The United Arab Emirates are celebrating their 39th national day this month. Trucial Oman, as it was then known, became independent from their semi-colonial relationship with Britain in December 1971…
Ingrid PillerDecember 5, 2010
The social networking market research site Inside Facebook has some intriguing language stats. In July, the fastest-growing languages on Facebook were Portuguese, Arabic, Spanish and French. The Portuguese growth rate…
Ingrid PillerAugust 2, 2010
As someone who is concerned about Australia’s monolingual mindset and the damage it does to individuals and our society as a whole, I probably should have been pleased to discover…
Ingrid PillerJune 17, 2010
Installment #4 in the mini-series on multilingual signage Toilets as an object of sociolinguistic research?! Not likely?! Think again! Today, I am going to discuss toilet signage as an indicator…
Ingrid PillerMay 7, 2010
I missed the UN’s French language day! It’s not the fact that I missed it that bothers me – I’m late for pretty much everything – it’s the fact that…
Ingrid PillerApril 4, 2010
Must-read post by Dennis Baron over at the Web of Language! A US university student who majors in Middle Eastern Studies was detained at Philadelphia Airport for carrying Arabic language…
Ingrid PillerFebruary 13, 2010
London Dairy ad on a building in Abu Dhabi, UAE Igloo ad on truck in Abu Dhabi, UAE I’ve just come across a 2006 University of South Africa MA thesis investigating…
Ingrid PillerJanuary 15, 2010
I’ve been wondering what would be an appropriate Christmas post for the Language on the Move blog. Seeing that I’m deeply skeptical about all those claims about the wonderful advantages…
Ingrid PillerDecember 25, 2009
Finally, today on Day 3 of our conference on Fostering Multiliteracies Through Education: Middle Eastern Perspectives someone asked “Where is the Arabic?” “How come a conference devoted to multilingualism and…
Ingrid PillerDecember 20, 2009
Exciting first day at the conference on “Fostering multiliteracies through education: Middle Eastern Perspectives” at the American University of Sharjah. Suresh Canagarajah, who blogs on academic writing and publishing in…
Ingrid PillerDecember 18, 2009
If you could choose to learn a foreign language, which one would it be? And why? Such choices are usually constrained by what is on offer. However, someone must choose…
Ingrid PillerDecember 14, 2009
This chocolate wrapper turned up in my child’s trick-or-treat bag and now we don’t know which language Prestÿ is! Anyone out there who can help? One dad in our trick-or-treating…
Ingrid PillerNovember 2, 2009
Muslims around the world were celebrating the holy month of Ramadan recently and the greeting de jour here in Abu Dhabi was Ramadan Kareem!, which literally translates as “Ramadan is generous.” Ramadan…
Ingrid PillerOctober 11, 2009
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