In this episode of the Language on the Move Podcast, Brynn Quick speaks with best-selling author and linguist Gretchen McCulloch about her 2019 New York Times bestselling book Because Internet:…
Image 1 Like many parents of teenagers, I delightedly welcome any occasion to connect with a generation I don’t always understand and that doesn’t always understand me. As a Muslim…
Martha Sif Karrebæk and Solvej Helleshøj Sørensen, University of Copenhagen *** Editor’s note: Covid-19 has exposed fractures in the social and linguistic fabric in many contexts internationally, as we have…
Editor’s note: The Covid-19 pandemic has led to a renewed focus on linguistic diversity and the way it intersects with social inclusion. In this latest contribution to our series of language…
This story was authored by Antra Kalnins and first published at Macquarie University's The Lighthouse. It is reproduced here with permission. *** If the question in the headline makes you…
English is the mother tongue of the Internet, or so it seems. English is omnipresent in the architecture of this breakthrough technology. You see it in the QWERTY keyboard, domain…
Everyone wants to be a winner in the dating game; but it doesn't always work that way ... A 2015 article in the New York Post argued that mobile dating…
Front of postcard sent by Private Jacob Isak Sicherman on 1 June 1916 Remember library stacks? Browsing among books? Serendipitously finding on a nearby shelf what you didn’t know you…
A monument near Baganuur (Outer Mongolia) with an inscription of poem "My Native Land" by Natsagdorj (Source: Wikipedia) In the middle school Mongolian textbooks there is a well-known text called…
'Luxury permanent' Mongolian yurt for sale on Alibaba Last week when I saw in my friends’ Wechat group an advertisement for delicately made Mongolian yurts, I thought of an article…
This tweet says: "CSU issues correction: its proposal was translated into German incorrectly" Germany is currently witnessing a delightful language ideological farce. It all started when the conservative Christian Social…
The researcher wearing a Zhuang employee's work uniform at the Black Clothes Zhuang House in the Ethnic Minorities Village, Nanning, China, 2014 I was surprised, frankly, during my recent fieldwork…
A locutorio shop front in Barcelona (Source: El Periodico) There is now a well-established body of work exploring the language work provided by service workers in call centres and tourist…
Many people would agree that English is the language of globalization. English is almost always adopted as the official language of international events, including the Olympic Games. It does not…
How to make English-speaking friends is one of the perennial hot topics for new overseas students and new migrants. Advice on how to make “native” friends circulates like an underground…
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…