In the course of planning for a new (and very interesting) project from one of our clients we took a look at all the different ways we translate and adapt advertising and marketing content for our clients. We also took a a look at the efforts of our competitors, which were disappointing as usual. We […]

Is a second language for East Africa linguistic tyranny or regional solidarity? That’s the question Ugandans are asking about Swahili, or Kiswahili.  Kiswahili means “language” in Swahili, and has been the lingua franca of East Africa for centuries. Now, as regional integration heats up, the East African Community (EAC), which includes Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania […]

What exactly are language preservationists preserving when they preserve an endangered language? Cultures with their own language have staying power, preserving human cultural diversity and a particular way of looking at the world. Language preservationists concentrate on those languages most imperiled. These are the languages spoken in cultures already experiencing massive disruption from contact with […]

For most interpreters, the harshest professional feedback they will ever see is an irate email.  Not so for Afghan interpreter Janis Shinwari who went out to his car one morning to discover the words, “Judgment Day is coming soon,” scrawled across the hood of his car. Shinwari got the message. “I’m sure somebody is watching […]

Google Translate 2.0 is a long-overdue re-do of Google Translate, now primed for the slick, new Apple interface on iPhone and iPad. The language list continues to grow with an additional seven languages including Bosnian, Cebuano, Hmong, Javanese, Khmer, Lao and Marathi, and the endless pull-down list of over 70 languages that goes with it. […]

Flipper, say it ain’t so! Oh, sorry, I guess you can’t… Dolphins aren’t as smart as you think,  and their language skills are way overrated, says self-described “dolphin scientist guy” Justin Gregg. Gregg, a researcher with the Dolphin Communication Project in Old Mystic, Connecticut, claims that scientists have been overrating dolphin intelligence and linguistic ability […]