The Linguist is a languages magazine for professional linguists, translators, interpreters, language professionals, language teachers, trainers, students and academics with articles on translation, interpreting, business, government, technology
Issue link: https://thelinguist.uberflip.com/i/393748
Vol/53 No/5 2014 octoBER/NoVEMBER The Linguist 31 A neutral global language christopher Langton's advocacy of a neutral lingua franca is surely sound as a way of reducing national or other group prejudices in tricky negotiations ('in My opinion…', TL53,3). Readers may like to be reminded that this was in the mind of L L Zamenhof when he introduced Esperanto back in 1887. he had identified linguistic and religious differences as the principal impediments to harmony between social groups. his bitter experiences of national, religious and racial antagonisms in the Bialystok of his day inspired him to create his neutral language, intended as a second language for everybody. Esperanto has suffered suppression from absolutist regimes as well as scepticism from many quarters, but it still exists and is of great interest to the serious linguist. Zamenhof's second initiative, of a minimal humanist stance that might be subscribed to by adherents of any organised religion, is, unfortunately, even less well-known than his language. David Leighton MCIL Error message times two in 'informing public policy' (TL53,3), the polish road sign is an example of Britain not quite getting it right. 'pornocy' should be pomocy. presumably someone wrote it by hand and it got misinterpreted – not the best way of producing a high-quality translation! there's no connection between the English and polish messages either, though perhaps a wider-angle shot would clarify this. there seem to be other signs around, so maybe the polish is a translation of one of those. in the following issue (TL53,4), the news item states that a research team 'wanted to find out why the long /i:/ vowel appears more often in positive words, such as "like" and "admire", while the long /o:/ is found more often in negative words, such as "lonely".' Well, they could have started by asking anyone who knows a bit about English pronunciation. /i:/ is the vowel sound in 'see', and /o:/ (it should be /ɔː/, strictly speaking) is the vowel sound in 'saw'. i still don't know whether to laugh or cry. Jonathan Marks MCIL Editor replies: this error came from the original study but should have been identified and corrected. OPINION & COMMENT Email linguist.editor@ciol.org.uk Language-related stories got a boost in July with the launch of the All-party parliamentary Group's Manifesto for Languages. there was coverage in the broadcast media, broadsheets and tabloids of its call for a 'national recovery programme', and it was good to see The Express picking up on its message that language learning is 'not just for an affluent élite'. in a separate piece, The Express noted the call from the British chambers of commerce for 'more investment, stronger language skills, and a global mindset' in order to boost Britain's trade. After the exam results came out in August, the BBc reported on the cBi's concerns over the continuing decline in A-level language entries. The Telegraph and TES focused their GcSE coverage on a comment from Andrew hall of AQA that Spanish was set to overtake French to become the dominant language in English schools. The Independent published a new map of London boroughs showing the second most widely spoken language after English. polish came top in seven boroughs, turkish in four, and Bengali, tamil and French in three. interesting that in South London, Lambeth's top additional language is portuguese, whereas in nearby Southwark it is Spanish. And to show that multilingualism is not just a phenomenon of the capital, the East Anglian Daily Times reported on the 130 languages spoken in Suffolk. Meanwhile, we hear in The Daily Mail that Sussex police in search of a murderer who battered a grandmother to death have set up a website in 80 languages. With the start of the football season, Fc Barcelona announced that its new line-up includes four players who each speak four languages and 11 languages altogether – with catalan at the head of the list. And, according to Lesley Davis of pearson, Barça is behind the popularity of Spanish at GcSE – a phenomenon she calls 'the Messi effect'. Teresa Tinsley is Director of Alcantara Communications; www.alcantaracoms.com TERESA TINSLEY © iStockphoto