 info, as Google Translate supports only 109 languages, Bing 71, and Wikipedia 309 (Gretchen McCulloch/Wired) - OCCUCOM

Tue, 02 Jun 2020 12:13:12 +0000

[…] are still gaps: South Africa’s government has been criticized on social media for doing briefings mostly in English, rather than in at least two of its 10 other official languages: an Nguni language (such as Zulu or […]

By: Covid-19 Is History’s Biggest Translation Challenge - Digital Marketing, Wordpress, eCommerce, SEO & Social

Mon, 01 Jun 2020 10:38:02 +0000

By: Covid-19 Is History’s Biggest Translation Challenge -

Covid-19 Is History’s Biggest Translation Challenge - — Mon, 01 Jun 2020 07:06:52 +0000

By: Covid-19 Is History’s Biggest Translation Challenge - iTech - Blog: iOS • Android • Windows • Mac • Game • Technology

Mon, 01 Jun 2020 02:50:36 +0000

[…] are nonetheless gaps: South Africa’s authorities has been criticized on social media for doing briefings principally in English, somewhat than in not less than two of its 10 different official languages: an Nguni language (akin […]

By: Covid-19 Is History’s Biggest Translation Challenge | WIRED

Covid-19 Is History’s Biggest Translation Challenge | WIRED — Sun, 31 May 2020 13:47:37 +0000

[…] are still gaps: South Africa's government has been criticized on social media for doing briefings mostly in English, rather than in at least two of its 10 other official languages: an Nguni language (such as Zulu or […]

By: Li Jia

Li Jia — Thu, 21 May 2020 05:27:09 +0000

Thanks for bringing our attention to the multilingual South Africa! It’s interesting to read the multilingual humors raised from below as against English circulation from above!

By: Laura

Laura — Wed, 20 May 2020 21:10:27 +0000

I really enjoyed reading this account of how the practice of sharing official communications in an elite language can be effectively challenged through humour. Popular critical discourse analysis at its best 🙂

The discussion of the gap between having 11 official languages but using them in different and unequal ways reminds me of the excellent book by Janny Leung https://global.oup.com/academic/product/shallow-equality-and-symbolic-jurisprudence-in-multilingual-legal-orders-9780190210335?pubdateyearfrom=2016&submitAdvSrch=Search&lang=en&cc=us
Leung discusses issues just like these and suggests (to greatly simplify one of her arguments) that languages are given official status for a number of sociopolitical, symbolic reasons, and that this does not necessarily equate to their equal use in official domains, nor the equal linguistic participation and access of all speakers within these domains.

By: Paul Desailly

Paul Desailly — Wed, 13 May 2020 00:17:47 +0000

Dear Ingrid

On the 50th anniversary of General Anders passing I thought you might appreciate this article that appeared yesterday at the British Library

https://blogs.bl.uk/european/2020/05/general-w%C5%82adys%C5%82aw-anders-a-soldier-politician-and-patron-of-culture.html

Best wishes

Paul

By: Paul Desailly

Paul Desailly — Tue, 12 May 2020 02:19:06 +0000

There'a a double or triple whammy at play in South Africa's language soup, religiosity and the peerless sense of humour of its broad minded people. I nearly died laughing on hearing these while pining for a drink or two to wash down a cordon bleu or quiche Lorraine among friends in Joburg: IS LIFE WORTH LIVING MY SON? IT DEPENDS UPON THE LIVER REVEREND! A JOKE OR TWO WITH A RELIGIOUS CONNOTATION – KEEP YOUR HAIR SHIRT ON LUSH: ‘Well is it with him who drinks’ (slurred drooling) ‘from the fountain of everlasting life.’ (Please note friends that a modern rendering of LUSH as a slang noun is a male OR female drunk) As penned in Matthew’s 26th chapter of the holy Bible, it came to pass at the Feast of Passover just after the Last Supper: He prayed profoundly with the disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane. 40 And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with me one hour? 41 Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: THE SPIRIT IS WILLING BUT THE FLESH IS WEAK. Prior to the bridge-language Esperanto-rendition of the New Testament appearing in 1912 this oft-cited Christian proverb capitalised by this one time imbiber was at times lost in translation in South Africa as: the wine is good, but the meat is off.