NOTIZIE DAL MONDO DELLA TRADUZIONE

What’s the difference between a language and a dialect? Is there some kind of technical distinction, the way there is between a quasar and a pulsar, or between a rabbit and a hare? Faced with the question, linguists like to repeat the grand old observation of the linguist and Yiddishist Max Weinreich, that “a language is a dialect with an army and a navy.”
But surely the difference is deeper than a snappy aphorism suggests. The very fact that “language” and “dialect” persist as separate concepts implies that linguists can make tidy distinctions for speech varieties worldwide. But in fact, there is no objective difference between the two: Any attempt you make to impose that kind of order on reality falls apart in the face of real evidence.

What’s the difference between a language and a dialect? Is there some kind of technical distinction, the way there is between a quasar and a pulsar, or between a rabbit and a hare? Faced with the question, linguists like to repeat the grand old observation of the linguist and Yiddishist Max Weinreich, that “a language is a dialect with an army and a navy.”
But surely the difference is deeper than a snappy aphorism suggests. The very fact that “language” and “dialect” persist as separate concepts implies that linguists can make tidy distinctions for speech varieties worldwide. But in fact, there is no objective difference between the two: Any attempt you make to impose that kind of order on reality falls apart in the face of real evidence.

>LEGGI TUTTO

In today’s world, it’s become a truism: Translation is an essential key for unlocking commerce, communication, mutual understanding, and many other doorways of great and profound importance. I don’t want to belittle this obvious fact. Instead, I’d like to take you on a little journey to a different doorway, one which reveals translation as a master key of even  greater complexity and significance than we had thought, one which shows that translation truly defines us.

>LEGGI TUTTO

Dictionaries incorporate new words every year. Some are pop culture inventions like jeggings, photobomb, and meme. Other words, like emoji and upvote, spring up from technology and social media. Dictionaries respond by creating definitions for anyone who cares to know what a twitterer is. And thank goodness they do; you can learn what an eggcorn is simply by turning a few pages in your trusty updated dictionary.
Interestingly, not all newly added words are recent developments. The Oxford English Dictionary June 2015 new words list included autotune, birdhouse, North Korean, and shizzle! North Korea was founded in 1948. The initial release of the autotuner audio processor was in 1997.

>LEGGI TUTTO

Un elenco di parole o espressioni che gli anglofoni ci invidiano. Lo ha stilato l'edizione inglese di BuzzFeed, corredando ogni termine di una breve descrizione. Si va da "qualunquismo" a "gattara", da "apericena" a "Basta!". Fino al termine "culaccino", ovvero l'estremità di un insaccato: il sito online lo definisce invece come "la traccia di acqua che lascia un bicchiere umido poggiato sul tavolo".

You may think of Latin as the dominant language of science. And for many, many years it was the universal means of communication in Western Europe — from the late medieval period to the mid-17th century, and then it began to fracture. Latin became one of many languages in which science was done.

The first person to publish extensively in his native language, according to Gordin, was Galileo. Galileo wrote in Italian and was then translated to Latin so that more scientists might read his work.

Fast forward back to the 20th century, how did English come to dominate German in the realm of science?

Being wrong is painful. Nobody wants to look stupid. And making mistakes feels really stupid.

That’s why learning a new language is so scary. You have to make mistakes. It also explains why so many people give up at the first hurdle – they want to be perfect from day one.

Making mistakes is the only way to become fluent in a language. That’s why I’ve written about it so often.

As much as I emphasise this point, I still hear from language learners who are afraid to say the wrong thing.

What if there was another way to look at mistakes? What if you could embrace mistakes with the same excitement you’d feel about winning the lottery?

Music making seems to occur, in some form or another, in all human societies. Although musical behaviour varies in sophistication, music itself seems to be universal across all human cultures and plays a key part in rituals of all varieties, and the origins of these practices seem very ancient.

There’s a theory that music is about more than just entertainment and emotional stimulus. Some evolutionary biologists are rejecting the view that music is just a byproduct of our language evolution. Instead it’s thought to be a critical part of the core functioning of our brains and one that pre-dated our language ability.

Novelist and "Life of Pi" author Yann Martel has lived a life of travel and multilingual adventure. Nothing opens the mind like travel, he says, and nothing defines the self, or how we relate to one another, quite like language. Martel adroitly compares the linguistic practices of different nations, noting how the French are often hungry to adopt English words, but French Canadians resist such intrusion. And he dispels linguistic myths, such as the Inuit having more words for "snow" than other languages. Trilingual himself, Martel gives an insider's account of this fascinating topic.

As language evolves and new terms enter the mainstream, teenagers are often blamed for debasing linguistic standards. In some cases, their preferred forms of communication—like text messaging—are attacked. But, teens don’t actually influence language as much as is often claimed. That’s one of the key findings in the latest linguistic research by Mary Kohn, an assistant professor of English at Kansas State University. How much a person’s vernacular changes over time may have as much to do with personality and social standing as it has to do with age. The extent to which teenagers are credited with (or blamed for) driving lasting change to language is, she says, “grossly overstated.” The same factors that prompt teens to experiment with new language are applicable to people at many stages of life.

Several groups of neuroscientists, psychiatrists and computer scientists are now investigating the extent to which patients' language use can provide diagnostic clues—before a single laboratory test is run. Increased computing power and new methods to measure the relation between behavior and brain activity have advanced such efforts. And although tests based on the spoken word may not be as accurate as gene sequencing or MRI scans, for diseases lacking clear biological indicators, language mining could help fill the gap.

>LEGGI TUTTO

Some languages, like French, have an official body that decides how words can and cannot be used. English, as a flexible, global language, has no such designated referee. Therefore, there is no definitive answer to whether you're using a word "correctly." It's all a matter of taste and context. But there are opinions. And some count more than others.
Steven Pinker is probably as good an expert to ask as anyone. Helpfully, the renowned Harvard linguist and best-selling author recently wrote a book, titled "The Sense of Style," that aims to help readers improve their use of the English language. If you're in the market for an update to , old Strunk and White, it's probably a good buy. But if you just want to spot-check that you've not been making embarrassing language mistakes for years, a monster list of 58 commonly misused phrases covered in the book that recently appeared in the UK's Independent newspaper is probably a good place to start.

>LEGGI TUTTO

Adam Jacot de Boinod published a book entitled Toujours Tingo, a list of bizarre phrases from all over the globe. The "tingo" from which the book gets its title is a word from Easter Island, meaning to borrow objects from a friend one by one until that friend has nothing left.

In the world of language translation, there are innumerable words and phrases like this one which don't have precise translations back into English or whose idiomatic equivalent is something slightly different. Here is a list of the most bizarre words or phrases from around the world.

Little kids make such cute mistakes when they talk. We know they're still learning the language, so we tolerate their errors and chuckle at how funny they sound. Behind that chuckle is the assumption that the kids are getting it wrong because they just don't know the rules yet. In fact, kids' mistakes show they know a lot more about the rules than we think. The mistakes are evidence of very smart hypotheses the kids are forming from the limited data they've been given so far. Here are 10 really smart language mistakes that kids make.