Language Archives | Page 2 of 9

Published On - September 25, 2012

Richard Brooks Language Blog, Retail InformationTags: Language, Retail, Translation, Website

Translating Fast Fashion

We recently developed a solution for a very large European retailer to help them to localise/translate all of their packaging for their dynamic range of clothing. The challenge in this space is to provide translation that is ‘on trend’, error-free and makes the best use of all the previously tra...

Published On - July 11, 2012

Richard Brooks Language BlogTags: History, Language, Welsh

History of the Welsh Language

Modern Welsh dates back to the sixth century. It is very closely related to Cornish and Breton. However, its history goes even further back to 600 years BC, when the early languages of Europe and Central Asia influenced the Celtic languages spoken across the European continent. Most European languag...

Published On - February 2, 2012

Richard Brooks Language BlogTags: Language

Spotlight on Mirandese

The New York Times recently ran an article by Seth Kugel, the Frugal Traveller, describing a recent visit to the Mirandese-speaking region of Portugal. Today, Mirandese is Portugal’s second official language, but before it was officially recognized as such in 1999, it was sometimes treated as ...

Published On - December 16, 2011

Richard Brooks Language BlogTags: Language

Speaking Dothraki

Now more than ever, it seems like constructed languages have really taken off. Tolkein got the ball rolling with his elvish languages, Sindarin and Quenya, and Klingon has been showing up in some of the strangest places imaginable. Now, the success of HBO’s “Game of Thrones” series has f...

Published On - December 15, 2011

Richard Brooks Language BlogTags: English, Language

Duolingo

What language does the Internet speak? All languages, of course, but English much more so than others. Per Wikipedia, anywhere from 65 to 85 percent of the content on the World Wide Web today is written in English. That’s great for all of us English speakers, but what about the huge chunk of t...

Published On - December 14, 2011

Richard Brooks Language BlogTags: Language

18-century Code Cracked

Machine translation is probably not a good choice for your business. However, in the right hands it can be quite useful. A case in point: researchers from the University of Southern California and Uppsala University in Sweden just used a machine translation program described as being similar to Goog...

Published On - December 8, 2011

Richard Brooks Language BlogTags: Interpreting, Language

Universal Translator

“Universal translators” have fuelled science fiction plots for decades, and building such a device has long been the Holy Grail for tech-oriented linguists. However, the prototypes that have appeared so far have used machine translation. Over the past few years, machine translation has improve...

Published On - December 7, 2011

Richard Brooks Language BlogTags: Language, Languages, Translation, Translation Errors

A Bounty on Engrish

Visitors to South Korea, take note. The Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) has set a bounty on the awkward, low-quality translations known as “Engrish.” These malapropisms are a prime source of amusement for tourists abroad in Asian countries (see The Top 10 Asian English Translation Failures for ...

Published On - December 2, 2011

Richard Brooks Language BlogTags: Language, Learning, Learning Languages

Ojibwe Language Into Modern Day

The Ojibwe language is the fourth most common Native American language spoken in North America, with a total of approximately 56.531 speakers in the US and Canada. Even so, like most native languages, it is in some danger of dying out as most of the speakers are elderly. However, steps are being tak...

Published On - December 1, 2011

Richard Brooks Language BlogTags: Language

Zambian Farmers

One of the most important aspects of language preservation is the ability to record the language in writing. However, many endangered languages lack an orthography, or writing system. UNESCO notes that “it is extremely difficult to estimate how many written and unwritten languages there are in the...